it better than any other room in the house," said Mother Bab. "I
suppose it's because the old clock and the haircloth sofa are in it.
Why, Davie used to slide down the ends of that sofa and call it his boat
when he was just a little fellow. And that old clock"--her voice sank to
the tenderness of musing retrospect--"why, Davie's father set it up the
day we were married and came here and set up housekeeping and it's been
ticking ever since. Davie used to say 'tick-tock' when he heard it, when
he first learned to talk. I like that old clock most as much as if it
were something alive. A man who comes around here to buy antique
furniture came in one day and offered to buy it. I'll never forget how
David told him it wasn't for sale. The very thought of selling the old
clock made Davie cross."

"Davie cross! How could he keep the twinkle out of his eyes long enough
to be cross?"

"Ach, it don't last long when he gets cross."

"Where is he now, Mother Bab?"

"Working in the tobacco field."

"In the hot sun!"

"He says he don't mind it. He's so pleased with the tobacco this summer.
It looks fine. If the hail don't get in it now it'll bring about four
hundred dollars, he thinks. That will be the most he has ever gotten out
of it. But tobacco is an awful risk. If the weather is just so it pays
about the best of anything around this part of the country, I guess, but
so often the poor farmers work hard in the tobacco fields and then the
hail comes along and all is spoiled. But ours is fine so far."

"I'm glad. David has been working hard all summer with it."

"Sometimes he gets discouraged; Phares's crops always seem to do better
than David's, yet David works just as hard. But Phares plants no
tobacco."

At that moment Phares Eby himself came into the room where the two sat.
He appeared a trifle embarrassed when he saw Phoebe. Since the June
meeting under the sycamore tree by the old stone quarry he had made no
special effort to see her, and the several times they had met in that
time he had greeted her with marked restraint.

"Good-afternoon," he murmured, looking from Phoebe to Mother Bab and
back again to Phoebe. "I didn't know you were here, Phoebe. I--Aunt
Barbara, I came in to tell you there's a bright red bird in the woods
down by the cornfield."

"There is!" cried Phoebe with much interest. "Is it all red, or has it
black wings and tail?"

"Why, I couldn't say. I know David and Aunt Barbara are always
intere