Chapter 4 MOONLIGHT AND APPLE-BLOW

"I hope you feel easy in your mind, child, now you've put this whole garden to bed and tucked 'em under cover, heads and all," said Uncle Tucker, as he spread the last bit of old sacking down over the end of the row of little sprouting bean vines. "When I look at the garden I'm half skeered to go in the house to bed for fear I haven't got a quilt to my joints."

"Now, honey sweet, you know better than that," answered Rose Mary as she rose from weighting down the end of a frilled white petticoat with a huge clod of earth and stretched it so as to cover quite two yards of the green shoots. "I haven't taken a thing of yours but two shirts and one of your last summer seersucker coats. I'm going to mend the split up the back in it for the wash Monday. Aunt Amandy lent me two aprons and a sack and a petticoat for the peony bushes, and Aunt Viney gave me this shawl and three chemises that cover all the pinks. I've taken all the tablecloths for the early peas, and Stonie's shirts, each one of them, have covered a whole lot of the poet's narcissus. All the rest of the things are my own clothes, and I've still got a clean dress for to-morrow. If I can just cover everything to-night, I won't be afraid of the frost any more. You don't want all the lovely little green things to die, do you, and not have any snaps or peas or peonies at all?"

"Oh, fly-away!" answered Uncle Tucker as he tucked in the last end of a nondescript frill over a group of tiny cabbage plants, "there's not even a smack of frost in the air! It's all in your mind."

"Well, a mind ought to be sensitive about covering up its friends from frost hurts," answered Rose Mary propitiatingly as she took a satisfied survey of the bedded garden, which looked like the scene of a disorganized washday. "Thank you, Uncle Tucker, for helping me-keep off the frost from my dreams, anyway. Don't you think-"

"Well, howdy, folks!" came a cheerfully interruptive hail from across the brick wall that separated the garden from the cinder walk that lay along Providence Road, which ran as the only street through Sweetbriar, and Caleb Rucker's long face presented itself framed in a wreath of budding rose briars that topped the wall in their spring growth. "Tenting up the garden sass ag'in, Miss Rose Mary?"

"No, we're jest giving all the household duds a mooning instead of a sunning, Cal," answered Uncle Tucker with a chuckle as he came over to the wall beside the visitor. "What's the word along the Road?"

"Gid Newsome have sent the news as he'll be here Sad'ay night to lay off and plow up this here dram or no-dram question for Sweetbriar voters, so as to tote our will up to the state house for us next election. As a state senator, we can depend on Gid to expend some and have notice taken of this district, if for nothing but his corn-silk voice and white weskit. It must take no less'n a pound of taller a week to keep them shoes and top hat of his'n so slick. I should jedge his courting to be kinder like soft soap and molasses, Miss Rose Mary." And Mr. Rucker's smile was of the saddest as he handed this bit of gentle banter over the wall to Rose Mary, who had come over to stand beside Uncle Tucker in the end of the long path.

"It's wonderful how devoted Mr. Newsome is to all his friends," answered Rose Mary with a blush. "He sent me three copies of the Bolivar Herald with the poem of yours he had them print last week, and I was just going over to take you and Mrs. Rucker one as soon as I got the time to-"

"Johnnie-jump-ups, Miss Rose Mary, don't you never do nothing like that to me!" exclaimed Mr. Rucker with a very fire of desperation lighting his thin face. "If Mis' Rucker was to see one verse of that there poetry I would have to plow the whole creek-bottom corn-field jest to pacify her. I've done almost persuaded her to hire Bob Nickols to do it with his two teams and young Bob, on account of a sciattica in my left side that plowing don't do no kind of good to. I have took at least two bottles of her sasparilla and sorgum water and have let Granny put a plaster as big and loud-smelling as a mill swamp on my back jest to git that matter of the corn-field fixed up, and here you most go and stir up the ruckus again with that poor little Trees in the Breeze poem that Gid took and had printed unbeknownst to me. Please, mam, burn them papers!"

