“I know,” shouted Robbie. “Pie! It's muzzie's pie. Muzzie tept it for 'oo.”
“Now, Robbie, you were not to tell,” said his mother, shaking her finger at him.
“O-o-o, I fordot,” said Robbie, horrified at his failure to keep his promise.
“Never mind. That's a lesson you will have to learn many times, how to keep those little lips shut. And the pie will be just as good.”
“Thank you, mother,” said Hughie. “But I don't want your pie.”
“My pie!” said the mother. “Pie isn't good for old women.”
“Old women!” said Hughie, indignantly. “You're the youngest and prettiest woman in the congregation,” he cried, and forgetting for the moment his sense of meanness, he threw his arms round his mother.
“Oh, Hughie, shame on you! What a dreadful flatterer you are!” said his mother. “Now, run away to your pie, and then to your evening work, my boy, and we will have a good lesson together after supper.”
Hughie ran away, glad to get out of her presence, and seizing the pie, carried it out to the barn and hurled it far into the snow. He felt sure that a single bite of it would choke him.
If he could only have seen Foxy any time for the next hour, how gladly would he have given him back his pistol, but by the time he had fed his cow and the horses, split the wood and carried it in, and prepared kindling for the morning's fires, he had become accustomed to his new self, and had learned his first lesson in keeping his emotions out of his face. But from that night, and through all the long weeks of the breaking winter, when games in the woods were impossible by reason of the snow and water, and when the roads were deep with mud, Hughie carried his burden with him, till life was one long weariness and dread.