Caleb
went into the pantry and came back eating a slice of mince-pie.
"I found there was a pie cut, and I thought mother wouldn't mind if I
took a leetle piece," he remarked, apologetically. He would never
have dared take the pie without permission had his wife been at home.
"She ain't goin' to be home till arter dinner-time, an' I began to
feel kinder gone," added Caleb. He stood by the fire, and munched the
pie with a relish slightly lessened by remorse. "Don't you want
nothin'" he asked of Ephraim. "Mebbe a little piece of pie wouldn't
hurt you none."
Caleb's ideas of hygienic food were primitive. He believed, as
innocently as if he had lived in Eden before the Prohibition, that
all food which he liked was good for him, and he applied his theory
to all mankind. He had deferred to Deborah's imperious will, but he
had never been able to understand why she would not allow Ephraim to
eat mince-pie or anything else which his soul loved and craved.
"No, guess I don't," Ephraim replied. He gazed moodily out of the
window. "Father," said he, suddenly.
"What say, sonny?"
"I eat some of that pie last night."
"Mother give it to you?"
"No; I clim up on the meal-bucket, an' got it in the night."
"You might have fell, an' then I dunno what mother'd ha' said to
you," said Caleb.
"An' I did somethin' else."
"What else did you do?"
"I went out a-coastin' after you an' her was asleep.
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