"You
ain't goin' to marry William Berry."
"I am, if you haven't got any better reason than that. I won't stand
it, mother; it ain't right!" Rebecca cried out.
"Then," said Deborah, and as she spoke she began spooning out the
toast gravy into a bowl with a curious stiff turn of her wrist and a
superfluous vigor of muscle, as if it were molten lead instead of
milk; and, indeed, she might, from the look in her face, have been
one of her female ancestors in the times of the French and Indian
wars, casting bullets with the yells of savages in her ears--"then,"
said she, "I sha'n't have any child but Ephraim left, that's all!"
"Mother, don't!" gasped Rebecca.
"There's another thing: if you marry William Berry against your
parents' wishes, you know what you have to expect. You remember your
aunt Rebecca."
Rebecca twisted her whole body about with the despairing motion with
which she would have wrung her hands, flung open the door, and ran
out of the room.
Deborah went on spooning up the toast. Ephraim had come in just as
she spoke last to Rebecca, and he stood staring, grinning with gaping
mouth.
"What's Rebecca done, mother?" he asked, pleadingly, catching hold of
his mother's dress.
"Nothin' for you to know. Go an' wash your face an' hands, an' come
in to supper."
"Mother, what's she done?" Ephraim's pleading voice lengthened into a
whine.
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