He lost himself in the labyrinths of his sentence, and Mrs. Munger came to his rescue: “I fancy Hatboro' wouldn't be Hatboro' without you, Mr. Gerrish! And you don't think that Mr. Peck's objection will be seriously felt by other leading citizens?”
“What is Mr. Peck's objection?” demanded Mr. Gerrish, perceptibly bristling up at the name of his pastor.
“Why, he talked it over with Miss Kilburn last night, and he objected to an entertainment which wouldn't be open to all—to the shop hands and everybody.” Mrs. Munger explained the point fully. She repeated some things that Annie had said in ridicule of Mr. Peck's position regarding it. “If you do think that part would be bad or impolitic,” Mrs. Munger concluded, “we could drop the invited supper and the dance, and simply have the theatricals.”
She bent upon Mr. Gerrish a face of candid deference that filled him with self-importance almost to bursting.
“No!” he said, shaking his head, and “No!” closing his lips abruptly, and opening them again to emit a final “No!” with an explosive force which alone seemed to save him. “Not at all, Mrs. Munger; not on any account! I am surprised at Mr. Peck, or rather I am not surprised. He is not a practical man—not a man of the world; and I should have much preferred to hear that he objected to the dancing and the play; I could have understood that; I could have gone with him in that to a certain extent, though I can see no harm in such things when properly conducted. I have a great respect for Mr. Peck; I was largely instrumental in getting him here; but he is altogether wrong in this matter. We are not obliged to go out into the highways and the hedges until the bidden guests have—er—declined.”
“Exactly,” said Mrs. Munger. “I never thought of that.”
Mrs. Gerrish shifted her baby to another knee, and followed her husband with her eyes, as he dismounted from his stool and began to pace the room.
“I came into this town a poor boy, without a penny in my pocket, and I have made my own way, every inch of it, unaided and alone. I am a thorough believer in giving every one an equal chance to rise and to—get along; I would not throw an obstacle in anybody's way; but I do not believe—I do not believe—in pampering those who have not risen, or have made no effort to rise.”
“It's their wastefulness, in nine cases out of ten, that keeps them down,” said Mrs. Gerrish.
“I don't care what it is, I don't ask what it is, that keeps them down. I don't expect to invite my clerks or Mrs. Gerrish's servants into my parlour. I will meet them at the polls, or the communion table, or on any proper occasion; but a man's home is sacred. I will not allow my wife or my children to associate with those whose—whose—whose idleness, or vice, or whatever, has kept them down in a country where—where everybody stands on an equality; and what I will not do myself, I will not ask others to do. I make it a rule to do unto others as I would have them do unto me. It is all nonsense to attempt to introduce those one-ideaed notions into—put them in practice.”