Barbara turned; blindly she walked to the center table and buried
her face in a bouquet of wild flowers garnered from the yard. She
held it there for a moment before she spoke. "You--didn't even
forget that I love bluebonnets, did you, dad?"

"Pshaw! I 'ain't had much to do but remember what you like, son."

"What's the matter? Business bad?" "Bob's" face was still hidden.

"Oh no! I'm busy as usual. But, now you're home, I'll probably
feel like doing more. I got a lot of work left in me yet, now I
got somebody to work for."

"So you fixed everything with your own hands."

"Sure! I knew how you like the place to look, and--well, a man
gets used to doing without help. The kitchen's clean, too."

Side by side the two moved from room to room, and, once the girl
had regained control of herself, she maintained an admirable self-
restraint. She petted and she cooed over objects dear to her; she
loved every inch of everything; she laughed and she exclaimed, and
with her laughter sunshine suddenly broke into the musty,
threadbare interior for the first time in four years.

"Bob's" room was saved for the last, and Old Tom stood back, glowing
at her delight. He could not refrain from showing her his blackened
thumb-nail--the price of his carpentry--for he hoped she'd kiss it.
And she did. Not until she had "shooed" him out and sent him