"Yes, and I'm a-going to report you to the
society of suppression of men folks as a regular spiler, Rose Mary Alloway, if you don't keep more stern than you are at present with me and Stonie, to say nothing of all the men members of Sweetbriar from Everett clean on through Crabtree down to that very young Tucker Poteet. You are one of the women that feed and clothe and blush on men like you were borned a hundred years ago and nobody had told you they wasn't worth shucks. Are you a-going to reform?"
"I'll try when I get time," answered Rose Mary with a smile as she bestowed both a fleeting kiss and the old hat on Uncle Tucker's forelock over the wall. "Now I want to run in and make a few cup custards, so I can save one for Mr. Mark when he gets home to-night. He loves them cold. Little cooking attentions never spoil men, they just nourish them. Anyway, what is a woman going to have left to do in life if she sheds the hovering feathers she keeps to tuck her nesties underneath?"
CHAPTER VII
THE SATSUMA VASE
"Well, howdy to-day, Mis' Poteet!" exclaimed Mrs. Rucker as she came across her side yard and leaned over the Poteet fence right opposite the Poteet back porch. "I brought you this pan of rolls to set away for Mr. Poteet's supper. When I worked out the sponge looked like my pride over 'em riz with the dough and I just felt bound to show 'em off to somebody; I know I can always count on a few open mouths in this here nest."
"That you can and thanky squaks, too, Mis' Rucker. I don't know however I would feed 'em all if it wasn't for the drippings from your kitchen," answered the placid and always improvident Mrs. Poteet as she picked up Shoofly and came over to the fence, delighted at a
chance for a few minutes parley with the ever busy and practical Mrs. Rucker. She balanced the gingham-clad bunch on its own wobbly legs beside her, while through the pickets of the fence in greeting were thrust the pink hands of Petie, the bond, who had followed in the wake of his own maternal skirts. Shoofly responded to this attention with a very young feminine gurgle of delight and licked at the chubby fist thrust toward her like an overjoyed young kitten.