as if it were a bayonet and there were death at
the point.

"Oh, mother," whimpered Ephraim.

"Mebbe mother will let you have a little taste of lasses arter it, if
you take it real good," ventured Caleb.

"No, he won't have any lasses after it," said Deborah. "I'm a-tendin'
to him, father. Now, Ephraim, you take this medicine this minute, or
I shall give you somethin' worse than medicine. Open your mouth!" And
Ephraim opened his mouth as if his mother's will were a veritable
wedge between his teeth, swallowed the medicine with a miserable
gulp, and made a grotesque face of wrath and disgust. Caleb,
watching, swallowed and grimaced at the same instant that his son
did. There were tears in his old eyes as he took up another apple to
pare.

Deborah set the bottle on the shelf and laid the spoon beside it.
"You've got to take this every hour for a spell," said she, "an' I
ain't goin' to have any such work, if you be sick; you can make up
your mind to it."

And make up his mind to this unwelcome dose Ephraim did. Once an hour
his mother stood over him with the spoon, and the fierce odor of the
medicine came to his nostrils; he screwed his eyes tight, opened his
mouth, and swallowed without a word. There were limits to his
mother's patience which Ephraim dared not pass. He had only vague
ideas of what might happen if he did, but he preferred to be on the
safe side. So he took the medicine, and did not lift his voice
against it, although he had his thoughts.

It did seem as if the medicine benefited him. He breathed more easily
after a while, and his color was more natural. Deborah felt
encouraged; she even went down upon her stiff knees after her family
were in bed, and thanked the Lord from the depths of her sorely
chastened but proud heart. She did not foresee what was to come of
it; for that very night Ephraim, induced thereto by the salutary
effect of the medicine, which removed somewhat the restriction of his
laboring heart upon his boyish spirits, perpetrated the crowning act
of revolt and rebellion of his short life.

The moon was bright that night. The snow was frozen hard. The long
hills where the boys coasted looked like slopes of silver. Ephraim
had to go to bed at eight. He lay, well propped up on pillows, in his
little bedroom, and he could hear the shouts of the coasting boys.
Now that he could breathe more easily the superiority of his enforced
deprivation of such joys no longer comforted him as much