ea.

Caleb grated his chair suddenly. "I'll jest speak to her," he
proclaimed, courageously.

"She knows it's ready. You set still," said Deborah. And Caleb drew
his chair close again, and loaded his knife with toast, bringing it
around to his mouth with a dexterous sidewise motion.

"She ain't sick, is she?" he said, presently, with a casual air.

"No, I guess she ain't sick."

"I s'pose she eat so many cherries she didn't want any supper," Caleb
said, chuckling anxiously. His wife made no reply. Ephraim reached
over slyly for the toast-spoon, and she pushed his hand back.

"You can't have any more," said she.

"Can't I have jest a little more, mother?"

"No, you can't."

"I feel faint at my stomach, mother."

"You can keep on feelin' faint."

"Can't I have a piece of pie, mother?"

"You can't have another mouthful of anything to eat to-night."

Ephraim clapped his hand to his side again and sighed, but his mother
took no notice.

"Have you got a pain, sonny?" asked Caleb.

"Yes, dreadful. Oh!"

"Hadn't he ought to have somethin' on it?" Caleb inquired, looking
appealingly at Deborah.

"He can have some of his doctor's medicine if he don't feel better,"
she replied, in a hard voice. "Set your chair back now, Ephraim, and
get out your catechism."

"I don't feel fit to, mother," groaned Ephraim.

"You do jest as I tell you," said his mother.

And Ephraim, heaving with sighs, muttering angrily far under his
breath lest his mother should hear, pulled his chair back to the
window, and got his catechism out of the top drawer of his father's
desk, and began droning out in his weak, sulky voice the first
question therein: "What is the chief end of man?"

"Now shut the book and answer it," said his mother, and Ephraim
obeyed.

Ephraim was quite conversant with the first three questions and their
answers, after that his memory began to weaken; either he was a
naturally dull scholar, or his native indolence made him appear so.
He had been drilled nightly upon the "Assembly's Catechism" for the
past five years, and had had many a hard bout with it before that in
his very infancy, when his general health admitted--and sometimes, it
seemed to Ephraim, when it had not admitted.

Many a time had the boy panted for breath when he rehearsed those
grandly decisive, stately replies to those questions of all ages, but
his mother had been obdurate. He could not understand why, but in
reality Deborah held her