d popular. Not that he cared.
He was a hard-headed, hard-fisted old son of a gun, if there ever was
one, according to the stories they tell about him."

"What were they fighting about?"

"Oh, I dunno--granddad was high-tempered, and this fellow was sort of
smart Aleck; give him some lip about something and dared him to touch
him. And quick's a wink granddad punched him. At least that's the way
I always heard it. Prob'ly they'd both been taking too much hard
cider. Bring me another dumplin', Aunt Dolcey, please."

As the old woman entered, bringing the dumpling, Annie fancied there
were both warning and sympathy in her eyes. Why, she couldn't imagine.
In a moment she forgot it, for Wesley was looking at her hard.

"It's funny," he said, "to think I only saw you yesterday, and that we
got married this morning. Seems as if you'd been here for years and
years. Does it seem awful strange to you, honey?"

"No," said Annie. "No, it doesn't. It is queer, but all the way here,
and when I come into the house, I had a sense of having been here
before sometime; kind of as if it was my home all along and I hadn't
known about it."

"So it was--and if I hadn't ever met you I'd been an old bach all my
life."

"Yes, you would."

"Yes, I wouldn't."

They were both laughing now. He got up and stretched himself.

"Well, Mrs. Dean," he said, "I gotta go out and fix my disker, and you
gotta come along. I don't want to let you out of my sight. You might
fly off somewhere, and I'd never find you again."

"Don't you worry about that. You couldn't lose me if you tried."

They went through the kitchen, and there a tall gaunt old coloured man
rose and bowed respectfully. He and Aunt Dolcey were having their own
dinner at the kitchen table.

"This here's Unc' Zenas," said Wesley. "He's Aunt Dolcey's husband,
and helps me on the place."

And again Annie saw, this time in the old man's eyes, the flicker of
sympathy and apprehension that she had marked in Aunt Dolcey's.

"And right glad to welcome y', Missy," said Unc' Zenas. "We didn'
'spect Marse Wes to bring home a wife whenas he lef', but that ain' no
sign that it ain' a mighty fine thing."

They went out into the mellow spring day. Wesley Dean, now in his blue
overalls and working shirt, became a king in his own domain, a part of
the fair primitiveness about them. It was as if he had sprung from
this dark fertile soil, was made of its elements, at one with it. Here
he belonge