“I don’t see how you can,” assented Charlotte, coldly.

Cephas went with a sudden stride towards the pantry.  “I’ll make ’em myself, then,” he cried.

Mrs. Barnard gasped, and looked piteously at her daughter.  “What you goin’ to do, Cephas?” she asked, feebly.

Cephas was in the pantry rattling the dishes with a fierce din.  “I’m a-goin’ to make them sorrel pies myself,” he shouted out, “if none of you women folks know enough to.”

“Oh, Cephas, you can’t!”

Cephas came out, carrying the mixing-board and rolling-pin like a shield and a club; he clapped them heavily on to the table.

Mrs. Barnard stood staring aghast at him; Charlotte sat down, took some lace edging from her pocket, and began knitting on it.  She looked hard and indifferent.

“Oh, Charlotte, ain’t it dreadful?” her mother whispered, when Cephas went into the pantry again.

“I don’t care if he makes pies out of burrs,” returned Charlotte, audibly, but her voice was quite even.

“I don’t b’lieve but what sorrel would do some better than burrs,” said her mother, “but he can’t make pies without short’nin’ nohow.”

Cephas came out of the pantry with a large bowl of flour and a spoon.  “He ’ain’t sifted it,” Mrs. Barnard whispered to Charlotte, as though Cephas were not there; then she turned to him.  “You sifted the flour, didn’t you, Cephas?” said she.

“You jest let me alone,” said Cephas, grimly.  “I’m goin’ to make these pies, an’ I don’t need any help.  I’ve picked the sorrel, an’ I’ve got the brick oven all heated, an’ I know what I want to do, an’ I’m goin’ to do it!”

“I’ve got some pumpkin that would make full as good pies as sorrel, Cephas.  Mebbe the sorrel will be real good.  I ain’t sayin’ it won’t, though I never heard of sorrel pies; but you know pumpkin is good, Cephas.”

“I know pumpkin pies have milk in ’em,” said Cephas; “an’ I tell you I ain’t goin’ to have anything of an animal nature in ’em.  I’ve been studyin’ into it, an’ thinkin’ of it, an’ I’ve made up my mind that I’ve made a mistake along back, an’ we’ve ate too much animal food.  We’ve ate a whole pig an’ half a beef critter this winter, to say nothin’ of eggs an’ milk, that are jest as much animal as meat, accordin’ to my way of thinkin’.  I’ve reasoned it out all along that as long as we were animals ourselves, an’ wanted to strengthen animal, that it was common-sense that we ought to eat animal.  It seemed to me that nature had so ordered it.  I reasoned it out that other animals besides man lived on animals, except cows, an’ they, bein’ ruminatin’ animals, ain’t to be compared to men—­”

“I should think we’d be somethin’ like ’em if we eat that,” said Mrs. Barnard, pointing at the sorrel, with piteous sarcasm.

“It’s the principle I’m thinkin’ about,” said Cephas.  He stirred some salt into the flour very carefully, so not a dust fell over the brim of the bowl.