me
to go out to see Sam and Byrd and Mammy. She sent Byrd half a jelly-cake
and a bag of bananas, and I got a jar of jam for him when I went down in
the cellar to exhume Grandmother Nelson's garden-book. A bottle went to
Mammy, which I suspect of being a kind of liniment that mother had to
learn to make on account of the number of the boys and their bruises.

Eph was a tragedy over my taking out Redwheels, and I am glad that
neither he nor I could prevision the plight the shiny new runabout would
be in before it was many hours older. With a stoical reserve he loaded
in the two young lilacs that were in the exact state of sappiness
Grandmother Nelson had recommended for transplanting, but his calmness
nearly gave way when I had him put in a dandy old rake and spade and hoe
that I had found in my raid on the cellar.

"Please ma'am, Miss Betty, don't go and leave ole mistis's gyarden tools
out in no rain," he entreated, plaintively.

"Oh, Eph, are they really Grandmother Nelson's?" I exclaimed, with such
radiance that it reflected from Eph's polished black face.

"Yes'm, and they is too good to be throwed away on playing gyarden or
sich," he answered, with feeling.

"Eph," I answered, with almost a choke in my voice, "they'll be--be
sacred to me. Oh, thank you for telling me."

"Go on, child! you shore is ole mistis herself, with your pretty words
to push along your high-haided ways," he answered me while he gave
Redwheels an affectionate shove as I started down the street.

I didn't spend much time down-town, but I stopped at the post-office and
got my mail to read while I waited at the drug-store for Mr. Simmons to
put up some of every kind of flower and vegetable grandmother
mentioned--if it was still in stock. He offered me a book of
instructions, which I declined. I meant to garden by ancestral
tendencies. And while I waited I looked over my letters. The volume from
Peter I put aside to enjoy in a leisure hour, as I felt sure that I knew
what was in it; but I opened another thin one that looked as if it might
be from him, if he had written it in an unpoetic mood. It was from Judge
Vandyne, and I then understood Peter's sudden determination to come down
and live with Sam for a time, though I don't believe Peter knew the real
reason of it himself. The judge is a great diplomat, and knows just when
and to whom to be frank. We have always understood each other from the
first vacation I spent with Mabel, and I valu