"Oh, I wouldn't tell her for the world if you don't want me to, Mr. Rucker!" exclaimed Rose Mary in distress. "But I am sure she would be proud of-"

"No, it looks like women don't take to poetry for a husband; they prefers the hefting of a hoe and plow handles. It's hard on Mis' Rucker that I ain't got no constitution to work with, and I feel it right to keep all my soul-squirmings and sech outen her sight. The other night as I was a-putting Petie to bed, while she and Bob was at the front gate a-trying to trade on that there plowing, a mighty sweet little verse come to me about

"'The little shoes in mother's hand

Nothing like 'em in the land,'

and the tears was in my eyes so thick 'cause I didn't have nobody to say 'em to that one dropped down on Pete and made him think I was a-going to wash his face, and sech another ruckus as she had to come in to, as mad as hops! If I feel like it, I'm a-going to clean every weed outen the garden for her next week to try and make up to her for-"

"Aw, Mr. Rucker, M-i-s-t-e-r Rucker, come home to get ready for supper," came in a loud, jovial voice that carried across the street like the tocsin of a bass drum. The Rucker home sat in a clump of sugar maples just opposite the Briars, and was square, solid and unadorned of vine or flower. A row of bright tin buckets hung along the picket fence that separated the yard from the store enclosure, and rain-barrels sat under the two front gutters with stolid practicability, in contrast to the usual relegation of such store-houses of the rainfall to the back of the house and the planting of ferns and water plants under the front sprouts, as was the custom from the beginning of time in Sweetbriar. Mrs. Rucker in a clean print dress and with glossy and uncompromisingly smoothed hair stood at the newly whitewashed front gate. "Send him on home, Rose Mary, or grass'll grow in his tracks and yours, too, if he can hold you long enough," she added by way of badinage.

"I'm a-coming, Sally, right on the minute," answered the poet-by-stealth, and he hurried across the street with hungry alacrity. The poem-maker was tall and loose-jointed, and the breadth of his shoulders and long muscular limbs decidedly suggested success at the anvil or field furrow. He made a jocular pass at placing his arm around the uncompromising waist-line of his portly wife, and when warded off by an only half-impatient shove he contented himself by winding one of her white apron strings around one of his long fingers as they leaned together over the gate for further parley with the Alloways across the road.

"When did you get back, Mrs. Rucker?" asked Rose Mary interestedly, as she rested her arms on the wall and Uncle Tucker planted himself beside her, having brushed away one of the long briar shoots to make room for them both.

"About two hours ago," answered Mrs. Rucker. "I found everybody in fine shape up at Providence, and Mis' Mayberry sent Mr. Tucker a new quinzy medicine that Tom wrote back to her from New York just day before yesterday. I made a good trade in hogs with Mr. Hoover for myself and Bob Nickols, too. Mr. Petway had a half-barrel of flour in his store he were willing to let go cheap, and I bought it for us and you-all and the Poteets. Me and you can even up on that timothy seed with the flour, Mr. Tucker, and I'm just a-going to give a measure to the Poteets as a compliment to that new Poteet baby, which is the seventh mouth to feed on them eighty-five acres. I've set yeast for ourn and your rolls for to-morrow, tell your Aunt Mandy, Rose Mary, and I brought that copy of the Christian Advocate for your Aunt Viney that she lost last month. Mis' Mayberry don't keep hern, but spreads 'em around, so was glad to let me have this one. I asked about it before I had got my bonnet-strings untied. Yes, Cal, I'm a-going on in to give you your supper, for I expect I'll find the children's and Granny's stomicks and backbones growing together if I don't hurry. That's one thing Mr. Satterwhite said in his last illness, he never had had to wait-yes, I'm coming, Granny," and with the encomium of the late Mr. Satterwhite still unfinished Mrs. Rucker hurried up the front path at the behest of a high, querulous old voice issuing from the front windows.

"Well, there's no doubt about it, no finer woman lives along Providence Road than Sallie Rucker, Marthy Mayberry and Selina Lue Lovell down at the Bluff not excepted, to say nothing of Rose Mary Alloway standing right here in the midst of my own sweet potato vines," said Uncle Tucker reflectively as he glanced at the retreating figure of his sturdy neighbor, which was followed by that of the lean and hungry poet.

"Yes, she's wonderful," answered Rose Mary enthusiastically, "but-but I wish she had just a little sympathy for-for poetry. If a husband sprouts little spirit wings under his shoulders it's a kind thing for his wife not to pick them right out alive, isn't it? When I get a husband-"

"When you get a husband, Rose Mary, I hope he'll hump his shoulders over a plow-line the number of hours allotted for a man's work and then fly poetry kites off times and only when the wind is right," answered Uncle Tucker with a quizzical smile in his big eyes and a quirk at the corner of his mouth.

"But I'm going always to admire the kites anyway, even if they don't fly," answered Rose Mary with the teasing lift of her long lashes up at him. "Maybe just a woman's puff might start a man's kite sky high that couldn't get off right without it. You can't tell."

