"And after the frost they are not at all immune--to such dimity," answered Everett with an echo of Uncle Tucker's laugh, as a slight color rose up under the tan of his thin face. As he spoke he ruffled his own dark red mop of hair, which was slightly sprinkled with gray, over his temples. Everett was tall, broad and muscular, but thin almost to gauntness, and his face habitually wore the expression of deep weariness. His eyes were red-brown and disillusioned, except when they joined with his well-cut mouth in a smile that brought an almost boyish beauty back over his whole expression. There was decided youth in the glance he bestowed upon Uncle Tucker, whose attention was riveted on the manoeuvers of the General and Tobe, who were busy with a pair of old kitchen knives in an attack upon the grass growing between the cracks of the front walk. "So you have had no report as to what that survey was?" Everett asked Uncle Tucker, again bringing him back to the subject in hand. "Do you know who sent the man you speak of to prospect on your land?" "Never thought to ask him," answered Uncle Tucker, still with the utmost unconcern. "Maybe Rose Mary knows. Women generally carry a reticule around with 'em jest to poke facts into that they gather together from nothing put pure wantin'-to-know. Ask her." And as he spoke Uncle Tucker began to busy himself getting out the grease cans, with the evident intention of putting in a morning lubricating the farm implements in general. "Your friend, Mr. Gideon Newsome, said something about a rumor of paying phosphate here in the Harpeth bend when I met him over in Boliver before I came to Sweetbriar. In fact, I had tried to come to look over the fields just to kill time when I nearly killed myself and fell down upon you. Do you suppose he could have sent the prospector?" Again Everett brought Uncle Tucker back to the uninteresting topic of what might lay under the fields, the top of which he was so interested in cultivating. "Oh, I reckon not," answered Uncle Tucker, puffing away as he laid out his monkey-wrenches. "The Honorable Gid is up to his neck in this here no-dram wave what is a-sweeping around over the state and pretty nigh rising up as high as the necks of even private liquor bottles. Gid's not to say a teetotaler, but he had to climb into the bandwagon skiff or sink outen sight. He's got to tie down his seat in the state house with a white ribbon, and he's got no mind for fooling with phosphate dirt. He's a mighty fine man, and all of Sweetbriar thinks a heap of him. Do you want to help me lift this wagon wheel on to this jack, so I can sorter grease her up against the next time I use her?"