“Oh, Cephas! I jest ran over here a minute. I—wanted to see—if—Sylvy had any emptins. Do you want me an' Charlotte to come now?”
Cephas turned on his heel. “I think it's about time for you both to be home,” he grunted.
Sarah Barnard arose and looked with piteous appeal at Charlotte.
Charlotte hesitated a second, then she arose without a word, and followed her mother, who followed Cephas. They went in a procession of three, with Cephas marching ahead like a general, across the yard, and Sylvia and Hannah stood at a window watching them.
“Well,” said Hannah Berry, “all I've got to say is I'm thankful I 'ain't got a man like that, an' you ought to be mighty thankful you 'ain't got any man at all, Sylvy Crane.”
When Cephas Barnard and his wife and daughter turned into the main road and came in sight of the new house, not one of them appeared to even glance at it, yet they all saw at once that there were no workmen about, and they also saw Barnabas himself ploughing with a white horse far back in a field at the left of it.
[Illustration: “They came in sight of the house”]
They all kept on silently. Charlotte paled a little when she caught sight of Barney, but her face was quite steady. “Hold your dress up a little higher; the grass is terrible wet,” her mother whispered once, and that was all that any of them said until they reached home.
Charlotte went at once up-stairs to her own chamber, took off her purple gown, and hung it up in her closet, and got out a common one. The purple gown was part of her wedding wardrobe, and she had worn it in advance with some misgivings. “I dunno but you might jest as well wear it a few Sundays,” her mother had said; “you're goin' to have your silk dress to come out bride in. I dunno as there's any sense in your goin' lookin' like a scarecrow all the spring because you're goin' to get married.”
So Charlotte had put on the new purple dress the day before; now it looked, as it hung in the closet, like an effigy of her happier self.
When Charlotte went down-stairs she found her mother showing much more spirit than usual in an altercation with her father. Sarah Barnard stood before her husband, her placid face all knitted with perplexed remonstrance. “Why, I can't, Cephas,” she said. “Pies can't be made that way.”
“I know they can,” said Cephas.
“They can't, Cephas. There ain't no use tryin'. It would jest be a waste of the flour.”
“Why can't they, I'd like to know?”
“Folks don't ever make pies without lard, Cephas.”
“Why don't they?”
“Why, they wouldn't be nothin' more than— You couldn't eat them nohow if they was made so, Cephas. I dunno how the sorrel pies would work. I never heard of anybody makin' sorrel pies. Mebbe the Injuns did; but I dunno as they ever made pies, anyway. Mebbe the sorrel, if it had some molasses on it for juice, wouldn't taste very bad; I dunno; but anyway, if the sorrel did work, the other wouldn't. I can't make pies fit to eat without any lard or any butter or anything any way in the world, Cephas.”
“I know you can make 'em without,” said Cephas, and his black eyes looked like flint. Mrs. Barnard appealed to her daughter.
“Charlotte,” said she, “you tell your father that pies can't be made fit to eat without I put somethin' in 'em for short'nin'.”
“No, they can't, father,” said Charlotte.
“He wants me to make sorrel pies, Charlotte,” Mrs. Barnard went on, in an injured and appealing tone which she seldom used against Cephas. “He's been out in the field, an' picked all that sorrel,” and she pointed to a pan heaped up with little green leaves on the table, “an' I tell him I dunno how that will work, but he wants me to make the pie-crust without a mite of short'nin', an' I can't do that nohow, can I?”
“I don't see how you can,” assented Charlotte, coldly.
Cephas went with a sudden stride towards the pantry. “I'll make 'em myself, then,” he cried.
Mrs. Barnard gasped, and looked piteously at her daughter. “What you goin' to do, Cephas?” she asked, feebly.
Cephas was in the pantry rattling the dishes with a fierce din. “I'm a-goin' to make them sorrel pies myself,” he shouted out, “if none of you women folks know enough to.”
“Oh, Cephas, you can't!”
Cephas came out, carrying the mixing-board and rolling-pin like a shield and a club; he clapped them heavily on to the table.
Mrs. Barnard stood staring aghast at him; Charlotte sat down, took some lace edging from her pocket, and began knitting on it. She looked hard and indifferent.
“Oh, Charlotte, ain't it dreadful?” her mother whispered, when Cephas went into the pantry again.
“I don't care if he makes pies out of burrs,” returned Charlotte, audibly, but her voice was quite even.
“I don't b'lieve but what sorrel would do some better than burrs,” said her mother, “but he can't make pies without short'nin' nohow.”
Cephas came out of the pantry with a large bowl of flour and a spoon. “He 'ain't sifted it,” Mrs. Barnard whispered to Charlotte, as though Cephas were not there; then she turned to him. “You sifted the flour, didn't you, Cephas?” said she.
“You jest let me alone,” said Cephas, grimly. “I'm goin' to make these pies, an' I don't need any help. I've picked the sorrel, an' I've got the brick oven all heated, an' I know what I want to do, an' I'm goin' to do it!”
“I've got some pumpkin that would make full as good pies as sorrel, Cephas. Mebbe the sorrel will be real good. I ain't sayin' it won't, though I never heard of sorrel pies; but you know pumpkin is good, Cephas.”
“I know pumpkin pies have milk in 'em,” said Cephas; “an' I tell you I ain't goin' to have anything of an animal nature in 'em. I've been studyin' into it, an' thinkin' of it, an' I've made up my mind that I've made a mistake along back, an' we've ate too much animal food. We've ate a whole pig an' half a beef critter this winter, to say nothin' of eggs an' milk, that are jest as much animal as meat, accordin' to my way of thinkin'. I've reasoned it out all along that as long as we were animals ourselves, an' wanted to strengthen animal, that it was common-sense that we ought to eat animal. It seemed to me that nature had so ordered it. I reasoned it out that other animals besides man lived on animals, except cows, an' they, bein' ruminatin' animals, ain't to be compared to men—”
“I should think we'd be somethin' like 'em if we eat that,” said Mrs. Barnard, pointing at the sorrel, with piteous sarcasm.
“It's the principle I'm thinkin' about,” said Cephas. He stirred some salt into the flour very carefully, so not a dust fell over the brim of the bowl.
“Horses don't eat meat, neither, an' they don't chew their cuds,” Mrs. Barnard argued further. She had never in her life argued with Cephas; but sorrel pies, after the night before, made her wildly reckless.
Cephas got a gourdful of water from the pail in the sink, and carried it carefully over to the table. “Horses are the exception,” he returned, with dignified asperity. “There always are exceptions. What I was comin' at was—I'd been kind of wrong in my reasonin'. That is, I 'ain't reasoned far enough. I was right so far as I went.”
Cephas poured some water from the gourd into the bowl of flour and began stirring.
Sarah caught her breath. “He's makin'—paste!” she gasped. “He's jest makin' flour paste!”
