until your brow clears, your head is lifted, and
your heart is at rest. You can't prevent me! This hour I shall go to
my closet and beg Him to have mercy on your poor soul, and when His
time comes, He will. You can't help yourself, or you would have done
so, long ago. You must accept aid! This must end, or there will be
tragedy in your house."

"Madame, there has been!" said Mr. Pryor, shaking as he sat.

"I recognize that," said mother. "The question is whether what has
passed is not enough."

"You simply cannot understand!" he said.

"Mr. Pryor," she said, "you're in the position of a man doubly bereft.
You are without a country, and without a God. Your face tells every
passer-by how you are enjoying that kind of life. Forgive me, if I
speak plainly. I admire some things about you so much, I am venturing
positive unkindness to try to make you see that in shutting out your
neighbours you will surely make them think more, and worse things, than
are true. I haven't a doubt in my mind but that your trouble is not
one half so dreadful as you imagine while brooding over it. We will
pass that. Let me tell you how we feel about this road matter. You
see we did our courting in Pennsylvania, married and tried Ohio, and
then came on here. We took this land when it was mostly woods. I
could point you to the exact spot where we stopped; we visited it
yesterday, looked down the hill and selected the place where we would
set this house, when we could afford to build it. We moved into the
cabin that was on the land first, later built a larger one, and finally
this home as we had planned it. Every fruit tree, bush, vine, and
flower we planted. Here our children have been born, lived, loved, and
left us; some for the graveyard down yonder, some for homes of their
own. Always we have planned and striven to transform this into the
dearest, the most beautiful spot on earth. In making our home the best
we can, in improving our township, county, and state, we are doing our
share toward upbuilding this nation."

She began at the a b c's, and gave it to him straight: the whole thing,
just as we saw it; and he listened, as if he were a prisoner, and she a
judge telling him what he must do to gain his freedom. She put in the
birds to keep away the worms, the trees to break the wind, the creeks
to save the moisture. She whanged him, and she banged him, up one
side, and down the other. She didn't stop to be mincy. Sh