the laundry, she found
Tom waiting for her at the corner.

"An', Saxon," he said, hastily and haltingly, "you won't take anything
I've said... you know... --about Sarah... as bein' in any way disloyal
to her? She's a good woman, an' faithful. An' her life ain't so easy by
a long shot. I'd bite out my tongue before I'd say anything against her.
I guess all folks have their troubles. It's hell to be poor, ain't it?"

"You've been awful good to me, Tom. I can never forget it. And I know
Sarah means right. She does do her best."

"I won't be able to give you a wedding present," her brother ventured
apologetically. "Sarah won't hear of it. Says we didn't get none from my
folks when we got married. But I got something for you just the same. A
surprise. You'd never guess it."

Saxon waited.

"When you told me you was goin' to get married, I just happened to think
of it, an' I wrote to brother George, askin' him for it for you. An' by
thunder he sent it by express. I didn't tell you because I didn't know
but maybe he'd sold it. He did sell the silver spurs. He needed the
money, I guess. But the other, I had it sent to the shop so as not
to bother Sarah, an' I sneaked it in last night an' hid it in the
woodshed."

"Oh, it is something of my father's! What is it? Oh, what is it?"

"His army sword."

"The one he wore on his roan war horse! Oh, Tom, you couldn't give me a
better present. Let's go back now. I want to see it. We can slip in the
back way. Sarah's washing in the kitchen, and she won't begin hanging
out for an hour."

"I spoke to Sarah about lettin' you take the old chest of drawers that
was your mother's," Tom whispered, as they stole along the narrow alley
between the houses. "Only she got on her high horse. Said that Daisy was
as much my mother as yourn, even if we did have different fathers, and
that the chest had always belonged in Daisy's family and not Captain
Kit's, an' that it was mine, an' what was mine she had some say-so
about."

"It's all right," Saxon reassured him. "She sold it to me last night.
She was waiting up for me when I got home with fire in her eye."

"Yep, she was on the warpath all day after I mentioned it. How much did
you give her for it?"

"Six dollars."

"Robbery--it ain't worth it," Tom groaned. "It's all cracked at one end
and as old as the hills."

"I'd have given ten dollars for it. I'd have given 'most anything for
it, Tom. It was mother's, you know. I remember it i