Cephas took the rolling-pin and brought it heavily down upon the sticky mass on the board.  Sarah shuddered and started as if it had hit her.  “Now, if we can’t eat animal food,” said Cephas, “what other kind of food can we eat?  There ain’t but one other kind that’s known to man, an’ that’s vegetable food, the product of the earth.  An’ that’s of two sorts:  one gets ripe an’ fit to eat in the fall of the year, an’ the other comes earlier in the spring an’ summer.  Now, in order to carry out the plans of nature, we’d ought to eat these products of the earth jest as near as we can in the season of ’em.  Some had ought to be eat in the fall an’ winter, an’ some in the spring an’ summer.  Accordin’ to my reasonin’, if we all lived this way we should be a good deal better off; our spiritual natures would be strengthened, an’ we should have more power over other animals, an’ better dispositions ourselves.”

“I’ve seen horses terribly ugly, an’ they don’t eat a mite of meat,” said Sarah, with tremulous boldness.  Her right hand kept moving forward to clutch the rolling-pin, then she would draw it back.

“’Ain’t I told ye once horses were the exceptions?” said Cephas, severely.  “There has to be exceptions.  If there wa’n’t any exceptions there couldn’t be any rule, an’ there bein’ exceptions shows there is a rule.  Women can’t ever get hold of things straight.  Their minds slant off sideways, the way their arms do when they fling a stone.”

Cephas brought the rolling-pin down upon the paste again with fierce impetus.  “You’ll break it,” Sarah murmured, feebly.  Cephas brought it down again, his mouth set hard; his face showed a red flush through his white beard, the veins on his high forehead were swollen and his brows scowling.  The paste adhered to the rolling-pin; he raised it with an effort; his hands were helplessly sticky.  Sarah could restrain herself no longer.  She went into the pantry and got a dish of flour, and spooned out some suddenly over the board and Cephas’s hands.  “You’ve got to have some more flour,” she said, in a desperate tone.

Cephas’s black eyes flashed at her.  “I wish you would attend to your own work, an’ leave me alone,” said he.  But at last he succeeded in moving the rolling-pin over the dough as he had seen his wife move it.

“He ain’t greasin’ the pie-plates,” said Sarah, as Cephas brought a piece of dough with a dexterous jerk over a plate; “there ain’t much animal in the little mite of lard it takes to grease a plate.”

Cephas spread handfuls of sorrel leaves over the dough; then he brought the molasses-jug from the pantry, raised it, and poured molasses over the sorrel with an imperturbable air.

Sarah watched him; then she turned to Charlotte.  “To think of eatin’ it!” she groaned, quite openly; “it looks like p’ison.”

Charlotte made no response; she knitted as one of the Fates might have spun.  Sarah sank down on a chair, and looked away from Cephas and his cookery, as if she were overcome, and quite done with all remonstrance.