die, do you, and not have any snaps or peas or
peonies at all?"

"Oh, fly-away!" answered Uncle Tucker as he tucked in the last end of
a nondescript frill over a group of tiny cabbage plants, "there's not
even a smack of frost in the air! It's all in your mind."

"Well, a mind ought to be sensitive about covering up its friends from
frost hurts," answered Rose Mary propitiatingly as she took a
satisfied survey of the bedded garden, which looked like the scene of
a disorganized washday. "Thank you, Uncle Tucker, for helping me--keep
off the frost from my dreams, anyway. Don't you think--"

"Well, howdy, folks!" came a cheerfully interruptive hail from across
the brick wall that separated the garden from the cinder walk that lay
along Providence Road, which ran as the only street through
Sweetbriar, and Caleb Rucker's long face presented itself framed in a
wreath of budding rose briars that topped the wall in their spring
growth. "Tenting up the garden sass ag'in, Miss Rose Mary?"

"No, we're jest giving all the household duds a mooning instead of a
sunning, Cal," answered Uncle Tucker with a chuckle as he came over to
the wall beside the visitor. "What's the word along the Road?"

"Gid Newsome have sent the news as he'll be here Sad'ay night to lay
off and plow up this here dram or no-dram question for Sweetbriar
voters, so as to tote our will up to the state house for us next
election. As a state senator, we can depend on Gid to expend some and
have notice taken of this district, if for nothing but his corn-silk
voice and white weskit. It must take no less'n a pound of taller a
week to keep them shoes and top hat of his'n so slick. I should jedge
his courting to be kinder like soft soap and molasses, Miss Rose
Mary." And Mr. Rucker's smile was of the saddest as he handed this bit
of gentle banter over the wall to Rose Mary, who had come over to
stand beside Uncle Tucker in the end of the long path.

"It's wonderful how devoted Mr. Newsome is to all his friends,"
answered Rose Mary with a blush. "He sent me three copies of the
Bolivar _Herald_ with the poem of yours he had them print last week,
and I was just going over to take you and Mrs. Rucker one as soon as I
got the time to--"

"Johnnie-jump-ups, Miss Rose Mary, don't you never do nothing like
that to me!" exclaimed Mr. Rucker with a very fire of desperation
lighting his thin face. "If Mis' Rucker was to see one verse of that
there poetry I would have to p