An experienced gaze interrogated the room. It was the ninth call for that hammer since breakfast had been cleared away. Just beyond the door an empty packing-case gaped. She put her hand on the missing implement, cached within it. The troubled line left his forehead. "We'll take the pictures next," he said curtly, bending again to his task. Mary Judson stood watching his efficient activity. She had stayed unnoticed at his elbow nearly all the morning, to anticipate these calls. He continued hammering energetically, unconscious of her observation. He straightened his still youthful shoulders a moment, to lift a stack of heavy books from the mantel. Paul Judson, as she loved best to remember him, furnished the food for her musings; they dwelt in haphazard inconsecutiveness upon his erect figure at the head of the Decoration Day line of his company, upon his ardent face bending over tiny Pelham's crib, upon his wry expression yesterday while she bandaged a cut wrist; then to the alien admiration her kindly brother felt for the husband's driving vitality. "Mary, did you get those quilts to cover the piano?" His crisp query broke into her thoughts. With a start, "On the cherry table, dear." A contented mumble reached her; evidently the mislaid coverings had been found. She stirred herself, and called the girls, Eleanor and Sue. "Will you bring father the pile of pictures on my dresser, children?" They skipped quietly up the stairs. In a few moments they chattered back through the dining-room, where Mary was adjusting the linen into a cedar chest. Sue stumbled over a corner of the carpet; several unframed photographs slipped out of her arms. Her father looked up impatiently. She recovered them in a moment, and spread them on the bare table. "Mother, this is me, isn't it? 'N' this is Pelham, 'n' the baby picture is Hollis--isn't it, mother? Nell says it's Pell too." "That's Hollis, children. Hurry: your father is waiting; he's ready to pack them." The girls reluctantly went on, arguing over the identity of a befrizzed, balloon-sleeved aunt. She heard her eldest son in the kitchen now, asking Aunt Sarah if she too were going to the new home. Sarah had been her mammy, and had taken care of all four of the children. The rich black voice laughed hugely at the question. "Is I gwine? Is Aunt Sarah gwine? Is _you_ gwine! Better ask yer maw if she gwineter take you. Whar Mis' Mary Barbour goes, I goes!" Pelham persisted, "But Aunt Jane isn't goin'." Precise Sue took him up at once. "Of course she isn't. Aunt Jane's very, very old, Pell. She's 'mos' a hunderd. Aren't you, Aunt Jane?" The aged cook snorted contemptuously. "What I is, I is, Miss Susie. I'se gwine ter yer Uncle Derrell's, _I_ is." The children gazed open-eyed. "Are you goin' to cook for him 'n' Aunt Eloise?" asked Pelham. "Sho' I is, honey! Dey gotter have mah cookin', Mister Derrell he says."