"I don't care if he makes pies out of burrs," returned Charlotte,
audibly, but her voice was quite even.

"I don't b'lieve but what sorrel would do some better than burrs,"
said her mother, "but he can't make pies without short'nin' nohow."

Cephas came out of the pantry with a large bowl of flour and a spoon.
"He 'ain't sifted it," Mrs. Barnard whispered to Charlotte, as though
Cephas were not there; then she turned to him. "You sifted the flour,
didn't you, Cephas?" said she.

"You jest let me alone," said Cephas, grimly. "I'm goin' to make
these pies, an' I don't need any help. I've picked the sorrel, an'
I've got the brick oven all heated, an' I know what I want to do, an'
I'm goin' to do it!"

"I've got some pumpkin that would make full as good pies as sorrel,
Cephas. Mebbe the sorrel will be real good. I ain't sayin' it won't,
though I never heard of sorrel pies; but you know pumpkin is good,
Cephas."

"I know pumpkin pies have milk in 'em," said Cephas; "an' I tell you
I ain't goin' to have anything of an animal nature in 'em. I've been
studyin' into it, an' thinkin' of it, an' I've made up my mind that
I've made a mistake along back, an' we've ate too much animal food.
We've ate a whole pig an' half a beef critter this winter, to say
nothin' of eggs an' milk, that are jest as much animal as meat,
accordin' to my way of thinkin'. I've reasoned it out all along that
as long as we were animals ourselves, an' wanted to strengthen
animal, that it was common-sense that we ought to eat animal. It
seemed to me that nature had so ordered it. I reasoned it out that
other animals besides man lived on animals, except cows, an' they,
bein' ruminatin' animals, ain't to be compared to men--"

"I should think we'd be somethin' like 'em if we eat that," said Mrs.
Barnard, pointing at the sorrel, with piteous sarcasm.

"It's the principle I'm thinkin' about," said Cephas. He stirred some
salt into the flour very carefully, so not a dust fell over the brim
of the bowl.

"Horses don't eat meat, neither, an' they don't chew their cuds,"
Mrs. Barnard argued further. She had never in her life argued with
Cephas; but sorrel pies, after the night before, made her wildly
reckless.

Cephas got a gourdful of water from the pail in the sink, and carried
it carefully over to the table. "Horses are the exception," he
returned, with dignified asperity. "There always are exceptions. What
I was comin' at was--I'd been kind of wron