had finished telling me his story, I felt just as I used to
when Grandmother opened the "big chist" to air her wedding clothes and
the dress each of her babies wore when baptized. It seemed almost like
smelling the lavender and rose-leaves, and it was with reverent fingers
that I folded the shirt, the work of love, yellow with age, and laid it
in the box....

Well, Mrs. O'Shaughnessy returned, and early one morning we started
with a wagon and a bulging mess-box for Zebbie's home. We were going a
new and longer route in order to take the wagon. Dandelions spread a
carpet of gold. Larkspur grew waist-high with its long spikes of blue.
The service-bushes and the wild cherries were a mass of white beauty.
Meadowlarks and robins and bluebirds twittered and sang from every
branch, it almost seemed. A sky of tenderest blue bent over us and
fleecy little clouds drifted lazily across.... Soon we came to the
pineries, where we traveled up deep gorges and canons. The sun shot
arrows of gold through the pines down upon us and we gathered our arms
full of columbines. The little black squirrels barked and chattered
saucily as we passed along, and we were all children together. We
forgot all about feuds and partings, death and hard times. All we
remembered was that God is good and the world is wide and beautiful. We
plodded along all day. Next morning there was a blue haze that Zebbie
said meant there would be a high wind, so we hurried to reach his home
that evening.

The sun was hanging like a great red ball in the smoky haze when we
entered the long canon in which is Zebbie's cabin. Already it was dusky
in the canons below, but not a breath of air stirred. A more delighted
man than Zebbie I never saw when we finally drove up to his low,
comfortable cabin. Smoke was slowly rising from the chimney, and
Gavotte, the man in charge, rushed out and the hounds set up a joyful
barking. Gavotte is a Frenchman, and he was all smiles and
gesticulations as he said, "Welcome, welcome! To-day I am rejoice you
have come. Yesterday I am despair if you have come because I am scrub,
but to-day, behold, I am delight."

I have heard of clean people, but Gavotte is the cleanest man I ever
saw. The cabin floor was so white I hated to step upon it. The windows
shone, and at each there was a calico curtain, blue-and-white check,
unironed but newly washed. In one window was an old brown pitcher,
cracked and nicked, filled with thistles. I never thought