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Agnes was outwardly calm, but her real distraction did not escape Mrs. Kinney’s hawklike eyes.

"Well, I declare if you hain’t put the butter on in one o’ my blue chainy saucers! Now you know I don’t allow that saucer to be took down by nobody. I don’t see what’s got into yeh. Anybody’d s’pose you never see any comp’ny b’fore–wouldn’t they, Pa?"

"Sh’d say th’ would," said Pa, stopping short in a long story about Ed. "Seems if we couldn’t keep anything in this’ house sep’rit from the rest. Ed he uses my currycomb–"

He launched out a long list of grievances, which Will shut his ears to as completely as possible, and was thinking how to stop him, when there was a sudden crash. Agnes had dropped a plate.

"Good land o’ Goshen!" screamed Granny. "If you ain’t the worst I ever see. I’ll bet that’s my grapevine plate. If it is–well, of all the mercies, it ain’t! But it naight ‘a’ ben. I never see your beat–never! That’s the third plate since I came to live here. "

"Oh, look-a-here, Granny," said Will desperately. "Don’t make so much fuss about the plate. What’s it worth, anyway? Here’s a dollar. "

Agnes cried quickly:

"Oh, don’t do that, Will! It ain’t her pate. It’s my plate, and I can break every plate in the house if I want’o," she cried defiantly.

"’Course you can," Will agreed.

"Well, she can’t! Not while I’m around," put in Daddy. "I’ve helped to pay f’r them plates, if she does call ’em hern–"

"What the devul is all this row about? Agg, can’t you get along without stirring up the old folks everytime I’m out o’ the house?"

The speaker was Ed, now a tail and slouchily dressed man of thirty-two or -three; his face still handsome in a certain dark, cleanly cut style, but he wore a surly loo’k and lounged along in a sort of hangdog style, in greasy overalls and vest unbuttoned.

"Hello, Will! I heard you’d got home. John told me as I came along. "

They shook bands, and Ed slouched down on the lounge. Will could have kicked him for laying the blame of the dispute upon Agnes; it showed him in a flash just how he treated her. He disdained to quarrel; he simply silenced and dominated her.

Will asked a few questions about crops, with such grace as he could show, and Ed, with keen eyes in his face, talked easily and stridently.

"Dinner ready?" he asked of Agnes. "Where’s Pete?"

"He’s asleep. "

"All right. Let ‘im sleep. Well, let’s go out an’ set ‘up. Come, Dad, sling away that Bible and come to grub. Mother, what the devul are you sniffling at? Say, now, look here. If I hear any more about this row, I’ll simply let you walk down to meeting. Come, Will, set up. "

He led the way out into the little kitchen where the dinner was set.

"What was the row about? Hain’t been breakin’ some dish, Agg?"

"Yes, she has. "

"One o’ the blue ones?" winked Ed.

"No, thank goodness, it was a white one. "

"Well, now, I’ll git into that dod-gasted cubberd some day an’ break the whole eternal outfit. I ain’t goin’ to have this damned jawin’ goin’ on," he ended, brutally unconscious of his own "jawin’. "

After this the dinner proceeded in comparative silence, Agnes sobbing under breath. The room was small and very hot; the table was warped so badly that the dishes had a tendency to slide to the center; the walls were bare plaster grayed with time; the food was poor and scant, and the flies absolutely swarmed upon everything, like bees. Otherwise the room was clean and orderly.

"They say you’ve made a pile o’ money out West, Bill. I’m glad of it. We fellers back here don’t make anything. It’s a dam tight squeeze. Agg, it seems to me the flies are devilish thick today. Can’t you drive ’em out?" Agnes felt that she must vindicate herself a little. "I do drive ’em out, but they come right in again. The screen door is broken, and they come right in. "

"I told Dad to fix that door. "

"But he won’t do it for me. "

Ed rested his elbows on the table and fixed his bright black eyes on his father.