nceits back to him
for the sake of his solemn approval. Let those of his kind give him what
he wants, while you meet those who must have more. I'm one of them,
Bernal. At this moment I honestly don't know whether I'm a bad woman or
a good one. And I'm frightened--I'm so defenseless! Some little soulless
circumstance may make me decisively good or bad--and I don't want to be
bad! But give me what I want--I must have that, regardless of what it
makes me."

He was silent for a time, then at last spoke:

"I used to think you were a rebel, Nance. Your eyes betrayed it, and the
corners of your mouth went up the least little bit, as if they'd go
further up before they went down--as if you'd laugh away many solemn
respectabilities. But that's not bad. There are more things to laugh at
than are dreamed of. That's Hoover's entire creed, by the way."

She remembered the name from that old tale of Caleb Webster's.

"Is--is this friend of yours--Mr. Hoover--in good health?"

"Fine--weighs a hundred and eighty. He and I have a ranch on the
Wimmenuche--only Hoover's been doing most of the work while I thought
about things. I see that. Hoover says one can't do much for the world
but laugh at it. He has a theory of his own. He maintains that God set
this planet whirling, then turned away for a moment to start another
universe or something. He says that when the Creator glances back at us
again, to find this poor, scrubby little earth-family divided over its
clod, the strong robbing the weak in the midst of plenty for
all--enslaving them to starve and toil and fight, spending more for war
than would keep the entire family in luxury; that when God looks closer,
in his amazement, and finds that, next to greed, the matter of
worshipping Him has made most of the war and other deviltry--the hatred
and persecution and killing among all the little brothers--he will laugh
aloud before he reflects, and this little ballful of funny, passionate
insects will be blown to bits. He says if the world comes to an end in
his lifetime, he will know God has happened to look this way, and
perhaps overheard a bishop say something vastly important about
Apostolic succession or the validity of the Anglican Orders or
Transubstantiation or 'communion in two kinds' or something. He insists
that a sense of humour is our only salvation--that only those will be
saved who happen to be laughing for the same reason that God laughs when
He looks at us--that the litt