a look of
disappointed scorn at the two pigtailed heads, downcast at this
failure of theirs to respond to the General's effort to inoculate
their feminine natures with masculine courage.

"I hollered 'fore I knewed what at," answered the abashed Jennie in a
very small voice, unconsciously making further display of the force of
her hopeless feminine heredity. But Peggy switched her small skirts in
an entirely different phase of femininity.

"You never heard me holler," she said in a tone that was skilful
admixture of defiance and tentative propitiation.

"'Cause you had your head hid in Jennie's back," answered the General
coolly unbeguiled. "Here is the letter we comed to bring you, Rose
Mamie, and me and Tobe must go back to help Mis' Rucker some more
clean Mr. Crabtree up. I don't reckon she needs Peg and Jennie, but
they can come if they want to," with which Stonie and Tobe, the
henchman, departed, and not at all abashed the humble small women
trailing respectfully behind them.

"That women folks are the touch-off to the whole explosion of life is
a hard lesson to learn for some men, and Stonie Jackson is one of that
kind," observed Uncle Tucker as he looked with a quizzical expression
after the small procession. "Want me to read that letter and tell you
what's in it?" he further remarked, shifting both expression and
attention on to Rose Mary, who stood at his side.

"No, I'll read it myself and tell you what's in it," answered Rose
Mary with a blush and a smile. "I haven't written him about our
troubles, because--because he hasn't got a position yet and I don't
want to trouble him while he is lonely and discouraged."

"Well, I reckon that's right," answered Uncle Tucker still in a
bantering frame of mind that it delighted Rose Mary to see him
maintain under the situation. "Come trouble, some women like to blind
a man with cotton wool while they wade through the high water and
only holler for help when their petticoats are down around their
ankles on the far bank. We'll wait and send Everett a photagraf of me
and you dishing out molasses and lard as grocer clerks. And glad to do
it, too!" he added with a sudden fervor of thankfulness rising in his
voice and great gray eyes.

"Yes, Uncle Tucker, glad and proud to do it," answered Rose Mary
quickly. "Oh, don't you know that if you hadn't seen and understood
because you loved me so, I would have felt it was right to do--to do
what was so horrible to me? I will