"Yes, child," answered Uncle Tucker as he looked into the dark eyes level with his own with a sudden tenderness, "and you never fail to start off all kites in your neighborhood. When I took you as a bundle of nothing outen Brother John's arms nearly thirty years ago this spring jest a perky encouraging little smile in your blue eyes started my kite that was a-trailing weary like, and it's sailed mostly by your wind ever since-especially these last few years. Don't let the breeze give out on me yet, child."

"It never will, old sweetie," answered Rose Mary as she took Uncle Tucker's lean old hand in hers and rubbed her cheek against the sleeve of his rough farm coat. "Is the interest of the mortgage ready for this quarter?" she asked quietly in almost a whisper, as if afraid to disturb some listening ear with a private matter.

"It lacks more than a hundred," answered Uncle Tucker in just as quiet a voice, in which a note of pain sounded plainly. "And this is not the first time I have fallen behind with Newsome, either. The repairs on the plows and the food chopper for the barn have cost a good deal, and the coal bill was large this winter. Sometimes, Rose Mary, I-I am afraid to look forward to the end. Maybe if I was younger it would be different and I could pay the debt, but I am afraid-if it wasn't for your aunts, looks like you and I could let it go and make our way somewhere out in the world beyond the Ridge, but they are older than us and we must keep their home as long as we can for 'em. Maybe in a few years-Newsome won't press me, I'm mighty sure. Do you think you can help me hold on for 'em? I don't matter."

"We'll never let it go, Uncle Tuck, never!" answered Rose Mary passionately as she pressed her cheek closer to his arm. "I don't know why I know, but we are going to have it as long as they-and you, you need it-and I'm going to die here myself," she added with a laughing sob as she shook two tears out of her lashes and looked up at him with adorning stars in her eyes.

"It's as He wills, daughter," answered Uncle Tucker quietly as he laid a tender hand on the dark braids resting against his shoulder. "It isn't wrong for us to go on keeping it if we can jest pay the interest to our friend-pay it to the day. That is the only thing that troubles me. We must not fall behind and-"

"Oh, but honey-sweet, let me tell you, let me tell you!" exclaimed Rose Mary with shining eyes, "I've got just lots of money, more than twenty dollars, nearly twice more. I've saved it just in case we did need it for this or-or-or any other thing," she added hastily, not willing to disclose her tooth project even to Uncle Tucker's sympathetic ear.

Uncle Tucker's large eyes brightened with relief for a second and then clouded with a mist of tears.

"What were you saving it for, child?" he asked with a quaver in his sweet old voice, and his hand clasped hers more closely. "You don't ever have what pretty women like you want and need, and that's what grinds down on me most hardest of all. You are young and-and mighty beautiful, and looks like it's wrong for you to lay down yourself for us who are a good long way on the other side of life's ridge. I ought to send you back across the hills to-to find your own-no matter what happens!"

"Try it!" answered Rose Mary, again lifting her star eyes to his. "I was saving that money to buy Aunt Viney a set of teeth that she thinks she wants, but I know she couldn't use them when she gets them. If I'm as beautiful as you say, isn't this blue homespun of great Grandmother Alloways, made over twentieth century style, adornment enough? Some people-that is, some one-Mr. Mark said this morning it was-was chic, which means most awfully stylish. I've got one for my back and one for the tub all out of the same old blue bed-spread, and a white linen marvel contrived from a pair of sheets for Sunday. Please don't send me out into the big world-other people might not think me as lovely as you do," and her raillery was most beautifully dauntless.

"The Lord bless you and keep you and make the sun to shine upon you, flower of His own Kingdom," answered Uncle Tucker with a comforted smile breaking over his wistful old face. "I had mighty high dreams about you when that young man talked his oil-wells to me a month ago, and I wanted my rose to do some of her flowering for the world to see, but maybe-maybe-"

"She'll flower best here, where her roots go down into Sweetbriar hearts-and Sweetbriar prayers, Uncle Tucker; she knows that's true, and so do you," answered Rose Mary quickly. "And anyway, Mr. Mark is making the soil survey for you, and if we follow his directions there is no telling what we will make next year, maybe the interest and some of the money, too, and the teeth and-and a sky-blue silk robe for me-if that's what you'd like to see me wear, though it would be inconvenient with the milking and the butter and-"

"Tucker, oh Brother Tucker!" came a call across the garden fence from the house, in a weak but commanding voice, and Rose Mary caught a glimpse of Miss Lavinia's white mob cap bobbing at the end of the porch, "that is in Proverbs tenth and nineteenth, and not nineteenth and tenth, like you said. You come right in here and get it straight in your head before the next sun sets on your ignorance."

