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 barege 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.