"Yes, I’m very good and kind," sneered Mrs. Boyd, her sharp eyes ablaze with indignation, "and last Sunday in meeting you and a lot of other able-bodied men sat still and let that foul-mouthed Bazemore say that even the wooden bench I sat on ought to be taken out and burned for the public good. You sat there and listened to _that_, and when he was through you got up and sung the doxology and bowed your head while that makeshift of a preacher called down God’s benediction on you. If you think I’m going to keep a pasture for such a man as you to fatten your stock on, you need a guardian to look after you." "Oh, I see," Longley exclaimed, a crestfallen look on him. "You are goin’ to blame us all for what he said, and you are mad at everybody that heard it. But you are dead wrong, Ann Boyd—dead wrong. You can’t make over public opinion, and you’d ’a’ been better off years ago if you hadn’t been so busy trying to do it, whether or no. Folks would let you alone if you’d ’a’ showed a more repentant sperit, and not held your head so high and been so spiteful. I reckon the most o’ your trouble—that is, the reason it’s lasted so long, is due to the women-folks more than the men of the community, anyhow. You see, it sorter rubs women’s wool the wrong way to see about the only prosperity a body can see in the entire county falling at the feet of the one—well, the one least expected to have sech things—the one, I mought say, who hadn’t lived exactly up to the _best_ precepts." "I don’t go to men like you for my precepts," the woman hurled at him, "and I haven’t got any time for palavering. All I want to do is to give you due notice not to trespass on my land, and I’ve done that plain enough, I reckon." Abe Longley’s thin face showed anger that was even stronger than his avarice; he stepped nearer to her, his eyes flashing, his wide upper-lip twitching nervously. "Do you know," he said, "that’s its purty foolhardy of you to take up a fight like that agin a whole community. You know you hain’t agoin’ to make a softer bed to lie on. You know, if you find fault with me fer not denouncin’ Bazemore, you may as well find fault with every living soul that was under reach o’ his voice, fer nobody budged or said a word in yore defence." "I’m taking up a fight with no one," the woman said, firmly. "They can listen to what they want to listen to. The only thing I’m going to do in future is to see that no person uses me for profit and then willingly sees me spat upon. That’s all I’ve got to say to you." And, turning, she walked away, leaving him standing as if rooted among his trees on the brown mountain-side. "He’ll go home and tell his wife, and she’ll gad about an’ fire the whole community against me," Mrs. Boyd mused; "but I don’t care. I’ll have my rights if I die for it."