ront gate. "Send him on home, Rose Mary, or
grass'll grow in his tracks and yours, too, if he can hold you long
enough," she added by way of badinage.

"I'm a-coming, Sally, right on the minute," answered the
poet-by-stealth, and he hurried across the street with hungry
alacrity. The poem-maker was tall and loose-jointed, and the breadth
of his shoulders and long muscular limbs decidedly suggested success
at the anvil or field furrow. He made a jocular pass at placing his
arm around the uncompromising waist-line of his portly wife, and when
warded off by an only half-impatient shove he contented himself by
winding one of her white apron strings around one of his long fingers
as they leaned together over the gate for further parley with the
Alloways across the road.

"When did you get back, Mrs. Rucker?" asked Rose Mary interestedly, as
she rested her arms on the wall and Uncle Tucker planted himself
beside her, having brushed away one of the long briar shoots to make
room for them both.

"About two hours ago," answered Mrs. Rucker. "I found everybody in
fine shape up at Providence, and Mis' Mayberry sent Mr. Tucker a new
quinzy medicine that Tom wrote back to her from New York just day
before yesterday. I made a good trade in hogs with Mr. Hoover for
myself and Bob Nickols, too. Mr. Petway had a half-barrel of flour in
his store he were willing to let go cheap, and I bought it for us and
you-all and the Poteets. Me and you can even up on that timothy seed
with the flour, Mr. Tucker, and I'm just a-going to give a measure to
the Poteets as a compliment to that new Poteet baby, which is the
seventh mouth to feed on them eighty-five acres. I've set yeast for
ourn and your rolls for to-morrow, tell your Aunt Mandy, Rose Mary,
and I brought that copy of the _Christian Advocate_ for your Aunt
Viney that she lost last month. Mis' Mayberry don't keep hern, but
spreads 'em around, so was glad to let me have this one. I asked about
it before I had got my bonnet-strings untied. Yes, Cal, I'm a-going
on in to give you your supper, for I expect I'll find the children's
and Granny's stomicks and backbones growing together if I don't hurry.
That's one thing Mr. Satterwhite said in his last illness, he never
had had to wait--yes, I'm coming, Granny," and with the encomium of
the late Mr. Satterwhite still unfinished Mrs. Rucker hurried up the
front path at the behest of a high, querulous old voice issuing from
the front windows.