Rose of Old Harpeth

all," said Uncle Tucker, as he spread the last bit of old sacking down over the end of the row of little sprouting bean v

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

d of a nondescript frill over a group of tiny cabbage plants, "th

tiatingly as she took a satisfied survey of the bedded garden, which looked like the scene of a disorganized

that lay along Providence Road, which ran as the only street through Sweetbriar, and Caleb Rucker's long face presented itself frame

a sunning, Cal," answered Uncle Tucker with a chuckle as he came ov

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

h. "He sent me three copies of the Bolivar Herald with the poem of yours he had them print las

y 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 plas

't want me to, Mr. Rucker!" exclaimed Rose Mary 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-p

e shoes in

ke 'em in

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! I

ng 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 w

d 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 on

rested her arms on the wall and Uncle Tucker planted himself beside her,

he 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

n 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 Uncl

ttle sympathy for-for poetry. If a husband sprouts little spirit wings under his shoulders it'

ours allotted for a man's work and then fly poetry kites off times and only when the wind is right,"

e Mary with the teasing lift of her long lashes up at him. "Maybe just a woman's puff m

orhood. 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 start

her cheek against the sleeve of his rough farm coat. "Is the interest of the mortgage ready for this quarte

ood 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

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,"

resting against his shoulder. "It isn't wrong for us to go on keeping it if we can jest pay the interest

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 a

ned with relief for a second and

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 do

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

ith a comforted smile breaking over his wistful old face. "I had mighty high dreams about you when that young man talked

ly. "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 t

t 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 nine

I don't persuade her from now on till supper. But there is nothing more for you to do out here, Rose Mar

od 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

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

ose Mary as she held out her arms for the bundle which cuddled against her breast

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 B

exclaimed Rose Mary with beaming eyes, and the rapture of her embrace w

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 ch

d to read? Looks like, even if it is some trouble, you couldn't hardly begrudge Sw

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 childre

unkett thoughtfully, and her shoulders began to stoop dejectedly as a perturbed expression dawned into her gray eyes. "

ivered young Tucker to his mother, who departed with him in t

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 c

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. Crabtre

ung for-" began Rose Mary, taking what

I was married to Mr. Plunkett before my eighteenth birthday. He was twenty-one, and I treated him with proper respe

t 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 fo

e 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 l

er eyes go roaming out over the valley t

ld 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 f

up the front walk in the moonlight some two hours later and found Rose Mary seated on the

ad gathered over his shoulder. "Did you have your supper at B

ighted 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

lp 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

supper for me?" as

simplicity of heart not at all catching the subtle drift of his question. "T

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 pu

ly I did, but you were so fast to sleep and so tired I hated to wake you." And Rose Mary held out

n 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

an Rose Mary in a l

her shoulder, "this is 'Our Father' week! Don't ti

se 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 ve

ile, "that-that gets next. He has a moral fiber that I hope he wil

d eyes, "he must keep it-he must; it is the only hope for him.

I was only scoffing, as usual. He'll keep what you

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 w

nt each and every one," answered Everett in a low voice, and he lifted one of Ro

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 e