n their
wagons with children tumbling all over everything and--and you will make
a great speech with all of us looking on and being proud of you, because
nobody in New York or beyond can do as well. We can invite a lot of
people up from the City and over from Bolivar and Hillsboro and
Providence to hear you tell them all about Tennessee while things are
cooking and--"

"This rally is to show off Glendale not--the Crag," he interrupted me
with a quizzical laugh.

Now, how did he know I called him the Crag in my heart? I suppose I did
it to his face and never knew. I seem to think right out loud when I am
with him and feel out loud, too. I ignored his levity, that was out of
place when he saw how my brain was beginning to work well and rapidly.

"You mean, don't you, Jamie, that you want to get Glendale past this
place that is--humiliating--swimming with her head up?" I asked softly
past a rose that drooped against my cheek.

Perfectly justifiable tears came to my lashes as I thought what a
humiliation it all was to him and the rest of them, to be passed by an
opportunity like that and left to die in their gray moldiness off the
main line of life--shelved.

"That is one of my prayers, to get past humiliations, swimming with my
head up," I added softly, though I blushed from my toes to my top curl
at the necessity that had called out the prayer the last time. It's
awful on a woman to feel herself growing up stiff and sturdy by a man's
side and then to get sight of a gourd-vine tangling itself up between
them. I'm the dryad out of one of my own twin oaks down by the gate,
and I want the other twin to be--

I wonder if his eyes really look to other women like deep gray pools
that you can look deeper and deeper into and never seem to get to the
bottom, no matter if the look does seem to last forever and you feel
yourself blushing and wanting to take your eyes away, or if it is just I
that get so drowned in them!

"You've a gallant stroke, Evelina," he said softly, as I at last gained
possession of my own sight. "And here I am with a hand out to you for
assistance in carrying out your own plan that seems to be just the thing
to--"

"Say, Cousin James. Aunt Marfy says for you to come home to breakfast
right away. Mis' Hargrove won't let nobody begin until you says the
blessing, and Cousin Jasmine have got the headache from waiting for her
coffee. What do you want to fool with Evelina this time of day for
anyway?" And