to be trained along the pickets and over the gate. Little
Miss Amanda, as usual, was doing her best to carry out exactly the
behests of her older and a little more infirm sister. Miss Amanda was
possessed of a certain amount of tottering nimbleness which she put at
the disposal of Miss Lavinia at all times with the most cheery
good-will. Miss Amanda was of the order of little sisters who serve
and Miss Lavinia belonged to the sisterhood dominant by nature and by
the consent of Miss Amanda and the rest of her family.

"It's such a long row I don't know as I'll hold out to finish it,
Sister Viney, if I have to stop to finger the beans in such a way as
that. But I'll try," answered the little worker, going on sticking the
beans in with trembling haste.

"Let me help you, please, Miss Amanda," entreated Everett, who had
come out to watch the bean planting with the intention of offering
aid, with also the certainty of having it refused.

"No, young man," answered Miss Lavinia promptly and decidedly. "These
jack beans must be set in by a hand that knows 'em. We can't run no
risks of having 'em to fail to come up. I got the seed of 'em over to
Springfield when me and Mr. Robards was stationed there just before
the war. Mr. Robards was always fond of flowers, and these jack beans
in special. He was such a proper meek man and showed so few likings
that I feel like I oughter honor this one by growing these vines in
plenty as a remembrance, even if he has been dead forty-odd years."

"Was your husband a minister?" asked Everett in a voice of becoming
respect to the meek Mr. Robards, though he be demised for nearly half
a century.

"He was that, and a proper, saddlebags-riding, torment-preaching
circuit rider before he was made presiding elder at an astonishing
early age," answered Miss Lavinia, a fading fire blazing up in her
dark eyes. "He saved many a sinner in Harpeth Valley by preaching both
heaven and hell in their fitten places, what's a thing this younger
generation don't know how to do any more, it seems like. A sermon that
sets up heaven like a circus tent, with a come-sinner-come-all sign,
and digs hell no deeper than Mill Creek swimming pool, as is skeercely
over a boy's middle, ain't no sermon at all to my mind. Most preaching
in Sweetbriar are like that nowadays."

"But Brother Robards had a mighty sweet voice and he gave the call of
God's love so as to draw answers from all hearts," said Miss Amanda in
her own