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!"

"You're right there, Marthy," he answered again, meekly enough.

"Do you know, Miss Graystone, that I'd never had this two thousand
dollars, that I've managed to scrape together, if that smart, managing
woman of mine hadn't scrimped and saved beyond everything you ever saw.
'Taint every man that's got a treasure like mine, I can tell you."

And truly they had not, for it does not often fall to t