guess all day and all night
an' never once hit it. Alf, we've had an increase in the family--but
hold on, hold on! it hain't that--it hain't another one o' my baby
jokes. I know better 'n to try a second dose on you out o' the same
bottle. Alf, Dick Wrinkle hain't dead."

"Not dead?" Henley and Dixie repeated the words in the same breath as
they tensely leaned forward.

"No, an' that ain't the only thing to be reckoned with. He's over at
home now, stouter and in better trim than he ever was in his life. He
appeared to me in the orchard whar we was packin' peaches, an' I was
plumb flabbergasted. It seems that he would have reported sooner if he
had been fully at hisself. He wasn't actually killed in that tornado,
but blowed off somers an' got a hit in the skull and was fixed so that
his remembrance played tricks on him. At one time he imagined he was a
cook for some cowboys, and a lot more fool antics. He would have been
that way yet--I mean in his crazy fix--but he says a pony throwed 'im
an' it all come back. You'll have to get him to tell you about it. I've
got it all mixed up."

Henley's wide-staring eyes sought Dixie's face. She was pale, still, and
mute.

"Well, I've got to be going," she said, in a quavering voice to old
Jason. "I haven't had a chance, Mr. Wrinkle, to ask you how Mrs. Henley
likes it over there. I hope your wife is well. They say the water is
freestone on that side of the mountain, and that is better for the
health than our hard limestone. You must tell them both that we all miss
them every day."

"Hold on! hold on!" Wrinkle said. "You'd better hear the straight o'
this thing. You'll wish you did, for folks will have it all lopsided by
to-morrow, an' I'll give you dead cold facts."

"But I've got my cow to milk," Dixie faltered, her color coming back,
"and it's growing late."

"I was going to tell you how Het tuck it," Wrinkle ran on, and there was
nothing for the girl to do but remain. "Dick told me to go on up to the
big house an' hand in his report in as fair shape as I could, an' I sent
his mammy, who was havin' ten fits a minute, to him, and went up to
Het's room, whar she lies down at that time o' the day. She's as tough
as rawhide, you know, an' I wasn't afraid she'd keel over, so while she
was frownin' at me like she thought I ought not to have butted in on her
privacy that way, I up an' told her the news. Well, sir, it plumb
floored her. You kin well imagine it would take a big