the butter into a large jar and pressed a white cloth close over it
with a stone top. "To-night is the full April moon and I've got a
surprise for you, if you don't find it out too soon. Will you walk
over to Tilting Rock, beyond the barn-lot, with me after supper and
let me show you?"

"Will I cross the fields of Elysium to gaze over the pearly ramparts?"
demanded Everett with boyish enthusiasm, if not a wholly accurate use
of mythological metaphor. "Let's cut supper and go on now! What do you
say? Why wait?"

"I'm afraid," laughed Rose Mary as she prepared to close up the wide
window and leave everything in shipshape for the night. "A woman
oughtn't to risk feeding a hungry man cold moonbeams instead of hot
hoecake. Besides, I have to see everybody safely tucked in before I
can leave. Aren't they all a precious houseful of early-to-bed
chickens? The old Sweeties have forgotten there is such a thing as the
moon and Stonie hasn't--found it out--yet." And with a mischievous
backward glance, Rose Mary led the way up the lilac path to the Briars
on top of the hill just as the old bell sounded two wobbly notes,
their uncertainty caused by the rivalry of the General and Tobe over
the pulling of the ropes.

And it was quite two hours later that she and Everett made their way
across the barn-lot over to the broad, moss-covered Tilting Rock that
jutted out from a little hackberry-covered knoll at the far end of the
pasture.

"Now look--and smell in deep!" exclaimed Rose Mary excitedly as she
pointed back to the Briars.