"I don't see why ranching isn't a good enough profession for any one!" protested the boy.
"In lots of places it is. But it's not in Lost Chief."
"I don't see why," repeated Douglas.
"It's awful hard here on the women is one reason. I never heard your mother swear or use a foul word," said Peter. "I've been on ranches in other places where the women would have been shocked at the idea. How about Judith?"
"You know she only curses like the other women do around here."
"Do you like it?" asked the postmaster.
"I never thought anything about it."
"There you are!" groaned Peter. "If I can only make you see! Doug, a woman lets down the first bar when she begins to swear and drink. She begins where Judith is beginning. She's mighty apt to end where Inez is ending. You just think about ranching in Lost Chief from your mother's point of view. It's a rough kind of a community, Douglas, compared with the same class of people in other communities. The talk itself is rough; how rough you can't appreciate because you've never heard anything else."
There was another silence. Then Douglas asked heavily: "Peter, what am I going to do to keep Judith from going to Inez for advice?"
"Might not be such bad advice! Inez has no illusions about what she's doing or what she's paying."