it before I had got my bonnet-strings untied. Yes, Cal, I'm a-going
on in to give you your supper, for I expect I'll find the children's
and Granny's stomicks and backbones growing together if I don't hurry.
That's one thing Mr. Satterwhite said in his last illness, he never
had had to wait--yes, I'm coming, Granny," and with the encomium of
the late Mr. Satterwhite still unfinished Mrs. Rucker hurried up the
front path at the behest of a high, querulous old voice issuing from
the front windows.

"Well, there's no doubt about it, no finer woman lives along
Providence Road than Sallie Rucker, Marthy Mayberry and Selina Lue
Lovell down at the Bluff not excepted, to say nothing of Rose Mary
Alloway standing right here in the midst of my own sweet potato
vines," said Uncle Tucker reflectively as he glanced at the retreating
figure of his sturdy neighbor, which was followed by that of the lean
and hungry poet.

"Yes, she's wonderful," answered Rose Mary enthusiastically,
"but--but I wish she had just a little sympathy for--for poetry. If a
husband sprouts little spirit wings under his shoulders it's a kind
thing for his wife not to pick them right out alive, isn't it? When I
get a husband--"

"When you get a husband, Rose Mary, I hope he'll hump his shoulders
over a plow-line the number of hours allotted for a man's work and
then fly poetry kites off times and only when the wind is right,"
answered Uncle Tucker with a quizzical smile in his big eyes and a
quirk at the corner of his mouth.

"But I'm going always to admire the kites anyway, even if they don't