found him a few minutes later as he
walked rapidly up the milk-house path and stood in the barn door in
evident hurried search for somebody or some thing.

"Hello, General," he said with a smile at the barrel full of sleepers
at Stonie's side, "do you know where Rose Mary is?"

"Yes," answered the General, "she are in her room putting buttermilk
on the five freckles that comed on her nose when she hoed out in the
garden without no sunbonnet. I found 'em all for her this morning, and
she don't like 'em. You can go on in and see if they are any better
for her, I ain't got the time to fool with 'em now."

"Not for worlds!" exclaimed Everett as he sat down on an upturned peck
measure in close proximity to the barrel. "Have you decided to have
Mrs. Poteet and Mrs. Sniffer swap--er--puppies, Stonie?" he further
remarked.

"No, I didn't," answered Stonie with one of his rare smiles which made
him so like Rose Mary that Everett's heart glowed within him. Stonie
was, as a general thing, as grave as a judge, with something
hauntingly, almost tragically serious in his austere young face, but
his smiles when they came were flashes of the very divinity of youth
and were a strange incarnation of the essence of Rose Mary's cousinly
loveliness. "He was crying because he was by hisself and I bringed him
along to wait till his mother came home. He belongs some to us,
'cause he's named for Uncle Tuck, and I oughter pester with him same
as Tobe have to. It's fair to do my part."

"Yes, General, you always do your part--and always will, I think,"
said Everett, as he looked down at the sturdy little chap so busy with
his long strings, weaving them over and over slowly but carefully. "A
man's part," he added as two serious eyes were raised to his.

"In just a little while I'll be a man and have Uncle Tucker and Aunt
Viney and Aunt Amandy to be mine to keep care of always, Rose Mamie
says," answered Stonie in his most practical tone of voice as he began
to see the end of the long strings draw into his weaving of the
cracker.

"What about Rose Mamie herself?" asked Everett softly, his voice
thrilling over the child's name for the girl with reverent tenderness.

"When I get big enough to keep care of everything here I'm going to
let Rose Mamie get a husband and a heap of children, like Mis'
Poteet--but I'm a-going to make 'em behave theyselves better'n Tobe
and Peggie and the rest of 'em do. Aunt Viney says Mis' Poteet spares
the rod t