"I found there was a pie cut, and I thought mother wouldn't mind if I took a leetle piece," he remarked, apologetically. He would never have dared take the pie without permission had his wife been at home. "She ain't goin' to be home till arter dinner-time, an' I began to feel kinder gone," added Caleb. He stood by the fire, and munched the pie with a relish slightly lessened by remorse. "Don't you want nothin'" he asked of Ephraim. "Mebbe a little piece of pie wouldn't hurt you none." Caleb's ideas of hygienic food were primitive. He believed, as innocently as if he had lived in Eden before the Prohibition, that all food which he liked was good for him, and he applied his theory to all mankind. He had deferred to Deborah's imperious will, but he had never been able to understand why she would not allow Ephraim to eat mince-pie or anything else which his soul loved and craved. "No, guess I don't," Ephraim replied. He gazed moodily out of the window. "Father," said he, suddenly. "What say, sonny?" "I eat some of that pie last night." "Mother give it to you?" "No; I clim up on the meal-bucket, an' got it in the night." "You might have fell, an' then I dunno what mother'd ha' said to you," said Caleb. "An' I did somethin' else." "What else did you do?" "I went out a-coastin' after you an' her was asleep." "You didn't, now?" "Yes, I did." "An' we didn't neither on us wake up?" "You was a-snorin' the whole time." "I don't s'pose you'd oughter have done it, Ephraim," said Caleb, and he tried to make his tone severe. "I never went a-coastin' in my whole life before," said Ephraim; "it ain't fair." "I dunno what mother 'd say if she was to find out about it," said Caleb, and he shook his head. "Ezra Ray was the only one that was out there, an' he said he wouldn't tell." "Well, mebbe he won't, mebbe he won't. I guess you most hadn't oughter gone unbeknownst to your mother, sonny." "Barney's sled jest beat Ezra's all holler." "It did, hey? That allers was a good sled," returned the old man, chuckling. Caleb went into the pantry again, and returned rattling a handful of corn. "Want a game of holly-gull?" he asked. "I've got a leetle time to spare now while mother's gone."