the porch.

Miss Lavinia sat in a large, calico-cushioned rocking-chair at the end
of the porch, and had been issuing orders to Rose Mary and little Miss
Amanda about the readjustment of the fragrant vine that trailed across
the end of the porch over her window and on out to a trellis in the
side yard. Her high mob cap sat on her head in an angle of aggression
always, and her keen black eyes enforced all commands issuing from her
stern old mouth.

"Now, Amandy, train that shoot straight while you're about it," she
continued. "It comes plumb from the roots, and I don't want to have to
look at a wild-growing vine right here under my window for all my
eighty-second and maybe last year."

"I've gone and misplaced my glasses and I can't hardly see," answered
Miss Amanda in her sweet little quaver that sounded like a silver bell
with a crack in it. "Lend me your'n, Tucker!"

"You are a-going to misplace your eyes some day, Sister Amandy. Then
you'll be a-wanting mine, and I'll have to cut 'em out and give 'em to
you, I suppose," said Uncle Tucker as he handed over his huge,
steel-rimmed glasses.

"The Bible says 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,' Tucker,
but not in a borrowing sense of the word, as I remember," remarked
Miss Lavinia in a meditative tone of voice. "And that would be the
thing about my getting the new teeth. Don't either of you need 'em,
and it would be selfish of me to spend on something they couldn't
anybody borrow from me. Amandy, dig a little deeper around that
shoot, I don't want no puny vine under my window!"

"I'm a-trying, Sister Viney," answered Miss Amanda propitiatingly.
"I've been a-bending over so long my knees are in a kinder tremble."

"Let me finish digging and put in the new dirt for you, Aunt Amandy,"
begged Rose Mary, who had given the armful of vine to Everett to hold
while Uncle Tucker tied the strings in the exact angle indicated by
Miss Lavinia. "I can do it in no time."

"No, child, I reckon I'd better do it myself," answered Miss Amanda as
she sat back on the grass for a moment's rest. "I have dug around and
trained this vine the last week in April for almost sixty years now.
Mr. Lovell brought it by to Ma one spring as he hauled his summer
groceries over the Ridge to Warren County. By such care it's never
died down yet, and I have made it my custom to give sprouts away to
all that would take 'em. I'm not a-doubting that there is some of
this vine a-budding out all o