During the four years of the high-school course, there was no week in which Mahala failed to enter Peter Potter’s grocery under some pretext, if she could invent a pretext; if she could not, specifically for the purpose of keeping Jason posted as to what was going on in school. In this matter she reserved the right to use her own judgment because in her judgment, Jason was not fairly treated, and the impulse to be fair to every one was big in her heart. In her opinion, the town was full of things that were unjust and unfair. People were forever standing up in churches and in public places prating about the poor and the downtrodden, but there was no single person, not even the ministers, doing the things that Jesus Christ had said should be done in order to make all men brothers. Her life was filled with preaching concerning the spirit of the law. She knew of no one who was following the letter—not even herself—as she felt she should. In self-analysis, her scorn included herself. Sometimes in talking of these things she had made bold to say that Rebecca, carrying her white symbol and urging all the people she met to cleanse their hearts, was the only consistent disciple of Christ in Ashwater. She was forced to say that laughingly, as a daring piece of impudence. It would have been too shocking for the nerves of Mahlon, Elizabeth, or any of their friends, had the girl allowed them to surmise that she truly felt that Rebecca, mentally innocent, physically clean, with the fibre of persistence so strong in her nature that, year after year, she undeviatingly followed her hard course, was the only Christ-like one among them. To Mahala, given from childhood to periods of reflection, to consecutive thought, Rebecca came closer to being truly an envoy of Jesus Christ than any minister or deacon or church member she knew. Yet she had been so trained since childhood by her father and mother that she found it impossible to defy them openly. Even at times when her lips parted and the words formed, she had not quite the moral courage to say what she thought and felt. The one thing that she did realize concerning them was that they really had persuaded themselves that they were sincere; they felt they were right. Their love for her was unquestionable. She could not cry at them: “You drug yourselves with narcotics that you brew for the purpose. You lie to yourselves almost every time you open your lips.” In her heart she was hoping that a day would come speedily when she should be independent, when she might begin to try, by ways however devious, to show every one what she truly thought and felt.