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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/15243-h.zip b/15243-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c34ee8a --- /dev/null +++ b/15243-h.zip diff --git a/15243-h/15243-h.htm b/15243-h/15243-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d6f1cfd --- /dev/null +++ b/15243-h/15243-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4755 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Paradise Ridge, by Maria Thompson Daviess. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + <!-- + body { margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;max-width: 40em; } + p { margin-top: .75em; + font-size: 100%; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; } + h1 { text-align: center; + margin-top: 4em; } + h1.pg { text-align: center; + margin-top: 0em; } + h2 { text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; } + + h3, h4, h5, h6 { text-align: center; } + hr { width: 50%; } + hr.full { width: 100%; + height: 5px; } + .ctr {text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 85%; } + .poem { margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; margin-bottom: 1em; text-align: left; } + .poem .stanza { margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em; } + .poem p { margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em; } + .poem p.i2 { margin-left: 1em; } + .poem p.i4 { margin-left: 2em; } + .poem p.i6 { margin-left: 3em; } + .poem p.i8 { margin-left: 4em; } + .poem p.i10 { margin-left: 5em; } + .toc { margin-left: 15%; font-size: 80%; margin-bottom: 0em;} + center { padding: 0.8em;} + a:link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:hover {color:red} + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + // --> + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Over Paradise Ridge, by Maria Thompson Daviess + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Over Paradise Ridge + A Romance + +Author: Maria Thompson Daviess + +Release Date: March 3, 2005 [EBook #15243] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OVER PARADISE RIDGE *** + + + + +Produced by David Garcia, Edna Badalian and the PG Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. Page images were generously provided by the +Kentuckiana Digital Library. + + + + + + +</pre> + +<h1>OVER PARADISE RIDGE</h1> +<p class="ctr"> +<a href="images/image1.jpg" name="image1"></a><img src="images/image1.jpg" width="300" height="598" alt=""I GOT A CALL—A LAND CALL THAT I HAD TO ANSWER."" title="" /><br /> +"I GOT A CALL—A LAND CALL THAT I HAD TO ANSWER." +</p> + + +<h1>OVER PARADISE RIDGE</h1> + +<h2>A ROMANCE</h2> + + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>MARIA THOMPSON DAVIESS</h2> + +<h4>AUTHOR OF</h4> + +<h4>"THE MELTING OF MOLLY" ETC.</h4> + + +<h4>ILLUSTRATED</h4> + + +<h4>TO</h4> + +<h4>BERNICE LANIER DICKINSON</h4> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</a></h2> + +<div class="ctr"> + <table border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" summary=""> + <tr><td>CHAPTER</td><td></td></tr> + <tr><td align="right">I. </td><td> <a href="#I"> THE BOOK OF FOOD</a></td></tr> + <tr><td align="right">II. </td><td> <a href="#II"> THE BOOK OF SHELTER</a></td></tr> + <tr><td align="right">III. </td><td> <a href="#III"> THE BOOK OF LAUGHTER</a></td></tr> + <tr><td align="right">IV. </td><td> <a href="#IV"> THE BOOK OF LOVE</a></td></tr> + </table> +</div> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="ILLUSTRATIONS" id="ILLUSTRATIONS" />ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + +<p><a href="#image1">"I GOT A CALL—A LAND CALL THAT I HAD TO ANSWER"</a></p> + +<p><a href="#image2">THE BYRD WAS ATTIRED IN MINIATURES OF SAM'S OVERALLS</a></p> + + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h1><a name="I" id="I">OVER PARADISE RIDGE</a></h1> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>I</h2> + +<h3>THE BOOK OF FOOD</h3> + + +<p>Nobody knows what starts the sap along the twigs of a very young, +tender, and green woman's nature. In my case it was Samuel Foster +Crittenden, though how could he have counted on the amount of +Grandmother Nelson that was planted deep in my disposition, ready to +spring up and bear fruit as soon as I was brought in direct acquaintance +with a seed-basket and a garden hoe? Also why should Sam's return to a +primitive state have forced my ancestry up to the point of flowering on +the surface? I do hope Sam will not have to suffer consequences, but I +can't help it if he does. What's born in us is not our fault.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Betty, I know I'm an awful shock to you as a farmer. I ought to +have impressed it on you more thoroughly before you—you saw me in the +act. I'm sorry, dear," Sam comforted me gently and tenderly as I wept +with dismay into the sleeve of his faded blue overalls.</p> + +<p>"I can't understand it," I sniffed as I held on to his sustaining hand +while I balanced with him on the top of an old, moss-covered stone wall +he had begged me to climb to for a view of Harpeth Valley which he +thought might turn my attention from him. "Have you mislaid your +beautiful ambitions anywhere?"</p> + +<p>"I must have planted them along with my corn crop, I reckon," he +answered, quietly, as he steadied his shoulder against an old oak-tree +that grew close to the fence and then steadied my shoulder against his.</p> + +<p>"It is just for a little while, to get evidence about mud and animals +and things like that, isn't it?" I asked, with great and undue +eagerness, while an early blue jay flitted across from tree-top to +tree-top in so happy a spirit that I sympathized with the admiring lady +twit that came from a bush near the wall. "You are going back out into +the world where I left you, aren't you?"</p> + +<p>"No," answered Sam, in an even tone of voice that quieted me completely; +it was the same he had used when he made me stand still the time his +fishhook caught in my arm at about our respective sixth and tenth years. +"No, I'm going to be just a farmer. It's this way, Betty. That valley +you are looking down into has the strength to feed hundreds of thousands +of hungry men, women, and children when they come down to us over +Paradise Ridge from the crowded old world; but men have to make her +give it up and be ready for them. At first I wasn't sure I could, but +now I'm going to put enough heart and brain and muscle into my couple of +hundred acres to dig out my share of food, and that of the other folks a +great strapping thing like I am ought to help to feed. I'll plow your +name deep into the potato-field, dear," he ended, with a laugh, as he +let go my hand, which he had almost dislocated while his eyes smoldered +out over the Harpeth Valley, lying below us like an earthen cup full of +green richness, on whose surface floated a cream of mist.</p> + +<p>"It just breaks my heart to see you away from everything and everybody, +all burned up and scratched up and muddy, and—and—" I was saying as he +lifted me back into the road again beside my shiny new Redwheels that +looked like an enlarged and very gay sedan-chair.</p> + +<p>"Look, look, Betty!" Sam interrupted my distress over his farmer aspect, +which was about to become tearful, and his eyes stopped regarding me +with sad seriousness and lit with affectionate excitement as he peered +into the bushes on the side of the road. "There's my lost heifer calf! +You run your car on up to my house beyond the bend there and I'll drive +her back through the woods to meet you. Get out and head her off if she +tries to pass you." With which command he was gone just as I was about +to begin to do determined battle for his rescue.</p> + +<p>I did not run my car up to his farm-house. I "negotiated a turn" just as +the man I bought it from in New York had taught me to do; only he +hadn't counted on a rail fence on one side, a rock wall just fifty feet +across from it, and two stumps besides. It was almost like a maxixe, but +I finally got headed toward Providence Road, down which, five miles +away, Hayesboro is firmly planted in a beautiful, dreamy, vine-covered +rustication.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I wonder if it could be a devil that is possessing Sam?" I asked +myself, stemming with my tongue a large tear that was taking a +meandering course down my cheek because I was afraid to take either hand +off the steering-gear for fear I would run into a slow, old farm horse, +with a bronzed overalled driver and wagon piled high with all sorts of +uninteresting crates and bales and unspeakable pigs and chickens. As I +skidded past them I told myself I had more than a right to weep over Sam +when I thought of the last time I had seen him before this distressing +interview; the contrast was enough to cause grief.</p> + +<p>It had happened the night after Sam's graduation in June and just the +night before I had sailed with Mabel Vandyne and Miss Greenough for a +wander-year in Europe. Sam was perfectly wonderful to look at with his +team ribbon in the buttonhole of his dress-coat, and I was very proud of +him. We were all having dinner at the Ritz with two of Sam's classmates +and the father of one, Judge Vandyne, who is one of the greatest +corporation lawyers in New York. He had just offered Sam a chance in his +offices, together with his own son.</p> + +<p>"You'll buck right on up through center just as you do on the gridiron, +old man, to the Supreme bench before you are forty. I'm glad the +governor will have you, for I'll never make it. Oh, you Samboy!" said +Peter Vandyne, who was their class poet and who adored Sam from every +angle—from each of which Sam reciprocated.</p> + +<p>And all the rest raised their glasses and said:</p> + +<p>"Oh, Samboy!"</p> + +<p>The waiters even knew who Sam was on account of the last Thanksgiving +game, and beamed on him with the greatest awe and admiration. And I +beamed with the rest, perhaps even more proudly. Still, that twinkle in +Sam's hazel eyes ought to have made me uneasy even then. I had seen it +often enough when Sam had made up his mind to things he was not talking +about.</p> + +<p>"The ladies and all of us," answered Sam to Peter's toast, as he raised +his glass and set it down still full, then grinned at me as he said, so +low that the others couldn't hear, "Will you meet me in Hayesboro after +a year and a day, Betty?"