"What'd Miss Lucy do?" queried Bunch.

"She didn't do nothin'," giggled Dock, "but jest pick up st.i.tches hard as she could, and her face wuz as red as one them pressed leaves they got pinned over the fireboard."

"What'd the old man say?" inquired Gran'dad.

"He jest said, 'Well, I can't thenk of nary one jest now that I reckon would suit you,' and jest then ole Zeke howled, and Mr. Lindsay went out to pack him to the barn. I started with him, and Miss Lucy, she follered him out to the aidge the porch with a lamp. 'Lemme hold a light fer you, Mr. Lindsay,' she says, 'so you won't stumble over nothin',' and he says, 'Thank you, Miss Lucy, I wisht you would,' and says right low, but I heerd him, 'what makes you a allus thenkin' o' tryin' to do somebody some good?'"

"Well, now, hit wouldn't be nothin' out o' the way, ner no bad idy fer them two to court now, would hit?" Mr. Doggett extended his comprehensive smile, from Bunch at one end of the bench, to silent Joe at the other. At that moment there was a rattle of the door latch, and Mr. Brock looked hesitatingly in, his face red with cold.

"Come in, come in, Mr. Brock. How you makin' hit?"

Mr. Doggett's welcome was hearty: Joe placed a nail keg by the stove for the new-comer who sat down without a word of thanks, and removing his thick, black yarn gloves, shapeless as the foot of a cinnamon bear, held his chilled fingers in the genial warmth of the hot stove.

"We wuz jest a talkin' about old man Lindsay a settin' to Miss Lucy, Mr.

Brock," volunteered Mr. Doggett, hospitably hastening to put his guest in the drift of the conversation. "Hit wouldn't be a bad idy now, would hit? He could stay thar and run the place fer the old man."

A close observer would have detected a deeper shade of red in the rubicund face by the hot stove, but the strippers were too busy for more than a casual glance at it: the stove pipe loomed between it and Gran'dad, and Mr. Brock's grunt revealed neither pleasure nor dissatisfaction.

"Hit might not be a bad idy," hazarded Gran'dad, "but Nancy, she's got to be reckoned with. My opinion is, she'll soon be a keekin' and a keekin' high, ef thar's courtin' and she hain't in hit!"

"Thar hain't n.o.body here that's heerd Nancy's opinion that I know of."

Mr. Doggett's tone was one of inquiry rather than a.s.sertion.

"Henrietty, she sent me down to Miss Lucy's one day last week,"

testified his son Jim: "Mr. Lindsay wuzn't at the house, and while I wuz a waitin' on the porch (my feet wuz muddy) fer Miss Nancy to wrap up some boneset fer me in the kitchen, I heerd Miss Nancy fling out: 'Lucy, what you wearin' your Sunday shoes fer? You thenk Mr. Lindsay looks at your feet all the time?' And Miss Lucy stuttered out, 'Why, Nancy, my ever'days has got a hole in 'em, and hit's so cold I thought I'd put on these 'tel I got a chance to go to town!' 'Why'n'y you patch 'em?' Miss Nancy snapped, and then she come out with the stuff fer Henrietty."

"'Twuz enough to show the way the wind'll blow, ef hit hain't a blowin'

that away now," chuckled Gran'dad.

That evening, to Mr. Doggett's surprise, for Mr. Brock had claimed that he was in a great hurry, and had only just stopped in a few minutes at the stripping-house to warm, he accepted with unaccustomed alacrity Mr.

Doggett's invitation to go to the house with him, and remained and took supper with the family, to the great satisfaction of Mrs. Doggett, who held him in profoundest respect. Might he not be of possible future benefit to little Lily Pearl, her grandchild, and his step-daughter, the child of Callie's first husband?

All the pa.s.sionate regard Mrs. Doggett felt for her first-born, young Callie Brock, at her death was transferred to Callie's child, the pale Lily Pearl, blue of eye and confiding of nature, and in _her_ lay the hope of Mrs. Doggett's heart.

All her days, Mrs. Doggett had known poverty, and a social position that was next the ground, but with an intensity, that, if secret, was all the more fervent, she longed for wealth and social position,--not for herself, for she knew that was impossible, but for Lily Pearl, which she felt was within the bounds of reasonable hope.

If, when Mr. Brock married again,--a contingency most likely,--he married a good woman, higher socially than himself, and to his continued interest in the child was added the interest of this good woman of Mrs.

