Then his son's face suddenly confronted his, and he stopped talking and stood back.
Almost involuntarily at times Silas Berry yielded to the combination of mental and superior physical force in his son.

While his own mind had lost nothing of its vigor, his bodily weakness made him distrustful of it sometimes, when his son towered over him in what seemed the might of his own lost strength and youth, brandishing his own old weapons.
William tied up the sugar neatly; then he took the eggs from Rebecca's basket, and put the parcel in their place.

Silas began lifting the eggs from the box in which William had put them, and counted them eagerly.
"There ain't but twenty-three eggs here," he called out, as Rebecca and Rose turned away, and William was edging after them from behind the counter.
"I thought there were two dozen," Rebecca responded, in a distressed voice.
"Of course there are two dozen," said Rose, promptly.

"You 'ain't counted 'em right, father.

Go along, Rebecca; it's all right." "I tell ye it ain't," said Silas.