</p> + +<p>I don't see why I didn't understand and begin to defend Sam from himself +right then instead of going carelessly and light-heartedly to Europe and +letting him manage his own affairs. I didn't even write to him, except +when I saw anything that interested or moved me, and then I just +scribbled "remind me to tell you about this" on a post-card and sent it +to him. You can seal some friends up in your heart and forget about +them, and when you take them out they are perfectly fresh and good, but +they may have changed flavor. That is what Sam did, and I am not +surprised that the rural flavor of what he offered me out there in dirt +lane shocked me slightly. I didn't think then that I liked it and I also +felt that I wished I had stayed by Sam at that wobbling period of his +career; but, on the other hand, it was plainly my duty to go to Europe +with Mabel and Peter Vandyne and Miss Greenough. The inclination to do +two things at once is a sword that slices you in two, as the man in the +Bible wanted to do to the baby to make enough of him for the two +mothers; and that is the way I felt about Peter and Sam as I whirled +along the road. I am afraid Sam is going to be the hardest to manage. He +is harder than Peter by nature. If Sam had just taken to drink instead +of farming I would have known better what to do. I reformed Peter in one +night in Naples when he took too much of that queer Italian wine merely +because it was his birthday. I used tears, and he said it should never +happen again. I don't believe it has, or he wouldn't have got an act and +a half of his "Epic of American Life" finished as he told me he had done +when I dined with him in New York the night I landed. I missed Peter +dreadfully when he left us in London in June, and so did Miss Greenough +and Mabel, though she is his sister. We all felt that if he had been +with us it wouldn't have taken us all these months of that dreadful war +to get comfortably home. Peter said at the dock that he hadn't drawn a +full breath since war had been declared until he got my feet off the +gang-plank on to American soil. He needn't have worried quite as much +as that, for we had a lovely, exciting time visiting at the Gregorys' up +in Scotland while waiting for state-rooms. And it was while hearing all +those Scotchmen and Englishmen talk about statesmanship and +jurisprudence and international law that I realized how America would +need great brains later on, more and more, as she would have to +arbitrate, maybe, for the whole world.</p> + +<p>I smiled inwardly as I listened, for didn't I know that in just a few +years the nation would have Samuel Foster Crittenden to rely on? Sam is +a statesman by inheritance, for he has all sorts of remarkable Tennessee +ancestry back of him from Colonial times down to his father's father, +who was one of the great generals of our own Civil War. And as I +listened to those splendid men talk about military matters, just as +Judge Crittenden had talked to Sam and me about his father, the general, +ever since we were big enough to sit up and hear about it, and discuss +what American brains and character could be depended upon to do, I +glowed with pride and confidence in Sam. I'm glad I didn't know then +about the collapsed structure of my hopes for him that Sam was even then +secretly unsettling. At the thought my hand trembled on the wheel and I +turned my car hastily away from two chickens and a dog in the road and +my mind from the anxiety of Sam to further pleasant thoughts of Peter.</p> + +<p>I don't believe Judge Vandyne's thoughts of Peter are as pleasant as +mine, for Peter doesn't go to the office at all any more; he spends his +waking moments at a club where players and play-writers and all men +play a great deal of the time. I forget its name, but it makes the judge +mad to mention it.</p> + +<p>"The dear old governor's mind is gold-bound," said Peter, sadly, after +we came away from luncheon with the judge down in Wall Street. "Why +should I grub filthy money when he has extracted the bulk of it that he +has? I must go forward and he must realize that he should urge me on up. +I ought not to be tied down to unimportant material things. I must not +be. You of all people understand me and my ambitions, Betty." As he said +it he leaned toward me across the tea-table at the Astor, where we had +dropped exhaustedly down to finish the discussion on life which the +judge's practical tirade had evoked.</p> + +<p>"But then, Peter, you know it was a very great thing Judge Vandyne +showed his bank how to do about that international war loan. In England +and Scotland they speak of him with bated breath. It was so brilliant +that it saved awful complications for Belgium."</p> + +<p>"Oh, he's the greatest ever—in all material ways," answered Peter, with +hasty loyalty and some pride, "but I was speaking of those higher +things, Betty, of the spirit. The things over which your soul and mine +seem to draw near to each other. Betty, the second act of 'The +Emergence' is almost finished, and Farrington is going to read it +himself when I have it ready. He told me so at the club just yesterday. +You know he awarded my junior prize for the 'Idyl.' Think of +it—<i>Farrington</i>!" And Peter leaned forward and took my hand.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Peter, I am so glad!" I said, with a catch of joy in my breath, but +I drew away my hand. I knew I liked Peter in many wonderful ways, but in +some others I was doubtful. I had only known Peter the three years I've +been away from Hayesboro, being finished in the North, and even if I did +room with his sister at the Manor on the Hudson and travel with her a +year, it is not the same as being born next door to him, as in the case +of Sam, for instance. But then I ought not to compare Peter and Sam. +Peter is of so much finer clay than Sam. Just thinking about clay made +me remember those unspeakable boots of Sam's I had encountered out on +the road, and again I determinedly turned my thoughts back to that +wonderful afternoon with Peter at the Astor a few short days ago. Miss +Greenough kept telling Mabel and me all over Europe to look at +everything as material to build nests of pleasant thoughts for our souls +to rest in, as Ruskin directed in the book she had. I've made one that +will last me for life of Peter, who is the most beautiful man in the +whole wide world; also of the yellow shade on the Astor lamp, the +fountain, and the best chicken sandwich I ever ate. It will be a warmer +place to plump down in than most of the picture-galleries and cathedrals +I had used for nest-construction purposes at Miss Greenough's direction.</p> + +<p>Yes, I drew my hand away from Peter's, but a little thing like that +would never stop a poet; and before the waiter had quite swept us out +with the rest of the tea paraphernalia to make way for that of dinner he +had made me see that I was positively necessary to his career, +especially as both his father and Mabel are so unsympathetic. It is a +great happiness to a woman to feel necessary to a man, though she may +not enjoy it entirely.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know I can write it all—all that is in my heart if I feel that +it is—is for you, dearest dear Betty," was the last thing that Peter +said as he put me on a train headed for the Harpeth Valley that night.</p> + +<p>I didn't answer—I don't know that I ever did answer Peter anything, but +he never noticed that when he thought of how my loving him would help +out with the play.</p> + +<p>Just here I was musing so deeply on the intricacies of love that I +nearly ran over a nice, motherly old cow that had come to the middle of +the road with perfectly good faith in me when she saw me coming. And as +I rounded her off well to the left again my thoughts skidded back to Sam +and the way he had treated me as less than a heifer calf after <i>I</i> had +not seen him for a year, and <i>she</i> had just seen him that morning at +feeding-time.</p> + +<p>"Head off that saucy young cow, indeed!" I sniffed, as I ran the car +into the side yard between my home and the old Crittenden house.</p> + +<p>"I wonder if he really expected me to be waiting there in that lane for +him?" I questioned myself. And the answer I got from the six-year-old +girl that is buried alive in me was that Sam did expect me to do as he +told me, and that something serious might happen if I didn't. As I +turned Redwheels over to old Eph, who adores it because it is the only +one he ever had his hands on, I felt a queer sinking somewhere in the +heart of that same young self. I always had helped Sam—and suppose that +unspeakable animal had got lost to him for ever just because I hadn't +done as he told me! I reached out my hand for the runabout to start +right back; then I realized it was too late. The night had erected a +lovely spangled purple tent of twilight over Hayesboro, and the +all-evening performances were about to begin.</p> + +<p>Lovely women were lighting lamps and drawing shades or meeting the +masculine population at front gates with babies in their arms or +beau-catcher curls set on their cheeks with deadly intent. Negro cooks +were hustling suppers on their smoking stoves, and one of the doves that +lives up in the vines under the eaves of my home moaned out and was +answered by one from under the vines that grow over the gables at the +Crittendens'. I haven't felt as lonesome as all that since the first +week of Sam's freshman year at college. As I looked across the lilac +hedge, which was just beginning to show a green sap tint along its gray +branches, I seemed to see my poor little blue-ginghamed, pigtailed self +crouched at Judge Crittenden's feet on the front steps, sobbing my +lonely heart away while he smoked his sorrow down with a long brier +pipe, and the Byrd chirped his little three-year-old protest in concert +with us both. Most eighteen-year-old men would have resented having a +motherless little brother and a long-legged girl neighbor eternally at +their heels, but Sam never had; or, if he did, he gently kicked the Byrd +and me out of the way, and we never knew that was what he was doing. We +even loved him for the kicks. Then as the tears misted across my eyes a +woman with a baby in her arms came out and called in two children who +were playing under the old willow-tree over by the side gate—the willow +that had belonged to Sam and me—and my eyes dried themselves with +indignant astonishment.</p> + +<p>"Who are those people over at the Crittendens', mother?" I asked, in a +stern voice, as I walked in and interrupted mother counting the +fifteenth row on a lace mat she was making.