"Ah hope not," said Bud, dismally. "Anyway, you-all better come on down now. Gimme that axe, will ye?" "We gotter be right careful not to make no path comin' here. We better never come twict the same way." Bud nodded his understanding. "Come on," he urged. "Ah'm's empty 's a gun." XIX Hilda Pink roses and red swung to and fro in the sunshine as they climbed the Doctor's whitewashed porch. Big bees hummed their sleepy drone from the fragrant hearts of the flowers, and a humming-bird whirred busily in and out in search of the honeysuckle that he loved. Up-stairs Mrs. Morgan was darning stockings in the coolest room in the house,--a bedroom with a northern exposure. A white shirt-waist gave a puffy look to a body that could ill endure such appearance of enlargement, and a black belt accentuated the amplitude of girth that it encircled. The good lady sat in an armless rocking-chair, or rather _on_ it, for she was by no means contained therein, but bulged over and beyond at all points. Her feet, shod in heelless black slippers, above which puffed white stockings, rested upon a low footstool, and her widespread knees provided a generous lap for the support of her supply of socks and her implements,--her needle-book' and darning-gourd and balls of cotton. She had that look of comfort that fat people seem to radiate even when it is evident that physical annoyance is their own share. [Illustration: "Pink roses and red swung to and fro in the sunshine as they climbed the doctor's whitewashed porch"] Discomfort had no part in the picture that Mrs. Morgan presented, however, for a cool breeze gently ruffled her hair, and her eyes, when she lifted them from her work, rested contentedly on the fertile fields of the Doctor's farm, which were thriving, under Bob's management. She nodded with, pursed-up lips, as she wove her little lattices in heel and toe. "He's doing better than ever Ah thought he would," she murmured. "Better, even, than Ah dared to hope,--thank God!" Up and down, over and under, in and out went her needle. "It's such a joy to Henry to have him so." The scissors snipped a thread at the end of a darn, and a new hole displayed its ravage over the yellow surface of the gourd. "It's been going on some months now, bless him! Ah'd like to know how he started in. Ah believe mahself it's Sydney." The work sank into her lap for a space, while her shrewd eyes roamed over the fields, and sought Buck Mountain beyond, thrusting its topmost clump of chestnut-trees against the sky. She nodded to her thoughts as she picked up the unfinished sock. "She's a wise mother who knows where her son ties his horse, and Ah confess Ah haven't always known, but it strikes me it's mostly the Oakwood hitching-post." She smiled at her own sagacity. "Not that Sydney'd have him. Though she might do a great deal worse, a great deal worse," she added, loyally. "But he cares for her enough to want to please her, and it takes the best to satisfy Sydney."