Andrew the Glad

"Major," she answered as her slender fingers opened and closed a book on

the table near her, "did you realize that two months have passed since I

came to--to--"

"Came _home_, child," prompted the major as he touched lightly the

restless hand near his own.

"I am beginning to feel as if it might be that, and yet I don't know--not

until I talk to you about it all. Everybody has been good to me. I feel

that they really care and I love it--and them all! But, Major, did

you--know--my father--well?"

"Yes, my dear." He answered, looking her straight in the eyes, "I knew

Peters Brown and had pleasantly hostile relations with him always."

"This memorandum--I got it together before I came down here, while I was

settling up his estate. It is the list of the investments he made while

in the South for the twenty years after the war. I want to talk them over

with you." She looked at the major squarely and determinedly.

"Fire away," he answered with courage in his voice that belied the

feeling beneath it.

"I see that in eighteen seventy-nine he bought lumber lands from Hayes

Donelson. The price seems to have been practically nominal in view of

what he sold a part of them for three years later. Was Hayes Donelson

Phoebe's father? I want to know all about him."

"My dear, you are giving a large order for ancient history--Captain

Donelson couldn't fill it himself if he were alive. Those lumber lands

were just a stick or two that he threw on the grand bonfire. He sold

everything he had and instituted and ran the most inflammatory newspaper

in the South. He gloried in an attitude of non-reconstruction and died

when Phoebe was a year old. Her mother raised Phoebe by keeping boarders,

but failed to raise the mortgage on the family home. She died trying and

Phoebe has kept her own sleek little head above water since her sixteenth

year by reporting and editing Dimity Doings on the paper her father

founded. I think she has learned a pretty good swimming stroke by this

time. It is still a measure ahead of that of David Kildare and--"

"Oh, you _must_ help me make her take what would have been a fair price

for those lands, Major. I'm determined--I--I--" Caroline's voice faltered

but her head was well up. "I'm determined; but we'll talk of that later.

He bought the Cantrell land and divided it up into the first improved

city addition. Was it, was it 'carpetbagging'?" She flushed as she said

the word--"Was it pressure? Were the Cantrells in need?"

"Not for long, my dear, not for long! Mrs. Tom took that money and bought

cows for the east farm, ran a dairy in opposition to Matilda's and then

got her into a combine to ship gilt-edge to Cincinnati. I expected them

to skim the milky way any night and put a star brand of butter on the

market. They made a great deal of money and were proportionately hard to

manage. Young Tom inherits from his mother and makes paying combines in

stocks. Old Tom hasn't a thing to do but sit in the sun and spin tales

about battles he was and was not in. It wouldn't do to drag up that

pinched period of his life; he is too expansive now to be made to recall

it." The major smiled invitingly as if he had hopes of an interested

question that would turn the trend of the conversation, but Caroline

Darrah held herself sternly to the matter in hand.