His eyes were red-brown and disillusioned, except when
they joined with his well-cut mouth in a smile that brought an almost
boyish beauty back over his whole expression. There was decided youth
in the glance he bestowed upon Uncle Tucker, whose attention was
riveted on the manoeuvers of the General and Tobe, who were busy with
a pair of old kitchen knives in an attack upon the grass growing
between the cracks of the front walk.
"So you have had no report as to what that survey was?" Everett asked
Uncle Tucker, again bringing him back to the subject in hand. "Do you
know who sent the man you speak of to prospect on your land?"
"Never thought to ask him," answered Uncle Tucker, still with the
utmost unconcern. "Maybe Rose Mary knows. Women generally carry a
reticule around with 'em jest to poke facts into that they gather
together from nothing put pure wantin'-to-know. Ask her."
And as he spoke Uncle Tucker began to busy himself getting out the
grease cans, with the evident intention of putting in a morning
lubricating the farm implements in general.
"Your friend, Mr. Gideon Newsome, said something about a rumor of
paying phosphate here in the Harpeth bend when I met him over in
Boliver before I came to Sweetbriar. In fact, I had tried to come to
look over the fields just to kill time when I nearly killed myself and
fell down upon you. Do you suppose he could have sent the prospector?"
Again Everett brought Uncle Tucker back to the uninteresting topic of
what might lay under the fields, the top of which he was so interested
in cultivating.
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