Viola listened with closest attention to the narrative. When Jasper
spoke of being surrounded by the outlaws and their threats, the color
left her cheeks; but when he told how their enemies were overcome and
the ludricrous predicament of Turner as he sat in the pot of tar, a
sigh of relief escaped her lips, which was followed by a hearty laugh.
However, her mood soon changed, and with a serious look coming into her
blue eyes she said: "I am sure those moonshiners are a menace to our
community. They are becoming more and more hardened and reckless. I
fear that they will yet do some of us great injury. They doubtless hate
papa, who has to sentence them to prison, and they are foes of all
order-loving men and women in this region. As to Sam Wiles, I cannot
bear to be near him. His very presence repels and frightens me. When he
looked at me in church last Sunday night, I shuddered. It seemed as
though a venomous snake had put its folds around my neck. Zibe Turner,
called the monster dwarf, seems to me to be almost less than human. He
combines the ferocity of the tiger, the slyness of the fox, and the
shape of a monkey. I am doubly alarmed when he is near."
"This is the natural recoil of virtue away from vice," said Jasper
Very. "God has given to woman an intuitive sense which, without any
long process of reasoning, shows her when a man is bad. It is her
protection against his greater strength. It is the Almighty's gift to
her, and is beyond the value of rubies. If she will use it, she need
never be deceived as to a man's inner character."
"I suppose that is why we women can trust some people from the moment
we see them and are suspicions of others from the very first."
"Undoubtedly it is; and all women should beware of men whose persons,
looks, or acts repel that fine discriminating sense within them. Every
man should ask himself the question: 'Have I sufficient moral integrity
and nobility to pass muster before the eyes of a pure-minded woman!' If
he can say 'Yes' to this, he is to be congratulated."
"I am afraid most men are so self-sufficient that they think the other
sex is blind to their faults, and will tolerate and cling to them
whether or not."
"They may think so when they reflect only lightly; but when they
consider deeply, they know that they can receive the respect of good
women only when they are worthy of it. This should stimulate them to be
knightly in character--pure, true, gentle, kind, brave, thoroughly
good."
"I am glad you have such a high ideal, and trust you will live up to
it. If so, you will be my Sir Knight, to lead me to Uncle Pete's cabin.
His little girl is down with the measles, and I have promised to act as
doctor and nurse for the poor child."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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