"Yes," answered Uncle Tucker as he knocked the ashes out of his pipe against the
table and looked straight into Everett's eyes. "After a man has plowed a honest, straight-furrowed field in life it's no more'n fair for Providence to send a-loving, trusting woman to meet him at the bars. Good night, and don't forget to latch the front door when you have finally torn yourself away from that moonlight!"
And the call of the young moon that came with the warm garden-scented gusts of winds that were sweeping across Harpeth Valley was a riot in Everett's veins as he made his way through the silent hall toward the moonlit porch on the top step of which he could see Rose Mary sitting in the soft light, but a lusty young snore from a dark room on the left made him remember that there was one greeting he had missed. He bent over the General's little cot, across which lay a long shaft of the white light from the hilltops, and was about to press his lips on the warm, breath-stirred ones of the small boy, but he restrained
himself in time from offering to the General in his defenseless sleep what would have been an insult to him awake, and contented himself with a most cautious and manly clasp of the chubby little hand.
"Ketch it, Tobe, ketch it—don't let Aunt Viney's vase be broked," murmured Stonie as he turned on his side and buried his head still deeper in the pillow.
"No, General, Aunt Viney's vase—is—not going to be broken, thank God," answered Everett under his breath as he turned away and left the General, who, even in sleep, carried his responsibilities sturdily.
"Rose Mary," he said a little later as he stood on the bottom step below her, so that his eyes were just on a level with hers as she sat and smiled down upon him, "for a woman, you have very little curiosity. Don't you want to ask me where I've been, why I went and what I've been doing every minute since I left you? Can it be indifference that makes you
thus ignore your feminine prerogative of the inquisition?"
"I'm beginning at being glad you are here. Joy's just the white foam at the top of the cup, and it ought not to be blown away, no matter—how thirsty one is, ought it? Now tell me what brought you back—to save me," and Rose Mary held out her hand, with one of her lovely, entreating gestures, while her eyes were full of tender tears. And it was with difficulty that Everett held himself to a condition to tell her what he wanted her to know without any further delay.
"Well," he answered as he raised his lips from a joy draft at the cup of her pink palms, "the immediate cause was a telegram that came Tuesday night. It said 'Gid sells out Mr. Tucker and wants your girl,' and it was signed 'Bob.' All these weeks a bunch of hard old goldbugs had been sitting in conclave, weighing my evidence and reports and making one inadequate syndicating offer after another.