"Fly-away!" exclaimed Uncle Tucker, "now Sister Viney's never going to forgive me that Bible slip-up if I don't persuade her from now on till supper. But there is nothing more for you to do out here, Rose Mary, the sun'll put out the light for you," and he hurried away down the path and through the garden gate.

Rose Mary remained leaning over the garden wall, looking up and down the road with interest shining in her eyes and a laugh and nod for the neighbors who were hurrying supperward or stopping to talk with one another over fences and gates. A group of men and boys stood and sat on the porch in front of the store, and their big voices rang out now and again with hearty merriment at some exchange of wit or clever bit of horse-play. Two women stood in deep conclave over by the Poteet gate, and the subject of the council was a small bundle of flannel and lawn displayed with evident pride by a comely young woman in a pink calico dress. Seeing Rose Mary at the wall, they both smiled and started in her direction, the bearer of the bundle stepping carefully across the ditch at the side of the walk.

"Lands alive, Rose Mary, you never did see nothing as pretty as this last Poteet baby," exclaimed Mrs. Plunkett enthusiastically. "The year before last one, let me see, weren't that Evelina Virginia, Mis' Poteet? Yes, Evelina Virginia was mighty pretty, but this one beats her. I declare, if you was to fail us with these spring babies, Mis' Poteet, it would be a disappointment to the whole of Sweetbriar. Come next April it will be seven without a year's break, astonishing as it do sound."

"It would be as bad as the sweetbriar roses not blooming, Mrs. Poteet," laughed Rose Mary as she held out her arms for the bundle which cuddled against her breast in a woman-maddening fashion that made her clasp the mite as close as she dared.

"Yes, I tell you, seven hand-running is enough for any woman to be proud of, Mis' Poteet, and it ought to be taken notice of. Have you heard the news of the ten acres of bottom land to be given to him, Rose Mary? That's what all the men are a-joking of Mr. Poteet about over there at the store now. They are a-going to make out the deed to-night. They bought the land from Bob Nickols right next to Mr. Poteet's, crops and all, ten acres of the best land in Sweetbriar. I call it a nice compliment. 'To Tucker Poteet, from Sweetbriar, is to go right in the deed."

"'Tucker Poteet,' oh, Mrs. Poteet, have you named him for Uncle Tucker?" exclaimed Rose Mary with beaming eyes, and the rapture of her embrace was only modified by a slight squirm from the young heir of all Sweetbriar.

"Well, I had had that name in my mind from the first if he come a boy, but when Mr. Poteet got down to the store for some tansy, when he weren't a hour old, he found all the men-folks had done named him that for us, and it looked like we didn't have the chance to pass the compliment. We ain't told you-all nothing about it, for they all wanted Mr. Tucker to read it in the deed first."

"And ain't them men a-going to have a good time when they give Mr. Tucker that deed to read? Looks like, even if it is some trouble, you couldn't hardly begrudge Sweetbriar these April babies, Mis' Poteet," said Mrs. Plunkett in a consoling voice.

"Law, Mis' Plunkett, I don't mind it one bit. It ain't a mite of trouble to me to have 'em," answered the mother of the seven hardily. "You all are so kind to help me out all the time with everything. Course we are poor, but Jim makes enough to feed us, and every single child I've got is by fortune, just a hand-down size for somebody else's children. Five of 'em just stair-steps into clothes of Mis' Rucker's four, and Mis' Nickols saves me all of Bob's things to cut down, so I never have a mite of worry over any of 'em."

"Yes, I reckon maybe the worry spread over seven don't have a chanct to come to a head on any one of 'em," said Mrs. Plunkett thoughtfully, and her shoulders began to stoop dejectedly as a perturbed expression dawned into her gray eyes. "Better take him on home now, Mis' Poteet, for sundown is house-time for babies in my opinion. Hand him over, Rose Mary!"

Thus admonished, with a last, clinging embrace, Rose Mary delivered young Tucker to his mother, who departed with him in the direction of the Poteet cottage over beyond the milk-house.

"Is anything worrying you, Mrs. Plunkett? Can I help?" asked Rose Mary as her neighbor lingered for a moment and glanced at her with wistful eyes. Mrs. Plunkett was small, though round, with mournful big eyes and clad at all times in the most decorous of widow's weeds, even if they were of necessity of black calico on week days. Soft little curls fell dejectedly down over her eyes and her red mouth defied a dimple that had been wont to shine at the left corner, and kept to confines of straight-lipped propriety.

