ale his labors:

"My gran'mothah lived on yondah li'l green,
Fines' ol' lady _evah_ wuz seen.
Tummy-eye, tummy-oh, tummy-umpy-tumpy-tee.
Fines' ol' lady _evah_ yo' see!"

The ridiculous refrain rang out through the bewildering vistas of the
wooded slope as he swung on, up the hill, through the underbrush.

The place was pathless and overgrown with paw-paw bushes and sassafras.
Great trees stood so thickly in places as to make a twilight and the
sunnier spots were masses of pink laurel, poison-ivy, flaming purple
rhododendron and wine-red tendrils of interbraided briers. This was the
forest land of whose possibilities he had thought. In the heart of the
woods he came upon a great limb that had been wrenched off by storm. The
broken wood was of a deep rich brown, shading to black. He broke off
his song, snapped a twig and smelled it. Its sharp acrid odor was
unmistakable. He suddenly remembered the walnut tree at Rosewood and
what Shirley had said: "I know a girl who had two in her yard, and she
went to Europe on them."

He looked about him; as far as he could see the trees reared, hardy and
perfect, untouched for a generation. He selected one of medium size and
pulling a creeper, measured its circumference and gaging this measure
with his eye, made a penciled calculation on the back of an envelope.
"Great Scott!" he said jubilantly to the dog; "that would cut enough to
wainscot the Damory Court library and build twenty sideboards!"

He sat down on a mossed boulder, breathless, his eyes sparkling. He
had thought himself almost a beggar, and here in his hand was a small
fortune! "Talk about engagement rings!" he muttered. "Why, a dozen of
these ought to buy a whole tiara!"

Far below him he could see the square tower of the old parish church of
St. Andrew. The day before he had gone there to service, slipping into a
pew at the rear. There had been flowers in silver vases on either side
of the reading-desk, and dim hues from the stained-glass windows had
touched the gray head of the rector above the brass lectern and the
crooked oak beams of the roof, and he had caught himself all at once
thinking that but for its drooping hat, Shirley's head might have
outshone that of the saint through whose bright mantle the colors came.
After the service the rector had showed him the vestry and the church
books with their many records of Valiants before him, and he had sat for
a moment in the Valiant pew,