“Jest so far as I went I was right,” Cephas resumed, pouring in a little more water with a judicial air. “I said Man was animal, an' he is animal; an' if you don't take anything else into account, he'd ought to live on animal food, jest the way I reasoned it out. But you've got to take something else into account. Man is animal, but he ain't all animal. He's something else. He's spiritual. Man has command over all the other animals, an' all the beasts of the field; an' it ain't because he's any better an' stronger animal, because he ain't. What's a man to a horse, if the horse only knew it? but the horse don't know it, an' there's jest where Man gets the advantage. It's knowledge an' spirit that gives Man the rule over all the other animals. Now, what we want is to eat the kind of things that will strengthen knowledge an' spirit an' self-control, because the first two ain't any account without the last; but there ain't no kind of food that's known that can do that. If there is, I 'ain't never heard of it.”
Cephas dumped the whole mass of paste with a flop upon the mixing-board, and plunged his fists into it. Sarah made an involuntary motion forward, then she stood back with a great sigh.
“But what we can do,” Cephas proceeded, “is to eat the kind of things that won't strengthen the animal nature at the expense of the spiritual. We know that animal food does that; we can see how it works in tigers an' bears. Now, it's the spiritual part of us we want to strengthen, because that is the biggest strength we can get, an' it's worth more. It's what gives us the rule over animals. It's better for us to eat some other kind of food, if we get real weak and pindlin' on it, rather than eat animal food an' make the animal in us stronger than the spiritual, so we won't be any better than wild tigers an' bears, an' lose our rule over the other animals.”
Cephas took the rolling-pin and brought it heavily down upon the sticky mass on the board. Sarah shuddered and started as if it had hit her. “Now, if we can't eat animal food,” said Cephas, “what other kind of food can we eat? There ain't but one other kind that's known to man, an' that's vegetable food, the product of the earth. An' that's of two sorts: one gets ripe an' fit to eat in the fall of the year, an' the other comes earlier in the spring an' summer. Now, in order to carry out the plans of nature, we'd ought to eat these products of the earth jest as near as we can in the season of 'em. Some had ought to be eat in the fall an' winter, an' some in the spring an' summer. Accordin' to my reasonin', if we all lived this way we should be a good deal better off; our spiritual natures would be strengthened, an' we should have more power over other animals, an' better dispositions ourselves.”
“I've seen horses terribly ugly, an' they don't eat a mite of meat,” said Sarah, with tremulous boldness. Her right hand kept moving forward to clutch the rolling-pin, then she would draw it back.
“'Ain't I told ye once horses were the exceptions?” said Cephas, severely. “There has to be exceptions. If there wa'n't any exceptions there couldn't be any rule, an' there bein' exceptions shows there is a rule. Women can't ever get hold of things straight. Their minds slant off sideways, the way their arms do when they fling a stone.”
Cephas brought the rolling-pin down upon the paste again with fierce impetus. “You'll break it,” Sarah murmured, feebly. Cephas brought it down again, his mouth set hard; his face showed a red flush through his white beard, the veins on his high forehead were swollen and his brows scowling. The paste adhered to the rolling-pin; he raised it with an effort; his hands were helplessly sticky. Sarah could restrain herself no longer. She went into the pantry and got a dish of flour, and spooned out some suddenly over the board and Cephas's hands. “You've got to have some more flour,” she said, in a desperate tone.
Cephas's black eyes flashed at her. “I wish you would attend to your own work, an' leave me alone,” said he. But at last he succeeded in moving the rolling-pin over the dough as he had seen his wife move it.
“He ain't greasin' the pie-plates,” said Sarah, as Cephas brought a piece of dough with a dexterous jerk over a plate; “there ain't much animal in the little mite of lard it takes to grease a plate.”
Cephas spread handfuls of sorrel leaves over the dough; then he brought the molasses-jug from the pantry, raised it, and poured molasses over the sorrel with an imperturbable air.
Sarah watched him; then she turned to Charlotte. “To think of eatin' it!” she groaned, quite openly; “it looks like p'ison.”
Charlotte made no response; she knitted as one of the Fates might have spun. Sarah sank down on a chair, and looked away from Cephas and his cookery, as if she were overcome, and quite done with all remonstrance.
Never before had she shown so much opposition towards one of her husband's hobbies, but this galloped so ruthlessly over her own familiar fields that she had plucked up boldness to try to veer it away.
Somebody passed the window swiftly, the door opened abruptly, and Mrs. Deborah Thayer entered. “Good-mornin',” said she, and her voice rang out like a herald's defiance.
Sarah Barnard arose, and went forward quickly. “Good-mornin',” she responded, with nervous eagerness. “Good-mornin', Mis' Thayer. Come in an' set down, won't you?”
“I 'ain't come to set down,” responded Deborah's deep voice.
She moved, a stately high-hipped figure, her severe face almost concealed in a scooping green barège hood, to the centre of the floor, and stood there with a pose that might have answered for a statue of Judgment. She turned her green-hooded head slowly towards them all in turn. Sarah watched her and waited, her eyes dilated. Cephas rolled out another pie, calmly. Charlotte knitted fast; her face was very pale.
“I've come over here,” said Deborah Thayer, “to find out what my son has done.”
There was not a sound, except the thud of Cephas's rolling-pin.
“Mr. Barnard!” said Deborah. Cephas did not seem to hear her.
“Mr. Barnard!” she said, again. There was that tone of command in her voice which only a woman can accomplish. It was full of that maternal supremacy which awakens the first instinct of obedience in man, and has more weight than the voice of a general in battle. Cephas did not turn his head, but he spoke. “What is it ye want?” he said, gruffly.
“I want to know what my son has done, an' I want you to tell me in so many words. I ain't afraid to face it. What has my son done?”
Cephas grunted something inarticulate.
“What?” said Deborah. “I can't hear what you say. I want to know what my son has done. I've heard how you turned him out of your house last night, and I want to know what it was for. I want to know what he has done. You're an old man, and a God-fearing one, if you have got your own ideas about some things. Barnabas is young, and apt to be headstrong. He ain't always been as mindful of obedience as he might be. I've tried to do my best by him, but he don't always carry out my teachin's. I ain't afraid to say this, if he is my son. I want to know what he's done. If it's anything wrong, I shall be jest as hard on him as the Lord for it. I'm his mother, but I can see his faults, and be just. I want to know what he has done.”
Charlotte gave one great cry. “Oh, Mrs. Thayer, he hasn't done anything wrong; Barney hasn't done anything wrong!”
But Deborah quite ignored her. She kept her eyes fixed upon Cephas. “What has my son done?” she demanded again. “If he's done anything wrong I want to know it. I ain't afraid to deal with him. You ordered him out of your house, and he didn't come home at all last night. I don't know where he was. He won't speak a word this mornin' to tell me. I've been out in the field where he's to work ploughin', and I tried to make him tell me, but he wouldn't say a word. I sat up and waited all night, but he didn't come home. Now I want to know where he was, and what he's done, and why you ordered him out of the house. If he's been swearin', or takin' anything that didn't belong to him, or drinkin', I want to know it, so I can deal with him as his mother had ought to deal.”
“He hasn't been doing anything wrong!” Charlotte cried out again; “you ought to be ashamed of yourself talking so about him, when you're his mother!”
