Once in the early dusk of a summer evening, she discovered old Ben Peters, half intoxicated, slumbering noisily on a pile of sacks in a corner of the parsonage barn. Carol was sorry, but not at all frightened. The poor, kindly, weak, old man was as familiar to her as any figure in Mount Mark. He was always in a more or less helpless state of intoxication, but also he was always harmless, kind-hearted and generous. She prodded him vigorously with the handle of the pitch-fork until he was aroused to consciousness, and then guided him into the woodshed with the buggy whip. When he was seated on a chunk of wood she faced him sternly. "Well, you are a dandy," she said. "Going into a parsonage barn, of all places in the world, to sleep off an odor like yours! Why didn't you go down to Fred Greer's harness shop, that's where you got it. We're such an awfully temperance town, you know! But the parsonage! Why, if the trustees had happened into the barn and caught a whiff of that smell, father'd have lost his job. Now you just take warning from me, and keep away from this parsonage until you can develop a good Methodist odor. Oh, don't cry about it! Your very tears smell rummy. Just you hang on to that chunk of wood, and I'll bring you some coffee." Like a thief in the night she sneaked into the house, and presently returned with a huge tin of coffee, steaming hot. He drank it eagerly, but kept a wary eye on the haughty twin, who stood above him with the whip in her hand. "That's better. Now, sit down and listen to me. If you would come to the parsonage, you have to take your medicine. Silver and gold have we none, but such as we have we give to you. And religion's all we've got. You're here, and I'm here. We haven't any choir or any Bible, but parsonage folks have to be adaptable. Now then, Ben Peters, you've got to get converted." The poor doddering old fellow, sobered by this awful announcement, looked helplessly at the window. It was too small. And slender active Carol, with the buggy whip, stood between him and the door. "No, you can't escape. You're done for this time,--it's the straight and narrow from this on. Now listen,--it's really very simple. And you need it pretty badly, Ben. Of course you don't realize it when you're drunk, you can't see how terribly disgusting you are, but honestly, Ben, a pig is a ray of sunshine compared to a drunk man. You're a blot on the landscape. You're a--you're a--" She fished vainly for words, longing for Lark's literary flow of language. "I'm not drunk," he stammered. "No, you're not, thanks to the buggy whip and that strong coffee, but you're no beauty even yet. Well now, to come down to religion again. You can't stop drinking--" "I could," he blustered feebly, "I could if I wanted to."