ne, mother?" he asked, pleadingly, catching hold of
his mother's dress.

"Nothin' for you to know. Go an' wash your face an' hands, an' come
in to supper."

"Mother, what's she done?" Ephraim's pleading voice lengthened into a
whine. He took more liberties with his mother than any one else
dared; he even jerked her dress now by way of enforcing an answer.
But she grasped his arm so vigorously that he cried out. "Go out to
the pump, an' wash your face an' hands," she repeated, and Ephraim
made a little involuntary run to the door.

As he went out he rolled his eyes over his shoulder at his mother
with tragic surprise and reproach, but she paid no attention. When he
came in she ignored the great painful sigh which he heaved and the
podgy hand clapped ostentatiously over his left side. "Draw your
chair up," said she.

"I dunno as I want any supper. I've got a pain. Oh dear!" Ephraim
writhed, with attentive eyes upon his mother; he was like an
executioner turning an emotional thumbscrew on her. But Deborah
Thayer's emotions sometimes presented steel surfaces. "You can have a
pain, then," said she. "I ain't goin' to let you go to ruin because
you ain't well, not if I know it. You've got to mind, sick or well,
an' you might jest as well know it. I'll have one child obey me,
whether or no. Set up to the table."

Ephraim drew up his chair, whimpering; but he fell to on the
milk-toast with ardor, and his hand dropped from his side. He had
eaten half a plateful when his father came in. Caleb had been
milking; the cows had been refractory as he drove them from pasture,
and he was late.

"Supper's been ready half an hour," his wife said, when he entered.

"The heifer run down the old road when I was a-drivin' of her home,
an' I had to chase her," Caleb returned, meekly, settling down in his
arm-chair at the table.

"I guess that heifer wouldn't cut up so every night if I had the
drivin' of her," remarked Deborah. She filled a plate with toast and
passed it over to Caleb.

Caleb set it before him, but he did not begin to eat. He looked at
Rebecca's empty place, then at his wife's face, long and pale and
full of stern rancor, behind the sugar-bowl and the cream-pitcher.

"Rebecca got home?" he ventured, with wary eyes upon her.

"Yes, she's got home."

Caleb winked, meekly. "Ain't she comin' to supper?"

"I dunno whether she is or not."

"Does she know it's ready?" Deborah vouchsafed no reply. She poured
out the t