“Of course I pitied him,” she confessed. “I’d feel sorry for anything or anybody who suffers. I know it serves him right, that he’s earned worse than that, and yet I would have relieved him if I could have done so. Nature meant that we should be decent, I suppose.”
The man was thoughtful for a moment. “Yes, I suppose so. It is a woman’s nature.”
“Would you have us different?”
“No--no--we wouldn’t have you different. Many of the best men would be mere brutes if women’s pity and tenderness and forgiveness were taken out of their lives--we wouldn’t have you different.”
CHAPTER XXII
On the Mountain Top
The following Sunday at noon Martin passed the Reist farmhouse as he drove his mother and several of the children to Mennonite church at Landisville. After the service he passed that way again and noticed several cars stopping at Reists’. Evidently they were entertaining a number of visitors for Sunday dinner after the service, as is the custom in rural Lancaster County. The big porch was filled with people who rocked or leaned idly against the pillars, while in the big kitchen Millie, Amanda and Mrs. Reist worked near the hot stove and prepared an appetizing dinner for them.
Amanda did not shirk her portion of the necessary work, but rebellion was in her heart as she noted her mother’s flushed, tired face.
“Mother, if you’d only feel that Millie and I could get the dinner without you! It’s a shame to have you in this kitchen on a day like this!”