The doctor relished the irony, but he asked, "Isn't there something to say
on that side?"
"Oh yes, a good deal. There's always something to say on both sides, even
when one's a wrong side. That's what makes it all so tiresome--makes you
wish you were dead." He looked up, and caught his boy's eye fixed with
melancholy intensity upon him. "I hope you'll never look at both sides when
you grow up, Win. It's mighty uncomfortable. You take the right side, and
stick to that. Brother Gerrish," he resumed, to the doctor, "goes round
taking the credit of Brother Peck's call here; but the fact is he opposed
it. He didn't like his being so indifferent about the salary. Brother
Gerrish held that the labourer was worthy of his hire, and if he didn't
inquire what his wages were going to be, it was a pretty good sign that he
wasn't going to earn them."
"Well, there was some logic in that," said the doctor, smiling as before.
"Plenty. And now it worries Brother Gerrish to see Brother Peck going round
in the same old suit of clothes he came here in, and dressing his child
like a shabby little Irish girl. He says that he who provideth not for
those of his own household is worse than a heathen. That's perfectly true.
And he would like to know what Brother Peck does with his money, anyway. He
would like to insinuate that he loses it at poker, I guess; at any rate, he
can't find out whom he gives it to, and he certainly doesn't spend it on
himself."
"From your account of Mr. Peck." said the doctor, "I should think Brother
Gerrish might safely object to him as a certain kind of sentimentalist."
"Well, yes, he might, looking at him from the outside. But when you come
to talk with Brother Peck, you find yourself sort of frozen out with a
most unexpected, hard-headed cold-bloodedness. Brother Peck is plain
common-sense itself. He seems to be a man without an illusion, without an
emotion."
"Oh, not so bad as that!" laughed the doctor.
"Ask Miss Kilburn. She's talked with him, and she hates him."
"No, I don't, Ralph," Annie began.
"Oh, well, then, perhaps he only made you hate yourself," said Putney.
There was something charming in his mockery, like the teasing of a brother
with a sister; and Annie did not find the atonement to which he brought her
altogether painful. It seemed to her really that she was getting off pretty
easily, and she laughed with hearty consent at last.