</p> + +<p>"Why, the Burtons bought the place from Sam after the judge's death. +Don't you remember I wrote you about it, Betty dear?" she answered, with +the gentle placidity with which she has always met all my tragic +moments. Mother raised seven boys before she produced me, and her +capacity for any sort of responsive excitement gave out long before I +needed it. After her sons a woman seems to consider a daughter just a +tame edition of a child. Mother has calmly crocheted herself through +every soul-storm I have ever had, and she is the most dear and +irresponsible parent an executive girl would wish to have leave her +affairs alone. As for daddy, he has always smiled and beckoned me away +from her into a corner and given me what I was making a stand for. My +father loves me with such confidence that he pays no attention to me +whatever except when he thinks it is about time for him to write my name +on a check. His phosphate deals have made him rich in an +un-Hayesboro-like way, and all the boys are in business for him in +different states, except the oldest one, who is Congressman from this +district, and one other who is in a Chicago bank. Yes, I know I have the +most satisfactorily aloof family in the wide world. I can just go on +feeding on their love and depend upon them not to interfere with any of +my plans for living life. However, if anything happens to me I can be +sure that their love will spring up and growl.</p> + +<p>Now, when I stalked into the room and asked about the Crittenden home, +daddy reared his head from his evening paper and immediately took notice +of whatever it was in my voice that sounded as if something had hurt me.</p> + +<p>"Daddy," I asked him, with a little gulp, "did Sam—Sam sell his +ancestral home even to the third and fourth generation and go to farming +just for sheer wickedness?"</p> + +<p>"No, madam, he did not," he answered, looking at me over his glasses, +and I could see a pain straighten out the corners of his mouth under his +fierce white mustache. "The judge's debts made a mortgage that nicely +blanketed the place, and Sam had only to turn it over to the creditors +and walk out to that little two-hundred-acre brier-patch the judge had +forgot to mortgage."</p> + +<p>"Then Sam can sell it for enough to go out and take his place in the +world," I said, with the greatest relief in my voice.</p> + +<p>"He could, but he won't," answered daddy, looking at me with keen +sympathy. "I tried that out on him. Just because that brier-patch has +never had a deed against it since the grant from Virginia to old Samuel +Foster Crittenden of 1793 he thinks it is his sacred duty to go out and +dig a hole in a hollow log for Byrd and himself and get in it to +sentimentalize and starve."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I think that is a beautiful thought about the land, and I wish I +had known it earlier! But could they be really hungry—hungry, daddy?" I +said, with a sudden vacant feeling just under my own ribs in the region +between my heart and my stomach.</p> + +<p>"Oh no," answered daddy, comfortably. "They both looked fat enough the +last time I saw Sam coming to town in a wagon with Byrd, leading a +remarkably fine Jersey calf. We'll go out in that new flying-machine you +brought home with you and pull them out of their burrow some day when +you get the time. Fine boy, that; and, mother, when is that +two-hundred-pound black beauty in your kitchen going to have supper?"</p> + +<p>I didn't tell daddy I had gone to the ends of the earth to hunt for Sam +in less than thirty-six hours after I had landed in Hayesboro, but I +went up to my room to slip into something clean and springy, walking +behind a thin mist of tears of pure sentiment. That was the third time +in about seven hours I had been crying over Sam Crittenden, and then I +had to eat a supper of fried chicken and waffles that would have been +delicious if it hadn't been flavored by restrained sobs in my throat. I +was so mad at my disloyal thoughts about a beautiful character, which +Sam's reverence for his ancestral land proves his to be, and so afraid +of what I had done to him about the calf, and so hungry to see him, that +by the time the apple-float came on the table I thought it would have to +be fed to me by old Eph. Mother made it worse by remarking, as she put a +lovely dab of thick cream right on top of my saucer:</p> + +<p>"Did you hear, father, that all of Sam's cows had been sick and that he +has lost his two finest calves?"</p> + +<p>I couldn't stand any more. I gulped the cream, remarked huskily on how +warm the April night was, and escaped down the front walk to the old +purple lilac-bush by the gate where up to my seventh year I had always +kept house with and for Sam whenever he would enter into the bonds of an +imaginary marriage with me for an hour or two. Sam made a good father of +a hollyhock doll family whenever he undertook the relation, and provided +liberally for us all in the way of honey, locusts, and grass nuts.</p> + +<p>"And I, maybe, let him lose the last calf he has when he is noble and +poor and alone," I sobbed into my silk sleeve, which was so thin that I +shivered in the cool April moonlight as I leaned against the gate and +looked away out at the dim blue hills that rim the Harpeth Valley, at +the foot of one of which I seemed to see Sam's and Byrd's hollow log.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Bettykin! Out putting our hollyhock family to bed?" laughed a +crisp, comforting, jolly voice right at my elbow as a big, rough hand +ruffled my beautifully smoothed hair and then gave a friendly shake to +my left shoulder. "How do you find all our children after a three-year +foreign sojourn?"</p> + +<p>"I told you five years ago, when I put it up on my head, to stop ruffing +my hair, Sam Crittenden; and did you find that cow?" I answered, with +both defiance and anxiety in my voice.</p> + +<p>"I did," answered Sam, cheerfully, "but how did I lose you in the +shuffle? I tied her up in the shack with a rope and then beat it in all +these five miles, partly by foot and partly by a neighbor's buggy, to +find and—er—rope you in. I am glad to see you are standing quietly at +the bars waiting for me, and as soon as I've greeted your mother and Dad +Hayes and got a little of the apple-float that I bet was the fatted calf +they killed for your prodigal return, I'll foot it the five miles back +in a relieved and contented frame of mind."</p> + +<p>"How did you happen to let your cows get sick, Sam?" I demanded, +sternly, instead of putting my arms around his neck to tell him how +noble I had found out he was, and how glad I was that he had come all +that way to see me, and not to be mad at me because I didn't obey him +out in the lane.</p> + +<p>"I don't know, Betty, I just don't know," answered Sam, as he lit a +corn-cob pipe and leaned closer to me in a thoughtful manner. "Cows are +such feminine things and so contrary. I don't know what I will do if I +lose any more. I—I may get discouraged."</p> + +<p>"Have you had a doctor?" I asked, briskly and unfeelingly, though I did +take his big rough hand in my own and hold on to it with a sympathy that +was not in my voice.</p> + +<p>"No, I've sorter doctored them by a book I have. The only good +veterinary doctor about here lives way over by Spring Hill, and it would +take him a day to drive over and back, besides costing me about ten +dollars. Still, I ought to get him. Buttercup is pretty sick," answered +Sam, and I could see that his broad shoulders under his well-cut blue +serge coat of last season seemed to sag with the weight of his animal +responsibilities.</p> + +<p>"I can take my car over to Spring Hill in less than an hour, get the +doctor, and have you and the doctor out to those animals by ten. This +moon will last all night; and you go get the apple-float from mother +while I make Eph run out the car and jump into my corduroys. Come on, +quick!" And as I talked I opened the gate, drew him in, and started +leading him up the front walk by the sleeve of his coat.</p> + +<p>"Not if I know myself, Betty, will I let you undertake such a red-cross +expedition as that. They'll have to wait. I came in to call on you and +whisper sweet nothings to you in the parlor while you tell me—"</p> + +<p>"Eat the float in a hurry if you want it," I interrupted him, as I +deposited him beside mother, who was still sipping a last cup of coffee +with her jelly-cake, and went for my room and my motor clothes.</p> + +<p>And it was one grand dash that Redwheels and I made out Providence Road +and over Paradise Ridge down to Spring Hill in less than thirty-five +minutes. In the moonlight the road was like a lovely silver ribbon that +we wound up on a spool under the machine, and a Southern spring breeze +seemed to be helping the gasoline to waft us on more rapidly in our +flight as it stung our faces with its coolness, which was scented with +the sap that was just beginning to rise against bark and bud in the +meadows and woods past which we sped.</p> + +<p>"It will be great to die together, won't it, Betty?" said Sam once as +Redwheels ran a few yards on two wheels, then tried the opposite two +before it settled back to the prosaic though comfortable use of four as +we took a flying leap across a little creek ditch.</p> + +<p>"We can't die sentimentally; we've got to get back to those suffering +cows," I answered him, firmly, as I whirled into Spring Hill and stopped +Redwheels, panting and hot, in front of the dry-goods, feed, and drug +store. There I knew we could find out anything we wanted to know about +the whereabouts or profession of any of the fifteen hundred inhabitants +of the little old hamlet which has nestled under the hills for a hundred +years or more. "Ask where the cow physician lives. Quick!"</p> + +<p>And at my urge Sam sprang out and across the old, uneven brick pavement +that lay between us and the store door. Then in less than two minutes he +appeared with a round, red-faced, white-headed old man who wheezed +chuckles as he talked.</p> + +<p>His fear of the car was only equaled by his fascination at the idea of +the long ride in it, which would be the first motor-driven sortie he had +ever made out into life.</p> + +<p>"Air ye sure, little missie, that you can drive the contraption so as +not to run away with us? Old folks is tetchy, like a basket of pullet +eggs," he said, as Sam seated him in the back seat and sprang to my +side.</p> + +<p>"I wish I had a rope to tie him in," he muttered, as he sank into his +seat. "If you run as you did coming, we'll sure lose him. He'll bounce +like a butter-ball."</p> + +<p>"I'm not taking any risks," I answered, and it was with greatest +mildness that we sauntered up Paradise Ridge and started down the other +side. And as I drove along carefully my mind began to work out into the +byways of the situation. I don't see how my athletic and executive +generation is going to do its appointed work in its day if we are going +to go on using the same set of social conventions that tied up our +mothers. As we neared the cross-road that turned off to Sam's +brier-patch I began to wonder how long it would take me to rush back +into Hayesboro, bundle mother into Redwheels, and get back to the cows. +It was just a quarter after nine o'clock, but I knew she would be sleepy +and would have to be forced to come with me very gently and slowly. +Still, I didn't see how I could go on out into the woods with only Sam +and the Butterball which was wheezing out cow conversation to Sam that I +was intensely interested in and ought to have been listening to rather +than wasting force on foolish proprieties. I was about to turn and take +Sam's advice on the matter when he suddenly laid his fingers on my arm +and said:</p> + +<p>"Stop a minute, Betty. What's that roosting on that stone wall?" And as +he spoke he peered out toward a strange, huge bird sitting by the side +of the road.