"I am. Everything Uncle Jed does is right. Sometimes you don't think so at first, but it turns out that way. Mamma says he is petunia—no, I mean peculiar but—but very—re-li-a-ble," the last word conquered after a visible struggle. "She says if you do what he tells you to you will be 'most always glad. I think 'always' without any 'most,'" she added.
Major Grover laughed. "That's a reputation for infallibility worth having," he observed.
Barbara did not know what he meant but she had no intention of betraying that fact.
"Yes," she agreed. A moment later she suggested: "Don't you think you'd better sit down? He told you to, you know."
"Great Scott, so he did! I must obey orders, mustn't I? But he told you to talk—something or other to me, I think. What was it?"
"He told me to talk Petunia to you. There she is—up there."
The major regarded Petunia, who was seated upon the heap of mill- sides, in a most haphazard and dissipated attitude.
"She is my oldest daughter," continued Barbara. "She's very advanced for her years."
"Dear me!"
"Yes. And . . . oh, here comes Mamma!"