Rose of Old Harpeth

hed Rose Mary as she reached up on the stone shelf above her head and took down a large crusty loaf and a long

atch you, but it makes me slightly-solicitous." As he spoke he seated himself on the corner of the wide stone table as near to Rose Mary and the long knife

e further demande

e slices in a fascinatingly dangerous manner. At the intentness of his regard the color rose up under the lashes that veiled her eyes, a

p," he answered with a laugh.

ement your interest will be to me! Really, nothing in the world paces a woman's work like a man looking on, and if he doesn't stop her she'll d

use, which was fern-lined along the cracks of the old stones and mysterious with the trickling gurgle of the spring that flowed into the long stone troughs, around the milk crocks and out under the stone door-sill. From his post by the door Everett watched her as she drove her paddle deep into the hard golden mound in the blue bowl in front of her, and, with a quick turn of her strong, slender wrist

sted her hand for a second against the edge of the bowl and looked up at Eve

in bread and butters. "Here I sit enchanted by-by a butter-paddle, when you and I both know that not two miles across the meadows there runs a trai

paddle into a huge yellow sunflower. "Uncle Tucker captured you roaming loose out in his fields and he trusts you to me while h

ded Everett, preparing to

some more rocks and things? I feel sure you haven't got a sample of all of them. And there may be gold and silver and precious jewels just one inch deeper than you have dug. Are you cert

ere is no oil that I can discover, though the formation, as I explained to your uncle, is just as I expected to f

still on her task. "We don't any of us like the smell of coal-oil, and it gives Aunt Viney asthma. It

an a great deal of wea

Wouldn't it be awful if they should happen to drink some of the coal-oil and make the butter we send down to the city t

o the national craving. I will hold on to the illusion of having found one unmercenary human being, even if she had to be buried in the depths of Harpeth Valley to keep her so." There

get together even a little flock of dollars in prospect and they go right to work hatching out a brood of wants and needs; but it's not

w such teeth as you have in all my life. One flash o

d new set. I have eleven dollars now and two little bull calves to sell, though it breaks my heart to let them go, even if they are of the wrong persuasion. I always love them better than I do the little heifers, because I have to give them up. I don't like to have things I love go away. You see you mustn't think of going to New York until the spring is all over and summer comes for good,"

now and I'm wild to go with that gang the firm is sending up into British Columbia to thrash out that copper question. I

winged, old country house which had brooded the fortunes of the Alloways since the wilderness days. The spring which gushed from the back wall of the milk-house poured itself into a stone trough on the side of the Road, which had been placed there generations

up the Road, as it wound its way around Providence Nob, could be seen the chimneys and the roofs of Providence, while Springfield and Boliver also lay like smoke-wreathed visions in the distance. Something of the peace and plent

m next week, won't that help some?" And the wooing tone in her voice was exactly what she used in

ght-" But Everett's gallant response to the coaxing

nch and darted in under the milk-house eaves, while the Swarm drew up on the other bank in evident impatience. Swung bundle-wise under hi

er a fence, and now Uncle Tuck is a-burying of him up in the woods lot. Jest joggle her with your foot this way if she goes to cry." And in demonstration of his directions the General put one bare foot in the middle of the mite's back

laimed Rose Mary, while Everett regarded Stonewall

have got him buried in dirt up to jest his nose. Burying in dirt is the onliest thing that'll take off the smell. We comed to ask you to watch Shoofly while he's buried, cause Mis' Po

er little nose, turned up by nature in the outset, looked as if it were in danger of never again assuming its normal tilt. She held small Pete by one chubby hand, and with a wry face he was licking out an absurd little red tongue at least twice each moment, as if uncertain as to whether his olfactory or gustatory nerves had been offended. Billy was standing with the nonchalant unconcern of o

it best not to give way to in the face of the sympathetic Swarm, "you all must stay with Tobe, if he h

d by a groan from Peggy into the apron, while the area which showed above its folds tu