</p> + +<p>I stopped just about opposite the object and Sam sprang out.</p> + +<p>"You, Byrd Crittenden, where did you come from?" I heard Sam demand of +the huddled bundle as he lifted it off the wall. It was attired in +scanty night-drawers and a short coat, and shivered as it stood, first +on one foot and then on the other.</p> + +<p>"I ain't a-going to stay in no country with a hoot-owl, Sam. I'm going +to somewhere that a lady lives at, too." And the manful little voice +broke as the bunch shivered up against Sam's legs.</p> + +<p>"Honest, Byrd, I thought you were asleep and wouldn't wake up till +morning. You never did before; but when I go—go gallivanting, have I +got to take you or not go?" And Sam's voice was bravely jocular.</p> + +<p>"Bring him here to me, Sam," I cried out, quickly. "Come in here with +Betty, Byrd." And I cuddled his long, thin, little legs down under my +lap-blanket beyond the steering-gear. "You didn't forget Betty while she +was away, did you?" I asked, as we snuggled to each other and I started +the motor, while Dr. Chubb chuckled and Sam still stood in the middle of +the moonlit road as if uncertain what to do next.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I forgot you," answered Byrd, candidly, though I had adored him +since his birth; "but I like to go see Mother Hayes and eat jelly-cake. +Can I go home with you?"</p> + +<p>"No. I'm going as fast as I can with you to your home to keep you from +freezing to death," I answered, quickly adopting this recovered old +friend in the double capacity of an excuse and a chaperon. "Just sit +here in the seat by me and watch me get us all back to your house in a +hurry. You sit with the doctor, Sam."</p> + +<p>"Oh no, Betty," answered Sam, quickly. "It is only a little over a mile +now, and the doctor and Byrd and I can walk it all right. You come out +in the morning and—"</p> + +<p>"I'm going on with the doctor to those cows, Sam, and if you want to go +with us, get in quick," I answered, in a tone of voice I have used on +Sam once or twice in our lives with great effect. He hopped in and I +started at top speed.</p> + +<p>"Hic-chew! Fine goer that," wheezed the doctor, and I didn't know +whether he alluded to me or Redwheels. But there was evident relish of +real pace in his voice, so I speeded up and shot away from the main road +into the hard dirt lane in good style.</p> + +<p>"I'm a bird—I'm a bird!" shouted the picked fledgling at my side as we +whizzed under dark cedar boughs that waved funereal plumes over our +heads, and over stumps and stones with utter disregard of the heavy new +tires. One of the lessons I learned early is that men are timid of a +woman's driving them in any vehicle, and I was surprised that I at last +rounded the bend and drew up beside a long, low shed which Sam had +calmly pointed out to me, without having had a single remonstrance from +the back seat.</p> + +<p>"Moo," came in a gentle, sad voice from the depths of the shed as we all +began to disembark at the same time.</p> + +<p>"Well, one is alive, anyway," said Sam as he set Byrd on the ground and +held up his arms to me. "It's good to have you back, Betty," he +whispered, in an undertone, as he turned me against his shoulder to set +me down. "It 'll all go right now that you are here to—"</p> + +<p>"Now tell us what to do, Doctor." I interrupted him determinedly, +because I felt that it was not the occasion for friendly +sentimentalities.</p> + +<p>If at any time in the three years that preceded that night I had +foreseen the way I was to spend it I would have been justified in flatly +refusing to carry out my horoscope. Suppose, for instance, while I was +in the midst of the wonderful dinner Peter Vandyne's cousin, Count Henri +de Berssan, gave me in Brussels, a week before the storm broke that +carried him before cannon and bayonet, I had seen a mental picture of +myself six months from that minute, out in the woods on the side of a +Harpeth hill under an old cedar-pole shed with my jacket off, my +embroidered blouse sleeves rolled to the shoulder, filling a tin can, +which had a long spout to be poked down a cow's throat, with a vile, +greasy mixture out of a black bottle, at the directions of a +shirt-sleeved little man and a red-headed farmer in blue overalls, while +a wisp of a boy writhed in and out and around and under a pathetic old +Jersey cow, who was being rescued from the jaws of death. Now I wonder +just what I would have done to escape such an experience? Slated myself +for Belgian widowhood, perhaps, as a kinder fate, or stayed right there +in New York to help Peter on "The Emergence." I wonder if Peter ever saw +a dear, big-eyed, trustful old Jersey cow have medicine poured down her +throat. It is called "drenching." I wish he could see it before he +finishes that play. The sight produces a peculiar kind of emotion that +might be worth recording in an all-comprehensive drama of American life. +In fact, I know that what I felt at the end was worth recording in any +kind of literature, by any kind of a poet—if we were equal to it. Old +Dr. Chubb leaned breathlessly against a rough post, I staggered down on +an upturned bucket, and Sam reached out his long, blue-overalled arms +and embraced Buttercup's neck and buried his head on her patient +shoulder, just as a faint streak of April dawn showed behind the +oak-trees, for we realized then that the dreadful cramp was gone and +that she could chew the wisp of hay offered by Byrd.</p> + +<p>"Hic-chew! All out of the woods," wheezed Dr. Chubb, as he looked at old +Buttercup and the two other young cows we had been working over all +night, with as fine an exaltation of achievement as any I ever saw, not +excepting that of an American man of letters I witnessed take his degree +at Oxford.</p> + +<p>But Sam's head was still bowed on old Buttercup's back and I went and +stood beside him.</p> + +<p>"Will I ever learn how to take care the right way of—of life?" he said +under his breath, as he stood up straight and tall with the early light +streaming over his great mop of sun-bronzed hair and the bare breast +from which his open shirt fell away.</p> + +<p>"I'll help you," I said, as I came still nearer and leaned against +Buttercup's warm, yellow side so closely that she looked around from her +meal from the Byrd's hand and mooed with grateful affection plus +surprise to find us still standing by her so determinedly. "That is, +if—if—I can learn myself."</p> + +<p>"You haven't found out you are a woman yet, have you, Betty?" answered +Sam, with a laugh that embarrassed me. I would have considered it +ungrateful if it hadn't sounded so comfortable and warm out in the cold +of the dawn—which had come before I realized that midnight had passed, +about which time I had intended to go home. But how could a person feel +guilty while playing Good Samaritan to a cow? I didn't.</p> + +<p>Then, as the streak of new day widened into a soft pink flush over the +tops of the bare trees that etched their fine twigs into an archaic +pattern against a purple sky lit by the gorgeous flame of the morning +star retreating before the coming sun, we all collected buckets and rags +and bottles and sponges. In Indian file we were led by Sam around the +hill, up a steep path that was bordered by coral-strung buck-bushes and +rasping blackberry brush, and to his little farm-house perched on a +plateau almost up to the top of the hill. It was long and low, with a +wide red roof that seemed to hover in the whitewashed walls and green +shutters; while white smoke from an old gray-rock, mud-daubed chimney +melted away among the tree-tops into the lavender of the coming day. It +looked like a great brooding white hen setting in a nest of radiant +woods, and I felt like a little cold chicken as Sam led the way through +the low, wide door for me to creep under the sheltering wings. In about +two seconds we were all sheltered in complete comfort. At a huge fire +that was a great glow of oak coals old Mammy Kitty, who had +superintended Sam's birth and childhood, as well as "neighbored" mine, +was gently stirring a mixture that smelled like the kind of breakfast +nectar they must have in heaven, while she also balanced a steaming +coffee-pot on a pair of crossed green sticks at one corner of the +chimney. In the ashes I could see little mounds which I afterward found +to be flaky, nutty com-pones, and I flew to kneel at her side with my +head on her gaudy neckerchief.</p> + +<p>"Dah, dah, dah, child," she crooned, as she smiled a queer, loving, old +smile that showed me how glad she was to see me, but never another word +did she utter. I almost never remember hearing Mammy say an articulate +word; but all children and those grown up who have any child left in +their hearts can understand her croon. It is cradle music—to the +initiated.</p> + +<p>"Mammy's rheumatism is mighty bad, but she can still shake up corn ash +cake and chicken hash with the best," said Sam, coming over to warm his +hands and tower above us, while Byrd volunteered to lead Dr. Chubb out +to what he called the wash-up bench on the back porch.</p> + +<p>I looked up at Sam as he stood above me in a mingling of fire-glow and +the early morning light with his low-beamed, deep-toned humble home as a +background, and he—he loomed.</p> + +<p>"I—I love this place," I positively gasped, as I moved still closer to +Mammy and stirred the spoon in the pot of hash.</p> + +<p>"Shelter, fire, a chicken in the pot, and a woman crouched on the hearth +stirring it—what more could any man want or get, no matter how he +worked?" answered Sam, as he looked down at me with the smolder in his +blue-flecked hazel eyes to which Peter had once written a poem called +"On the Gridiron."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but what would you do if you didn't have Mammy?" I ventured back, +as I bent across Mammy's knee and began to stir more vigorously while +she shook up her coffee-pot and raked a few last coals over the cakes +for their complete browning. "You always were a good provider, Sam," I +added, under the excitement of the bubbling over of the coffee.</p> + +<p>"Yes, locusts for hollyhock children and the wife of a summer day who—"</p> + +<p>"Whew-shk! but my stomick have got a breakfas' notice," interrupted Dr. +Chubb. He and the Byrd had come into the room as hungry as ravening +wolves.