"It's about Louisa Helen again and her light-mindedness. I don't see how a daughter of mine can act as she does with such a little feeling. Last night Mr. Crabtree shut up the store before eight o'clock and put on his Sunday coat to come over and set on the front steps a-visiting of her, and in less'n a half hour that Bob Nickols had whistled for her from the corner, and she stood at the front gate talking to him until every light in Sweetbriar was put out, and I know it muster been past nine o'clock. And there I had to set a-trying to distract Mr. Crabtree from her giggling. We talked about Mr. Plunkett and all our young days and I felt real comforted. If I can jest get Louisa Helen to see what a proper husband Thomas Crabtree will make for her we can all settle down comfortable like. He wants her bad, from all the signs I can see."

"But-but isn't Louisa Helen a little young for-" began Rose Mary, taking what seemed a reasonable line of consolation.

"No, she's not too young to marry," answered her mother with spirit. "Louisa Helen is eighteen years old in May, and I was married to Mr. Plunkett before my eighteenth birthday. He was twenty-one, and I treated him with proper respect, too. I never said no such foolish things as Louisa Helen says to that Nickols boy, even to Mr. Crabtree, hisself."

"Oh, please don't worry about Louisa Helen, Mrs. Plunkett. She is just so lovely and young-and happy. You and I both know what it is to be like that. Sometimes I feel as if she were just my own youngness that I had kept pressed in a book and I had found it when I wasn't looking for it." And Rose Mary's smile was so very lovely that even Mrs. Plunkett was dazzled to behold.

"Lands alive, Rose Mary, you carry your thirty years mighty easy, and that's no mistake. You put me in mind of that blush peony bush of yourn by the front gate. When it blooms it makes all the other flowers look like they was too puny to shake out a petal. And for sheep's eyes, them glances Mr. Gid Newsome casts at you makes all of Bob Nickols' look like foolish lamb squints. And for what Mr. Mark does in the line of sheeps-Now there they come, and I can see from Louisa Helen's looks she have invited that rampage in to supper. I'll have to hurry on over and knock up a extra sally-lunn for him, I reckon. Good-by 'til morning!" And Mrs. Plunkett hurried away to the preparation of supper for the suitor of her disapproval.

For a few moments longer Rose Mary let her eyes go roaming out over the valley that was lying in a quiet hush of twilight.

Lights had flashed up in the windows over the village and a night breeze was showering down a fall of apple-blow from the gnarled old tree that stood like a great bouquet beside the front steps of the Briars. All the orchards along the Road were in bloom and a fragrance lay heavy over the pastures and mingled with the earth scent of the fields, newly upturned by the plowing for spring wheat.

"Is that a regiment you've got camping in the garden, Rose Mary?" asked Everett as he came up the front walk in the moonlight some two hours later and found Rose Mary seated on the top of the front steps, all alone, with a perfectly dark and sleep-quiet house behind her.

Rose Mary laughed and tossed a handful of the pink blow she had gathered over his shoulder. "Did you have your supper at Bolivar?" she asked solicitously. "I saved you some; want it?"

"Yes, I had a repast at the Citizens', but I think I can manage yours an hour or two later," answered Everett as he seated himself beside her and lighted a cigar, from which he began to puff rings out into the moonlight that sifted down on to them through the young leaves of the bloom-covered old tree. "You weren't afraid of frost such a night as this, were you?" he further inquired, as he took a deep breath of the soft, perfume-laden air.

"I'm not now, but a cool breeze blew up about sundown and made me afraid for my garden babies. Now I'm sure they will all wilt under their covers, and you'll have to help me take them all off before you go to bed. Isn't it strange how loving things make you afraid they will freeze or wilt or get wet or cold or hungry?" asked Rose Mary with such delightful ingenuousness that a warm little flush rose up over Everett's collar. "Loving just frightens itself, like children in the dark," she added musingly.

"And you saved my supper for me?" asked Everett softly.

"Of course I did; didn't you know I would?" asked Rose Mary quickly, in her simplicity of heart not at all catching the subtle drift of his question. "They all missed you, and Uncle Tucker went to bed almost grumpy, while Stonie-"

"Rose Mamie," came in a sleepy but determined voice as the General in a long-tailed nightshirt appeared in the dark doorway, "I went to sleep and you never came back to hear me pray. Something woke me; maybe the puppy in my bed or maybe God. I'll come out there and say 'em so you won't wake the puppy, because he's goned back to sleep," he added in a voice that was hushed to a tone of extreme consideration for the slumber of his young bedfellow.

