"Is it a strong one?"
"It's pretty strong."
"Do you think it will prevail?"
"Well, most o' folks don't know _what_ they want; and if there's some
folks that know what they _don't_ want, they can generally keep from
havin' it."
Bolton made a soft husky prefatory noise of protest in his throat, which
seemed to stimulate his wife to a more definite assertion, and she cut in
before he could speak-"_I_ should say that unless them that stood Mr. Peck's friends first
off, and got him here, done something to keep him, his enemies wa'n't goin'
to take up his cause."
Annie divined a personal reproach for Bolton in the apparent abstraction.
"Oh, now, you'll see it'll all come out right in the end, Pauliny," he
mildly opposed. "There ain't any such great feelin' about Mr. Peck; nothin'
but what'll work itself off perfec'ly natural, give it time. It's goin' to
come out all right."
"Yes, at the day o' jedgment," Mrs. Bolton assented, plunging her fists
into the dough, and beginning to work a contempt for her husband's optimism
into it.
"Yes, an' a good deal before," he returned. "There's always somethin' to
objec' to every minister; we ain't any of us perfect, and Mr. Peck's got
his failin's; he hain't built up the church quite so much as some on 'em
expected but what he would; and there's some that don't like his prayers;
and some of 'em thinks he ain't doctrinal enough. But I guess, take it all
round, he suits pretty well. It'll come out all right, Pauliny. You'll
see."
A pause ensued, of which Annie felt the awfulness. It seemed to her that
Mrs. Bolton's impatience with this intolerable hopefulness must burst
violently. She hastened to interpose. "I think the trouble is that people
don't fully understand Mr. Peck at first. But they do finally."
"Yes; take time," said Bolton.
"Take eternity, I guess, for some," retorted his wife. "If you think
William B. Gerrish is goin' to work round with time--" She stopped for want
of some sufficiently rejectional phrase, and did not go on.
"The way I look at it," said Bolton, with incorrigible courage, "is like
this: When it comes to anything like askin' Mr. Peck to resign, it'll
develop his strength. You can't tell how strong he is without you try to
git red of him. I 'most wish it would come, once, fair and square."