“Never thought to ask him,” answered Uncle Tucker, still with the utmost unconcern.  “Maybe Rose Mary knows.  Women generally carry a reticule around with ’em jest to poke facts into that they gather together from nothing put pure wantin’-to-know.  Ask her.”

And as he spoke Uncle Tucker began to busy himself getting out the grease cans, with the evident intention of putting in a morning lubricating the farm implements in general.

“Your friend, Mr. Gideon Newsome, said something about a rumor of paying phosphate here in the Harpeth bend when I met him over in Boliver before I came to Sweetbriar.  In fact, I had tried to come to look over the fields just to kill time when I nearly killed myself and fell down upon you.  Do you suppose he could have sent the prospector?” Again Everett brought Uncle Tucker back to the uninteresting topic of what might lay under the fields, the top of which he was so interested in cultivating.

“Oh, I reckon not,” answered Uncle Tucker, puffing away as he laid out his monkey-wrenches.  “The Honorable Gid is up to his neck in this here no-dram wave what is a-sweeping around over the state and pretty nigh rising up as high as the necks of even private liquor bottles.  Gid’s not to say a teetotaler, but he had to climb into the bandwagon skiff or sink outen sight.  He’s got to tie down his seat in the state house with a white ribbon, and he’s got no mind for fooling with phosphate dirt.  He’s a mighty fine man, and all of Sweetbriar thinks a heap of him.  Do you want to help me lift this wagon wheel on to this jack, so I can sorter grease her up against the next time I use her?”

“Say, Uncle Tuck, Aunt Viney says for you to come right there now and bring Mr. Mark and a spade and a long string with you,” came just at the critical moment of balancing the notched plank under the revolving wagon wheel, in Stonewall Jackson’s young voice, which held in it quite a trace of Miss Lavinia’s decisive tone of command.  Stonie stood in the barn door, poised for instant return along the path of duty to the front walk, only waiting to be sure his summons would be obeyed.  Stonie was sturdy, freckled, and in possession of Uncle Tucker’s big gray eyes, Rose Mary’s curled mouth and more than a tinge of Aunt Viney’s austerity of manner.

“Better come on,” he further admonished.  “Rose Mary can’t hold that vine up much longer, and if she lets go they’ll all fall down.”  And as he raced up the path Everett followed almost as rapidly, urged on by the vision of Rose Mary drooping under some sort of unsupportable burden.  Uncle Tucker brought up the rear with the spade and a long piece of twine.

“Oh, I thought you would never come,” laughed Rose Mary from half way up the step-ladder as she lowered herself and a great bunch of budding honeysuckle down into Everett’s upstretched arms.  “I held it up as long as I could, but I almost let it tear the whole vine down.”

[Illustration:  “That’s what comes from letting that shoot run catawumpas”]