As he went out he rolled his eyes over his shoulder at his mother with tragic surprise and reproach, but she paid no attention. When he came in she ignored the great painful sigh which he heaved and the podgy hand clapped ostentatiously over his left side. “Draw your chair up,” said she.
“I dunno as I want any supper. I've got a pain. Oh dear!” Ephraim writhed, with attentive eyes upon his mother; he was like an executioner turning an emotional thumbscrew on her. But Deborah Thayer's emotions sometimes presented steel surfaces. “You can have a pain, then,” said she. “I ain't goin' to let you go to ruin because you ain't well, not if I know it. You've got to mind, sick or well, an' you might jest as well know it. I'll have one child obey me, whether or no. Set up to the table.”
Ephraim drew up his chair, whimpering; but he fell to on the milk-toast with ardor, and his hand dropped from his side. He had eaten half a plateful when his father came in. Caleb had been milking; the cows had been refractory as he drove them from pasture, and he was late.
“Supper's been ready half an hour,” his wife said, when he entered.
“The heifer run down the old road when I was a-drivin' of her home, an' I had to chase her,” Caleb returned, meekly, settling down in his arm-chair at the table.
“I guess that heifer wouldn't cut up so every night if I had the drivin' of her,” remarked Deborah. She filled a plate with toast and passed it over to Caleb.
Caleb set it before him, but he did not begin to eat. He looked at Rebecca's empty place, then at his wife's face, long and pale and full of stern rancor, behind the sugar-bowl and the cream-pitcher.
“Rebecca got home?” he ventured, with wary eyes upon her.
“Yes, she's got home.”
Caleb winked, meekly. “Ain't she comin' to supper?”