“You, Stonewall Jackson, don’t handle those chiny vases careless!” commanded Aunt Viney in a stern voice.  “Put ’em in the basket right side up, for they were your great grandmother’s wedding-present from Mister Bradford from Arkansas.”

“Yes’m,” answered Stonie, duly impressed.  “But I’ve done packed ’em in four different baskets for you, and if this one don’t do all right, can’t me and Tobe together carry ’em over the Road to-morrow careful for you, Aunt Viney?”

“Well, yes, then you can take ’em out and set ’em back in their places,” answered Miss Lavinia, which order was carried out faithfully by the General, with a generous disregard of the fact that he had been laboring over them under a fire of directions for more than a half-hour.

“Now, Amandy, come away from those flower cans and get out the grave clothes from the bureau drawers and let the boys wrap them in that old sheet first and then in the newspapers and then put ’em in that box trunk with brass tacks over there!” directed Miss Lavinia as Miss Amandy wandered over by the window, along which stood a row of tomato cans into which were stuck slips of all the vines and plants on the land of the Briars, ready for transportation across Providence Road when the time came.  There was something so intensely pathetic in this effort of the fast-fading little old woman to begin to bud from the old life flower-plants to blossom in a new one, into which she could hardly expect to make more than the shortest journey, that even the General’s young and inexperienced heart was moved to a quick compassion.

“I’m a-going to carry the flowers over and plant ’em careful for you, Aunt Amandy,” he said as he sidled up close to her and put his arm around her with a protective gesture.  “We’ll water ’em twice a day and just make ’em grow, won’t we, Tobe?”

“Bucketfuls ’til we drap,” answered Tobe with a sympathy equal to and a courage as great as that of his superior officer.

“Is the blue myrtle sprig often the graves holding up its leaves, Amandy?” asked Miss Lavinia in a softened tone of voice.

“Yes, it’s doing fine,” answered Miss Amandy, bending over to the last of the row of cans.

“Then come on and get out the burying things and let’s get that job over,” Miss Lavinia continued to insist.  “Don’t get our things mixed!  Remember that my grave shift has got nothing but a seemly stitched band on it while you would have linen lace on yours.  And don’t let anything get wrinkled.  I don’t want to rise on Judgment Day looking like I needed the pressing of a hot iron.  Now pull out the trunk, boys, lift out the tray so as I can—­”

But at this juncture Rose Mary appeared at the door with a tray on which stood a bowl of soup, and Miss Lavinia lay back on her pillows weakly, with the fire all gone out of her eyes and exhaustion written on every line of her determined old face.

“Go get dinner, everybody, so we can get back to work,” she directed weakly as she raised the spoon to her lips and then rested a moment before she could take another sip.  And with the last spoonful she looked up and whispered to Rose Mary, “You’ll have to do the rest child, I can’t drive any farther with a broke heart.  I’ve got to lay myself in the arms of prayer and go to sleep.”  And so rested, Rose Mary left her.