Deborah Thayer never glanced at Charlotte. She kept her eyes fixed upon Cephas. “What has he done?” she repeated.
“I guess he didn't do much of anything,” Mrs. Barnard murmured, feebly; but Deborah did not seem to hear her.
Cephas opened his mouth as if perforce. “Well,” he said, slowly, “we got to talkin'—”
“Talkin' about what?”
“About the 'lection. I think, accordin' to my reasonin', that what we eat had a good deal to do with it.”
“What?”
“I think if you'd kept your family on less meat, and given 'em more garden-stuff to eat Barney wouldn't have been so up an' comin'. It's what he's eat that's made him what he is.”
Deborah stared at Cephas in stern amazement. “You're tryin' to make out, as near as I can tell,” said she, “that whatever my son has done wrong is due to what he's eat, and not to original sin. I knew you had queer ideas, Cephas Barnard, but I didn't know you wa'n't sound in your faith. What I want to know is, what has he done?”
Suddenly Charlotte sprang up, and pushed herself in between her father and Mrs. Thayer; she confronted Deborah, and compelled her to look at her.
“I'll tell you what he's done,” she said, fiercely. “I know what he's done; you listen to me. He has done nothing—nothing that you've got to deal with him for. You needn't feel obliged to deal with him. He and father got into a talk over the 'lection, and they had words about it. He didn't talk any worse than father, not a mite. Father started it, anyway, and he knew better; he knew just how set Barney was on his own side, and how set he was on his; he wanted to pick a quarrel.”
“Charlotte!” shouted Cephas.
“You keep still, father,” returned Charlotte, with steady fierceness. “I've never set myself up against you in my whole life before; but now I'm going to, because it's just and right. Father wanted to pick a quarrel,” she repeated, turning to Deborah; “he's been kind of grouty to Barney for some time. I don't know why; he took a notion to, I suppose. When they got to having words about the 'lection, father begun it. I heard him. Barney answered back, and I didn't blame him; I would, in his place. Then father ordered him out of the house, and he went. I don't see what else he could do. And I don't blame him because he didn't go home if he didn't feel like it.”
“Didn't he go away from here before nine o'clock?” demanded Deborah, addressing Charlotte at last.
“Yes, he did, some time before nine; he had plenty of time to go home if he wanted to.”
“Where was he, then, I'd like to know?”
“I don't know, and I wouldn't lift my finger to find out. I am not afraid he was anywhere he hadn't ought to be, nor doin' anything he hadn't ought to.”
“Didn't you stand out in the road and call him back, and he wouldn't come, nor even turn his head to look at you?” asked Deborah.
“Yes, I did,” returned Charlotte, unflinchingly. “And I don't blame him for not coming back and not turning his head. I wouldn't if I'd been in his place.”
“You'll have to uphold him a long time, then; I can tell you that,” said Deborah. “He won't never come back if he's said he won't. I know him; he's got some of me in him.”
“I'll uphold him as long as I live,” said Charlotte.
“I wonder you ain't ashamed to talk so.”
“I am not.”
Deborah looked at Charlotte as if she would crush her; then she turned away.
“You're a hard woman, Mrs. Thayer, and I pity Barney because he's got you for a mother,” Charlotte said, in undaunted response to Deborah's look.
“Well, you'll never have to pity yourself on that account,” retorted Deborah, without turning her head.
The door opened softly, and a girl of about Charlotte's age slipped in. Nobody except Mrs. Barnard, who said, absently, “How do you do, Rose?” seemed to notice her. She sat down unobtrusively in a chair near the door and waited. Her blue eyes upon the others were so intense with excitement that they seemed to blot out the rest of her face. She had her blue apron tightly rolled about both hands.
Deborah Thayer, on her way to the door, looked at her as if she had been a part of the wall, but suddenly she stopped and cast a glance at Cephas. “What be you makin'?” she asked, with a kind of scorn at him, and scorn at her own curiosity.
Cephas did not reply, but he looked ugly as he slapped another piece of dough heavily upon a plate.
Deborah, as if against her will, moved closer to the table and bent over the pan of sorrel. She smelled of it; then she took a leaf and tasted it, cautiously. She made a wry face. “It's sorrel,” said she. “You're makin' pies out of sorrel. A man makin' pies out of sorrel!”
She looked at Cephas like a condemning judge. He shot a fiery glance at her, but said nothing. He sprinkled the sorrel leaves in the pie.
“Well,” said Deborah, “I've got a sense of justice, and if my son, or any other man, has asked a girl to marry him, and she's got her weddin' clothes ready, I believe in his doin' his duty, if he can be made to; but I must say if it wa'n't for that, I'd rather he'd gone into a family that was more like other folks. I'm goin' to do the best I can, whether you go half way or not. I'm goin' to try to make my son do his duty. I don't expect he will, but I shall do all I can, tempers or no tempers, and sorrel pies or no sorrel pies.”
Deborah went out, and shut the door heavily after her.
After Deborah Thayer had shut the door, the young girl sitting beside it arose. “I didn't know she was in here, or I wouldn't have come in,” she said, nervously.
“That don't make any odds,” replied Mrs. Barnard, who was trembling all over, and had sunk helplessly into a rocking-chair, which she swayed violently and unconsciously.
Cephas opened the door of the brick oven, and put in a batch of his pies, and the click of the iron latch made her start as if it were a pistol-shot.
Charlotte got up and went out of the room with a backward glance and a slight beckoning motion of her head, and the girl slunk after her so secretly that it seemed as if she did not see herself. Cephas looked sharply after them, but said nothing; he was like a philosopher in such a fury of research and experiment that for the time he heeded thoroughly nothing else.
The young girl, who was Rose Berry, Charlotte's cousin, followed her panting up the steep stairs to her chamber. She was a slender little creature, and was now overwrought with nervous excitement. She fairly gasped for breath when she sat down in the little wooden chair in Charlotte's room. Charlotte sat on the bed. The two girls looked at each other—Rose with a certain wary alarm and questioning in her eyes, Charlotte with a dignified confidence of misery.
“I didn't sleep here last night,” Charlotte said, at length.
“You went over to Aunt Sylvy's, didn't you?” returned Rose, as if that were all the matter in hand.
Charlotte nodded, then she looked moodily past her cousin's face out of the window.
“You've heard about it, I suppose?” said Charlotte.
“Something,” replied Rose, evasively.
“I don't see how it got out, for my part. I don't believe he told anybody.”
Rose flushed all over her little eager face and her thin neck. She opened her mouth as if to speak, then shut it with a catch of her breath.
“I can't imagine how it got out,” repeated Charlotte.
Rose looked at Charlotte with a painful effort; she clutched her hands tightly into fists as she spoke. “I was coming up here 'cross lots last night, and I heard you out in the road calling Barney,” she said, as if she forced out the words.
“Rose Berry, you didn't tell!”
“I went home and told mother, that's all. I didn't think that it would do any harm, Charlotte.”
“It'll be all over town, that's all. It's bad enough, anyway.”
“I don't believe it'll get out; I told mother not to tell.”
