He lay down at full length, and she sank stiffly on the bank and leaned her elbow there. She looked at the sky and then at the bank. It was blue with violets. There were so many of them that, as they traveled up the sod, they made a purple stain. "Well, aunt Het," said he, "you've got the pastur'." She nodded. "Don't make much difference how long you wait," he continued, "if it comes at last." He was thinking of his patent, and Hetty knew it. "Mebbe we can't have things when we expect to," she answered comprehendingly. "Still Lucy's great on that. 'Don't do no good to set up your Ebenezer,' says she. 'You got to wait for things to grow.' Lucy's dretful pious." She passed her brown hands over the violet heads, as gently as a breeze, caressing but not bending them. "I dunno 's ever I see so many vi'lets afore." "Like 'em, aunt Het?" he asked her kindly. "I guess I do!" but as she spoke, her eyes widened in awe and wonder. "My Lord!" she breathed. "They're flowers." The boy laughed. "What'd you think they were?" he asked, with the same indulgent interest. "Herd's grass?" He turned over and buried his sleepy visage in the new leaves. But Hetty was communing with herself. Her old face had a look of hushed solemnity. Her eyes were lighted from within. "Sure enough," she murmured reverently. "They're flowers." GARDENER JIM "Jim!" called Mrs. Marshall, as the old man, carrying a basket in one hand and a spade in the other, was trudging steadily by. His blue overalls and jumper were threadbare under the soft brown they had achieved through his strenuous kneeling and the general intimacy of weeds and sod. He had a curious neutrality of expression--perhaps an indifference to what his blue eyes fell upon, save when they looked out from under their rugged brows at the growing things he tended. Then the lines about them multiplied and deepened, and his face took on new life. Mrs. Marshall, the large lady at the gate, splendidly starched in her afternoon calico, regarded him without personal interest. He was merely an old resident likely to clear up a matter that had been blurred during her years of absence in the West. Jim's eyes traveled past her to the garden in the rear of the house, where yellow flower-de-luce was beginning to blow. "They'd ought to put some muck on them pinies last fall," said he, in a soft voice which his gnarled aspect had not foretold. "Now you stop thinkin' gardins for a minute an' pay some heed to me," said Mrs. Marshall. "How was I goin' to look out for the pinies, when I only come into the property this spring? Uncle'd ha' seen 'em mowed down for fodder before he'd ha' let you or anybody else poke round over anything 'twas his. But what I want to know is--what was 't the Miller twins had their quarrel about, all them years ago?" Jim answered without hesitation or interest: "'Twas about a man. They both on 'em set by one man, an' he led 'em on. He made trouble betwixt 'em. 'Twas thirty year ago an' more."