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. "Be you goin'?" Barnabas did not reply. His mother moved, and brought her eyes on a range with his, and the two faces confronted each other in silence, while it was as if two wills clashed swords in advance of them. Then Mrs. Thayer moved away. "I ain't never goin' to say anything more to you about it," she said; "but there's one thing--you needn't come home to dinner. You sha'n't ever sit down to a meal in your father's and mother's house whilst this goes on." "G'lang!" said Barnabas. The horse started, and he bent to the plough. His mother stepped homeward over the plough-ridges with stern unyielding steps, as if they were her enemies slain in battle. Just as she reached her own yard her husband drove in on a rattling farm cart. She beckoned to him, and he pulled the horse up short. "I've told him he needn't come home to dinner," she said, standing close to the wheel. Caleb looked down at her with a scared expression. "Well, I s'pose you know what's best, Deborah," he said. "If he can't do what's right he's got to suffer for it," returned Deborah. She went into the house, and Caleb drove clanking into the barn. Before dinner the old man stole off across lots, keeping well out of sight of the kitchen windows lest his wife should see him, and pleaded with Barnabas, but all in vain. The young man was more outspoken with his father, but he was just as firm. "Your mother's terrible set about it, Barney. You'd better go over to Charlotte's and make up." "I can't; it's all over," Barney said, in reply; and Caleb at length plodded soberly and clumsily home. After dinner he went out behind the barn, and Rebecca, going to feed the hens, found him sitting under the wild-cherry tree, fairly sobbing in his old red handkerchief. She went near him, and stood looking at him with restrained sympathy.