“Fly-away!” exclaimed Uncle Tucker, “now Sister Viney’s never going to forgive me that Bible slip-up if I don’t persuade her from now on till supper.  But there is nothing more for you to do out here, Rose Mary, the sun’ll put out the light for you,” and he hurried away down the path and through the garden gate.

Rose Mary remained leaning over the garden wall, looking up and down the road with interest shining in her eyes and a laugh and nod for the neighbors who were hurrying supperward or stopping to talk with one another over fences and gates.  A group of men and boys stood and sat on the porch in front of the store, and their big voices rang out now and again with hearty merriment at some exchange of wit or clever bit of horse-play.  Two women stood in deep conclave over by the Poteet gate, and the subject of the council was a small bundle of flannel and lawn displayed with evident pride by a comely young woman in a pink calico dress.  Seeing Rose Mary at the wall, they both smiled and started in her direction, the bearer of the bundle stepping carefully across the ditch at the side of the walk.

“Lands alive, Rose Mary, you never did see nothing as pretty as this last Poteet baby,” exclaimed Mrs. Plunkett enthusiastically.  “The year before last one, let me see, weren’t that Evelina Virginia, Mis’ Poteet?  Yes, Evelina Virginia was mighty pretty, but this one beats her.  I declare, if you was to fail us with these spring babies, Mis’ Poteet, it would be a disappointment to the whole of Sweetbriar.  Come next April it will be seven without a year’s break, astonishing as it do sound.”

“It would be as bad as the sweetbriar roses not blooming, Mrs. Poteet,” laughed Rose Mary as she held out her arms for the bundle which cuddled against her breast in a woman-maddening fashion that made her clasp the mite as close as she dared.

“Yes, I tell you, seven hand-running is enough for any woman to be proud of, Mis’ Poteet, and it ought to be taken notice of.  Have you heard the news of the ten acres of bottom land to be given to him, Rose Mary?  That’s what all the men are a-joking of Mr. Poteet about over there at the store now.  They are a-going to make out the deed to-night.  They bought the land from Bob Nickols right next to Mr. Poteet’s, crops and all, ten acres of the best land in Sweetbriar.  I call it a nice compliment.  ’To Tucker Poteet, from Sweetbriar, is to go right in the deed.”

“‘Tucker Poteet,’ oh, Mrs. Poteet, have you named him for Uncle Tucker?” exclaimed Rose Mary with beaming eyes, and the rapture of her embrace was only modified by a slight squirm from the young heir of all Sweetbriar.

“Well, I had had that name in my mind from the first if he come a boy, but when Mr. Poteet got down to the store for some tansy, when he weren’t a hour old, he found all the men-folks had done named him that for us, and it looked like we didn’t have the chance to pass the compliment.  We ain’t told you-all nothing about it, for they all wanted Mr. Tucker to read it in the deed first.”