“Well, I’ll take the laziness out of him.  What do you suppose he was made for, if it was not to work?  As if he was goin’ to be took care of, and have me delve away all of my life, washin’ and makin’ over clothes for him, and he not work and pay for it.  There’s the cow to milk, and take to pasture, the garden to weed, and wood to prepare, besides the other errands, and how’s it all to be done, if you make a fine gentleman of him.  It’s askin’ enough to send him to school, without keepin’ him in idleness.  He was brought here to work, and I intend to see that he does it.”

“Why don’t you eat your breakfast, Johnny?” asked her husband.

“Because, I can’t,” replied the child, tears filling his eyes.  “I’m not hungry.”

“But I should think any little boy ought to be, that’s been out in this delightful morning air.  Eat your breakfast before you go to school.”

“Yes,” chimed in Mrs. Brier, “don’t leave anything on your plate, or I shall keep it for your dinner.  I never allow anything to be wasted in this house.  Here, take these nice, warmed potatoes, and don’t let me see you putting on any more airs.”

“I can’t,” persisted Johnny, “they are sour.”

“Don’t tell me that,” was the next remark, in warning accents.  “I’m as good a judge as you are, I reckon.  I say they ain’t sour.  Be they, Miss Graystone?”

If she had expected an affirmative reply to this question, she was doomed to disappointment.  Disgusted with such paltry meanness, Clemence, who had pushed her plate away, unable to partake of the stale food, replied quietly, “I should say they were decidedly sour.”

There was a moment’s disagreeable silence, during which Mr. and Mrs. Brier exchanged meaning glances across the table.  Then he hastened to say, “Of course, then, they must be, though I never detected it.  Wife, how came you to put them on the table?  I should think twenty bushels ought to last a family of three persons quite a while, especially with all the new ones we have had.”

“Of course,” she answered snappishly, “I didn’t know it, or I wouldn’t have used them.  Thank goodness! though, I ain’t so dainty as some I could mention.  If there’s anything I despise, it’s a person that’s so poor they can’t but just exist, putting on style over folks that can buy and sell them.”

“Just hear that, now,” said Mr. Brier, in a conciliatory tone, “you’ve got a sharp tongue in your head, Marthy; you don’t let anybody put you in your place, and keep you there easy, without they get a piece of your mind.  For my part, I like to see a woman independent.”

“It don’t matter much to me, Brier, what you do like and what you don’t,” said his lady, with a toss of her head, “I’m boss of my own house, and no man shall dictate to me, not if I know it.  You needn’t sneak, like any miserable cur, nor put on that smirk to cover up your own acts, though I ain’t afraid but what I can come out ahead, and fight my own battles, if you do show the white feather.  Where would you be to-day, I’d like to know, if I’d let you gone on with that overgrown tribe of your’n?  You know you’d never been worth a cent durin’ the whole of your natural life!”