I had planned to open the bundle and begin my work for Peter right after dinner, but I sat down and devoured whole that note-book of my maternal ancestor’s.  I never was so thrilled over anything, and the chapter on gardening really reads like a beautiful idyl of summer.  It changed my entire nature.  As I read I glowed to think that I could go right to Sam’s wilderness and try it all out.  I didn’t own any land, and it might take a little time to force daddy to buy me some, and the planting season and fever were upon me.  There is a wide plateau to the south of Sam’s living-room, and I had in my mind cleared it of bushes, enriched it with all the wonderful things grandmother had directed, beginning with beautiful dead leaves, and I was planting out the row of great blush peonies in my mind as I intended to plant it in Sam’s garden when the tall old clock in the hall toned out four long strokes.  Then I remembered that I wanted to go down to the post-office to get my mail and to see everybody and hear the news.  So with the greatest reluctance I tucked the garden idyl in the old desk which had been that very Grandmother Nelson’s, and heaved Peter’s heavy manuscript in on top of it.

No mass-meeting, no picnic, and no function out in the great world, even New-Year’s reception at the White House or afternoon tea at the Plaza, could be half the fun that going to the Hayesboro post-office for the afternoon mail is.  I think the distinct flavor is imparted by the fact that all our forefathers and foremothers have done it before us.  The Hayesboro resurrection will be held right there, I feel sure.

And if mail-time is fun usually, it is great when all the news is about you and your friends all swarm around you with interest.  Everybody had heard about Peter and his play, though neither Edith nor Tolly thought they had told, and that he was soon coming down to visit me, and, of course, that meant to visit all of Hayesboro.  Miss Henrietta Spain, who teaches literature from spelling to the English poets, in the Hayesboro Academy, had read Peter’s new poem—­the one the Literary Opinion had copied last month—­and she was pink with excitement over the prospect of having such a genius in our midst,

“Look out that you don’t get put in the play on the other side of the footlights, Hayes,” said the mayor, slapping daddy on the back.  “Be careful how you have a poet sitting around your house.”

“The South has long waited to have a genius come down and write a fitting epic about her Homeric drama of Civil War, Elizabeth,” said old Colonel Menefee.  “Let your young friend come, and I can give him material, beginning with that Bedford Forest charge just before Chickamauga that—­”

“And just remember,” interrupted Mrs. Winston Polk, “how Elizabeth’s mother, Betty’s own Grandmother Nelson, rode fifty miles and back in twenty-four hours to get Morgan to send wagons for her barnful of corn to feed his soldiers, though she and her negroes were dependent on what she could grow between then and frost.  She never faltered, but—­”