</p> + +<p>While Mammy stirred and shoveled off ashes I fed all three men to the +point of utter repletion, feeding myself from Sam's plate as I brought +the food back and forth. He didn't want me to wait on them, and I +suppose that is the reason I insisted on it, and partly ate his +breakfast while doing it, just as an act of defiance.</p> + +<p>"You taught me to eat out of your hand, even when it was unspeakably +dirty, and you had only saved me about two good bites and the core," I +answered one of his remonstrances.</p> + +<p>"But think of the pain it was to save even a third of a tea-cake in +your pocket when your stomach was so near it," he answered as he +finished the bottom half of a pone I had spread thick with the juicy +hash before I had greedily eaten the upper crust.</p> + +<p>"I'd rather eat my breakfast out of my own plate and let ladies eat +they's. Sam has to tie up cows that eat out of other's stalls, and the +old white rooster has to be put in a coop 'cause he gobbles the hen +feed; but 'cause you are company he lets you do it," the Byrd remarked, +all in one breath between two pieces of his pone. At which Dr. Chubb +wheezed and chuckled delightedly and Sam roared.</p> + +<p>"Women critters ain't ever so free with vittels as men; they have to +kinder toll 'em along to nibble feed, and life, too," remarked the +doctor of distressed animals as we all rose from the table just as the +sun burst in on the situation from over Paradise Ridge.</p> + +<p>And while he and the Byrd went to again look at the invalids, and Mammy +Kitty removed the dishes into a little cupboard that served as butler's +pantry and storeroom, Sam showed me the rest of his house—which +consisted of his own room, that "leaned-to" the long living-room +opposite that of Mammy Kitty, and a back porch. That little room made me +feel queer and choky. It was neat and poor; and a narrow, old mahogany +bed, that had always been in the Crittenden nursery, was pushed back +under the low side. It had a shelf or two with a curtain of dark chintz +under which farm clothes hung, a gun in the corner, a jolly little wood +stove, and close beside Sam's bed was the young Byrd's cot with its +little pillow my mother had made for him before he was ushered into the +world on the day his mother left it. I could almost see the big rough +hand go out to comfort the little fledgling in the dark. I choked still +further, and turned hurriedly out on to the low, wide old porch that ran +all the way across the back of the house and which apparently was +bath-room, refrigerator, seed-rack as to its beams, and the general +depositing-place of the farm; but not before I had remarked, hanging by +his door, a grass basket I had woven for Sam to bring locust pods to the +hollyhock family. Then I fled, only stopping to squeeze Mammy over her +dish-pan and get my hat off the cedar pegs that stuck out of the side of +the old chimney to serve just such a purpose.</p> + +<p>I found Dr. Chubb and the Byrd, who was now attired in overalls of the +exact shade and cut of Sam's, standing by Redwheels with their mouths +and eyes wide open in rapture.</p> + +<p>"Well, 'fore I die I've saw a horse with steel innards and rid it," +remarked the old doctor. "Machines is jest the common sense of God +Almighty made up by men, 'ste'd er animals made up by His-self. But I +must git on, missie, or some critter over at Spring Hill will have a +conniption and die in it fer lack of a drench or a dose."</p> + +<p>I left Sam and the Byrd standing in the sunshine at the gate of cedar +poles that Sam had set up at the entrance of his wilderness, and I +don't believe I would have had the strength of character to go until I +had been introduced to every stick and stone on the farm if I hadn't +wanted so much to find out all about cows from Dr. Chubb. I drove slowly +and extracted the whole story from his enthusiastic old mind. What I +don't know about the bovine family now is not worth knowing, and I +believe I would enjoy undertaking to doctor a Texas herd. We parted with +vows of eternal mutual interest, and I expect to cherish that +friendship. It is not every day a girl has the chance to meet and profit +by such wisdom as a successful seventy-year-old veterinary surgeon is +obliged to possess.</p> + +<p>As I went up the stairs to my room I met mother coming down to her +half-after-eight breakfast, and she was mildly surprised that I had not +come home at a proper time and gone to bed; but when she heard that I +had been with Sam's sick cows all night she was perfectly satisfied, +even pleased. Mother rarely remembers that I am a girl. She has thought +in masculine terms so long that it is impossible for her to get her mind +to bear directly on the small feminine proprieties.</p> + +<p>"That's right, Betty, be a doer, no matter whom you do, even if it is +Sam's cow," said daddy, when I had finished my eulogy of Dr. Chubb and +beautiful old Mrs. Buttercup. Then he kissed mother and me and went on +down to his office, while she followed him to the gate, crocheting and +quite forgetting me.</p> + +<p>Completely exhausted, but feeling really more effective in life than I +ever had before, even at the Astor tea-table (because Peter had been +perfectly well and Sam's cows hadn't), I took a magazine with an +entrancing portrayal of a Belgian soldier apparently eleven feet tall on +the cover and went out on the side porch to sit in the cool spring +sunshine and pick up the pieces of myself. When I put myself together +again I found that I made something that looked like an illustration to +a farm article rather than the frontispiece to an American epic. Still, +if for a friend I could grasp a farm problem with that executive +enthusiasm, had I any reason to doubt that I would have any trouble in +helping along an epic of American life? I decided that I would not, and +settled down to find out about the eleven-foot Belgian before I crept +off for a nap, when an interruption came and I had to prop my eyes open. +It was Eph with a letter and the information that Redwheels had shed a +bolt in its flight last night. I settled the bolt question with a +quarter and turned to the letter. It was from Peter, and I knew by the +amount of ink splashed all over the envelope that it must contain a high +explosive splashed on the inside.</p> + +<p>Peter Vandyne really is a wonderful man, and he will enrich American +letters greatly after he has had time to live a lot of the things he has +planned to write. Farrington, the great producer and dramatist, had read +the first act of his epic and said good things about it, Farrington is +not a friend of Peter's sister, Mabel, nor does he own or want to buy +any of Judge Vandyne's stock in railroads or things. He's just really +the dean of the American stage. Could anybody blame Peter if he had used +ten pounds of paper, if paper comes by the pound, and a quart of ink +telling about it? But he didn't; about five of the seven pages were all +about me and Farrington. I never was so astonished. The morning I got +home I had written Peter about how all my friends had been glad to see +me, and the way the different ones had shown it, and Peter had read that +part to Mr. Farrington and he had said that Peter ought to get me to +supply some of the human comedy that Peter's play lacked. Peter knows so +much about life from his literary researches that it goes off and hides +from him when he sets out in search for it, and I understood immediately +what the great dramatist meant, though Peter probably did not.</p> + +<p> +So weave some of your heart spells for me, dearest dear<br /> +Betty [Peter wrote], I am sending you the manuscript of<br /> +Act I and part of Act II, and I know you will read them carefully<br /> +and let me know fully what you think of them. Criticize<br /> +them from your splendid human viewpoint. The dear old<br /> +governor has been rather hard on me of late, and I may have<br /> +to go into the office yet. Death! Help, rescue me, dear,<br /> +for to put a play across will be my salvation from his prejudices.<br /> +I must do it this summer, and then—then by the new year<br /> +perhaps I can lay the gems of success at your feet. May I<br /> +come down and talk to you soon about it all? No one knows<br /> +what's in my heart but you, my own Betty. May I come?<br /> +<br /> +PETER.<br /> +</p> + + +<p>I was extremely happy and excited over the poetical way in which Peter +was calling on my common sense to help him in his crisis, but I felt +weighted down with the responsibility. Yes, I understood the great +Farrington. He felt as I did—that Peter's genius needed to see and help +old Dr. Chubb drench Buttercup with a can of condition-mixture. Now, +could I supply all that, or enough of it to keep Peter from being +murdered in his father's office? The inky bundle at my side began to +look as if it weighed a ton, but my loyalty and affection for Peter made +me know that I must put my back to the burden and raise it somehow. If +it had been a simple burden, like three sick cows, it would have been +easier to take upon my shoulders. Then suddenly, as I was about to be in +a panic about it all, the thought of the cows reminded me of Sam, and +immediately, in my mind, I shared the weight of the manuscript with him +and began to breathe easier. The way Sam and Peter love each other +inspires positive awe in my heart, though Mabel says it is provoking +when they go off to their fraternity fishing-camp for week-ends instead +of coming to her delightful over-Sunday parties out on Long Island. +Judge Vandyne feels as I do about it, and he loves Sam as much as Peter +does, though I don't believe that he has any deeper affection for Peter +than Sam has. I've been intending to read up about David and Jonathan, +but I feel sure, from dim memories, that their histories about describe +Peter and Sam. I couldn't for the life of me see why any woman should +resent "a love that passes the love of" her, and I am sure she wouldn't +if one of them was a poet born to enlighten the world. Yes, I breathed +easier at the thought of Sam's affection for Peter, and went back to the +case of the giant Belgian, though I don't think the artist quite +intended him to be taken that way.</p> + +<p>Just as I had turned the front page I was interrupted by Clyde Tolbot, +who came whistling down the street and broke out all over with smiles +when he saw me out sunning myself.</p> + +<p>"Gee! Betty, but it is good to see you at home!" he said.</p> + +<p>They wore almost the exact words Sam had used, but they sounded +different. The sound is about all that is different in any of the things +men say to girls when they like them a lot. Tolly and I are very +appreciative of each other, and always have been.