“I reckon she’ll be up to see you to-morrow to tell you everything herself. She’s going into some kind of picture making, and her pa and ma is simply rooting up the earth, doing things.” He told her about the project for developing the mountain industries and the part they all were to play in it.
“Something laid out for every last one of us, you see.”
“Except me, pa. Didn’t they make plans for me?”
“They didn’t mention any, but I suspicion that they’ve got more plans for you than for anybody else. And that makes me feel kind o’ bothered, on ma’s account. Now that you tell me about your being the granddaughter of old Colonel Atherton, with a sort of right to live in the great house—though it did pass out of the family years ago—I’m more bothered than ever.”
Azalea laughed again.
“I don’t believe you’re bothered at all, pa,” she declared. “Why, here we are, home! Why, we’re really home! Didn’t the time pass quickly? Ma! Ma! Hullo, boys! Where’s ma?”
Mary McBirney folded the slight form of the girl in her arms.
“My prayers was answered,” she said simply. “Just bear witness, children. They was all answered. It’s a lesson to us, ain’t it? If we want anything of the Lord, just ask him, believing. Are you clean starved out, pet? Come right along in and have supper. Pa, the boys will put up the horses. You hike in the house and eat something decent. I suppose you had some kind of stuff down at that there inn. My land, it’s a wonder to me them folks can’t learn how to cook.”
She led the girl in and seated her before the table with its fine bread, its glasses of foaming milk, its cottage cheese and honey. Then she pushed her husband to his seat, and hung over him, then fluttered to Azalea to hang over her like an anxious mother bird.
“Here’s a little hot ham to help quell your appetites. And here’s some hominy cakes. My goodness, Azalea, do eat something. Pa, you just ruined your appetite down there in that miserable eating place. Ain’t it wonderful to have Zalie home again, pa? The ways of the Lord are past our comprehending. You must tell me everything, Zalie—every last thing.”