Charlotte, after she got home from the party, had changed her pretty
new gown for her every-day one of mottled brown calico set with a
little green sprig, and had helped her mother get supper.
Cephas, however, was late, and did not come home until just before
Thomas Payne arrived. Sarah had begun to worry. "I don't see where
your father is," she kept saying to Charlotte. When she heard his
shuffling step on the door-stone she started as if he had been her
lover. When he came in she scrutinized him anxiously, to see if he
looked ill or disturbed. Sarah Barnard, during all absences of her
family, dug busily at imaginary pitfalls for them; had they all
existed the town would have been honey-combed.
"There ain't nothin' happened, has there, Cephas?" she said.
"I dunno of anythin' that's happened."
"I got kind of worried. I didn't know where you was." Sarah had an
air of apologizing for her worry. Cephas made no reply; he did not
say where he had been, nor account for his tardiness; he did not look
at his wife, standing before him with her pathetically inquiring
face. He pulled a chair up to the table and sat down, and Charlotte
set his supper before him. It was a plate of greens, cold boiled
dock, and some rye-and-Indian bread. Cephas still adhered to his
vegetarian diet, although he pined on it, and the longing for the
flesh-pots was great in his soul.
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