. whut, suh? 'Beat huh ovah de haid?' Yas, suh, done hit huh in
de haid six times wid de whip-han'l, en she look me in de eye en ain'
said er word.... 'Twis' huh tail?' _Me_, suh? No-suh-ree, suh. Mars'
Quarles' boy one time he twis' huh tail en dey sen' him ter de
horspit'l. 'Daid,' suh? No, suh, ain' daid, but et mos' bust him wide
open.... 'Set fiah undah huh?' Yas, suh, done set fiah undah huh. Mos'
burn up de harness, en ain' done no good.... Well, suh, Ah jes' gwineter
say no use waitin' fo' Sukey ter change huh min', so Ah put some
fence-rails undah huh en jock huh up en come home. En Ah's gwine out
arter suppah en Sukey be all right den, suh, Ah reck'n. Yas, suh."

Aunt Daphne plunged out with fire in her eye, but the laugh that came
from above was reassuring. "Never mind, Uncle Jefferson, Miss Sukey's
whims shall be regarded."

Chum, bouncing up the stairs like an animated bundle of springs, met his
master coming down. "Old man," said the latter, "I don't mind telling
you that I'm beginning to be taken with this place. But it's in a bad
way, and it's going to be put in shape. It's a large order, and we'll
have to work like horses. Don't you bother Aunt Daph! You just come with
your Uncle Dudley. He's going to take a look over the grounds."

He went to his trunk and fished out a soft shirt on which he knotted
a loose tie, exchanged his Panama for a slouch hat, and whistling
the barcarole from _Tales of Hoffmann_, went gaily out. "I feel
tremendously alive to-day," he confided to the dog, as he tramped
through the lush grass. "If you see me ladle the muck out of that
fountain with my own fair hands, don't have a fit. I'm liable to do
anything."

His eye swept up and down the slope. "There probably isn't a finer site
for a house in the whole South," he told himself. "The living-rooms
front south and west. We'll get scrumptious sunsets from that back
porch. And on the other side there's the view clear to the Blue Ridge.
And as for this garden, no landscape artist need apply. The outlines are
all here; it needs only to be put back. We'll first rake out the
rubbish, chop down that underbrush and trim the box. The shrubs only
want pruning. Then we'll mend the pool and set the fountain going and
put in some goldfish. Flower-seeds and bulbs are cheap enough, I fancy.
Just think of a bed of black and gold pansies running down to the lake!
And on the other side a wilderness garden. I've seen pictures of them in
the il