“Mrs. Thayer knew.”
“Maybe Barney told her.”
“Rose Berry, you know better. You know Barney wouldn't do such a thing.”
“No; I don't s'pose he would.”
“Don't suppose! Don't you know?”
“Yes, of course I do. I know Barney just as well as you do, Charlotte. Oh, Charlotte, don't feel bad. I wouldn't have told mother if I'd thought. I didn't mean to do any harm. I was all upset myself by it. Don't cry, Charlotte.”
“I ain't going to cry,” said Charlotte, with spirit. “I've stopped cryin'.” She wiped her eyes forcibly with her apron, and gave her head a proud toss. “I know you didn't mean to do any harm, Rose, and I suppose it would have got out anyway. 'Most everything does get out but good deeds.”
“I truly didn't mean to do any harm, Charlotte,” Rose repeated.
“I know you didn't. We won't say any more about it.”
“I was just running over across lots last night,” Rose said. “I supposed you'd be in the front room with Barney, but I thought I'd see Aunt Sarah. I'd got terrible lonesome; mother had gone to sleep in her chair, and father had gone to bed. When I got out by the stone-wall next the wood I heard you; then I ran right back. Don't you—suppose he'll ever come again, Charlotte?”
“No,” said Charlotte.
“Oh, Charlotte!” There was a curious quality in the girl's voice, as if some great hidden emotion in her heart tried to leap to the surface and make a sound, although it was totally at variance with the import of her cry. Charlotte started, without knowing why. It was as if Rose's words and her tone had different meanings, and conflicted like the wrong lines with a tune.
“I gave it up last night,” said Charlotte. “It's all over. I'm goin' to pack my wedding things away.”
“I don't see what makes you so sure.”
“I know him.”
“But I don't see what you've done, Charlotte; he didn't quarrel with you.”
“That don't make any odds. He can't get married to me now without he breaks his will, and he can't. He can't get outside himself enough to break it. I've studied it all out. It's like ciphering. It's all over.”
“Charlotte.”
“What is it?”
“Why—couldn't you go somewhere else to get married? What's the need of his comin' here, if he's been ordered out, and he's said he wouldn't?”
“That's just the letter of it,” returned Charlotte, scornfully. “Do you suppose he could cheat himself that way, or I'd have him if he could? When Barney Thayer went out of this house last night, and said what he did, he meant that it was all over, that he was never going to marry me, nor have anything more to do with us, and he's going to stand by it. I am not finding any fault with him. I've made up my mind that it's all over, and I'm going to pack away my weddin' things.”
“Oh, Charlotte, you take it so calm!”
“What do you want me to do?”
“If it was anybody else, I should think they didn't care.”
“Maybe I don't.”
“I couldn't bear it so, anyhow! I couldn't!” Rose cried out, with sudden passion. “I wouldn't bear it. I'd go down on my knees to him to come back!” Rose flung back her head and looked at Charlotte with a curious defiance; her face grew suddenly intense, and seemed to open out into bloom and color like a flower. The pupils of her blue eyes dilated until they looked black; her thin lips looked full and red; her cheeks were flaming; her slender chest heaved. “I would,” said she; “I don't care, I would.”
Charlotte looked at her, and a quivering flush like a reflection was left on her fair, steady face.
“I would,” said Rose again.
“It wouldn't do any good.”
“It would if he cared anything about you.”
“It would if he could give up to the care. Barney Thayer has got a terrible will that won't always let him do what he wants to himself.”
“I don't believe he's enough of a fool to put his own eyes out.”
“You don't know him.”
“I'd try, anyway.”
“It wouldn't do any good.”
“I don't believe you care anything about him, Charlotte Barnard!” Rose cried out. “If you did, you couldn't give him up so easy for such a silly thing. You sit there just as calm. I don't believe but what you'll have another fellow on the string in a month. I know one that's dying to get you.”
“Maybe I shall,” replied Charlotte.
“Won't you, now?” Rose tried to speak archly, but her eyes were fiercely eager.
“I can't tell till I get home from the grave,” said Charlotte. “You might wait till I did, Rose.” She got up and went to dusting her bureau and the little gilt-framed mirror behind it. Her lips were shut tightly, and she never looked at her cousin.
“Now don't get mad, Charlotte,” Rose said. “Maybe I ought not to have spoken so, but it did seem to me you couldn't care asmuch— It does seem to me I couldn't settle down and be so calm if I was in your place, and all ready to be married to anybody. I should want to do something.”
“I should, if there was anything to do,” said Charlotte. She stopped dusting and leaned against the wall, reflecting. “I wish it was a real mountain to move,” said she; “I'd do it.”
“I'd go right down in the field where he is ploughing, and I'd make him say he'd come to see me to-night.”
“I called him back last night—you heard me,” said Charlotte, with slow bitterness. Her square delicate chin dipped into the muslin folds of her neckerchief; she looked steadily at the floor and bent her brow.
“I'd call him again.”
“You would, would you?” cried Charlotte, straightening herself. “You would stand out in the road and keep on calling a man who wouldn't even turn his head? You'd keep on calling, and let all the town hear?”
“Yes, I would. I would! I wouldn't be ashamed of anything if I was going to marry him. I'd go on my knees before him in the face and eyes of the whole town.”
“Well, I wouldn't,” said Charlotte.
“I would, if I was sure he thought as much of me as I did of him.”
Charlotte looked at her proudly. “I'm sure enough of that,” said she.
Rose winced a little. “Then I wouldn't mind what I did,” she persisted, stubbornly.
“Well, I would,” said Charlotte; “but maybe I don't care. Maybe all this isn't as hard for me as it would be for another girl.” Charlotte's voice broke, but she tossed her head back with a proud motion; she took up the dusting-cloth and fell to work again.
“Oh, Charlotte!” said Rose; “I didn't mean that. Of course I know you care. It's awful. It was only because I didn't see how you could seem so calm; it ain't like me. Of course I know you feel bad enough underneath. Your wedding-clothes all done and everything. They are pretty near all done, ain't they, Charlotte?”
“Yes,” said Charlotte. “They're—pretty near—done.” She tried to speak steadily, but her voice failed. Suddenly she threw herself on the bed and hid her face, and her whole body heaved and twisted with great sobs.
“Oh, poor Charlotte, don't!” Rose cried, wringing her own hands; her face quivered, but she did not weep.
“Maybe I don't care,” sobbed Charlotte; “maybe—I don't care.”
“Oh, Charlotte!” Rose looked at Charlotte's piteous girlish shoulders shaken with sobs, and the fair prostrate girlish head. Charlotte all drawn up in this little heap upon the bed looked very young and helpless. All her womanly stateliness, which made her seem so superior to Rose, had vanished. Rose pulled her chair close to the bed, sat down, and laid her little thin hand on Charlotte's arm, and Charlotte directly felt it hot through her sleeve. “Don't, Charlotte,” Rose said; “I'm sorry I spoke so.”
“Maybe I don't care,” Charlotte sobbed out again. “Maybe I don't.”
“Oh, Charlotte, I'm sorry,” Rose said, trembling. “I do know you care; don't you feel so bad because I said that.”