unt. You've got to go back, smell or no smell, sick or no sick," announced

and muffled tone from the ap

pleaded Jennie in almost a wail. "I'm afraid Pete will cry

ed Everett, with his eyes dancing, but a bit of mocke

ne of voice. "They always get girls when they don't want to do anything. Come on, Tob

e scene of offense he had made a quick sally across the plank that spanned the spring branch and with masculine intuition as to the s

leave him with me-he's just

. On the day of his birth Aunt Viney's choice for a name for the General had balanced for some hours between that of the redoubtable Abner the Valiant, of old Testament fame, and her favorite modern hero, Jackson of the stonewall na

tot's back and proceeded awkwardly, though with the best intentions in the world, to follow the General's directions as to pacification. Rose Mary laughed as she took a tin-cup from a nail in the wall, and filling it with milk from one of the crocks, she kn

d bobbed his head toward the milk crocks, while his solemn eyes conveyed his desire without words. Peter's vocabulary was both new and limited, and he was at all times extr

o sit in the door beside Shoofly at Everett's feet. With dignified deliberation Peter began to consume his draft in slow gulps, and after each one he lifted his eyes to Rose Mary's face as if rendering courteous appreciation for the consumed portion. His chubby fingers were clasped around her wrist as she he

is deep voice, "we'll dispense with the lilacs-they'r

u deserve them or not, I'm afraid it's inevitable," answered Rose Mary,

'm ashamed of having shown you any impatience at all-to think of impatience in this heaven co

her breast. Shoofly, who, true to her appellation, had been making funny little dabs of delight at a fly or two which had buzzed in her direction, had crawled nearer and burrowed her head under Rose Mary's knee, ro

fields? Don't happiness and hoe mean the same t

n at the end of the row, fortune to the first!" answe

ds it, and all come home at sundown together-and the women have the supper ready. That's the kind of hoeing I want you to do-please dig me up those teeth for Aunt Viney and I'll ha

other things may crop up or out. I am going to go over every acre of it carefully and find exactly what can be expected of it. There may be nothing of any value in a mineral way, but as I go I am going to make soil tests, and then put it all down on a complete map and figure

tten me a heedlessly exultant letter about it, and I was down and out and no strength left to fight. I was too weak to take it like a man, and couldn't make up my mind to cry like a woman, though I wanted to. Just as it was at its worst your Uncle Tucker appeared on the other side of the fence, and when he looked at me with those great, heaven-big eyes of his I fell over into his arms with a funny, help-has-come dying gasp. As you know, whe

nt Viney has snuffed away her asthma with jimson weed and got down on her pillow, and I have rubbed all her joints; when the General has said his prayers without stopping to argue in the middle, and Uncle Tucker has finished his chapter and pipe in bed without setting us all on f

to go out and hoe for you is all I a

ur land so Uncle Tucker can do better with it. We never seem to be able to make any more than just the mortgage interest, and what we'll

bered?" demanded Everett, with a quick frown showing betwe

s always, I think Stonie and I could stand it. They were born here and their roots strike deep and twine with the roots of every tree and bush at the Briars. Their graves are over there behind the stone wall, and all their joys and sorrows have come to them along Providence

" said Everett, quickly covering the sympathy that showed in his eyes with

pay." A rich crimson spread itself over Rose Mary's brow and cheeks and flooded down her white neck under the folds of her blue dress across her breast. Tears rose to her eyes, but she lifted her head proudly and looked him

e mortgage is for?" asked Everett,

ewsome would have loaned Uncle Tucker so much. He-he has been very kind to us. I-I am very grateful to him and I-" Rose Mary faltered

an inscrutable look in his eyes that finally faded again into the utter world weariness. "I see-and so the bargain and sale goes on even on Providence Ro

mforted eyes to Everett's. "I don't know how I'm going to manage, but somehow my cup of faith seems to get filled each day with t

e keen look still in his eyes. "See here, I want you to promise me something-don't e

uble clouds, and you brought this one down on yourself, didn't you? Of course, it's selfish and wrong to tell people about your anxieties, but there is just no other way to get so close to a friend. Don't