“No, Amandy,” interrupted Aunt Viney, “it wasn’t sixty years ago, it was jest fifty-seven.  Mr. Lovell brought the switch of it with him the first year Mr. Roberts rode this circuit, and he was a-holding that big revival over to Providence Chapel.  Mr. Lovell came into the fold with that very first night’s preaching, and we all were rejoiced.  Don’t you remember he brought you that Maiden Blush rose-bush over there at the same time he brought this vine to Ma?  And one bloom came out on the rose the next year jest in time to put it in his coffin before we buried him when he was taken down with the fever on the Road and died here with us.  Fifty-six years ago come June, and him so young to die while so full of the spirit of the Lord!”

Feebly Miss Amanda rose to her knees and went on with the digging around the roots of the vine, but Rose Mary knelt beside her and laid her strong, young arm around the bent and shaking little shoulders.  Uncle Tucker rested on his spade and looked away across the garden wall, where the little yard of graves was hid in the shadow of tall pine trees, and his big eyes grew very tender.  Miss Lavinia fingered a shoot of the vine that had fallen across her thin old knees with a softened expression in her prophet-woman face, while something new and sweet stirred in Everett’s breast and woke in his tired eyes, as across half a century was wafted the perfume of a shattered romance.

And then by the time the vine had been trained Miss Lavinia had thought of a number of other spring jobs that must be attended to along the front walk and around all the clumps of budding shrubs, so with one desperate glance toward the barn, his deserted haven, Uncle Tucker fell to with his spade, while Everett obtained a fork from the tool house and put himself under command.  Rose Mary was sharply recalled and sent into the house to complete the arrangements for the festivities, when she had followed the forker down by the lilac hedge, rake in hand, with evident intention of being of great assistance in the gardening of the amateur.

“Pull the dirt up closter around those bleeding-hearts, Tucker,” commanded Miss Lavinia from her rocker.  “They are Rose Mary’s I planted the identical day she was born, and I don’t want anything to happen to ’em in the way of cutworms or such this summer.”

“Well, I don’t know,” answered Uncle Tucker with a little chuckle in Everett’s direction, who was turning over the dirt near a rose-bush in his close vicinity, “it don’t do to pay too much attention to women’s bleeding-hearts; let alone, they’ll tie ’em up in their own courage and go on dusting around the place, while if you notice ’em too much they take to squeezing out more bleed drops for your sympathy.  Now, I think it’s best—­”

“Mister Tucker, say, Mister Tucker,” came in a giggle from over the front gate as Jennie Rucker’s little freckled nose appeared just above the top plank, only slightly in advance of that of small Peggy’s.  “Mis’ Poteet’s got a new baby, just earned, and she says she is sorry she can’t come to Mis’ Viney’s party; but she can’t.”