"Of course there isn't the slightest reason why we should help him," Dorinda insisted, as if the deprecating sheriff had started an argument. After a moment's silence she added in a sharper tone, "But you can't possibly let him die in the poorhouse." Mr. Wigfall, who had occupied a position of authority long enough to feel uncomfortable when he was displaced, shuffled his feet in the rocky path while he fingered uneasily the brim of his hat. "Naw'm," he replied with as much dignity as he could command, and a few minutes later, he repeated in a louder voice, "Naw'm." Dorinda looked over his head at John Abner. "It isn't human," she began, and, correcting herself, continued more deliberately: "It isn't Christian to let a man die in the poorhouse because he has lost all he had." The two men nodded vacantly, and only John Abner appeared unimpressed by her piety. "Naw'm, it cert'n'y ain't Christian," Mr. Wigfall agreed, with a promptness that was disconcerting. "He can't possibly be looked after there," Dorinda resumed, as if she had not been interrupted. "Naw'm, he can't be looked after thar." For an instant she hesitated. Though she understood that her decision was a vital one, she felt as remote and impersonal to it as if it were one of those historic battles in France, which cost so much and yet were so far away. It even occurred to her, as it had occurred so often during the war, that men were never happy except when they were making trouble. Of course Jason could not be left in the poorhouse. Having acknowledged this much, she, to whom efficiency had become a second nature, was irritated because these slow-witted country officials appeared helpless to move in the matter. "There isn't any call to worry Martin Flower's wife," she said. "She's ailing, anyway, and it would put her out to have a sick man, even if he were sober, in the house. You'll have to bring him here until you can make some other arrangement. It is true," she repeated harshly, "that he hasn't the shadow of a claim on us; but we have plenty of milk and eggs, and for a few weeks he may have the spare room on the first floor." Mr. Wigfall gasped before he could articulate. Though he had prayed fervently to have the burden of an extra pauper, especially a pauper who had known better days and acquired the habit of drink, removed from his shoulders, he had never imagined, from his acquaintance with the leisurely methods of Providence, that his prayer would be so speedily answered. While he stared at Dorinda, his mute relief was as obvious as if he had uttered it at the top of his voice. "He's glad to wash his hands of him," she thought, and then: "Who wouldn't be?" "I don't reckon anybody will dispute yo' charity, Mrs. Pedlar," Samuel Larch was wheezing out. "Thar ain't nobody stands any higher to-day in this here community than you do. You're hard on the surface, as my wife says, but you're human enough when you're whittled down to the core."