“Put on your cap!” Deborah called after him.

She laid off her many wraps, her hood and veil, and mufflers and shawls, folded them carefully, and carried them into her bedroom, to be laid in her bureau drawers.  Deborah was very orderly and methodical.

“Did you take your medicine?” she asked Ephraim as she went out of the room.

“Yes, ma’am,” said he.  He did not feel nearly as well; he kept his face turned from his mother.  Ephraim was accustomed to complain freely, but now the coasting and the mince-pie had made him patient.  He was quite sure that his bad feelings were due to that, and suppose his mother should suspect and ask him what he had been doing!  He was also terrified by the thought of the holly-gull and her unfulfilled order about the apple-paring.  He sat very still; his heart shook his whole body, which had grown thin lately.  He looked very small, in spite of his sturdy build.

Deborah was gone quite a while; she had left some work unfinished in her bedroom that morning.  Caleb returned before she did, and pulled up a chair close to the fire.  He was holding his reddened fingers out towards the blaze to warm them when Deborah came in.

She looked at him, then around the room, inquiringly.

“Where did you put the apples?” said she to Caleb.

Caleb stared around at her.  “What apples, mother?” he asked, feebly.

“The apples I left for you to pare.  I want to put ’em on before I get dinner.”

“I ain’t heard nothin’ about apples, mother.”

“Ain’t you pared any apples this forenoon?”

“I didn’t know as you wanted any pared, mother.”

Deborah turned fiercely on Ephraim.

“Ephraim Thayer, look here!” said she.  Ephraim turned his poor blue face slowly; his breath came shortly between his parted lips; he clapped one hand to his side.  “Didn’t you tell your father to pare them apples, the way I told you to?” she demanded.

Ephraim dropped his chin lower.

“Answer me!”

“No, ma’am.”

“What have you been a-doin’ of?”

“Playin’.”

“Playin’ what?”

“Holly-gull.”

Deborah stood quite still for a moment.  Her mouth tightened; she grew quite pale.  Ephraim and Caleb watched her.  Deborah strode across the room, out into the shed.

“I guess she won’t say much; don’t you be scared, Ephraim,” whispered Caleb.

But Ephraim, curious to say, did not feel scared.  Suddenly his mother seemed to have lost all her terrifying influence over him.  He felt very strange, and as if he were sinking away from it all through deep abysses.

His mother came back, and she held a stout stick in her right hand.  Caleb gasped when he saw it.  “Mother, you ain’t goin’ to whip him?” he cried out.

“Father, you keep still!” commanded Deborah.  “Ephraim, you come with me!”

She led the way into Ephraim’s little bedroom, and he stumbled up and followed her.  He saw the stick before him in his mother’s hand; he knew she was going to whip him, but he did not feel in the least disturbed or afraid.  Ezra Ray could not have faced a whipping any more courageously than Ephraim.  But he staggered as he went, and his feet met the floor with strange shocks, since he had prepared his steps for those deep abysses.