"Oh, about every day or two," answered the unconsciously gossipy
little bachelor. "Looks like the whole family have missed him, too.
Miss Viney has been in bed off and on ever since he left, and Miss
Amandy has tooken a bad cold in her right ear and has had to keep her
head wrapped up all the time. Mr. Tucker's mighty busy a-trying to
figure out how to crap the farm like Mr. Mark laid off on a map for
him to do--but he ain't got the strength now to even get a part of it
done. If Miss Rose Mary weren't strong and bendy as a hickory saplin
she couldn't prop up all them old folks."

"Yes," answered the Senator in one of his most judicial and dulcet
tones as he eyed the little bachelor in a calculating way as if
deciding whether to take him into his confidence, "what you say of Mr.
Alloway's being too old to farm his land with a profit is true. I have
come this time to talk things over with him and--er--Miss Rose Mary.
Did I understand you to say our friend Everett is still in New York?
Have you heard of his having any intention of returning to Sweetbriar
any time soon?"

"No, I haven't heard tell of his coming back at all, and I'm mighty
sorry and disappointed some, too," answered Mr. Crabtree with an
anxious look coming into his kind eyes. "I somehow felt sure he would
scratch up oil or some kind of pay truck out there in the fields of
the Briars. I shipped a whole box of sand and gravel for him according
to a telegram he sent me just last week and I had sorter got my hopes
up for a find, specially as that young city fellow came out here and
dug another bag full outen the same place not any time after that. He
had a map with him, and I thought he might be a friend of Mr. Mark's
and asked him, but he didn't answer; never rested to light a pipe,
even, so I never found out about him. I reckon he was just fooling