this morning. Better
come on over and see 'em!" Uncle Tucker's big eyes were bright with
excitement, his gray lavender muffler, which always formed a part of
his early morning costume, flew at loose ends, and a rampant, grizzly
lock stuck out through the slit in the old gray hat.

"Gracious me, Uncle Tuck, who now?" demanded Rose Mary over a crock
of milk she was expertly skimming with a thin, old, silver ladle.

"Old White has hatched out a brood of sixteen, assorted black and
white, that foolish bronze turkey hen just come out from under the
woodpile with thirteen little pesters, Sniffer has got five
pups--three spots and two solids--and Mrs. Butter has twin calves,
assorted sex this time. They are spry and hungry and you'd better come
on over!"

"Lovely," laughed Rose Mary with the delight in her blue eyes matching
that in Uncle Tucker's pair of mystic gray. "I'll come just as soon as
I get the skimming done. We'll want some corn meal and millet seed for
the chirp-babies, but the others we can leave to the maternal
ministrations. I'm so full of welcome I don't see how I'm going to
keep it from bubbling over."

"That's jest like you, Rose Mary, a-welcoming a whole passel of
pesters that have deluged down on you at one time," said Uncle Tucker
with a dubiously appreciative smile at Rose Mary's hospitable
enthusiasm. "Looks to me like a girl tending three old folks, one
rampage of a boy, a mollycuddle of a strange man, and a whole petting
spoiled village has got enough on her shoulders without this
four-foot, two-foot landslide."

"But it's in my heart I carry you all, old Sweetie," answered Rose
Mary with a flirt of her long lashes up at Uncle Tucker. "A woman can
carry things as a blessing in her heart that might be an awful burden
on her shoulders. Don't you know I don't allow you out before the sun
is up good without your muffler tied up tight? There; please go on
back to the barn and take this crock of skimmed milk to Mrs.
Sniffie--wait, I'll pour back some of the cream! And in just a few
minutes I'll be ready to--"

"Rose Mary, Rose Mary," came a wild, enthusiastic shout from up the
path toward the Briars and in a moment the General appeared around the
row of lilac bushes through which the milk-house trail led down under
the hill to Rose Mary's sanctum of the golden treasure. Stonie had
taken time before leaving the seclusion of his apartment to plunge
into his short blue jeans trousers, but he was holding