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.
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