</p> + +<p>"You are going to settle down and have a royal good time, aren't you, +Betty? I learned a new foxtrot up in Louisville last week I'm dying to +teach you, and now that Sue Bankhead has got a great big dance machine +we can fox almost every night. Will you come with me this evening?"</p> + +<p>"I wish I could, Tolly," I said, with utter sincerity, for Tolly is the +very best dancer in the Harpeth Valley, not excepting Tom Pollard over +at Hillsboro. "But, Tolly, I must give up all thought of social +pleasures for a time." I spoke with a dignified reserve that fitted the +spirit that I ought to have when undertaking a great responsibility, +though I did want to dance. "I have some hard mental work to do."</p> + +<p>"Well, blast old Hayesboro for a sad hole! You are going to go in for +brain athletics, Sam Crittenden for farmer heroics, and the only movie +that has peeped into town is going to be closed because it ran a Latin +Quarter film the afternoon the ladies stopped in from the United +Charities sewing circle, expecting a Cuban missionary thriller. I might +as well have my left foot amputated, it itches so for good dancing." +Tolly was so furious that I was positively sorry for him, and to comfort +and calm him I told him all about Peter's letter and the play, and the +way I had to read and criticize and help. He sniffed at the idea of +Peter, but the dramatist impressed him slightly.</p> + +<p>"Say, that old boy is the real thing, Betty, child. He's the sure +win-out on Broadway. But how long will it take you to write that play +for your mollycoddle poet? You can get through with it before the +Country Club gets going good, can't you? We've had a new floor in the +dancing-pavilion built, and the directors ordered a foxy music machine +last night."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, I ought to be able to tell Peter all I know in two and a half +months," I answered, ignoring Tolly's disrespect for my poet friend.</p> + +<p>"And a lot you don't know," Tolly added, with the candor of real +affection. "I wish Sam, the old calf, could be weaned from his cows and +take the position your dad is offering him at the Phosphate Works, so he +would be able to shake a foot occasionally. Can't you handle him a bit, +Betty? It's as if he just came out and looked at life and then dived +back in a hollow log."</p> + +<p>"I—I don't know," I answered, doubtfully. A pang shot through me at the +thought of any one extracting Sam from that wonderful retreat in the +woods, but then also this news of the honors that were coming to Peter +made me long to have Samuel Foster Crittenden come forth and take his +place in the world beside his friends. Sam, I felt sure, was made to +shine, not to have his light hid under a farm basket. Why, even Tolly, +there beside me on the steps, was the head of the new Electric Light +Company that Hayesboro has had a little over a year. He did it all +himself, though he had failed to pass his college examinations when he +went up for them with Sam.</p> + +<p>"I'm proud of the way you've been doing things, Tolly," I added, warmly, +putting my thoughts of Sam away where I keep them when I'm not using +them.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm just an old money-grubber and nobody's genius child, but I'll +rustle the gold boys to get up to New York to see your play, Betty, and +send you a wagon-load of florist's spinnach on the first night," +answered Tolly, beaming at my words of praise.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Tolly, please don't think I'm going to write a play," I answered, +quickly. "I'm—well, I'm just going to tell Peter a whole lot of useful +things I find out about life. You see, Tolly, Peter's father has so many +millions of dollars that it has been almost impossible for Peter to +climb over them into real life as we have. I have to do it for him. +Please pity Peter, Tolly, and tell me what you think would be nice in +his play if you find anything."</p> + +<p>"Well—er—well, I have right in stock at present a little love-interest +tale I could unfold to you, Betty, about—Help! There comes the gentle +child Edith up the street now. I must go. I am too coarse-grained for +association with her." And before I could stop him he was gone through +the house and out the back way. That is the way it always is with Tolly +and Edith, either they are inseparable or entirely separate. They can't +seem to be coexistent citizens, and they have been fighting this way +since they both had on rompers. I wondered what Tolly had been doing +now.</p> + +<p>"Clyde Tolbot needn't have gone just because I came. I can endure him +when I have other people to help me," said Edith, as she kissed me and +sat down sadly. She is always sad when Tolly has been sinful.</p> + +<p>"What has Tolly been doing now?" I asked her, as I put that fascinating +Belgian face down on the floor and ruthlessly sat upon him, for the step +was getting cold, though the sun was delicious and had drawn out a nice +old bumblebee from his winter quarters to scout about the budding +honeysuckle over our heads.</p> + +<p>"I am so hurt that I wouldn't tell anybody about it but you, dear, but +last night as he walked home with me, after we had been dancing down at +Sue's to the new phonograph, he—he put his arm almost around me and I +think—I think he was going to kiss me if I hadn't prevented him—that +is, he did kiss my hair—I think." Edith is the pale-nun type, and I +wish she could have seen how lovely she was with the blush that even the +failure of Tolly to kiss her brought up under her deep-blue eyes. Edith +didn't get any farther north to school than Louisville, and her maiden +aunt, Miss Editha Shelby Morris Carruthers, brought her up perfectly +beautifully. I didn't know how to comfort her because I had been two +years at the Manor on the Hudson and then a year in Europe, and, though +nobody ever has directly kissed me, a girl's hand and hair don't seem to +count out in the world.</p> + +<p>To take Edith's mind off Tolly's perfidy I told her about the play, and +she was as impressed as anybody could wish her to be, and promised to +stand by me and make people understand why I couldn't dance and picnic +like other people because of this great work I had to do for a dear +friend. I told her not to tell anybody but Sue, and she went home +completely comforted by her friendly interest in Peter and me. In fact, +she really adored the idea of helping me help Peter, and seemed to +forget her anger at Tolly with a beautiful spirit.</p> + +<p>About that time Eph solemnly called me in to lunch. Eph is a nice, +jolly old negro until he gets a white linen jacket and apron on, and +then he turns into a black mummy. I think it is because I used to want +to talk to him at the table when I still sat in a high chair. I don't +believe he has any confidence in my discretion even now, and that is why +he seats me with such a grand and forbidding display of ceremony.</p> + +<p>"Betty dear," said mother, after Eph had served her chicken soup and +passed her the beaten biscuits, "I found an old note-book of my mother's +that has all the wonderful things she did to the negroes and other live +stock on her farm out in Harpeth Valley. You know she ran the whole +thousand acres herself after father's death in her twenty-seventh year, +and she was a wonderful woman, though she did have three girls and only +one son. There is a section of her notes devoted to cows and their +diseases, and Sam might be interested to hear how she managed them so +that even then her cows sold for enormous sums. Suppose you look over it +and tell him about it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I will. Thank you, mother!" I answered, as I took three little +brown biscuits, to Eph's affectionate delight, and also as a shock to +his proprieties.</p> + +<p>I had planned to open the bundle and begin my work for Peter right after +dinner, but I sat down and devoured whole that note-book of my maternal +ancestor's. I never was so thrilled over anything, and the chapter on +gardening really reads like a beautiful idyl of summer. It changed my +entire nature. As I read I glowed to think that I could go right to +Sam's wilderness and try it all out. I didn't own any land, and it might +take a little time to force daddy to buy me some, and the planting +season and fever were upon me. There is a wide plateau to the south of +Sam's living-room, and I had in my mind cleared it of bushes, enriched +it with all the wonderful things grandmother had directed, beginning +with beautiful dead leaves, and I was planting out the row of great +blush peonies in my mind as I intended to plant it in Sam's garden when +the tall old clock in the hall toned out four long strokes. Then I +remembered that I wanted to go down to the post-office to get my mail +and to see everybody and hear the news. So with the greatest reluctance +I tucked the garden idyl in the old desk which had been that very +Grandmother Nelson's, and heaved Peter's heavy manuscript in on top of +it.</p> + +<p>No mass-meeting, no picnic, and no function out in the great world, even +New-Year's reception at the White House or afternoon tea at the Plaza, +could be half the fun that going to the Hayesboro post-office for the +afternoon mail is. I think the distinct flavor is imparted by the fact +that all our forefathers and foremothers have done it before us. The +Hayesboro resurrection will be held right there, I feel sure.</p> + +<p>And if mail-time is fun usually, it is great when all the news is about +you and your friends all swarm around you with interest. Everybody had +heard about Peter and his play, though neither Edith nor Tolly thought +they had told, and that he was soon coming down to visit me, and, of +course, that meant to visit all of Hayesboro. Miss Henrietta Spain, who +teaches literature from spelling to the English poets, in the Hayesboro +Academy, had read Peter's new poem—the one the <i>Literary Opinion</i> had +copied last month—and she was pink with excitement over the prospect of +having such a genius in our midst,</p> + +<p>"Look out that you don't get put in the play on the other side of the +footlights, Hayes," said the mayor, slapping daddy on the back. "Be +careful how you have a poet sitting around your house."</p> + +<p>"The South has long waited to have a genius come down and write a +fitting epic about her Homeric drama of Civil War, Elizabeth," said old +Colonel Menefee. "Let your young friend come, and I can give him +material, beginning with that Bedford Forest charge just before +Chickamauga that—"</p> + +<p>"And just remember," interrupted Mrs. Winston Polk, "how Elizabeth's +mother, Betty's own Grandmother Nelson, rode fifty miles and back in +twenty-four hours to get Morgan to send wagons for her barnful of corn +to feed his soldiers, though she and her negroes were dependent on what +she could grow between then and frost. She never faltered, but—"</p> + +<p>"The Nashville and Louisville papers all wrote up the way Clyde Tolbot +swam Salt River and stopped the L. & N. express from going down in the +cut during the storm last year," Edith hastened to say when Mrs. Folk's +breath had given out. Tolly's ugly good face was beautiful to see when +she spoke of him thus, though Edith didn't notice it.