white dotted Swiss muslin dress which Miss
Araminta Armstrong says she has been wearing for six summers, and which
has the dearest little darns in it, that Father's face got real
flushed, and once I really believe there were tears in his eyes. He
might have been an ambassador at some court who was being received, for
at no court in Europe could a lady bow as Mrs. General Gaines bows, and
she gave her best to Father when he was presented. I don't like her,
but she certainly is an old swell. And then Isham (he's Uncle Henson
and Aunt Mandy's grandson, and totes water all day long from the well
up into the house, when he isn't playing a Jew's-harp in the sun) came
out and got Father's bags and things and took them up-stairs, and a
little later Uncle Henson brought up on a silver tray one of those mint
juleps, about which Father told Mr. Willie Prince, who made it, that
the half could never be told, and at eight o'clock we had breakfast.
Usually Father doesn't take anything at home but grape-fruit and
coffee, but that morning, and every morning he was here, he ate
waffles, and batter-bread, and beaten biscuits, and everything else
Miss Susanna would urge him to try, and he said he couldn't understand
how he could eat so much. I didn't tell him, but I think it was
because of the juleps. They're the best things for poor appetites ever
invented yet, Major Hairston says, and he ought to know, being over
seventy and never having missed taking two a day since he could fix
them for himself. After breakfast we talked for a while on the porch,
and then I took Father out to show him the town.

I wouldn't have taken him out if the day had been hot, but it wasn't
hot. It was one of those gorgeous days that sometimes come in summer
after a thunder-storm and which have the feel and taste of early
October; and being in the mountains it was cooler on that account, and
I could see Father breathe deep, and the tiredness began to go away as
we walked and talked. That is, I talked. He tried to at first, and
then gave up. Everybody in town knew he was coming--I had told
them--and they came down from their porches and shook hands with him,
and said they were so glad to see him and they hoped he was going to
stay some time, and that they would call as soon as he was rested, and
a whole lot of other nice things, so that Father almost got flurried,
he was so pleased and warmed up. At home he is always hurrying in the
morning to get to th