“Some folks are rooted so deep in old notions that they can’t see their own ideas over them,” declared Deborah.  Often when she cooked in her new stove she inveighed against Hannah Berry’s foolishness.

“If Hannah Berry wants to heat up a whole brick oven and work the whole forenoon to bake a loaf of cake, she can,” said she, as she put the pan of cake in the oven.  “Now, you watch this, Rebecca Thayer, and don’t you let it burn, and you get the potatoes ready for dinner.”

“Where are you going, mother?” asked Ephraim.

“I’m just goin’ to step out a little way.”

“Can’t I go too?”

“No; you set still.  You ain’t fit to walk this mornin’.  You know what the doctor told you.”

“It won’t hurt me any,” whined Ephraim.  There were times when the spirit of rebellion in him made illness and even his final demise flash before his eyes like sweet overhanging fruit, since they were so strenuously forbidden.

“You set still,” repeated his mother.  She tied on her own green sun-bonnet, stiffened with pasteboard, and went with it rattling against her ears across the fields to the one where her son was ploughing.  The grass was not wet, but she held her dress up high, showing her thick shoes and her blue yarn stockings, and took long strides.  Barney was guiding the plough past her when she came up.

“You stop a minute,” she said, authoritatively.  “I want to speak to you.”

“Whoa!” said Barney, and pulled up the horse.  “Well, what is it?” he said, gruffly, with his eyes upon the plough.

“You go this minute and set the men to work on your house again.  You leave the horse here—­I’ll watch him—­and go and tell Sam Plummer to come and get the other men.”

“G’lang!” said Barney, and the horse pulled the plough forward with a jerk.

Mrs. Thayer seized Barney’s arm.  “You stop!” said she.  “Whoa, whoa!  Now you look here, Barnabas Thayer.  I don’t know what you did to make Cephas Barnard order you out of the house, but I know it was something.  I ain’t goin’ to believe it was all about the election.  There was something back of that.  I ain’t goin’ to shield you because you’re my son.  I know jest how set you can be in your own ways, and how you can hang on to your temper.  I’ve known you ever since you was a baby; you can’t teach me anything new about yourself.  I don’t know what you did to make Cephas mad, but I know what you’ve got to do now.  You go and set the men to work on that house again, and then you go over to Cephas Barnard’s, and you tell him you’re sorry for what you’ve done.  I don’t care anything about Cephas Barnard, and if I’d had my way in the first place I wouldn’t have had anything to do with him or his folks either; but now you’ve got to do what’s right if you’ve gone as far as this, and Charlotte’s all ready to be married.  You go right along, Barnabas Thayer!”

Barnabas stood immovable, his face set past his mother, as irresponsively unyielding as a rock.