Mrs. Rucker with a half sob. "Last night in the new moonlight I got up
to go see if I hadn't left my blue waist out in the dew, which mighter
faded it, and I saw something white over in the Briar's yard. I went
across to see if they had left any wash out that hadn't oughter be in
the dew, and there I found her in her little, short old nightgown and
big slippers with the little wored-out gray shawl 'round her shoulders
a-digging around the Maiden Blush rose-bush, putting in new dirt and
just a-crying soft to herself, all trembling and hurt. I went in and
set down by her on the damp grass, me and my rheumatism and all, took
her in my arms like she were Petie, and me and her had it out. It's
the graves she's a-grieving over, we all a-knowing that she's leaving
buried what she have never had in life, and I tried to tell her that
no matter who had the place they would let her come and--"

"Oh, durn him, durn him! I'm a-going clear to the city to git old Gid
and beat the liver outen him!" exclaimed young Bob, while his
sunburned face worked with emotion and his gruff young voice broke as
he rose and walked to the door.

"I wisht you would, and I'll make Cal help you," sobbed Mrs. Rucker
into a corner of her apron. Her grief was all the more impressive, as
she was, as a general thing, the balance-wheel of the whole Sweetbriar
machinery. "And I don't know what they are a-going to do," she
continued to sob.

"Well, I know, and I've done decided," came in Mrs. Plunkett's soft
voice from the side door of the store, and it held an unwonted note of
decision in its hushed cadences. A deep pink spot burned on either
cheek, her eyes were very bright, and she kept her face turned
resolutely away from little Mr. Crabtree, over whose face there had