field, was flapping his wings around on the other side of the pillows.
I went to sleep under your very hands--and I haven't waked up
yet--except in ugly, impatient ways. I never want to."

"I wonder what you would be like--awake?" said Rose Mary softly, as
she gently lowered the head of young Peter down into the hollow of her
arm, where, in close proximity to Shoofly's, he nodded off into the
depths. "I think I'm afraid to try waking you. I'm always so happy
when Aunt Viney has snuffed away her asthma with jimson weed and got
down on her pillow, and I have rubbed all her joints; when the General
has said his prayers without stopping to argue in the middle, and
Uncle Tucker has finished his chapter and pipe in bed without setting
us all on fire, that I regard people asleep as in a most blessed
condition. Won't you please try and stay happy, tucked away fast here
at the Briars, without wanting to wake up and go all over New York,
when I won't know whether you are getting cold or hungry or wet or a
pain in your lungs?"

"Again I promise! Just wake me enough to go out and hoe for you is all
I ask--your row and your kind of hoeing."

"Maybe hoeing in my row will make you finish your own in fine style,"
laughed Rose Mary. "And I think it's wonderful of you to study up our
land so Uncle Tucker can do better with it. We never seem to be able
to make any more than just the mortgage interest, and what we'll wear
when the trunks in the garret are empty I don't see. We'll have to
grow feathers. Things like false teeth just seem to be impossible."

"Do you mean to tell me that the Briars is seriously encumbered?"
demanded Everett, with a quick frown showing between his brows and a