“I’m a-coming, Sally, right on the minute,” answered the poet-by-stealth, and he hurried across the street with hungry alacrity.  The poem-maker was tall and loose-jointed, and the breadth of his shoulders and long muscular limbs decidedly suggested success at the anvil or field furrow.  He made a jocular pass at placing his arm around the uncompromising waist-line of his portly wife, and when warded off by an only half-impatient shove he contented himself by winding one of her white apron strings around one of his long fingers as they leaned together over the gate for further parley with the Alloways across the road.

“When did you get back, Mrs. Rucker?” asked Rose Mary interestedly, as she rested her arms on the wall and Uncle Tucker planted himself beside her, having brushed away one of the long briar shoots to make room for them both.

“About two hours ago,” answered Mrs. Rucker.  “I found everybody in fine shape up at Providence, and Mis’ Mayberry sent Mr. Tucker a new quinzy medicine that Tom wrote back to her from New York just day before yesterday.  I made a good trade in hogs with Mr. Hoover for myself and Bob Nickols, too.  Mr. Petway had a half-barrel of flour in his store he were willing to let go cheap, and I bought it for us and you-all and the Poteets.  Me and you can even up on that timothy seed with the flour, Mr. Tucker, and I’m just a-going to give a measure to the Poteets as a compliment to that new Poteet baby, which is the seventh mouth to feed on them eighty-five acres.  I’ve set yeast for ourn and your rolls for to-morrow, tell your Aunt Mandy, Rose Mary, and I brought that copy of the Christian Advocate for your Aunt Viney that she lost last month.  Mis’ Mayberry don’t keep hern, but spreads ’em around, so was glad to let me have this one.  I asked about 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—­”