y
won't bring much money. Ye see I never felt so poor ez long ez I had a
_home_ where I can live independent like. That house ain't much, sir.
But you ain't no idea how deep down in my heart it's got."

He paused and looked at it. The Colonel followed his gaze. It was a
small frame structure standing in a yard filled with trees. A one-story
affair with a sharp, gabled attic. Two dormer windows projected from
the high roof and a solid brick chimney at each end gave it dignity. A
narrow porch came straight out from the front door. On either side of
the porch were built wooden benches and behind them on a lattice grew
a luxuriant rambler rose. It was still blooming richly in the warm
September sun.

"Ye see, sir," Doyle went on, "what we've got that's worth havin' can't
be sold. I love the smell o' them roses. I wake up in the night and the
breeze brings it in the window and it puts me to sleep like an old song
my mother used to sing when I was a little shaver--"

He stopped short.

"I didn't mean to snivel, sir."

"I understand, my friend. No apologies are necessary."

"And that big scuppernong grape vine out there in the garden--I couldn't
sell that. I planted it fifteen years ago. Folks told us we was too fur
north here fur it to grow good. But I knowed better. You can see its
covered a place as big ez the house. And you can smell them ripe grapes
a hundred yards before ye get to the gate. I make a little wine outen
'em. We have 'em to eat a whole month. That garden keeps us goin' winter
and summer. You see them five rows of flat turnips and the ruttabaggers
beside 'em? I've cabbage enough banked under them pine tops to make a
fifty-gallon barrel o' kraut and give us cabbage with our bacon all
winter. We've got turnip greens, onions and collards. I've got corn and
wheat in my crib and bacon enough to last me till next year. I raise
the finest watermelons and mushmelons in the county and it ain't much
trouble to live here. I never knowed how well off I wuz till the Sheriff
come and told me I had to go."

"You're in the prime of life. You can go to a new country and begin over
again. Why not?"

"If I could get there. I reckon I could."

He stopped short as his wife appeared by his side. She had heard Colonel
Lee's last question.

"Of course, you can begin over again. Haven't we got three of the finest
boys the Lord ever give a mother? They ain't got no chance here nohow.
My baby boy's one o' the smartest youn