"Kent?" she murmured faintly.

"Yes, Mother, a cablegram! 'Safe, well, Kent.'"

"Where?"

"Spain, I don't know what part."

And then the long pent-up flood gates were opened and Mrs. Brown and Molly had such a cry as was never seen or heard of. The cap strings that Molly had dropped on the floor when she heard that there was news, she had gathered up in one wild swoop on the way to her mother's room, and these were first brought into requisition to weep on, and then the sheets and the napkin from the breakfast tray, and at last even old Shep had to get damp.

"I bus' stop ad gall up Zue ad Ad Zarah. Oh, Bother, Bother, how good G.o.d is!"

"Yes, darling, He is good whether our Kent was spared to us or not,"

said Mrs. Brown, showing much more command of her consonants than poor Molly.

Caroline appeared, one big grin, bearing little Mildred in her arms.

"She done woke up an' say ter me: 'Ca'line, what all dis here rumpus 'bout?'"

As Mildred had as yet said nothing more than "Goo! Goo!" that brought the smiles to Molly and Mrs. Brown.

"Lawd Gawd a mussy! Is Mr. Kent daid? Is that what Mr. Paul done phomed?

I mus' run tell Aunt Mary. I boun' ter be the fust one."

"No, no, Caroline! Mr. Kent is alive and well."

"'Live an' well! Well, Gawd be praised! When I come in an' foun' you all a actin' lak what the preacher says will be in the las' day er jedgment, a weepin' an' wailin' an' s.n.a.t.c.hin' er teeth, I say ter myse'f: 'Ca'line, that there dream you had 'bout gittin' ma'id was sho'

sign er death, drownin' referred.' Well, Miss Molly, if'n you'll hol'

the baby, I'll go tell Aunt Mary the good news, too. Cose 'tain't quite so scrumptious to be the fust ter carry good news as 'tis bad, but then news is news."

Sue was telephoned to immediately and joined in the general rejoicing.

Aunt Sarah Clay was quite nonplussed for a moment because of the att.i.tude she had taken about the family mourning, but her affection for her sister, which was really very sincere in spite of her successful manner of concealing it, came to the fore and she, too, rejoiced. Of course she had to suggest, to keep in character, that Kent might have communicated with his family sooner if he only would have exerted himself, but Molly was too happy to get angry and only laughed.

"Aunt Clay can no more help her ways than a chestnut can its burr." And then she remembered how as children they would take sticks and beat the chestnut burrs open and she wondered if a good beating administered on Aunt Clay might not help matters. She voiced this sentiment to her mother, who said:

"My dear Molly, Life has administered the beating on your Aunt Clay long ago. It is being childless that makes her so bitter. I know that and that is the reason I am so patient, at least, I try to be patient with her. Of course, she always a.s.serts she is glad she has no children, that my children have been a never ending anxiety to me and she is glad she is spared a similar worry."

"But, Mother, we are not a never-ending anxiety, are we?"

"Yes, my darling, but an anxiety I would not be without for all the wealth of the Indies. Aren't you a little bit anxious all the time about your baby?"

"Why, yes, just a teensy weensy bit, but then I haven't got used to her yet."

"Well, when you get used to her, she will be just that much more precious."

"But then I have just one, and you have seven."

"Do you think you love her seven times as much as I love you, or Kent or Milly or any of them?"

"Oh, Mother, of course I don't. I know you love all of us just as much as I love my little Mildred, only I just don't see how you can."

"Maybe you will have to have seven children to understand how I can, but when you realize what it means to have Mildred, maybe you can understand what it has meant always to poor Sister Sarah never to have had any children."

"I suppose it is hard on her but, Mother dear, if she had had the seven and you had never had any, do you think for a minute you would have been as porcupinish and cactus-like in your att.i.tude toward the world and especially toward Aunt Clay's seven as she is toward yours? Never!"

Molly's statement was not to be combatted, although Mrs. Brown was not sure what she would have been like without her seven anxieties; but Molly knew that she would have been the same lovely person, no matter how many or how few children she had had.

"I'm going to try to feel differently toward Aunt Clay," she whispered into her baby's ear, as she cuddled her up to her after the great rite of bathing her was completed that morning. "Just think what it must be never to hold your own baby like this! Poor Aunt Clay! No wonder she is hard and cold--but goodness me, I'm glad I did not draw her for a parent." The baby looked up into her mother's eyes with a gurgle and crow, as though she, too, were pleased that her Granny was as she was and not as Aunt Clay was.

