Rose of Old Harpeth | Page 6

oil and there is none in any paying
quantities. But in this kind of formation any number of other things
may crop up or out. I am going to go over every acre of it carefully and

find exactly what can be expected of it. There may be nothing of any
value in a mineral way, but as I go I am going to make soil tests, and
then put it all down on a complete map and figure out just what your
Uncle Tucker ought to plant in each place for years to come. It will kill
a lot of time, and then it might be doing something for you dear people,
who have taken a miserable, cross invalid of a stranger man in out of
the wet and made a well chap of him again.
"Do you know what you have done for me? That day when I had
tramped over from Boliver just to get away from the Citizens' Hotel
and myself and perched upon Mr. Alloway's north lot fence like a
miserable funeral crow, I had reached my limit, and my spirit had
turned its face to the wall. I had been down South six weeks and
couldn't see that I felt one bit stronger. I had just heard of this copper
expedition from one of the chaps, who had written me a heedlessly
exultant letter about it, and I was down and out and no strength left to
fight. I was too weak to take it like a man, and couldn't make up my
mind to cry like a woman, though I wanted to. Just as it was at its worst
your Uncle Tucker appeared on the other side of the fence, and when
he looked at me with those great, heaven-big eyes of his I fell over into
his arms with a funny, help-has-come dying gasp. As you know, when I
woke I was anchored in the middle of that puffy old four-poster in my
room under the blessed roof of the Briars and you were pouring
something glorious and hot down my throat, while the wonderful old
angel-man in the big gray hat, who had got me out in the field, was
flapping his wings around on the other side of the pillows. I went to
sleep under your very hands--and I haven't waked up yet--except in
ugly, impatient ways. I never want to."
"I wonder what you would be like--awake?" said Rose Mary softly, as
she gently lowered the head of young Peter down into the hollow of her
arm, where, in close proximity to Shoofly's, he nodded off into the
depths. "I think I'm afraid to try waking you. I'm always so happy when
Aunt Viney has snuffed away her asthma with jimson weed and got
down on her pillow, and I have rubbed all her joints; when the General
has said his prayers without stopping to argue in the middle, and Uncle
Tucker has finished his chapter and pipe in bed without setting us all on

fire, that I regard people asleep as in a most blessed condition. Won't
you please try and stay happy, tucked away fast here at the Briars,
without wanting to wake up and go all over New York, when I won't
know whether you are getting cold or hungry or wet or a pain in your
lungs?"
"Again I promise! Just wake me enough to go out and hoe for you is all
I ask--your row and your kind of hoeing."
"Maybe hoeing in my row will make you finish your own in fine style,"
laughed Rose Mary. "And I think it's wonderful of you to study up our
land so Uncle Tucker can do better with it. We never seem to be able to
make any more than just the mortgage interest, and what we'll wear
when the trunks in the garret are empty I don't see. We'll have to grow
feathers. Things like false teeth just seem to be impossible."
"Do you mean to tell me that the Briars is seriously encumbered?"
demanded Everett, with a quick frown showing between his brows and
a business-keen look coming into his eyes.
"The mortgage on the Briars covers it as completely as the vines on the
wall," answered Rose Mary quickly, with a humorous quirk at her
mouth that relieved the note of pain in her voice. "I know we can never
pay it, but if something could be done to keep it for the old folks
always, I think Stonie and I could stand it. They were born here and
their roots strike deep and twine with the roots of every tree and bush at
the Briars. Their graves are over there behind the stone wall, and all
their joys and sorrows have come to them