"Yes, honey-heart, come say them here. Mr. Mark won't mind. I came back, Stonie, to hear them, truly I did, but you were so fast to sleep and so tired I hated to wake you." And Rose Mary held out tender arms to the little chap who came and knelt on the floor at her side, between her and Everett.

"But, Rose Mamie, you know Aunt Viney says tired ain't no 'scuse to the Lord, and I don't think it are neither. I reckon He's tired, too, sometimes, but He don't go back on the listening, and I ain't a-going to go back on the praying. It wouldn't be fair. Now start me!" and having in a completely argumentative way stated his feelings on the subject of neglected prayer, the General buried his head on Rose Mary's shoulder, folded one bare, pink foot across the other, clasped his hands at proper angle and waited.

"Now I lay me," began Rose Mary in a low and tender tone.

"No," remonstrated Stonie in a smothered voice from her shoulder, "this is 'Our Father' week! Don't tire out the Lord with the 'Now I lay me,' Rose Mamie!"

With an exclamation of regret Rose Mary clasped him closer and led the petition on through to its last word, though it was with difficulty that the sleepy General reached his Amen, his will being strong but his flesh weak. The little black head burrowed under Rose Mary's chin and the clasped pink feet relaxed before the final words were said. For a few minutes Rose Mary held him tenderly and buried her face against the back of the sunburned little neck, while as helpless as young Tucker Stonie wilted upon her breast and floated off into the depths. And for still a few seconds longer Everett sat very still and watched them with a curious gleam in his eyes and his teeth set hard in his cigar; then he rose, bent over and very tenderly lifted the relaxed General in his arms and without a word strode into the house with him. Very carefully he laid him in the little cot that stood beside Rose Mary's bed in her room down the hall, and with equal care he settled the little dog against the bare, briar-scratched feet, returned to the moonlight porch and resumed his seat at Rose Mary's side.

"There is something about the General," he remarked with a half smile, "that-that gets next. He has a moral fiber that I hope he will be able to keep resistent to its present extent, but I doubt it."

"Oh," said Rose Mary, quickly looking up with pierced, startled eyes, "he must keep it-he must; it is the only hope for him. Tell me if you can how to help him keep it. Help me help him!"

"Forgive me," answered Everett in quick distress. "I was only scoffing, as usual. He'll keep what you give him, never fear, Rose Mary; he's honor bound."

"Yes, that's what I want him to be-'honor bound.' You don't know about him, but to-night I want to tell you, because I somehow feel you love him-and us-and maybe if you know, some day you will help him. Just after I came back into the Valley and found them all so troubled and-and disgraced, something came to me I thought I couldn't stand. Always it seemed to me I had loved him, my cousin, Uncle Tucker's son, and I thought-I thought he had loved me. But when he went out into the world one of the village girls, Granny Satterwhite's daughter, had followed him and-yes, she had been his wife for all the time we thought she was working in the city. They had been afraid-afraid of Uncle Tucker and me-to acknowledge it. She was foolish and he criminally weak. After his-his tragedy she came back-and nobody would believe-that she was his wife. I found her lying on the floor in the milk-house and though I was hurt, and hard, I took her into my room-and in a few hours Stonie was born. When they gave him to me, so little and helpless, the hurt and hardness all melted for ever, and I believed her and forgave her and him. I never rested until I made him come back, though it was just to die. She stayed with us a year-and then she married Todd Crabtree and moved West. They didn't want Stonie, so she gave him to me. When my heart ached so I couldn't stand it, there was always Stonie to heal it. Do you think that heartaches are sometimes just growing pains the Lord sends when He thinks we have not courage enough?" And in the moonlight Rose Mary's tear-starred eyes gleamed softly and her lovely mouth began to flower out into a little smile. The sunshine of Rose Mary's nature always threw a bow through her tears against any cloud that appeared on her horizon.

"I don't believe your heart ever needed any growing pains, Rose Mary, and I resent each and every one," answered Everett in a low voice, and he lifted one of Rose Mary's strong slim hands and held it close for a moment in both his warm ones.

"Oh, but it did," she answered, curling her fingers around his like a child grateful for a caress. "I was romantic-and-and intense, and I thought of it as a castle for-for just one. Now it's grown into a wide, wing-spreading, old country house in Harpeth Valley, with vines over the gables and doves up under the eaves. And in it I keep sunshiny rooms to shelter all the folks in need that my Master sends. Yours-is on the south side-corner-don't you want your supper now?"

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