"We are going to see Daddy soon, do you know that, honey baby?" And Molly clasped her rosy infant to her breast with a heart full of thanksgiving that now there was no dire reason for her remaining in Kentucky longer.

A farewell visit must be paid to Aunt Mary. The baby was dressed in one of her very best slips and Molly put on her new blue suit for the occasion, as she well knew how flattered the old woman was by such an attention.

"Well, bless Gawd, if here ain't my Molly baby and the little Miss Milly all dressed up in they best bibantucker! I been a lyin' here a dreamin'

you was all back in the carstle, that there apple tree what you youngsters done built a house up'n an' Miss Milly done sent me to say you mus' come an wash yo' faceanhans fer dinner, jes' lak she done a millium times, an' who should be up in the tree with you an' that there Kent but yo' teacher an' that there Judy gal."

Molly laughed as she always did when Aunt Mary called Professor Edwin Green, her teacher.

"Yes, chile, they was up there with you an' Kent up'n had the imprence to tell me to go tell his maw that he warn't comin' ter no dinner, 'cause he an' that there Judy gal was a keepin' house up the tree." The old woman chuckled with delight at Kent's "imprence."

"I shouldn't be astonished if they did go to housekeeping soon, Aunt Mary, but I don't fancy it will be up a tree."

"An' what I done say all the time 'bout that there Kent not being drownded? When the n.i.g.g.e.rs came a whining 'roun' me a sayin' he was sho'

daid 'cause they done had signs an' omens, I say ter them I done had mo'

ter do with that there Kent than all of 'em put together an' I lak ter know what they be havin' omens 'bout him when I ain't had none. If'n they was any omens a floatin' 'roun' they would a lit on me an' not on that triflin' Buck Jourdan. He say he dream er teeth an' 'twas sho sign er death. I tell him mebbeso but 'twas mo'n likely he done overworked his teeth a eatin' er my victuals, a settin' 'roun' here dayanight a strummin' on his gittah, an' what's mo' I done tole him he better git the blacksmith ter pull out one er his jaw teeth what ain't mo'n a snaggle. Sukey low she goin' ter send him in ter Lou'ville ter one er these here tooth dentists, but I say the blacksmith is jes' as good a han' at drawin' teeth as they is, an' he chawge the same as ter shoe a mule, an' that ain't much."

"But Aunt Mary, I should think if there is anything serious the matter with Buck's teeth he had better see a dentist. The blacksmith might break his tooth off."

"Who? This here blacksmith? Lawsamussy, honey, why he's that strong an'

survigorous that he would bust Buck's jaw long befo' he break his tooth.

He'll grab hol' the tooth and put his knee in Buck's chist an' he gonter hol' on till either Buck or the tooth comes."

A groan from the next room, the lean-to kitchen, gave evidence that Buck was in there, an unwilling eavesdropper since the method of the blacksmith on his suffering molar was the topic.

"Don't you think the baby has grown, Aunt Mary?" asked Molly, mercifully changing the subject.

"Yes, she done growed some an' she done growed prettier. I seed all the time she were gonter be pretty, an' when that there Paul came down here an' give it to me that the new baby looked lak a pink mummy--I done tol' him that I didn't know what a mummy were, but what ever it were, the new baby didn't look no mo' lak one than he did when he was born, 'cause of all the wrinkly, scarlet little Injuns he would a fetched the cake. That done dried that there Paul up an he ain't been so bombast since bout the looks er no new babies." The old woman chuckled with delight in remembrance of her repartee.

"Aunt Mary, I think you are feeling better, aren't you? You seem much more lively than when I saw you last."

"'Cose I is feelin' better. Ain't we done heard good news from that there Kent?"

"But I thought you knew all the time he was all right."

"Well now, so I did, so fur as I knew anything, but they was times when I doubted, an' those times pulled me back right smart. Why, honey, I used ter pray the Almighty if he lacked a soul ter jes' tak me. I is a no 'count ole n.i.g.g.e.r on the outside but mebbe my soul is some good yit.

If I could give up my life fur one er Miss Milly's chillun, I'd be proud ter do it!"

"Oh, Aunt Mary, you have been so good to us always!"

"Lawsamussy, chile! What I here fur but ter be good ter my white folks? They's been good ter me--as good as gole. I ain't never wanted fur nothin' an' I ain't never had a hard word from Carmichael or Brown, savin', of cose, Miss Sary. She is spoke some hard words in her day, but she didn' never mean nothin' by them words. I don't bear no grudge against po' Miss Sary. The good Lord done made her a leetle awry an' 'tain't fur me ter be the one ter try to straighten her out.