Rose tightened her grasp on Charlotte's arm; her voice changed suddenly. “Look here, Charlotte,” said she, “I'll do anything in the world I can to help you; I promise you that, and I mean it, honest.”
Charlotte reached around a hand, and clasped her cousin's.
“I'm sorry I spoke so,” Rose said.
“Never mind,” Charlotte responded, chokingly. She sobbed a little longer from pure inertia of grief; then she raised herself, shaking off Rose's hand. “It's all right,” said she; “I needn't have minded; I know you didn't mean anything. It was just—the last straw, and—when you said that about my wedding-clothes—”
“Oh, Charlotte, you did speak about them yourself first,” Rose said, deprecatingly.
“I did, so nobody else would,” returned Charlotte. She wiped her eyes, drooping her stained face away from her cousin with a kind of helpless shame; then she smoothed her hair with the palms of her hands. “I know you didn't mean any harm, Rose,” she added, presently. “I got my silk dress done last Wednesday; I wanted to tell you.” Charlotte tried to smile at Rose with her poor swollen lips and her reddened eyes.
“I'm sorry I said anything,” Rose repeated; “I ought to have known it would make you feel bad, Charlotte.”
“No, you hadn't. I was terrible silly. Don't you want to see my dress, Rose?”
“Oh, Charlotte! you don't want to show it to me?”
“Yes, I do. I want you to see it—before I pack it away. It's in the north chamber.”
Rose followed Charlotte out of the room across the passageway to the north chamber. Charlotte had had one brother, who had died some ten years before, when he was twenty. The north chamber had been his room, the bureau drawers were packed with his clothes, and the silk hat which had been the pride of his early manhood hung on the nail where he had left it, and also his Sunday coat. His mother would not have them removed, but kept them there, with frequent brushings, to guard against dust and moths.
Always when Charlotte entered this small long room, which was full of wavering lines from its uneven floor and walls and ceiling and the long arabesques on its old blue-and-white paper, whose green paper curtains with fringed white dimity ones drooping over them were always drawn, and in summertime when the windows were open undulated in the wind, she had the sense of a presence, dim, but as positive as the visions she had used to have of faces in the wandering design of the old wall-paper when she had studied it in her childhood. Ever since her brother's death she had had this sense of his presence in his room; now she thought no more of it than of any familiar figure. All the grief at his death had vanished, but she never entered his old room that the thought of him did not rise up before her and stay with her while she remained.
Now, when she opened the door, and the opposite green and white curtains flew out in the draught towards her, they were no more evident than this presence to which she now gave no thought, and pushed by her brother's memory without a glance.
Rose followed her to the bed. A white linen sheet was laid over the chintz counterpane. Charlotte lifted the sheet.
“I took the last stitch on it Wednesday night,” she said, in a hushed voice.
“Didn't he come that night?”
“I finished it before he came.”
“Did he see it?”
Charlotte nodded. The two girls stood looking solemnly at the silk dress.
“You can't see it here; it's too dark,” said Charlotte, and she rolled up a window curtain.
“Yes, I can see better,” said Rose, in a whisper. “It's beautiful, Charlotte.”
The dress was spread widely over the bed in crisp folds. It was purple, plaided vaguely with cloudy lines of white and delicate rose-color. Over it lay a silvery lustre that was the very light of the silken fabric.
Rose felt it reverently. “How thick it is!” said she.
“Yes, it's a good piece,” Charlotte replied.
“You thought you'd have purple?”
“Yes, he liked it.”
“Well, it's pretty, and it's becoming to you.”
Charlotte took up the skirt, and slipped it, loud with silken whispers, over her head. It swept out around her in a great circle; she looked like a gorgeous inverted bell-flower.
“It's beautiful,” Rose said.
Charlotte's face, gazing downward at the silken breadths, had quite its natural expression. It was as if her mind in spite of herself would stop at old doors.
“Try on the waist,” pleaded Rose.
Charlotte slipped off her calico waist, and thrust her firm white arms into the flaring silken sleeves of the wedding-gown. Her neck arose from it with a grand curve. She stood before the glass and strained the buttons together, frowning importantly.
“It fits you like a glove,” Rose murmured, admiringly, smoothing Charlotte's glossy back.
“I've got a spencer-cape to wear over my neck to meeting,” Charlotte said, and she opened the upper-most drawer in the chest and took out a worked muslin cape, and adjusted it carefully over her shoulders, pinning it across her bosom with a little brooch of her brother's hair in a rim of gold.
“It's elegant,” said Rose.
“I'll show you my bonnet,” said Charlotte. She went into a closet and emerged with a great green bandbox.
Rose bent over, watching her breathlessly as she opened it. “Oh!” she cried. “Oh, Charlotte!”
Charlotte held up the bonnet of fine Dunstable straw, flaring in front, and trimmed under the brim with a delicate lace ruche and a wreath of feathery white flowers. Bows of white gauze ribbon stood up from it stiffly. Long ribbon strings floated back over her arm as she held it up.
“Try it on,” said Rose.
Charlotte stepped before the glass and adjusted the bonnet to her head. She tied the strings carefully under her chin in a great square bow; then she turned towards Rose. The fine white wreath under the brim encircled her face like a nimbus; she looked as she might have done sitting a bride in the meeting-house.
“It's beautiful,” Rose said, smiling, with grave eyes. “You look real handsome in it, Charlotte.” Charlotte stood motionless a moment, with Rose surveying her.
“Oh, Charlotte,” Rose cried out, suddenly, “I don't believe but what you'll have him, after all!” Rose's eyes were sharp upon Charlotte's face. It was as if the bridal robes, which were so evident, became suddenly proofs of something tangible and real, like a garment left by a ghost. Rose felt a sudden conviction that the quarrel was but a temporary thing; that Charlotte would marry Barney, and that she knew it.
A change came over Charlotte's face. She began untying the bonnet strings.
“Sha'n't you?” repeated Rose, breathlessly.
“No, I sha'n't.”
Charlotte took the bonnet off and smoothed the creases carefully out of the strings.
“If I were you,” Rose cried out, “I'd feel like tearing that bonnet to pieces!”
Charlotte replaced it in the bandbox, and began unfastening her dress.
“I don't see how you can bear the sight of them. I don't believe I could bear them in the house!” Rose cried out again. “I would put that dress in the rag-bag if it was mine!” Her cheeks burned and her eyes were quite fierce upon the dress as Charlotte slipped it off and it fell to the floor in a rustling heap around her.
“I don't see any sense in losing everything you have ever had because you haven't got anything now,” Charlotte returned, in a stern voice. She laid the shining silk gown carefully on the bed, and put on her cotton one again. Her face was quite steady.
Rose watched her with the same sharp question in her eyes. “You know you and Barney will make it up,” she said, at length.
“No, I don't,” returned Charlotte. “Suppose we go down-stairs now. I've got some work I ought to do.”
Charlotte pulled down the green paper shades of the windows, and went out of the room. Rose followed. Charlotte turned to go down-stairs, but Rose caught her arm.
