“No, _I_ think it caught from that fool-fire they started around back of the house, to heat their fool tar by. The wind was blowing a regular gale, you know. Janey Wilcox, she will have it that that Roselle Upman set it on purpose. But then, she don't like him—an' I can't blame her much, for that matter. Once Otis Barnum was seein' her home from singin' school, an' when he was goin' back alone this Roselle Upman waylaid him in the dark, an' pitched onto him, an' broke his collar-bone. I always thought it puffed Janey up some, this bein' fought over like that, but it made her mad to have Otis hurt on her account, an' then nothing come of it. I wouldn't a' minded pepperin' Roselle's legs a trifle, if I'd had a barrel loaded, say, with birdshot. He's a nuisance to the whole neighborhood. He kicks up a fight at every dance he goes to, all winter long, an' hangs around the taverns day in an' day out, inducin' young men to drink an' loaf. I thought a fellow like him 'd be sure to go off to the war, an' so good riddance; but no! darned if the coward don't go an' get his front teeth pulled, so 't he can't bite ca'tridges, an' jest stay around, a worse nuisance than ever! I'd half forgive that miserable war if it—only took off the—the right men.” “Mr. Beech,” said Esther, in low fervent tones, measuring each word as it fell, “you and I, we must forgive that war together!” I seemed to feel the farmer shaking his head. He said nothing in reply. “I'm beginning to understand how you've felt about it all along,” the girl went on, after a pause. “I knew the fault must be in my ignorance, that our opinions of plain right and plain wrong should be such poles apart. I got a school-friend of mine, whose father is your way of thinking, to send me all the papers that came to their house, and I've been going through them religiously—whenever I could be quite alone. I don't say I don't think you're wrong, because I _do_, but I am getting to understand how you should believe yourself to be right.” She paused as if expecting a reply, but Abner only said, “Go on,” after some hesitation, and she went on: “Now take the neighbors all about here—” “Excuse _me_!” broke in the farmer. “I guess if it's all the same to you, I'd rather not. They're too rich for my blood.” “Take these very neighbors,” pursued Esther, with gentle determination. “Something must be very wrong indeed when they behave to you the way they do. Why I know that even now, right down in their hearts, they recognize that you're far and away the best man in Agrippa. Why, I remember, Mr. Beech, when I first applied, and you were school-commissioner, and you sat there through the examination—why, you were the only one whose opinion I gave a rap for. When you praised me, why, I was prouder of it than if you had been a Regent of the University. And I tell you, everybody all around here feels at bottom just as I do.” “They take a dummed curious way o' showin' it, then,” commented Abner, roundly.