Doggett's conception, might they not educate and accomplish Lily Pearl?

And, might she not, in the possession of learning and social graces, secure a husband among the well-to-do?

To further the elevation of Lily Pearl, Mrs. Doggett would have made a Juggernautian offering of herself, or would have sacrificed the happiness, or the welfare of her dearest friend, not excepting even that of Mr. Doggett.

When Lily Pearl raised her plate at the supper table, a new silver dollar glistened on the whiteness of the well-darned cloth, put on in honor of the guest.

"Ma," grinned Dock, "Mr. Brock says thar's more whar that dollar come from."

Mrs. Doggett's lean face fairly beamed. "Now hain't that nice?" she cried: "Lily Pearl, child, wher's your manners?"

But Lily Pearl was dumb in the contemplation of her treasure.

"Lily Pearl wuz a sayin' yisterday, maybe she'd git ten cents fer her hoss bones when the peddler come 'round, but now she can recruit 'em up a while longer!" Mrs. Doggett smiled at Mr. Brock, then turned to her husband with a countenance full of disparagement.

"See that, Eph? The man that put that money thar, he hain't one o' them that has to call on Castle fer money to live on while his crop's a growin', and pay intrust on the money, a takin' up all his crop aforehand! _He's_ got money in the bank, I'll warrant, hain't he, Mr.

Brock?"

"I ain't a denyin' it," Mr. Brock answered her.

"In the same bank Mr. Lindsay's got his'n?" asked Dock, innocently.

"I don't know where Lindsay keeps his money, ef he's got any," Mr. Brock answered shortly. "I hear, Mrs. Doggett, Lindsay's a settin' to Miss Nancy James."

"I dunno about that," objected Mrs. Doggett: "I'd thenk, though, Miss Lucy'd look higher'n Mr. Lindsay,--him sorter delicate, and not well off, and jest workin' around."

"There's others that she could git I reckon," said Mr. Brock with a meaning look.

Into Mrs. Doggett's quick brain sprang the pleasing thought that Mr.

Brock was ready to marry again and himself wanted Miss Lucy,--a lady whose father owned one hundred acres of land, and whom even the Castles respected and occasionally visited. If Mr. Brock were to marry Miss Lucy, Lily Pearl's fortune would be made! Mrs. Doggett's head swam with delight. She returned Mr. Brock's look with a smile of encouragement.

"You're right, Mr. Brock," she declared with emphasis: "Miss Nancy is of a quair distant turn--one o' them kind that smiles about as often as a cow--and ef she's ever had a beau, hit hain't never been found out on her; but Miss Lucy, ef she _is_ older'n Miss Nancy, she's a heap sightlier and agreeabler, and I know thar's men better off than Mr.

Lindsay that'd do _well_ to git her!"

In the expression of her pleasure, she solicitously pressed the viands on Mr. Brock.

"Do eat somethin' more, Mr. Brock; you sh.o.r.ely can live fer one meal on what I have to live on all the time, ef you'll jest eat enough o' hit!

Have another aig."

"Eggs are high," remarked Mr. Brock as he lifted two poached eggs to his plate.

"Now, Mr. Brock, I don't disfurnish my fambly, let alone my comp'ny, to sell a few aigs! Let me porch you another un: I'm afeerd them's too hard b'iled fer you!"

After supper, when the men gathered around the big wood fire in the living-room Mr. Brock went back to the kitchen, ostensibly seeking a match, really for a private word with Mrs. Doggett.

"Lily Pearl ought to be a goin' to school before long," he suggested, as he lighted his pipe: "and ef Reub and me had any housekeeper besides that old darky, Jane Smick, she could stay at my house and go, as it's closer to the school-house, and I'd put up the money for the teacher when the pay school went on."

"Lord, I wisht she could!" cried Mrs. Doggett.

Mr. Brock reached up for his overcoat and his hat.

"You hain't a goin', Mr. Brock? Lemme fix the lantern fer you, then; hit's as dark as a dungeon out, and the moon won't be up fer an hour yit!"

Mr. Brock watched her fill the lantern contemplatively.

"Mrs. Doggett," he brought himself to say, presently, "certain persons talk against widowers marryin' again. You haven't got that kind of a feelin' have you?"

Mrs. Doggett held up the gla.s.s globe, clear and clean.

"I'm one as'd never say a word ef a man'd jest marry the right kind o'