“Wait a minute,” said she. “Look here, Charlotte.”
“What is it?”
“Charlotte,” said Rose again; then she stopped.
Charlotte turned and looked at her. Rose's eyes met hers, and her face had a noble expression.
“You write a note to him, and I'll carry it,” said Rose. “I'll go down in the field where he is, on my way home.”
Tears sprang into Charlotte's eyes. “You're real good, Rose,” she said; “but I can't.”
“Hadn't you better?”
“No; I can't. Don't let's talk any more about it.”
Charlotte pushed past Rose's detaining hand, and the girls went down-stairs. Mrs. Barnard looked around dejectedly at them as they entered the kitchen. Her eyes were red, and her mouth drooping; she was clearing the débris of the pies from the table; there was a smell of baking, but Cephas had gone out. She tried to smile at Rose. “Are you goin' now?” said she.
“Yes; I've got to. I've got to sew on my muslin dress. When are you coming over, Aunt Sarah? You haven't been over to our house for an age.”
“I don't care if I never go anywhere!” cried Sarah Barnard, with sudden desperation. “I'm discouraged.” She sank in a chair, and flung her apron over her face.
“Don't, mother,” said Charlotte.
“I can't help it,” sobbed her mother. “You're young and you've got more strength to bear it, but mine's all gone. I feel worse about you than if it was myself, an' there's so much to put up with besides. I don't feel as if I could put up with things much longer, nohow.”
“Uncle Cephas ought to be ashamed of himself!” Rose cried out.
Sarah stood up. “Well, I don't s'pose I have so much to put up with as some folks,” she said, catching her breath as if it were her dignity. “Your Uncle Cephas means well. It did seem as if them sorrel pies were the last straw, but I hadn't ought to have minded it.”
“You haven't got to eat sorrel pies, have you?” Rose asked, in a bewildered way.
“I don't s'pose they'll be any worse than some other things we eat,” Sarah answered, scraping the pie-board again.
“I don't see how you can.”
“I guess they won't hurt us any,” Sarah said, shortly, and Rose looked abashed.
“Well, I must be going,” said she.
As she went out, she looked hesitatingly at Charlotte. “Hadn't you better?” she whispered. Charlotte shook her head, and Rose went out into the spring sunlight. She bent her head as she went down the road before the sweet gusts of south wind; the white apple-trees seemed to sing, for she could not see the birds in them.
Rose's face between the green sides of her bonnet had in it all the quickened bloom of youth in spring; her eyes had all the blue surprise of violets; she panted softly between red swelling lips as she walked; pulses beat in her crimson cheeks. Her slender figure yielded to the wind as to a lover. She passed Barney Thayer's new house; then she came opposite the field where he was at work ploughing, driving a white horse, stooping to his work in his blue frock.
Rose stood still and looked at him; then she walked on a little way; then she paused again. Barney never looked around at her. There was the width of a field between them.
Finally Rose went through the open bars into the first field. She crossed it slowly, holding up her skirts where there was a wet gleam through darker grass, and getting a little nosegay of violets with a busy air, as if that were what she had come for. She passed through the other bars into the second field, and Barney was only a little way from her. He did not glance at her then. He was ploughing with the look that Cadmus might have worn preparing the ground for the dragon's teeth.
Rose held up her skirts, and went along the furrows behind him. “Hullo, Barney,” she said, in a trembling voice.
“Hullo,” he returned, without looking around, and he kept on, with Rose following.
“Barney,” said she, timidly.
“Well?” said Barney, half turning, with a slight show of courtesy.
“Do you know if Rebecca is at home?”
“I don't know whether she is or not.”
Barney held stubbornly to his rocking plough, and Rose followed.
“Barney,” said she, again.
“Well?”
“Stop a minute, and look round here.”
“I can't stop to talk.”
“Yes, you can; just a minute. Look round here.”
Barney stopped, and turned a stern, miserable face over his shoulder.
“I've been up to Charlotte's,” Rose said.
“I don't know what that is to me.”
“Barney Thayer, ain't you ashamed of yourself?”
“I can't stop to talk.”
“Yes, you can. Look here. Charlotte feels awfully.”
Barney stood with his back to Rose; his very shoulders had a dogged look.
“Barney, why don't you make up with her?”
Barney stood still.
“Barney, she feels awfully because you didn't come back when she called you last night.”
Barney made no reply. He and the white horse stood like statues.
“Barney, why don't you make up with her? I wish you would.” Rose's voice was full of tender inflections; it might have been that of an angel peace-making.
Barney turned around between the handles of the plough, and looked at her steadily. “You don't know anything about it, Rose,” he said.
Rose looked up in his face, and her own was full of fine pleading. “Oh, Barney,” she said, “poor Charlotte does feel so bad! I know that anyhow.”
“You don't know how I am situated. I can't—”
“Do go and see her, Barney.”
“Do you think I'm going into Cephas Barnard's house after he's ordered me out?”
“Go up the road a little way, and she'll come and meet you. I'll run ahead and tell her.”
Barney shook his head. “I can't; you don't know anything about it, Rose.” He looked into Rose's eyes. “You're real good, Rose,” he said, as if with a sudden recognition of her presence.
Rose blushed softly, a new look came into her eyes, she smiled up at him, and her face was all pink and sweet and fully set towards him, like a rose for which he was a sun.
“No, I ain't good,” she whispered.
“Yes, you are; but I can't. You don't know anything about it.” He swung about and grasped his plough-handles again.
“Barney, do stop a minute,” Rose pleaded.
“I can't stop any longer; there's no use talking,” Barney said; and he went on remorselessly through the opening furrow. Just before he turned the corner Rose made a little run forward and caught his arm.
“You don't think I've done anything out of the way speaking to you about it, do you, Barney?” she said, and she was half crying.
“I don't know why I should think you had; I suppose you meant all right,” Barney said. He pulled his arm away softly, and jerked the right rein to turn the horse. “G'lang!” he cried out, and strode forward with a conclusive air.
Rose stood looking after him a minute; then she struck off across the field. Her knees trembled as she stepped over the soft plough-ridges.
When she was out on the road again she went along quickly until she came to the Thayer house. She was going past that when she heard some one calling her name, and turned to see who it was.
Rebecca Thayer came hurrying out of the yard with a basket on her arm. “Wait a minute,” she called, “and I'll go along with you.”
Rebecca, walking beside Rose, looked like a woman of another race. She was much taller, and her full, luxuriant young figure looked tropical beside Rose's slender one. Her body undulated as she walked, but Rose moved only with forward flings of delicate limbs.
“I've got to carry these eggs down to the store and get some sugar,” said Rebecca.
Rose assented, absently. She was full of the thought of her talk with Barney.
“It's a pleasant day, ain't it?” said Rebecca.
“Yes, it's real pleasant. Say, Rebecca, I'm awful afraid I made Barney mad just now.”
“Why, what did you do?”
“I stopped in the field when I was going by. I'd been up to see Charlotte, and I said something about it to him.”
“How much do you know about it?” Rebecca asked, abruptly.
