needn't care, when
what doesn't mean silveh means dead loads of other things. Make haste
an' grow, son; yo' peerless motheh and I are only wait'n'--" He ceased.
In the small of his back the growing pressure of a diminutive bad hat
told the condition of his hidden audience. It lifted again.

"'Evomind, son, I can talk to you just as well asleep. But I can tell
you somepm that'll keep you awake. I was savin' it till we'd get home to
yo' dear motheh, but yo' ti-ud an' I don't think of anything else
an'--the fact is, I'm bringing home a present faw you." He looked behind
till his eyes met a brighter pair. "What you reckon you've been sitt'n'
on in one of them saddle pockets all the way fum Suez?"

John smiled, laid his cheek to his father's back and whispered, "A
kitt'n."

"Why, no, son; its somepm powerful nice, but--well, you might know it
wa'n't a kitt'n by my lett'n' you sit on it so long. I'd be proud faw
you to have a kitt'n, but, you know, cats don't suit yo' dear motheh's
high strung natu'e. You couldn't be happy with anything that was a
constant tawment to her, could you?"

The head lying against the questioner's back nodded an eager yes!

"Oh, you think you might, son, but I jes' know you couldn't. Now, what
I've got faw you is ever so much nicer'n a kitt'n. You see, you
a-growin' so fast you'll soon not care faw kitt'ns; you'll care for what
I've got you. But don't ask what it is, faw I'd hate not to tell you,
and I want yo' dear motheh to be with us when you find it out."

It was fairly twilight when their horse neighed his pleasure that his
crib was near. Presently they dismounted in a place full of stumps and
weeds, where a grove had been till Halliday's brigade had camped there.
Beyond a paling fence and a sandy, careworn garden of altheas and
dwarf-box stood broadside to them a very plain, two-story house of
uncoursed gray rubble, whose open door sent forth no welcoming gleam.
Its windows, too, save one softly reddened by a remote lamp, reflected
only the darkling sky. This was their home, called by every mountaineer
neighbor "a plumb palace."

As they passed in, the slim form of Mrs. March entered at the rear door
of the short hall and came slowly through the gloom. John sprang, and
despite her word and gesture of nervous disrelish, clutched, and smote
his face into, her pliant crinoline. The husband kissed her forehead,
and, as she staggered before the child's energy, said:

"Be gentle, son." He t