able now to interest anybody, and my voice, when I speak--I--I--Will
it be soon?" Her question had a trace of positive anxiety in it and
her joy was most evidently forced.

"Oh, not till June rose time! And your voice now sounds like a
angel's with a bad cold. I'll tell Tom about it, he'll be so
pleased. Her father was such a friend to him and as proud of him now
as can be."

"Did Doctor Mayberry stay in the City--after his graduation?" asked
Miss Wingate, a trace of anxiety in her voice.

"That he didn't! He come on home with me that night, got into his
overalls and begun to plow for winter wheat by sun-up the next
morning. We made a good crop that year and the mortgage wasn't but a
few hundred dollars, what we soon paid. We've been going up ever
since. Tom reminds me of a kite, and I must make out to play tail
for him until I can pick him out a wife."

"Have you thought of anybody in particular?" asked the lovely lady
without raising her eyes from her work. She had commenced operations
on the blue sock unnoticed by Mother, who was taken up in the
unfolding of her tale.

"Not yet," answered she cheerfully. "I mustn't hurry. Marrying ain't
no one-day summer junket, but a year round march and the woman to
raise the hymn tune. I take it that after a mother have builded up a
man, she oughter see to it that he's capped off fine with a wife,
and then she can forget all about him. I've got my eyes open about
Tom and I'm going to begin to hunt around soon."