“Charlotte told me this mornin', and last night when I was going to her house across lots I saw Barney going, and heard her calling him back. I thought I'd see if I couldn't coax him to make up with her, but I couldn't.”
“Oh, he'll come round,” said Rebecca.
“Then you think it'll be made up?” Rose asked, quickly.
“Of course it will. We're having a terrible time about poor Barney. He didn't come home last night, and it's much as ever he's spoken this morning. He wouldn't eat any breakfast. He just went into his room, and put on his other clothes, and then went out in the field to work. He wouldn't tell mother anything about it. I never saw her so worked up. She's terribly afraid he's done something wrong.”
“He hasn't done anything wrong,” returned Rose. “I think your mother is terrible hard on him. It's Uncle Cephas; he just picked the quarrel. He hasn't never more'n half liked Barney. So you think Barney will make up with Charlotte, and they'll get married, after all?”
“Of course they will,” Rebecca replied, promptly. “I guess they won't be such fools as not to for such a silly reason as that, when Barney's got his house 'most done, and Charlotte has got all her wedding-clothes ready.”
“Ain't Barney terrible set?”
“He's set enough, but I guess you'll find he won't be this time.”
“Well, I'm sure I hope he won't be,” Rose said, and she walked along silently, her face sober in the depths of her bonnet.
They came to Richard Alger's house on the right-hand side of the road, and Rebecca looked reflectively at the white cottage with its steep peak of Gothic roof set upon a ploughed hill. “It's queer how he's been going with your aunt Sylvy all these years,” she said.
“Yes, 'tis,” assented Rose, and she too glanced up at the house. As they looked, a man came around the corner with a basket. He was about to plant potatoes in his hilly yard.
“There he is now,” said Rose.
They watched Richard Alger coming towards them, past a great tree whose new leaves were as red as flowers.
“What do you suppose the reason is?” Rebecca said, in a low voice.
“I don't know. I suppose he's got used to living this way.”
“I shouldn't think they'd be very happy,” Rebecca said; and she blushed, and her voice had a shamefaced tone.
“I don't suppose it makes so much difference when folks get older,” Rose returned.
“Maybe it don't. Rose.”
“What is it?”
“I wish you'd go into the store with me.”
Rose laughed. “What for?”
“Nothing. Only I wish you would.”
“You afraid of William?” Rose peered around into Rebecca's bonnet.
Rebecca blushed until tears came to her eyes. “I'd like to know what I'd be afraid of William Berry for,” she replied.
“Then what do you want me to go into the store with you for?”
“Nothing.”
“You're a great ninny, Rebecca Thayer,” Rose said, laughing, “but I'll go if you want me to. I know William won't like it. You run away from him the whole time. There isn't another girl in Pembroke treats him as badly as you do.”
“I don't treat him badly.”
“Yes, you do. And I don't believe but what you like him, Rebecca Thayer; you wouldn't act so silly if you didn't.”
Rebecca was silent. Rose peered around in her face again. “I was only joking. I think a sight more of you for not running after him, and so does William. You haven't any idea how some of the girls act chasing to the store. Mother and I have counted 'em some days, and then we plague William about it, but he won't own up they come to see him. He acts more ashamed of it than the girls do.”
“That's one thing I never would do—run after any fellow,” said Rebecca.
“I wouldn't either.”
Then the two girls had reached the tavern and the store. Rose's father, Silas Berry, had kept the tavern, but now it was closed, except to occasional special guests. He had gained a competency, and his wife Hannah had rebelled against further toil. Then, too, the railroad had been built through East Pembroke instead of Pembroke, the old stage line had become a thing of the past, and the tavern was scantily patronized. Still, Silas Berry had given it up with great reluctance; he cherished a grudge against his wife because she had insisted upon it, and would never admit that business policy had aught to do with it.
The store adjoining the tavern, which he had owned for years, he still retained, but his son William had charge of it. Silas Berry was growing old, and the year before had had a slight shock of paralysis, which had made him halt and feeble, although his mind was as clear as ever. However, although he took no active part in the duties of the store, he was still there, and sharply watchful for his interests, the greater part of every day.
The two girls went up the steps to the store piazza. Rose stepped forward and looked in the door. “Father's in there, and Tommy Ray,” she whispered. “You needn't be afraid to go in.” But she entered as she spoke, and Rebecca followed her.
There was one customer in the great country store, a stout old man, on the grocery side. His broad red face turned towards them a second, then squinted again at some packages on the counter. He was haggling for garden seeds. William Berry, who was waiting upon him, did not apparently look at his sister and Rebecca Thayer, but Rebecca had entered his heart as well as the store, and he saw her face deep in his own consciousness.
Tommy Ray, the great white-headed boy who helped William in the store, shuffled along behind the counter indeterminately, but the girls did not seem to see him. Rose was talking fast to Rebecca. He lounged back against the shelves, stared out the door, and whistled.
Out of the obscurity in the back of the store an old man's narrow bristling face peered, watchful as a cat, his body hunched up in a round-backed arm-chair.
“Mr. Nims will go in a minute,” Rose whispered, and presently the old farmer clamped past them out the door, counting his change from one hand to the other, his lips moving.
William Berry replaced the seed packages which the customer had rejected on the shelves as the girls approached him.
“Rebecca's got some eggs to sell,” Rose announced.
[Illustration: “‘Rebecca's got some eggs to sell’”]
William Berry's thin, wide-shouldered figure towered up behind the counter; he smiled, and the smile was only a deepening of the pleasant intensity of his beardless face, with its high pale forehead and smooth crest of fair hair. The lines in his face scarcely changed.
“How d'ye do?” said he.
“How d'ye do?” returned Rebecca, with fluttered dignity. Her face bloomed deeply pink in the green tunnel of her sun-bonnet, her black eyes were as soft and wary as a baby's, her full red lips had a grave, innocent expression.
“How many dozen eggs have you got, Rebecca?” Rose inquired, peering into the basket.
“Two; mother couldn't spare any more to-day,” Rebecca replied, in a trembling voice.
“How much sugar do you give for two dozen eggs, William?” asked Rose.
William hesitated; he gave a scarcely perceptible glance towards the watchful old man, whose eyes seemed to gleam out of the gloom in the back of the store. “Well, about two pounds and a half,” he replied, in a low voice.
Rebecca set her basket of eggs on the counter.
“How many pound did you tell her, William?” called the old man's hoarse voice.
William compressed his lips. “About two and a half, father.”
“How many?”
“Two and a half.”
“How many dozen of eggs?”
“Two.”
“You ain't offerin' of her two pound of sugar for two dozen eggs?”
“I said two pounds and a half of sugar, father,” said William. He began counting the eggs.
“Be you gone crazy?”
“Never mind,” whispered Rebecca. “That's too much sugar for the eggs. Mother didn't expect so much. Don't say any more about it, William.” Her face was quite steady and self-possessed now, as she looked at William, frowning heavily over the eggs.
“Give Rebecca two pounds of sugar for the eggs, father, and call it square,” Rose called out.
