"The day was a bad dream, Ben. Take this—you ha'n't eaten all day. Got another half-loaf under my shirt, and a chunk I cut from a ham I found in the shed, all I could carry.... Think this'll cover our tracks?"
"Not unless it thickens some."
"Pray it does."
"Nay, it better hold off a while or we'll lose these sled-tracks and direction with 'em...."
"I cursed old Anna when she was holding me. She—I mean Grandmother—made me wash my mouth with vinegar, then I must sit not moving all morning. Then they all went to meeting but Jonas, who locked me in a closet so he could mind his chores. Damn them all, I say God-damn them!"
"Hush, Ru! Grandmother only thought——"
"I say she doesn't think. I say she hath no heart at all, and your mouth'll be scarred all your days like Sam Belding's head."
"It will not—and don't speak so loud. Could be houses back of those trees, it's too dark to be sure."
"I will be quiet, Ben, but I say I cannot forgive her nor I will not, and I'll sooner die in the snow than ever go back in that house."
"We can't go back, that's sure. But Ru, to her we were—don't you understand?—sinful. And I was, too—I ought never to have spoken to her so. I lost my head somehow."