"Now look here, Ralph," said Mrs. Putney, "there's such a thing as letting
yourself _too_ loose."
"Well, _gore_, then," said Putney, buttering himself a biscuit.
The boy, who had kept quiet till now, seemed reached by this last touch,
and broke into a high, crowing laugh, in which they all joined except his
father.
"Gore suits Winthy, anyway," he said, beginning to eat his biscuit. "I met
one of the deacons from Brother Peck's last parish, in Boston, yesterday.
He asked me if we considered Brother Peck anyways peculiar in Hatboro', and
when I said we thought he was a little too luxurious, the deacon came out
with a lot of things. The way Brother Peck behaved toward the needy in that
last parish of his made it simply uninhabitable to the standard Christian.
They had to get rid of him somehow--send him away or kill him. Of course
the deacon said they didn't want to _kill_ him."
"Where was his last parish?" asked the doctor.
"Down on the Maine coast somewhere. Penobscotport, I believe."
"And was he indigenous there?"
"No, I believe not; he's from Massachusetts. Farm-boy and then mill-hand,
I understand. Self-helped to an education; divinity student with summer
intervals of waiting at table in the mountain hotels probably. Drifted down
Maine way on his first call and stuck; but I guess he won't stick here
very long. Annie's friend Mr. Gerrish is going to look after Brother Peck
before a great while." He laughed, to see her blush, and went on. "You see,
Brother Gerrish has got a high ideal of what a Christian minister ought to
be; he hasn't said much about it, but I can see that Brother Peck doesn't
come up to it. Well, Brother Gerrish has got a good many ideals. He likes
to get anybody he can by the throat, and squeeze the difference of opinion
out of 'em."
"There, now, Ralph," his wife interposed, "you let Mr. Gerrish alone.
_You_ don't like people to differ with you, either. Is your cup out,
doctor?"
"Thank you," said the doctor, handing it up to her. "And you mean Mr.
Gerrish doesn't like Mr. Peck's doctrine?" he asked of Putney.
"Oh, I don't know that he objects to his doctrine; he can't very well; it's
'between the leds of the Bible,' as the Hard-shell Baptist said. But he
objects to Brother Peck's walk and conversation. He thinks he walks too
much with the poor, and converses too much with the lowly. He says he
thinks that the pew-owners in Mr. Peck's church and the people who pay his
salary have some rights to his company that he's bound to respect."