e poking around here not so
long ago with a little hammer pecking at the rocks. I didn't pay much
attention to him, though. He never stayed but one day, and I was
a-cutting clover hay, and too busy to notice him much 'cept to ask him
in to dinner. He couldn't seem to manage his chicken dumplings for
feeding his eyes with Rose Mary, and he didn't have time to give up
much information about sech little things as oil-wells and phosphate
beds. You know, they has to be a good touch of frost over a man's ears
before he can tend to business, with good-looking dimity passing
around him." And Uncle Tucker laughed as he resumed the puffing of his
pipe.

"And after the frost they are not at all immune--to such dimity,"
answered Everett with an echo of Uncle Tucker's laugh, as a slight
color rose up under the tan of his thin face. As he spoke he ruffled
his own dark red mop of hair, which was slightly sprinkled with gray,
over his temples. Everett was tall, broad and muscular, but thin
almost to gauntness, and his face habitually wore the expression of
deep weariness. His eyes were red-brown and disillusioned, except when
they joined with his well-cut mouth in a smile that brought an almost
boyish beauty back over his whole expression. There was decided youth
in the glance he bestowed upon Uncle Tucker, whose attention was
riveted on the manoeuvers of the General and Tobe, who were busy with
a pair of old kitchen knives in an attack upon the grass growing
between the cracks of the front walk.

"So you have had no report as to what that survey was?" Everett asked
Uncle Tucker, again bringing him back to the subject in hand. "Do you
know who sent the man you speak of to prospect on your land?"

"Never thought to ask him," answered Uncle Tucker, still with the
utmost unconcern. "Maybe Rose Mary knows. Women generally carry a
reticule around with 'em jest to poke facts into that they gather
together from nothing put pure wantin'-to-know. Ask her."

And as he spoke Uncle Tucker began to busy himself getting out the
grease cans, with the evident intention of putting in a morning
lubricating the farm implements in general.

"Your friend, Mr. Gideon Newsome, said something about a rumor of
paying phosphate here in the Harpeth bend when I met him over in
Boliver before I came to Sweetbriar. In fact, I had tried to come to
look over the fields just to kill time when I nearly killed myself and
fell down upon you. Do you suppose he could