"Not all innocence, ma'm," the preacher replied. "The poisonous insect sometimes lives where the air is sweet. There is no land that is not in need of the doctrine of gentleness. To the lovely eye almost all things may look lovely--" "Thank you," she broke in. "Oh, not at all," he replied, unable to remember his ease of a moment ago. "The fact is I don't believe we are goin' to have any rain for some time yet. Needin' it a little, now, too." "You were talking in a different strain just now and I interrupted you. I am sorry. Let me lead you back." "I don't hardly know where I was, ma'm. The fact is, I'm always about half lost when I'm with you." "Mr. Reverend, don't embarrass me." "Embarrass you? Ma'm, I haven't had a fight in a good while, but if a feller was to come along and embarrass you, why he'd soon have reason to think that scarlet fever had broke out in the neighborhood." "Now, please don't talk that way. Let us get back to where we were. You were saying that all lands were in need of the doctrine of gentleness. I suppose it is true, but this land needs only the doctrine while there are others that are in need of the lash--I might say, the sword. I am not as high in the social world as you may suppose, but what I know of society leads me to believe that we polish a barbarism and call it a brilliant grace. Politeness is charming to look at and to hear, but it is the art of telling and acting a lie. Among these hills we hear a laugh and we know that some one is amused. In society we see a smile and we feel that some one is a hypocrite." "I hope it ain't that bad, ma'm." "But it is that bad." "When Uncle Jasper asked you if yo' husband was dead, you said worse than that--divorced. Was he very mean to you, ma'am?" "He was a brute, Mr. Reverend." "Did anybody knock him down for you?" "Oh, no." "Is he livin'?" "Yes, I suppose so." "Do you want him knocked down?" "Why, Mr. Reverend! Just now you were talking of the doctrine of gentleness, and now you speak of knocking some one down. How can you be so changeable." "I'm not changeable, ma'm. The doctrine of gentleness don't apply to a snake, and if that man didn't treat you right he is a snake. And I'm a preacher; I go out among them that needs prayer and I pray; in the night when it seems that everybody else in the world is asleep, I have gone out and knelt down in the dirt and prayed that the pain and the bitterness might be taken from the troubled hearts of my neighbors. I've gone to see many a young feller and begged him to give up fightin'--I've done all that, but if you was to tell me where I could find that man--man that was a brute to you, I'd hunt him and with my fist I would mash the teeth out of his mouth. Where does he live?" "We must not think of him, Mr. Reverend. And besides, when I speak of him, how do you know that I tell the truth?" "Ma'm, if a man should inspire you with a lie, it would be proof enough that he is a brute."