Caleb looked over at Ephraim with piteous and helpless sympathy.  “Never you mind, sonny,” he said, cautiously.

“She—­makes—­” began Ephraim with a responsive plaint; but his mother came out of the pantry, and he stopped short.  Caleb dropped a pared apple noisily into the pan.

“You’ll dent that pan, father, if you fling the apples in that way,” said Deborah.  She had a thick silver spoon, and she measured out a dose of the medicine for Ephraim.  She approached him, extending the spoon carefully.  “Open your mouth,” commanded she.

“Oh, mother, I don’t want to take it!”

“Open your mouth!”

“Oh, mother—­I don’t—­want to—­ta-ke it!”

“Now, sonny, I wouldn’t mind takin’ of it.  It’s real good medicine that the doctor left you, an’ father’s payin’ consid’able for it.  The doctor thinks it’s goin’ to make you well,” said Caleb, who was looking on anxiously.

“Open your mouth and take it!” said Deborah, sternly.  She presented the spoon at Ephraim as if it were a bayonet and there were death at the point.

“Oh, mother,” whimpered Ephraim.

“Mebbe mother will let you have a little taste of lasses arter it, if you take it real good,” ventured Caleb.

“No, he won’t have any lasses after it,” said Deborah.  “I’m a-tendin’ to him, father.  Now, Ephraim, you take this medicine this minute, or I shall give you somethin’ worse than medicine.  Open your mouth!” And Ephraim opened his mouth as if his mother’s will were a veritable wedge between his teeth, swallowed the medicine with a miserable gulp, and made a grotesque face of wrath and disgust.  Caleb, watching, swallowed and grimaced at the same instant that his son did.  There were tears in his old eyes as he took up another apple to pare.

Deborah set the bottle on the shelf and laid the spoon beside it.  “You’ve got to take this every hour for a spell,” said she, “an’ I ain’t goin’ to have any such work, if you be sick; you can make up your mind to it.”

And make up his mind to this unwelcome dose Ephraim did.  Once an hour his mother stood over him with the spoon, and the fierce odor of the medicine came to his nostrils; he screwed his eyes tight, opened his mouth, and swallowed without a word.  There were limits to his mother’s patience which Ephraim dared not pass.  He had only vague ideas of what might happen if he did, but he preferred to be on the safe side.  So he took the medicine, and did not lift his voice against it, although he had his thoughts.

It did seem as if the medicine benefited him.  He breathed more easily after a while, and his color was more natural.  Deborah felt encouraged; she even went down upon her stiff knees after her family were in bed, and thanked the Lord from the depths of her sorely chastened but proud heart.  She did not foresee what was to come of it; for that very night Ephraim, induced thereto by the salutary effect of the medicine, which removed somewhat the restriction of his laboring heart upon his boyish spirits, perpetrated the crowning act of revolt and rebellion of his short life.