“Is a failure. Oh, yes. I can see better than you do, Bet—more clearly—that I have lost my grip on these people.”
“Surely there are other churches in the East that would welcome a man of your talents.”
“Aye! Another little hard-baked community in which I shall find exactly the elements that have made my pastorate here a failure.”
“You are not a failure!” she cried loyally.
“That’s nice of you, Bet. You are a mighty good sister. But I am letting you in for a share of the very difficulties that would soon put gray in my hair and a stone in my bosom instead of a heart.”
“Oh, Ford!”
“Out there—in some place like this Joe writes about—would be a new and unplowed field. A place where a man could develop—grow, not vegetate.”
“But—but must it necessarily be the West, Ford? I am not fond of the West.”
“You’ve never seen it.”
“I’m not fond of Western people.”