</p> + +<p>When you start a Harpeth Valley town to telling how wonderful it is to +the third and fourth generation back, it is like a seething torrent and +can go on for ever. I glowed to think of all the wonderful things I +could write Peter, and we all started home from the post-office as late +as supper hour would admit.</p> + +<p>After I got home, escorted by the reunited Edith and Tolly, as well as +by Billy Robertson, who wants to be Peter's hero, though he wasn't +directly saying so, I sat down determinedly to write to Peter at +inspiring length and make him feel how I valued his confidence in me, +also to mention the war drama. Just then I raised my eyes and that +wonderful notebook had pushed a corner of itself out of the desk from +under the manuscript. I couldn't use my mind advising between a modern +epic and a war drama while it was plowed up ready for peonies, so I +decided to wait and ask Sam's advice about advising Peter, and I read +the rest of the peony pages in comfort. Right then, too, I made up my +mind that I was going to get ground bone to plant at the roots of all +the peonies if I had to use my own skeleton to do it and would only see +them bloom with astral eyes.</p> + +<p>I was still reading when the supper-bell rang, and was only interested +in reminiscences of Grandmother Nelson during the meal.</p> + +<p>"No, ma'am, Miss Caroline, you got it wrong. Ole Mis' didn't divide +clover pinks 'cepting every third year 'stid of second. <i>Hers</i> bloomed, +they did," Eph interrupted mother to say, indulging in perhaps his first +speech while waiting on the table during the long and honorable life as +a butler which that grandmother had started at his sixth year. He then +retired in the blackest consternation, and his yellow granddaughter, the +house-girl, brought in the wine-jelly.</p> + +<p>One thing is certain—I must contrive some way to get Sam back and forth +to me from The Briers in less time than it takes him to walk five miles. +He has got just one old roan plow mare and he won't ride her after he +has worked her all day, and I am afraid it won't do for me to go after +him with Redwheels every time I want him. I can go about two-thirds of +the time, but he must be allowed some liberty about expressing his +desire for my company. Of course a tactful woman can go nine-tenths of +the way in all things to meet a man she likes, and he'll think she +hasn't even started from home; but she ought to be honorable enough not +to do it at that rate. I believe in liberty for men as well as women.</p> + +<p>Still, I can't express the strain it was on me to wait until after eight +o'clock for Sam with Grandmother Nelson's farm-book on my knee, and I +don't want to do it ever again, especially if the Byrd or Mammy or the +cows or any of the other live stock might be sick. I felt that it must +be midnight before I got Sam seated by me on the deep old mahogany sofa +in front of one nice April blaze in behind the brass fender, and under +another from Tolly's power-house. He was pretty tired, as he had been up +since daylight, but the cows were all right and on feed again, Mammy +wasn't any stiffer than usual, and he had promised the Byrd the first +chicken that the old Dominicker hatched out to stay at home and let him +come to see me. Mammy had sent me five fresh eggs, and Sam presented +them with a queer pod of little round black seeds, and a smile that +wouldn't look me in the face.</p> + +<p>"Hollyhocks! I climbed over the Johnson fence about two miles from town +and stole them for you," he said, as he squirmed around from me and +picked a brown burr off the leg of his trousers.</p> + +<p>"Aren't they sweeties?" I exclaimed, not noticing his entirely +unnecessary bashfulness. "And that is just what I want to talk to you +about." With which I produced my ancestral treasure, and with our heads +close together we dove into it, didn't come up until after ten o'clock, +and then were breathless.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Sam, can I do all these things out at your farm?" I exclaimed, and +I fairly clung against his shoulder while his strong, rough hand folded +over mine as the husk did over the hollyhock seeds I had been holding +warm and moist in my palm.</p> + +<p>"All of them, and then some, Betty," he answered, blowing away a wisp of +my hair that he had again roughed up instead of shaking hands in +greeting, despite my reproof. "I'll plow up that southern plot for you +just after daylight to-morrow, and every minute I can take from +grubbing at the things I have to work to make the eats for all of us +I'll put in on the posy-garden for you."</p> + +<p>"I'm much obliged to you for the plowing, but I'll be out at about nine +o'clock and I'll bring my own spade and hoe and rake and things. I think +I'll take those two young white lilacs that are crowded over by the +fence in the front yard to start the garden. Don't you think lilacs +would be a lovely corner for a garden like my grandmother's, Sam?"</p> + +<p>"I—I think it would be nice to—plant the hollyhock seeds you have in +your hand the first thing, Betty," answered Sam, with the gridiron +smolder in his eyes which snapped up into a twinkle as he added, "Could +you help me set onions for a few hours later on?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'd adore it!" I answered, enthusiastically. "Of course, I mean to +help plant all the eat things, too. I may like them best. Let's see what +grandmother says about onions." And I began to ruffle back the pages of +the book that Sam held in both his hands for me.</p> + +<p>"Good gracious! Betty, couldn't the old lady write!" exclaimed Sam, a +half-hour later, after we had finished with onions and many other +profitable vegetables. "Why, that description of her hog's dying with +cholera and the rescue reads like a—a Greek tragedy in its simplicity."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Sam," I exclaimed in dismay, "that reminds me, I forgot to tell you +about the play, and now you ought to go home, with all those five miles +to walk and plowing to do at daylight." "Play? What play? Won't it +keep?" asked Sam, as he rose and reached for his hat on the table. +"Let's enjoy this last ten minutes before my hike, down at the gate."</p> + +<p>"Oh no, it won't keep, and I don't know exactly what I will do about it +and the garden. Here's Peter's letter; read it for yourself," I wailed, +as I drew the splashed letter out from the ruffle in the front of my +dress where I had stuck it for safe keeping, and handed it to Sam. If I +hadn't been so distressed by the collision of the play and the garden in +my heart I never would have been so dishonorable as to let Sam read the +last paragraph in Peter's letter, which was more affectionate than I +felt was really right for Peter to write me, even after the Astor +tea-party, and which had troubled me faintly until I had forgotten about +it in my excitement about Farrington and the play. I saw Sam's hand +shake as he read that last page, and he held it away from me and +finished it, as I remembered and gasped and reached for it.</p> + +<p>"Good old Pete," said Sam, in a voice that shook as his hand did while +he handed me back the letter. "It is a great chance for him, and if you +can help you'll have to go to it, Betty. Pete only needs ballast, and +you are it—he seems to think."</p> + +<p>"But how will I find time enough from making our garden to help make his +play?" I asked as I rose and clung to his sleeve as I had done in all +serious moments of my life, even when his coat-sleeve had been that of +a roundabout jacket. My heart was weak and jumpy as I asked the +question.</p> + +<p>"Betty," said Sam, gently, lifting my hand from his arm into his for a +second and then handing it firmly back to me, "that garden was just a +dream you and I have been having this evening. It can't be. Don't you +see, dear, I am in a hard hand-to-hand struggle with my land, which is +all I possess, for—for bread for myself and the kiddie, and I—I can't +have a woman's flower-garden. It looks as if you and old Petie can do a +real literary stunt together. Just get at it, and God bless you both. +Good night now; I must sprint." And as he spoke he was through one of +the long windows and out on the front porch in the moonlight.</p> + +<p>"Oh, wait, Sam, wait!" I gasped, as I flew after him and clung to him +determinedly.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, patiently, as he stood on the step below me and turned +his bronze head away from me out toward his dim hills sleeping in the +soft mystery of the moonlight.</p> + +<p>"I will, Sam, I <i>will</i> have that garden," I said, with the same angry +determination in my voice I had used when I had clung to him and kicked +and fought to go to places with him when he didn't want me, and when my +skirts were several inches above my bare knees and his feet were +scratched and innocent of shoes.</p> + +<p>"Betty," said Sam, as he shook me away from him and then took my +shoulders under their thin covering of chiffon in his plow-calloused, +big, warm hands, "forget it! There are lots of dream gardens out in the +world you can play in when you have time away from the bright lights. +Everybody grows 'em without a lick of work. I have to work mine or +starve. Good night!" Then with a rough of my hair down across my eyes he +was out in the moonlit road, running away from me to his hollow log in a +way he had never done before, no matter how I had tagged him.</p> + +<p>I ran as far as the gate to watch him out of sight, and then I put my +head down against the tall old post that had been one of Sam's perches +when he wanted to climb away from me in former years, and sobbed and +sobbed. I had never expected Sam to cast me off.</p> + +<p>Girls' hearts are covered all over with little thin crystallizations of +affection, and men ought to be very careful not to smash any of them +with their superior strength. Sam had hurt me so that I didn't even dare +think about it. I knew he was poor, and I hadn't expected him to plow +and plant things for me while I went about in a picture-hat snipping +them with garden scissors. I had asked him to let me set onions and weed +beans and drop peas and corn for him and share his poverty and hard work +as a true friend, and he had shut his cedar-pole gate in my face and +heart. And I didn't understand why. I tried to think it was his +affection for Peter that made him thus rudely switch my mind from him +and his garden to Peter and his need of me, which Sam may have thought +was greater than the need of his onions and turnip salad; but I don't +see how Sam could have construed cruelty to me as generosity to Peter.