Like a little mother crooning over her frightened child, Cynthia sang the words tenderly. Marcia Lowe had taught her the words and tune after her fright at the time of the fire. It had been Cynthia's first evening song; she had often quieted her sudden fears in the dark nights by repeating the tender words:

Through the long night watches----

and sleeping, surely with white wings above them, Ann Walden and Cynthia lay side by side when old Sally came to rouse them.

Shocked and frightened, Sally got Cynthia from the room without the girl realizing the conditions. Pacifying her by a promise to "take her turn" at the bedside, she left the girl in her own chamber while she ran, panting, stumbling--often pausing to rest--to Trouble Neck.

"Ole Miss Ann don' gone out at the turning o' the tide," she sobbed to Marcia Lowe.

"And little Cyn?"

"Come, oh! come," pleaded Sally; "fo' she cotch on."

"And now," thought the doctor as she mounted her horse with Sally astride behind, "I'm going to bring your little girl home, Uncle Theodore, and take my chance and your chance with her!"

CHAPTER XIX

Old Sally Taber sat in the full glow and warmth of an early October afternoon and looked about Sandy Morley's kitchen. The glow came from the sun which streamed through the broad window; the warmth emanated from the stove which Marcia Lowe had trained Sally to understand and respect. The cooking utensils, too, had become tractable objects in Sally's determined hands, for with a perpetual land of promise and fulfillment in sight, the old woman had rallied her forces for the homestretch.

Since the day when Ann Walden was laid in the family plot and Cynthia had been taken to Trouble Neck, Sally had lived in Sandy Morley's cabin and gloried in the title of "housekeeper."

"Three weeks," muttered Sally, sitting with her skirts well drawn up; her feet, encased in "old woman's comforts," resting comfortably in the oven of the stove.

"Three whole weeks an' po'k chops every day when there ain't something better."

With that she got up, went to a corner cupboard and brought out her can of vaseline.

"Yo' lyin' ole chile," she muttered; "yo' can sho' res' from yo'

labours. This am a lan' o' honey an' the honeycomb."

Then voluntarily Sally raised the lid of the stove and pushed the tin can in upon a blazing piece of wood. The flames caught the grease and licked it greedily from the outer side of the box:

"Massa Fire," laughed Sally; "yo' like dat po'k chop?"

Then the heat hungrily battled for more and "pop" flew the cork and back leaped Sally.

"Gawd!" she gasped. "I sho' didn't think yo' would take it that-er-way. I was only foolin'!"

Sally had made great strides. She could laugh and joke with assurance in her heart. Sandy Morley had promised that she might have a home to the end of her days in Martin's cabin--the glorified cabin--and Sally, like many another, was learning to trust Sandy as no one had ever been trusted in Lost Hollow before. Sally rarely gave expression to her sentiments; she did not mean to permit the child whom she had helped Martin bring through his "teething," and whom she had spanked many a time, to get the upper hand; but she prayed by her very comfortable bed in the loft over the living-room that she might cook to Sandy's liking and prove herself worthy the blessing God bestowed upon her in her old age.

Glaring at the stove and not daring to risk another outburst of indignation, Sally stood helpless when Sandy entered the sunny kitchen.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

"Dat stove done have a real human sense," Sally replied; "an open fire we-all can reckon with an' keep an eye on, but yo' shet fire up in a packin' box an' who knows what's goin' on in its min'?"

Sandy laughed, put the lid in its place and sat on the table, swinging one long leg comfortably. He gloried in the element of home that he had brought about him and to see Sally in the kitchen always gave him a distinct thrill.

"Make some gingerbread for supper," he pleaded, "and give me the lickings, Sally. Do you know I never had lickings until I went to Massachusetts."

"Lands! Sandy Morley, I don' gave you millions mysef! Yo' pa was allas fur lettin' yo' off, but I lathered yo' mo'n once, chile, an' so saved yo' fo' yo' luck."

