Even Sallie began to look speechful, and I believe she would have got up
and spoken a few words on the subject of women, and how they need men to
look after them, but she said something to Mr. Haley, who shook his head
and then got up and prosed beautifully to us for ten minutes, and would
have gone on longer, if he hadn't seen Henrietta begin to look mutinous.
The feast had begun at one o'clock, but by Jasper's skilful maneuvering
of one gorgeous viand after the other, into the right place, by having
relays of pones browned to the right turn and potatoes at the proper
bursting point, it had been prolonged until the shadows of late
afternoon were beginning to turn purple.
"Don't nobody ever leave one of my barbecue tables until sundown begins
to tetch up the empty bones," has been his boast for years. And as he
had cleared away the last scrap from the last table, he leaned against a
tree, exhausted and triumphant, with alert, adoring eyes fixed on the
Crag, who had risen in his place at the head of the long central table.
I had felt entirely too far away from him down at the other end with one
of the junior Magnates and Dickie, but I was glad then that I sat so I
could look straight into his face as the light from across the Harpeth
Valley illumined it without, while a wonderful glow lit it from within.
All of the others had spoken of the achievements of their families and
forefathers and vaunted the human history of the valley, but he spoke
of the great hill-rimmed Earth Pocket itself.
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