"
Rebecca was weeping quite openly now. "Mother, you know you sent me
down to the store yourself; there wasn't anybody else to go," she
sobbed out.
"Your goin' to the store wa'n't anything. I guess you can go to the
store to trade off some eggs for sugar when I'm makin' cake without
William Berry thinkin' you're runnin' after him, or Hannah Berry
thinkin' so either. But there wa'n't any need of your makin' any
special talk with him, or lookin' as if you was tickled to death to
see him."
"I didn't. I wouldn't go across the room to see William Berry. You
haven't any right to say such things to me, mother."
"I guess I've got a right to talk to my own daughter. I should think
things had come to a pretty pass if I can't speak when I see you
doin' out of the way. I know one thing, you won't go to that store
again. I'll go myself next time. Have you got that butter an' sugar
mixed up?"
"I hope you will go, I'm sure. I don't want to," returned Rebecca.
She had stopped crying, but her face was burning; she hit the spoon
with dull thuds against the wooden bowl.
"Don't you be saucy. That's done enough; give it here."
Deborah finished the cake with a master hand. When she measured the
raisins which Ephraim had stoned she cast a sharp glance at him, but
he was ready for it with beseechingly upturned sickly face. "Can't I
have just one raisin, mother?" he pleaded.
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