"I mean 'leavings' in the bowl when the cake's ready for the oven.

Come Sally, let me help you get things together. Molasses, spices, milk----"

"I'll get the res'. Now, son, do tackle this yere can o' risin'

powder. Take this yere Handy Andy an' pry the kiver. Seems like these new-fangled cookin' yarbs is put up jes' ter try the patience ob de saints."

Sandy took the instrument, and utilizing one of its many powers, loosened the cover and handed the baking powder to Sally.

"I wonder how you ever kept your hand in at cooking?" he said musingly as he reflected upon the past. But Sally was on guard.

"Lor, chile! an' why not? Ain't I allas had my own po'k and bacon?

Ain't I lived up to the Great House fo' years an' years?"

"Of course. And Sally, that reminds me. I'm going to buy the Great House and--make it as it was before the war!"

"Gawd!" gasped Sally.

"I shall want you to tell me exactly how it looked--you can remember?"

"Why, yes, chile!" Sally's hand paused, spoon in air. "I can see it same as it was yesterday. That-er Yankee man they called Sheridan--he passed up by The Way an' he stopt right on the home-place o'

Stoneledge, an' General Walden he was there, an' old Miss, an' lil'

Miss Ann--she was right little an' young then but mighty peart. I was stayin' at the Great House then, fo' it was near the time when lil'

Miss Queenie was goin' ter be born--her as died up Norf at a horse-pittal. Well, that-er-Yankee Sheridan he don' say to General Walden, 'We-all is near starvin'.' Jes' like a-that! An' General Walden he don' say, standin' upperty an' mighty, 'We-all will share with yo', general, bein' war is war.' Then what-er-yo' think? Lil'

Miss Ann she pearked up an' says right to his face: 'Yo' can't have Anna Isabel!' She never batted an eye when she spoke up, an' I thought I'd bust. The Yankee he don' ax who Anna Isabel was, an' lil' Miss Ann said right stiff, 'She be my turkey--she be our Christmas dinner.' An'

jes' then Anna Isabel stalked straight-er-way befo' dat man Sheridan an' lil' Miss Ann pointed an' says 'There's Anna Isabel!' Well, we-all laughed an' I will say this for that Yank, he was powerful 'spectful to us-all. 'I'm bleeged to come in an' res' an' have a meal,' he don'

said, and then he went on with his pack totin' at his heels.

"Fo' de Lord, Sandy Morley, shet off that snortin', roarin' fire or I'll fetch yo' a real old-time lick!"

Sandy ran to regulate the dampers, his face radiant and boyish. He was enjoying, as he never had enjoyed anything in his life before, the dear home-atmosphere of his hills.

Sally Taber returned to her task with energy born of appreciation.

"We'll fix the old house of Stoneledge up in great shape," Sandy said, coming back to the table and leaning forward on his hands to follow Sally's energetic manipulation of the gingerbread; "that ought to be something for the rest of us to live up to. I'd like to see little Miss Cynthia installed there as mistress!"

"Her ain't of the Walden blood----" Sally remarked, breathlessly beating the golden brown batter. Sandy winced. "But her has caught the manners."

"And," Sandy steered away from the danger ground, "we'll have the Home-school. It must be a home first; a school afterward, Sally. I want the baby-things to have the 'lickings' of cakes and puddings in the kitchen--it is to be a great, big, sunny kitchen! And I want them to have bedtime stories and soft songs." Sandy's eyes, tender and luminous, looked beyond Sally and rested on the gentle slope of Lost Mountain. "I want them to have what every child has a right to and which our children have never had."

Sally was thoughtfully baling the light cake into the long, shallow tins:

"I clar' I don't know," she muttered, "how Smith Crothers is goin' to 'commodate hisself to yo'!" Then she shivered and stood upright, her nostrils sniffing and her eyes alert like a deer in the wilds. "I don'

thought," she murmured, "dat I heard a step and saw a shadder fallin'!