Then it was the oxen’s turn to laugh, for the twins’ wrath was all turned upon each other.  Everything that they had said about the oxen, it seemed, was equally true of each other—­each of them had confidently expected the other one to lock the door.

There was nothing to do but to go across to the Black Creek Stopping-House for supplies.  Mrs. Corbett baked bread for them each week.

Reginald, with a gun on his shoulder, and rolling more than ever in his walk, strolled into the kitchen of the Stopping-House and made known his errand.  He also asked for the loan of a neck-yoke, having broken his in a heated argument with the “starboard” ox.

Mrs. Corbett, with a black dress and white apron on, sat, with folded hands, in the rocking-chair.  “Da” Corbett, with his “other clothes” on and his glasses far down on his nose, sat in another rocking-chair reading the life of General Booth.  Peter Rockett, the chore boy, in a clean pair of overalls, and with hair-oil on his hair, sat on the edge of the wood-box twanging a Jew’s-harp, and the tune that he played bore a slight resemblance to “Pull for the Shore.”

Randolph felt the Sunday atmosphere, but, nevertheless, made known his errand.

“The bread is yours,” said Mrs. Corbett, sternly; “you may have it, but I can’t bake any more for you!”

“W’y not?” asked Reginald, feeling all at once hungrier than ever.

“Of course I am not saying you can help it,” Mrs. Corbett went on, ignoring his question.  “I suppose, maybe, you do the best you can.  I believe everybody does, if we only knew it, and you haven’t had a very good chance either, piratin’ among the black heathen in the islands of the sea; but the Bible speaks plain, and old Captain Coombs often told us not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers, and I can’t encourage Sunday-breakin’ by cookin’ for them that do it!”

“We weren’t breakin’, really we were only back-settin’,” interposed Reginald, quickly.

“I don’t wish to encourage Sabbath-breakin’,” repeated Mrs. Corbett, raising her voice a little to prevent interruptions, “by bakin’ for people who do it, or neighborin’ with people who do it.  Of course there are some who say that the amount of work that you and your brother do any day would not break the Sabbath.”  Here she looked hard at her man, John Corbett, who stirred uneasily.  “But there is no mistakin’ your meanin’, and besides,” Mrs. Corbett went on, “we have others besides ourselves to think of—­there’s the child,” indicating the lanky Peter Rockett.

The “child” thus alluded to closed one eye—­the one farthest from Mrs. Corbett—­for a fraction of a second, and kept on softly teasing the Jew’s-harp.

“Now you need not glare at me so fierce, you twin.”  Mrs. Corbett’s voice was still full of Sunday calm.  “I do not know which one of you you are, but anyway what I say applies to you both.  Now take that look off your face and stay and eat.  I’ll send something home to your other one, too.”