“What’s the matter, old Sweetie—­tired?” she demanded as he came alongside and leaned against the wall near her.  His big gray eyes were troubled and there was not the sign of the usual quizzical smile.  The forelock hung down in a curl from under the brim of the old gray hat and the lavender muffler swung at loose ends.  As he lighted the old cob his lean brown hands trembled slightly and he utterly refused to look into Rose Mary’s eyes.  “What is it, honey-heart?” she demanded again.

“What’s what, Rose Mary?” asked Uncle Tucker with a slight rift in the gloom.  “They are some women in the world, if a man was to seal up his trouble in a termater-can and swoller it, would get a button-hook and a can-opener to go after him to get it out.  You belong to that persuasion.”

“I want to be the tomato-can—­and not be ’swollered’,” answered Rose Mary as she reached over and gently removed the tattered gray roof from off the white shock and began to smooth and caress its brim into something of its former shape.  “I know something is the matter, and if it’s your trouble it’s mine.  I’m your heir at law, am I not?”

“Yes, and you’re a-drawing on the estate for more’n your share of pesters, looks like,” answered Uncle Tucker as he raised his eyes to hers wistfully.

“Is it something about—­about the mortgage?” asked Rose Mary in the gently hushed tone that she always used in speaking of this ever couchant enemy of their peace.

“Yes,” answered Uncle Tucker slowly, “it’s about the mortgage, and I’m mighty sorry to have to tell you, but I reckon I’ll have to come to accepting you from the Lord as a rod and staff to hobble on.  I—­I had that settlement with the Senator this evening ’fore he left and it came pretty nigh winding me to see how things stood.  Instead of a little more’n one hundred dollars behind in the interest we are mighty near on to six, and by right figures, too.  It just hasn’t measured out any year, and I never stopped to count it at so much.  Gid was mighty kind about it and said never mind, let it run, but—­but I’m not settled in my mind it’s right to hold on like this; he maybe didn’t mean it, but before dinner he dropped a word about being mighty hard pressed for money to keep up this here white ribbon contest he’s a-running against his own former record.  No, I’m not settled in my mind about the rights of it,” and with this uneasy reiteration Uncle Tucker raised his big eyes to Rose Mary in which lay the exact quest for the path of honor that she had met in the young eyes of the General not two hours before.  In fact, Uncle Tucker’s eyes were so like Stonie’s in their mournful demand for a decision from her that Rose Mary’s tender heart throbbed with sympathy but sank with dismay at again having the decision of a question of masculine ethics presented to her.

“I just don’t know what to say, Uncle Tucker,” she faltered, thus failing him in his crisis more completely than she had the boy.