"If Hannah Berry wants to heat up a whole brick oven and work the
whole forenoon to bake a loaf of cake, she can," said she, as she put
the pan of cake in the oven. "Now, you watch this, Rebecca Thayer,
and don't you let it burn, and you get the potatoes ready for
dinner."
"Where are you going, mother?" asked Ephraim.
"I'm just goin' to step out a little way."
"Can't I go too?"
"No; you set still. You ain't fit to walk this mornin'. You know what
the doctor told you."
"It won't hurt me any," whined Ephraim. There were times when the
spirit of rebellion in him made illness and even his final demise
flash before his eyes like sweet overhanging fruit, since they were
so strenuously forbidden.
"You set still," repeated his mother. She tied on her own green
sun-bonnet, stiffened with pasteboard, and went with it rattling
against her ears across the fields to the one where her son was
ploughing. The grass was not wet, but she held her dress up high,
showing her thick shoes and her blue yarn stockings, and took long
strides. Barney was guiding the plough past her when she came up.
"You stop a minute," she said, authoritatively. "I want to speak to
you."
"Whoa!" said Barney, and pulled up the horse. "Well, what is it?" he
said, gruffly, with his eyes upon the plough.
"You go this minute and set the men to work on your house again.
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