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 along
Providence Road.
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