“The doctor says most likely that was what killed him, after all, an’ you’d ought to know,” said the doctor’s wife.

“Be you sure?” said Deborah again.

“Ephraim wa’n’t to blame.  He never had no show; he never went a-slidin’ like the other little fellers,” said Caleb, suddenly, out of his corner; and he snivelled as he spoke.

Deborah turned on him sharply.  “Did you know anything about it?” said she.

“He told me on ’t that mornin’,” said Caleb; “he told me how he’d been a-slidin’, an’ how he eat some mince-pie.”

“Eat—­some—­mince-pie!” gasped Deborah, and there was a great light of hope in her face.

“Well,” said the doctor’s wife, “if that boy eat mince-pie, an’ slid down hill, too, I guess you ain’t much call to worry about anything you’ve done, Mis’ Thayer.  I know what the doctor has said right along.”

The doctor’s wife arose with a certain mild impressiveness, as if some mantle of her husband’s authority had fallen upon her.  She shook out her ample skirts as if they were redolent of rhubarb and mint.  “Well, I guess we had better be going,” said she, and her inflections were like the doctor’s.

Mrs. Ray rose also.  “Well, we thought you’d ought to know,” said she.

“I’m much obliged to you,” said Deborah.

She went through the kitchen with them.  When the door was shut behind them she turned to Caleb, who had shuffled along at her heels.  “Oh, father, why didn’t you tell me if you knew, why didn’t you tell me?” she gasped out.

Caleb stared at her.  “Why, mother?” he returned.

“Didn’t you know I thought I’d killed him, father? didn’t you know I thought I’d killed my son?  An’ now maybe I haven’t! maybe I haven’t!  O Lord, I thank thee for letting me know before I die!  Maybe I haven’t killed him, after all!”

“I didn’t s’pose it would make any difference,” said Caleb, helplessly.

Suddenly, to the old man’s great terror, his wife caught hold of him and clung to him.  He staggered a little; his arms hung straight at his sides.  “Why, what ails you, mother?” he stammered out.  “I didn’t tell you, ‘cause I thought you’d be blamin’ him for ’t.  Mother, don’t you take on so; now don’t!”

“I—­wish—­you’d go an’ get Rebecca an’ Barney, father,” said Deborah, faintly.  She suddenly wavered so that her old husband wavered with her, and they reeled back and forth like two old trees in a wind.

“Why, what ails you, mother, what ails you?” Caleb gasped out.  He caught Deborah’s arm, and clutched out at something to save himself.  Then they sank to the floor together.

Barney had just come up from the field, and was at his own door when his father came panting into the yard.  “What is it? what’s the matter?” he cried out.

“Mother’s fell!” gasped Caleb.

“Fell! has she hurt her?”

“Dunno—­she can’t get up; come quick!”

As Barney rushed out of the yard he cast a glance up the hill towards Charlotte’s house; in every crisis of his life his mind turned involuntarily to her, as if she were another self, to be made acquainted with all its exigencies.  But when he came out on the road he met Charlotte herself face to face; she had been over to her Aunt Sylvia’s.