"I wisht you would, and I'll make Cal help you," sobbed Mrs. Rucker
into a corner of her apron. Her grief was all the more impressive, as
she was, as a general thing, the balance-wheel of the whole Sweetbriar
machinery. "And I don't know what they are a-going to do," she
continued to sob.
"Well, I know, and I've done decided," came in Mrs. Plunkett's soft
voice from the side door of the store, and it held an unwonted note of
decision in its hushed cadences. A deep pink spot burned on either
cheek, her eyes were very bright, and she kept her face turned
resolutely away from little Mr. Crabtree, over whose face there had
flashed a ray of most beautiful and abashed delight.
"Me and Mr. Crabtree were a-talking it all over last night while Bob
and Louisa Helen were down at the gate counting lightning-bugs, they
said. They just ain't no use thinking of separating Rose Mary and Mr.
Tucker and the rest of 'em, and they must have Sweetbriar shelter,
good and tight and genteel, offered outen the love Sweetbriar has got
for 'em all. Now if I was to marry Mr. Crabtree I could all good and
proper move him over to my house and that would leave his little
three-room cottage hitched on to the store to move 'em into
comfortable. They have got a heap of things, but most of 'em could be
packed away in the barn here, what they won't let us keep for 'em. If
Mr. Crabtree has got to take holt of my farm it will keep him away
from the store, and he could give Mr.
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