.

"Well, Polly"--Peter slapped the leg that he had lied about--"you and
I came to the Forest half a century ago and felt real perky. We
thought, under God, we'd make the Forest something better; the people
more like people. We came from a city with all sorts of patterns of
folks; we had ideas. The Forest gave me health and we were grateful
and chesty. It all keeps coming back and--and swamping me."

"Yes, brother, and what else?"

"At first we did seem to count, under God, of course. We shut up the
bar and fixed up the inn and we thought we was caring for folks and
protecting 'em." Peter gulped.

"I guess the Lord can care for His own, Peter," Polly remarked
fiercely.

"Then Maclin came!" Peter groaned out the words, for this was the crux
of the matter.

"Yes--Maclin came." Aunt Polly wiped her eyes. "And I think, looking
back, that something had to happen to wake us up! Maclin was a
tester."

Peter gave a rumbling laugh.

"Maclin a tester!" he repeated. "Lord, Polly, yer notions are more
messing than clearing."

"Well, anyway, Peter Heathcote, Maclin came, and this I do say: places
are like folks--if their constitutions are all right, they don't take
disease. Maclin was a disease, and we caught him! He settled on us and
we hadn't vim enough to know and understand what he was. If it hadn't
been Maclin it would have been another. As things are I do feel that
Maclin has cleared our systems! The folks were wakened by him as
nothing in the world could have wakened them."

Peter was not listening, he was thinking aloud.

"All our years wasted! We felt so sure that we was capable that we
just let folks fall into the hands of that evil man. Think of
anything, bearing the image of God taking advantage of simple, honest
people and letting them into what he did!"

"I never did think Maclin was in the image of God, Peter. All God's
children ain't the spitting image of Him. And Maclin certainly did us
a good turn when he found iron on the Point. The iron's here--if he
ain't!"

"He meant to turn that and his damned inventions against us. Betray us
to an enemy! And us just sitting and letting him do it!"

"Well, he didn't do it!" Polly snapped. "And it seems like God is
giving us another chance; same as He is the world."

Peter got up and stumped noisily about the kitchen much to Ginger's
surprise and discomfort.

"We're old, Polly," he muttered; "the heart's taken out of us. We led
'em astray because we didn'