“No, child, I reckon not,” he answered gently.  “Looks like it helps me to handle all these things I have used to put licks in on more’n one good farm deal.  I was just a-wondering how many big clover crops I had mowed down with this old blade ’fore I laid it by to go riding away from it on that new-fangled buggy reaper out there that broke down in less’n five years, while this old friend had served its twenty-odd and now is good for as many more with careful honing.  That’s it, men of my time were like good blades what swing along steady and even, high over rocks and low over good ground; but they don’t count in these days of the four-horse-power high-drive, cut-bind-and-deliver machines men work right on through God’s gauges of sun-up and down.  But maybe in glory come He’ll walk with us in the cool of the evening while they’ll be put to measuring the jasper walls with a golden reed just to keep themselves busy and contented.  How’s the resurrection in the wardrobes and chests of drawers coming on?” And a real smile made its way into Uncle Tucker’s eyes as he inquired into the progress of the packing up of the sisters, from which he had fled a couple hours ago.

“They are still taking things out, talking them over and putting them right back in the same place,” answered Rose Mary with a faint echo of his smile that tried to come to the surface bravely but had a struggle.  “We will have to try and move the furniture with it all packed away as it is.  It is just across the Road and I know everybody will want to help me disturb their things as little as possible.  Oh, Uncle Tucker, it’s almost worth the—­the pain to see everybody planning and working for us as they are doing.  Friends are like those tall pink hollyhocks that go along and bloom single on a stalk until something happens to make them all flower out double like peonies.  And that reminds me, Aunt Viney says be sure and save some of the dry jack-bean seed from last year you had out here in the seed press for—­”

“Say, Rose Mamie, say, what you think we found up on top of Mr. Crabtree’s bedpost what Mis’ Rucker were a-sweeping down with a broom?” and the General’s face fairly beamed with excitement as he stood dancing in the barn door.  Tobe stood close behind him and small Peggy and Jennie pressed close to Rose Mary’s side, eager but not daring to hasten Stonie’s dramatic way of making Rose Mary guess the news they were all so impatient to impart to her.

“Oh, what?  Tell me quick, Stonie,” pleaded Rose Mary with the eagerness she knew would be expected of her.  Even in her darkest hours Rose Mary’s sun had shone on the General with its usual radiance of adoration and he had not been permitted to feel the tragedy of the upheaval, but encouraged to enjoy to the utmost all its small excitements.  In fact the move over to the store had appealed to a fast budding business instinct in the General and he had seen himself soon promoted to the weighing out of sugar, wrapping up bundles and delivering them over the counter to any one of the admiring Swarm sent to the store for the purchase of the daily provender.