I reckon if anybody goes to heaven, she will; don't you, Thaddeus ?" Thaddeus was tilting back in his chair, his curly black head against the whitewashed wall, and thus suddenly and embarrassingly appealed to--for he was divided between a desire to win the approval of the elder and to show his devotion to Alfaretta--he brought his chair down with a clatter of all four legs on the floor, and looked first at the father and then at the daughter, but did not speak.
"Don't you, Thaddeus ?" repeated Alfaretta severely, for the elder was dumb with astonishment.
"Well," said Thaddeus, struggling for some opinion which should please both,--"well, I do suppose we can hope for the best; that isn't against the catechism." But the elder did not notice his feeble compromise, while Alfaretta only gave him a quick, contemptuous look, for her father, opening and shutting his mouth slowly for a moment, began to say,-- "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a child that's ungrateful for the best of teaching and sound doctrine! Many's the time," said the elder, lifting his eyes and hands,--"many's the time I've showed her the truth; many's the time I've explained how every other sort of religion is all wrong, and is of its father the Devil! And I've brought her up faithful to the catechism and the confession, yet now the child would instruct the parent! This comes," he cried, becoming very angry, and beating his hand so violently upon the table that the family Bible fell with a crash to the floor, from which Thaddeus lifted it,--"this comes from your settin' in the seat of the scornful, and bein' in the kitchen of an unbeliever! You'll leave her; do you hear me, Alfaretta?
You'll leave her this day month.

I'll perform my duty to my child's soul, even if Brother Ward's wife has to do her own cooking.

Yes, and I'll do my duty to Brother Ward, too, though I used to think him a pious young man.

I'll tell him he has got to convert that woman's soul She's a corrupter of youth, she's a teacher of false doctrines,--her tellin' Mrs.
Davis there wasn't any hell!--she's a--a Episcopalian, so she is! She'll experience a change of heart, or the Session will take this matter in hand." At this terrible threat, even Alfaretta was speechless, and her mother put two shaking hands on her arm, and whispered, "Oh, Retta, I wouldn't say no more; it makes your pa angry." "Yes," continued the elder violently, "that woman is the Jonah of the church, and she's got to be dealt with; to save her soul, she's got to be disciplined, for the sake of every one that heard her false and lying tongue.

I'll have her brought before the Session and showed the truth, and she shall be saved.