Silas Berry pulled himself up a joint at a time; then he came forward at a stiff halt, his face pointing out in advance of his body. He entered at the gap in the counter, and pressed close to his son's side. Then he looked sharply across at Rebecca. “Sugar is fourteen cents a pound now,” said he, “an' eggs ain't fetchin' more'n ten cents a dozen. You tell your mother.”
“Father, I told her I'd giver her two and a half pounds for two dozen,” said William; he was quite pale. He began counting the eggs over again, and his hands trembled.
“I'll take just what you're willing to give,” Rebecca said to Silas.
“Sugar is fourteen cents a pound, an' eggs is fetchin' ten cents a dozen,” said the old man; “you can have a pound and a half of sugar for them eggs if you can give me a cent to boot.”
Rebecca colored. “I'm afraid I haven't got a cent with me,” said she; “I didn't fetch my purse. You'll have to give me a cent's worth less sugar, Mr. Berry.”
“It's kinder hard to calkilate so close as that,” returned Silas, gravely; “you had better tell your mother about it, an' you come back with the cent by-an'-by.”
“Why, father!” cried Rose.
William shouldered his father aside with a sudden motion. “I'm tending to this, father,” he said, in a stern whisper; “you leave it alone.”
“I ain't goin' to stan' by an' see you givin' twice as much for eggs as they're worth 'cause it's a gal you're tradin' with. That wa'n't never my way of doin' business, an' I ain't goin' to have it done in my store. I shouldn't have laid up a cent if I'd managed any such ways, an' I ain't goin' to see my hard earnin's wasted by you. You give her a pound and a half of sugar for them eggs and a cent to boot.”
“You sha'n't lose anything by it, father,” said William, fiercely. “You leave me alone.”
The sugar-barrel stood quite near. William strode over to it, and plunged in the great scoop with a grating noise. He heaped it recklessly on some paper, and laid it on the steelyards.
“Don't give me more'n a pound and a half,” Rebecca said, softly.
“Keep still,” Rose whispered in her ear.
Silas pushed forward, and bent over the steelyards. “You've weighed out nigh three,” he began. Then his son's face suddenly confronted his, and he stopped talking and stood back.
Almost involuntarily at times Silas Berry yielded to the combination of mental and superior physical force in his son. While his own mind had lost nothing of its vigor, his bodily weakness made him distrustful of it sometimes, when his son towered over him in what seemed the might of his own lost strength and youth, brandishing his own old weapons.
William tied up the sugar neatly; then he took the eggs from Rebecca's basket, and put the parcel in their place. Silas began lifting the eggs from the box in which William had put them, and counted them eagerly.
“There ain't but twenty-three eggs here,” he called out, as Rebecca and Rose turned away, and William was edging after them from behind the counter.
“I thought there were two dozen,” Rebecca responded, in a distressed voice.
“Of course there are two dozen,” said Rose, promptly. “You 'ain't counted 'em right, father. Go along, Rebecca; it's all right.”
“I tell ye it ain't,” said Silas. “There ain't but twenty-three. It's bad enough to be payin' twice what they're wuth for eggs, without havin' of 'em come short.”
“I tell you I counted 'em twice over, and they're all right. You keep still, father,” said William's voice at his ear, in a fierce whisper, and Silas subsided into sullen mutterings.
William had meditated following Rebecca to the door; he had even meditated going farther; but now he stood back behind the counter, and began packing up some boxes with a busy air.
“Ain't you going a piece with Rebecca, and carry her basket, William?” Rose called back, when the two girls reached the door.
Rebecca clutched her arm. “Oh, don't,” she gasped, and Rose giggled.
“Ain't you, William?” she said again.
Rebecca hurried out the door, but she heard William reply coldly that he couldn't, he was too busy. She was half crying when Rose caught up with her.
“William wanted to go bad enough, but he was too upset by what father said. You mustn't mind father,” Rose said, peering around into Rebecca's bonnet. “Why, Rebecca, what is the matter?”
“I didn't go into that store a step to see William Berry. You know I didn't,” Rebecca cried out, with sudden passion. Her voice was hoarse with tears; her face was all hot and quivering with shame and anger.
“Why, of course you didn't,” Rose returned, in a bewildered way. “Who said you did, Rebecca?”
“You know I didn't. I hated to go to the store this morning. I told mother I didn't want to, but she didn't have a mite of sugar in the house, and there wasn't anybody else to send. Ephraim ain't very well, and Doctor Whiting says he ought not to walk very far. I had to come, but I didn't come to see William Berry, and nobody has any call to think I did.”
“I don't know who said you did. I don't know what you mean, Rebecca.”
“You acted as if you thought so. I don't want William Berry seeing me home in broad daylight, when I've been to the store to trade, and you needn't think that's what I came for, and he needn't.”
“Good land, Rebecca Thayer, he didn't, and I was just in fun. He'd have come with you, but he was so mad at what father said that he backed out. William's just about as easy upset as you are. I didn't mean any harm. Say, Rebecca, come into the house a little while, can't you? I don't believe your mother is in any great hurry for the sugar.” Rose took hold of Rebecca's arm, but Rebecca jerked herself away with a sob, and went down the road almost on a run.
“Well, I hope you're touchy enough, Rebecca Thayer,” Rose called out, as she stood looking after her. “Folks will begin to think you did come to see William if you make such a fuss when nobody accuses you of it, if you don't look out.”
Rebecca hastened trembling down the road. She made no reply, but she knew that Rose was quite right, and that she had attacked her with futile reproaches in order to save herself from shame in her own eyes. Rebecca knew quite well that in spite of her hesitation and remonstrances, in spite of her maiden shrinking on the threshold of the store, she had come to see William Berry. She had been glad, although she had turned a hypocritical face towards her own consciousness, that Ephraim was not well enough and she was obliged to go. Her heart had leaped with joy when Rose had proposed William's walking home with her, but when he refused she was crushed with shame. “He thought I came to see him,” she kept saying to herself as she hurried along, and there was no falsehood that she would not have sworn to to shield her modesty from such a thought on his part.
When she got home and entered the kitchen, she kept her face turned away from her mother. “Here's the sugar,” she said, and she took it out of the basket and placed it on the table.
“How much did he give you?” asked Deborah Thayer; she was standing beside the window beating eggs. Over in the field she could catch a glimpse of Barnabas now and then between the trees as he passed with his plough.
“About two pounds.”
“That was doin' pretty well.”
Rebecca said nothing. She turned to go out of the room.
“Where are you going?” her mother asked, sharply. “Take off your bonnet. I want you to beat up the butter and sugar; this cake ought to be in the oven.”
Deborah's face, as she beat the eggs and made cake, looked as full of stern desperation as a soldier's on the battle-field. Deborah never yielded to any of the vicissitudes of life; she met them in fair fight like enemies, and vanquished them, not with trumpet and spear, but with daily duties. It was a village story how Deborah Thayer cleaned all the windows in the house one afternoon when her first child had died in the morning. To-day she was in a tumult of wrath and misery over her son; her mouth was so full of the gall of bitterness that no sweet on earth could overcome it; but she made sweet cake.