"Never mind how I heard," replied Hannah. "I did hear, an' that's enough. Now I want to know if you're really goin' to set down like an old hen an' give up, an' let this match between Charlotte an' a good, smart, likely young man like Barnabas Thayer be broken off on account of Cephas Barnard's crazy freaks?"

Sarah stiffened her neck. "There ain't no call for you to speak that way, Hannah. They got to talkin' over the 'lection."

"The 'lection! I'd like to know what business they had talkin' about it Sabbath night anyway? I ain't blamin' Barnabas so much; he's younger an' easier stirred up; but Cephas Barnard is an old man, an'

he has been a church-member for forty year, an' he ought to know enough to set a better example. I'd like to know what difference it makes about the 'lection anyway? What odds does it make which one is President if he rules the country well? An' that they can't tell till they've tried him awhile anyway. I guess they don't think much about the country; it's jest to have their own way about it. I'd like to know what mortal difference it's goin' to make to Barney Thayer or Cephas Barnard which man is President? He won't never hear of them, an' they won't neither of them make him rule any different after he's chose. It's jest like two little boys--one wants to play marbles 'cause the other wants to play puss-in-the-corner, an' that's all the reason either one of 'em's got for standin' out. Men ain't got any too much sense anyhow, when you come right down to it. They don't ever get any too much grown up, the best of 'em. I'd like to know what Cephas Barnard has got to say because he's drove a good, likely young man like Barnabas Thayer off an' broke off his daughter's match? It ain't likely she'll ever get anybody now; young men like him, with nice new houses put up to go right to housekeepin' in as soon as they are married, don't grow on every bush. They ain't quite so thick as wild thimbleberries. An' Charlotte ain't got any money herself, an' her father ain't got any to build a house for her. I'd like to know what he's got to say about it?"

Mrs. Barnard put up her apron and began to weep helplessly.

"Don't, mother," said Charlotte, in an undertone. But her mother began talking in a piteous wailing fashion.

"You hadn't ought to talk so about Cephas," she moaned. "He's my husband. I guess you wouldn't like it if anybody talked so about your husband. Cephas ain't any worse than anybody else. It's jest his way.

He wa'n't any more to blame than Barney; they both got to talkin'. I know Cephas is terrible upset about it this mornin'; he 'ain't really said so in so many words, but I know by the way he acts. He said this mornin' that he didn't know but we were eatin' the wrong kind of food. Lately he's had an idea that mebbe we'd ought to eat more meat; he's thought it was more strengthenin', an' we'd ought to eat things as near like what we wanted to strengthen as could be. I've made a good deal of bone soup. But now he says he thinks mebbe he's been mistaken, an' animal food kind of quickens the animal nature in us, an' that we'd better eat green things an' garden sass."

"I guess garden sass will strengthen the other kind of sass that Cephas Barnard has got in him full as much as bone soup has,"

interrupted Hannah Berry, with a sarcastic sniff.

"I dunno but he's right," said Mrs. Barnard. "Cephas thinks a good deal an' looks into things. I kind of wish he'd waited till the garden had got started, though, for there ain't much we can eat now but potatoes an' turnips an' dandelion greens."

"If you want to live on potatoes an' turnips an' dandelion greens, you can," cried Hannah Berry; "What I want to know is if you're goin'

to settle down an' say nothin', an' have Charlotte lose the best chance she'll ever have in her life, if she lives to be a hundred--"

Charlotte spoke up suddenly; her blue eyes gleamed with steely light.

She held her head high as she faced her aunt.

"I don't want any more talk about it, Aunt Hannah," said she.

"Hey?"

"I don't want any more talk about it."

"Well, I guess you'll have more talk about it; girls don't get jilted without there is talk generally. I guess you'll have to make up your mind to it, for all you put on such airs with your own aunt, who left her washin' an' come over here to take your part. I guess when you stand out in the road half an hour an' call a young man to come back, an' he don't come, that folks are goin' to talk some. Who's that comin' now?"

"It's Cephas," whispered Mrs. Barnard, with a scared glance at Charlotte.

Cephas Barnard entered abruptly, and stood for a second looking at the company, while they looked back at him. His eyes were stolidly defiant, but he stood well back, and almost shrank against the door.

There seemed to be impulses in Hannah's and Sylvia's faces confronting his.

He turned to his wife. "When you comin' home?" said he.

"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."

Chapter III

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.