Meanwhile over in the barn at the Briars Uncle Tucker was at work
rooting up the foundations upon which had been built his lifetime of
lordship over his fields. In the middle of the floor was a great pile
of odds and ends of old harness, empty grease cans, broken
tools, and scraps of iron. Along one side of the floor stood the
pathetically-patched old implements that told the tale of patient
saving of every cent even at the cost of much greater labor to the
fast weakening old back and shoulders. A new plow-shaft had meant a
dollar and a half, so Uncle Tucker had put forth the extra strength to
drive the dull old one along the furrows, while even the grindstone
had worn away to such unevenness that each revolution had made only
half the impression on a blade pressed to its rim and thus caused the
sharpening to take twice as long and twice the force as would have
been required on a new one. But grindstones, too, cost cents and
dollars, and Uncle Tucker had ground on patiently, even hopefully,
until this the very end. But now he stood with a thin old scythe in
his hands looking for all the world like the incarnation of Father
Time called to face the first day of the new régime of an arrived
eternity, and the bewilderment in his eyes cut into Rose Mary's heart
with an edge of which the old blade had long since become incapable.

"Can't I help you go over things, Uncle Tucker?" she asked softly with
a smile shining for him even through the mist his eyes were too dim to
discover in hers.

"No, child, I reckon not," he answered gently. "Looks like it helps me
to handle all these things I have used to put licks in on more'n one
good farm deal. I was just a-wondering how many big clover crops I had
mowed down with this old blade 'fore I laid it by to go riding away
from it on that new-fangled buggy reaper out there that broke down in