Deborah looked approvingly at the sugar. "It's nigher three pounds
than anything else. I guess you were kind of favored, Rebecca. Did
William wait on you?"
"Yes, he did."
"I guess you were kind of favored," Deborah repeated, and a
half-smile came over her grim face.
Rebecca said nothing. She got some butter, and fell to work with a
wooden spoon, creaming the butter and sugar in a brown wooden bowl
with swift turns of her strong white wrist. Ephraim watched her
sharply; he sat by a window stoning raisins. His mother had forbidden
him to eat any, as she thought them injurious to him; but he
carefully calculated his chances, and deposited many in his mouth
when she watched Barney; but his jaws were always gravely set when
she turned his way.
Ephraim's face had a curious bluish cast, as if his blood were the
color of the juice of a grape. His chest heaved shortly and heavily.
The village doctor had told is mother that he had heart-disease,
which might prove fatal, although there was a chance of his
outgrowing it, and Deborah had set her face against that.
Ephraim's face, in spite of its sickly hue, had a perfect healthiness
and naturalness of expression, which insensibly gave confidence to
his friends, although it aroused their irritation. A spirit of boyish
rebellion and importance looked out of Ephraim's black eyes; his
mouth was demure with mischief, his gawky figure perpetually uneasy
and twisting, as if to find entrance into small forbidden places.
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