"I don't want to be a torment to you, Mammy; but I believe when any of those folks are about I'd better just take the baby and stay in my own house." "But, honey," her mother remonstrated, "Pappy Gentry's aimin' to have Sylvanus here all through fodder-pullin' time. Is that a-goin' to trouble you? Do you just despise all them that's kin to--would you ruther we didn't have the boy?" Callista shook her head. [286] "It ain't for me to say," she repeated stubbornly Then, with a sudden rush of tears in her hard eyes, "I do love Sylvane. I always did. I couldn't have an own brother I'd think more of. But--well, let him come over here if you want him. I can keep out of his way." The "house" to which Callista proposed to retire was the outside cabin, where the loom stood. This she had fitted up for the use of herself and child, as well as a weaving room, saying that the noise might disturb Gran'pappy if the baby were in the house all the time. And it was at the threshold of that outside cabin that, only a few days later, Sylvane caught his sister-in-law and detained her, the baby on her arm. Little Ajax reared himself in his mother's hold and plunged at his youthful uncle, so that she had no choice but to turn and speak. "How you come on, Sis' Callie?" Sylvane inquired, after he had tossed the heavy boy up a time or two and finally set him on his shoulder. "Tol'able," Callista returned briefly. "I've got a lot of weavin' to do and it keeps me in the house pretty steady." "I--was you leavin' in thar becaze I come?" inquired Sylvane with a boy's directness. Callista shook her head. "Didn't I tell you I was mighty busy?" she asked evasively. "You an' me always have been [287] good friends, Sylvane, and I aim that we always shall be, if it lies in my power." The young fellow looked up at her where she stood above him in the doorway. "You ain't never a-goin' to fuss with me," he told her bluntly. "Besides, me and this chap is so petted on each other that you couldn't keep us apart," and he turned to root a laughing face into the baby's side, greatly to that serious-minded young man's enjoyment. Callista smiled down at both of them, and Sylvane found something wintry and desolate in the smile. "Weavin' is mighty hard work," he broke out impatiently. "Even Sis' Roxy says that, and the Lord knows she's ready to kill herself and everybody else around her with workin'. What makes you do so much of it, Sis' Callie?" Callista looked past the two and answered: "Sylvane, a woman with a child to support has to work hard here in the Turkey Tracks. If it wasn't for Mommie and Gran'pappy I'd go down in the Settlement, where I could earn more and earn it easier." "Callista--honey," Sylvane bent forward and caught her arm. "You ain't got no call to talk that-a-way. Lance shore has a right to support his own son--even if you won't take nothin' from him for yo'self."