of the porch, and had been issuing orders to Rose Mary and little Miss
Amanda about the readjustment of the fragrant vine that trailed across
the end of the porch over her window and on out to a trellis in the
side yard. Her high mob cap sat on her head in an angle of aggression
always, and her keen black eyes enforced all commands issuing from her
stern old mouth.

"Now, Amandy, train that shoot straight while you're about it," she
continued. "It comes plumb from the roots, and I don't want to have to
look at a wild-growing vine right here under my window for all my
eighty-second and maybe last year."

"I've gone and misplaced my glasses and I can't hardly see," answered
Miss Amanda in her sweet little quaver that sounded like a silver bell
with a crack in it. "Lend me your'n, Tucker!"

"You are a-going to misplace your eyes some day, Sister Amandy. Then
you'll be a-wanting mine, and I'll have to cut 'em out and give 'em to
you, I suppose," said Uncle Tucker as he handed over his huge,
steel-rimmed glasses.

"The Bible says 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,' Tucker,
but not in a borrowing sense of the word, as I remember," remarked
Miss Lavinia in a meditative tone of voice. "And that would be the
thing about my getting the new teeth. Don't either of you need 'em,
and it would be selfish of me to spend on something they couldn't
anybody borrow from me. Amandy, dig a little deeper around that
shoot, I don't want no puny vine under my window!"

"I'm a-trying, Sister Viney," answered Miss Amanda propitiatingly.