“No, I believe not; he's from Massachusetts. Farm-boy and then mill-hand, I understand. Self-helped to an education; divinity student with summer intervals of waiting at table in the mountain hotels probably. Drifted down Maine way on his first call and stuck; but I guess he won't stick here very long. Annie's friend Mr. Gerrish is going to look after Brother Peck before a great while.” He laughed, to see her blush, and went on. “You see, Brother Gerrish has got a high ideal of what a Christian minister ought to be; he hasn't said much about it, but I can see that Brother Peck doesn't come up to it. Well, Brother Gerrish has got a good many ideals. He likes to get anybody he can by the throat, and squeeze the difference of opinion out of 'em.” “There, now, Ralph,” his wife interposed, “you let Mr. Gerrish alone. _You_ don't like people to differ with you, either. Is your cup out, doctor?” “Thank you,” said the doctor, handing it up to her. “And you mean Mr. Gerrish doesn't like Mr. Peck's doctrine?” he asked of Putney. “Oh, I don't know that he objects to his doctrine; he can't very well; it's 'between the leds of the Bible,' as the Hard-shell Baptist said. But he objects to Brother Peck's walk and conversation. He thinks he walks too much with the poor, and converses too much with the lowly. He says he thinks that the pew-owners in Mr. Peck's church and the people who pay his salary have some rights to his company that he's bound to respect.” The doctor relished the irony, but he asked, “Isn't there something to say on that side?” “Oh yes, a good deal. There's always something to say on both sides, even when one's a wrong side. That's what makes it all so tiresome--makes you wish you were dead.” He looked up, and caught his boy's eye fixed with melancholy intensity upon him. “I hope you'll never look at both sides when you grow up, Win. It's mighty uncomfortable. You take the right side, and stick to that. Brother Gerrish,” he resumed, to the doctor, “goes round taking the credit of Brother Peck's call here; but the fact is he opposed it. He didn't like his being so indifferent about the salary. Brother Gerrish held that the labourer was worthy of his hire, and if he didn't inquire what his wages were going to be, it was a pretty good sign that he wasn't going to earn them.” “Well, there was some logic in that,” said the doctor, smiling as before. “Plenty. And now it worries Brother Gerrish to see Brother Peck going round in the same old suit of clothes he came here in, and dressing his child like a shabby little Irish girl. He says that he who provideth not for those of his own household is worse than a heathen. That's perfectly true. And he would like to know what Brother Peck does with his money, anyway. He would like to insinuate that he loses it at poker, I guess; at any rate, he can't find out whom he gives it to, and he certainly doesn't spend it on himself.”