awed barrel. _I_ knew what
she loved--who better? And the old doctor got the whole car-load
across the country free as air for me, through a gentleman that had
heard how much Miss Lisbet had done in the War, and that as good as
owned the railroad. He had us met with mules, too, at the end of the
horrid, dusty trip; and when me and little Maria Riggs (niece of a tidy
widow-woman Miss Lisbet had had chair-caning taught to, so that she had
no need to come on the town) got to the new home, we found only a
neighbor to give us the keys. The Major was off on army matters for a
week, and she had taken the two boys and gone on a visit to a new
friend she'd made, and left things all hugger-mugger, from despair and
tiredness, poor girl!

I was quite as well pleased, and Maria and I swept and cleaned and
nailed carpets and hung pictures and clear-starched muslin curtains and
filled shelves and drawers, as happy as queens. And round the house I
planted out the five old vines I'd brought all moist and good in an
open basket, from The Cedars, and in the garden that a fine,
fresh-faced soldierman, English as could be, dug and spaded for me,
what did I put in but _larkspur seeds_, amongst the sweet williams and
pansies and mignonette!

Well, she came back, expecting nothing, do you see, and there at the
door was I, in black, with white cuffs and apron, and little Maria
curtseying behind me. And the old claw-leg card-table in the hall and
the glass with the gilt eagle above it.

"Rhoda! _Rhoda!_" she screams, and gives one look at the statues and
pictures and new carpet in the drawing-room and faints on the floor!
And I nearly crazy for being such a fool at such a time!

None the less, the third boy was born in his mother's old four-posted
bed, as beautiful as a king, and her living picture. Stanchon La Salle
he was, for the old doctor, who never bore her a moment's grudge, mind
you, on Master Dick's account.

"He's a fine man, Rhoda, and I doubt if Dick could have managed her
right," was all he ever said to me. "She has a great spirit."

And then the time went by like the water under a bridge. She'd no more
worries about drudging, for Maria and I did all, with the English
soldierman for rough jobs; but she had her hands full with the boys,
for the Major didn't want them sent back to the East to school, and she
had all the teaching and training of them, to say nothing of the care
of them, growing. Nine years we lived th