“How much did he give you?” asked Deborah Thayer; she was standing beside the window beating eggs. Over in the field she could catch a glimpse of Barnabas now and then between the trees as he passed with his plough.
“About two pounds.”
“That was doin' pretty well.”
Rebecca said nothing. She turned to go out of the room.
“Where are you going?” her mother asked, sharply. “Take off your bonnet. I want you to beat up the butter and sugar; this cake ought to be in the oven.”
Deborah's face, as she beat the eggs and made cake, looked as full of stern desperation as a soldier's on the battle-field. Deborah never yielded to any of the vicissitudes of life; she met them in fair fight like enemies, and vanquished them, not with trumpet and spear, but with daily duties. It was a village story how Deborah Thayer cleaned all the windows in the house one afternoon when her first child had died in the morning. To-day she was in a tumult of wrath and misery over her son; her mouth was so full of the gall of bitterness that no sweet on earth could overcome it; but she made sweet cake.
Rebecca took off her sun-bonnet and hung it on a peg; she got a box from the pantry, and emptied the sugar into in, still keeping her face turned away as best she could from her mother's eyes.
Deborah looked approvingly at the sugar. “It's nigher three pounds than anything else. I guess you were kind of favored, Rebecca. Did William wait on you?”
“Yes, he did.”
“I guess you were kind of favored,” Deborah repeated, and a half-smile came over her grim face.