</p> + +<p>"Please God," I prayed out into the everlasting hills toward which Sam +was running away from me and from which I had heard intoned "cometh +help," "give me dirt to work in somewhere except in just a yard if I +can't have Sam's. Help me to get somebody to help me to raise things for +people to eat and milk, as well as to inspire a play. I'll do both +things, but I must have earth with rotted leaves in it. Amen."</p> + +<p>Then I went to bed heartbroken for life, and my sad eyes closed on the +little glimpse which my window framed of Old Harpeth, the tallest hill +in Paradise Ridge, while my hand still folded in the moist hollyhock +seeds.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="II" id="II">II</a></h2> + +<h3>THE BOOK OF SHELTER</h3> + + +<p>Peter's play is remarkable; it really is. He has collected all the great +and wonderful things that life in America contains and put them together +in a way that reads as if Edgar Allan Poe had helped Henry James to +construct it, though they had forgotten to ask Mark Twain to dinner and +had never heard of John Burroughs. I felt when I got through the first +act as if I had been living for a week shut into an old Gothic cathedral +aisle decorated by marble-carved inspired words, and I was both cold and +hungry. The more I read of Peter's play the more congenial I felt with +Farrington. I had enough education to see that it was a genuine literary +achievement, but I had heart enough to know that something had to be +done to rescue all his characters from the arctic region. Could I do it +single-handed even for a person I cared as much for as I did for Peter? +I decided that I could not, and that the only way I could prove my +loyalty and affection for Peter was to abase myself before Sam +Crittenden and his cruelty to me, and get his help. Only for Peter would +I have done such a thing, which in the end I didn't have to do at all.</p> + +<p>Since the night Sam refused me the use of his farm and put me out of his +life for ever I had not seen him until by his own intention. Or maybe it +was Tolly's.</p> + +<p>"See here, Betty, what you need is a good fox or tango and you had +better come to it up at Sue's to-night."</p> + +<p>Tolly had broken in upon my despairing meditations over the way in which +Peter's hero talks wicked business and congested charity to the poor +little heroine in the very first act while she is full of a beautiful +affection Peter didn't seem to see, and ready to pour it forth to the +hero before he started out on a long life mission. Maybe it was +sorrowing with her at being thus suppressed by everybody that made me +write her case to Peter with such fervor. I had just finished the letter +when Tolly came to my rescue with the offer of a nice warm dance to +nourish me up.</p> + +<p>"Don't make me kidnap you, Betty; go fluff and rose up a bit," he +commanded, as he seated himself on the front steps with a determination +which was as business-like as his management of the Electric Light +Company.</p> + +<p>"I think I had better go to Sue's to thaw out some of my loneliness +over this play," I answered him as I looked up with desperation and a +smudge on my face. Then I went to my room and left Tolly alone with +Peter's poor little heroine. "Say, tell the poet to get the man with the +dinner-pail who is eating hunk sandwiches at lunch-time on the pavement +in front of any construction job in New York to tell him what he did and +said to his girl at the firemen's ball the night before, and then +translate it into some of this first-class poetry. That'll be a great +play," said Tolly, as I came down-stairs just as he had turned page +twenty-five of Peter's manuscript. Tolly's coarseness doesn't affect me +as it does Edith because there is always so much point to it.</p> + +<p>"You don't quite understand Peter and his play, Tolly, dear," I said, +with dignity, though I felt exactly the same way about it and hadn't +known how to express it in human interest terms as well as Tolly.</p> + +<p>"I sure don't," answered Tolly, cheerfully, and not at all as if I had +put him in his place in regard to his criticism of our epic. "Come on; +let's hurry. Everybody is waiting for us."</p> + +<p>It was good to be in a buzz of girls and men once more for the first +time in two weeks since I settled down to do my worst or best by Peter, +with my Grandmother Nelson's garden-book locked up in the +preserve-closet down in the darkest corner of the cellar, and Sam lost +in the fastness of The Briers.</p> + +<p>Everybody wanted to dance with me at the same time, and the girls +kissed me into a lovely, warm cheerfulness. The girls in Hayesboro are +the sustaining kind of friends, like pound-cake, sweetened and +beautifully frosted. "Has he consented to let the hero kiss the poor +thing's hand before he goes to fight the case of the miners?" Julia +whispered, warmly, as she took a few tango steps with me in her arms +before Billy Robertson claimed her and Tolly picked me up to juggle with +me in his new Kentucky version of the fox-trot.</p> + +<p>"I'm expecting a letter to-morrow," I answered her as Tolly slid me away +three steps, skidded two, and slid back four. And then, having begun, I +danced; all of me danced; even my heart, which had started out as heavy +as lead, got into the feather class before I went around the room three +times. It is strange how even great responsibilities melt away before +dance music like icicles on the southern side of the house. It was in a +perfectly melted condition that I at last dropped from Tolly's grasp +into a pair of new arms which cradled me against a broad breast with +such gentleness that I might have thought it was mother come to the +dance if I hadn't caught a whiff of cedar woodsiness when I turned my +nose into a miniature brier-patch of blue-berried cedar in the +buttonhole of the coat against which my face was pressed as my feet +caught step with a pair of smart shoes bearing a smear of moss loam on +one side.</p> + +<p>"Sam!" I gasped, with emotional indignation that had a decided trace of +joy.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I feel that way, too," answered Sam, roughing my hair slightly +with his chin as both his hands were employed holding me to him while we +slid and skidded and slid again. "I don't forgive you; I never shall," I +said, haughtily, as I drew away from him the fraction of an inch that +came very near making us collide with Sue and Billy, who were dancing +wildly, but in perfect accord.</p> + +<p>"You'll have to when you hear the worst," answered Sam, as he firmly +pressed my shoulder into his while he manoeuvered me first past Edith +and Tolly and then across right in front of Pink Herriford, who weighs +all of two hundred, dancing with Julia Buford, who must tip the scales +at one hundred and sixty. It was a hairbreadth rapture of escape.</p> + +<p>"Is anything the matter with the cows or anybody else?" I demanded, +anxiously, from his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Worse!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Sam, has anything died at The Briers?"</p> + +<p>"Worse," he answered again, while he defied Tolly with a double cross +and then took a chance with Pink and Julia as I pressed him closer with +my arms and my questions.</p> + +<p>"Dance me out on the porch through the window and tell me, Sam," I +demanded.</p> + +<p>"Not when this music and Julia and Pink hold out like that, Bettykin. +It'll be bad enough when you do hear it," answered Sam, laughing down at +me with the same wide-mouthed smile he had always used on me when +holding something over my head and making me reach up for it. "Besides, +it has been two whole weeks since I've—had you," he added, and again +his strong arms cradled as well as guided. Getting back into some +people's atmosphere is like recovering the use of a lung a person had +temporarily lost; breathing improves. I've always breathed easily in +Sam's friendship. That was why I could dance with him as I did even up +to the last bar of the music. Then he swung me out through one of the +long windows on to the porch under the dusky spring starlight.</p> + +<p>"I hate to tell you, Betty, though I have walked a five-mile blister on +my left heel in these dancing-shoes just to break the news to you," Sam +answered my repeated demand to be told his "worse."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Sam, a real blister?" I exclaimed, losing sight of the threatened +catastrophe at the thought of his blistered heel. I knew how tender +Sam's feet were, for I had doctored them since infancy. I used to pay +tribute in the form of apples and tea-cakes for the privilege of binding +up his ten and twelve year old wounded toes, and I suppose I hadn't +really got over my liking for thus operating.</p> + +<p>"Oh, not all from the walk," answered Sam, as he smiled down on me +consolingly. "I've got a brand-new mule and I nearly plowed him and +myself to death to-day. I don't seem to be well heeled enough to plow +and dance both."</p> + +<p>"What did you plow, Sam?" I came close up to his shoulder so that the +bit of woods in his buttonhole grazed my cheek as my head drooped with +an embarrassed hope.</p> + +<p>"I plowed for the early potatoes on the south slope and—and—"</p> + +<p>"And what?"</p> + +<p>"I'm thinking of growing a crop of—hollyhocks, if I get time to plant +'em."</p> + +<p>"Where did you plow, Sam?"</p> + +<p>"In spots all over the place."</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>"Well, then, about a hundred feet south by southwest from my door-step, +if you must have it. Great sakes! do you think this heel is going to +swell, Betty, from your deep experience?"</p> + +<p>"I—I'm so happy, Sam," I faltered, with more emotion than I knew Sam +liked, but I think all apologies ought to be met enthusiastically at the +front gate, whether they intended to come in or not.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm not—I'm blistered." He again plaintively referred to his +sufferings which I had forgotten in my joy at having him back in the +bonds of friendship, even if slightly damaged.</p> + +<p>"Come over home with me and I'll plaster it so it won't break or swell. +You know I know how," I answered, eagerly.</p> + +<p>"Cold cream and an old handkerchief like you used to keep. Um—um! the +thought is good, Betty," he answered, as he stood on his left foot for a +second and then lifted it as if he were a huge crane.</p> + +<p>"Come, now, so I can get the cream before mother goes to bed," I said, +with energy; and I led him, faintly remonstrating, through the Bankhead +back gate that opens opposite ours.</p> + +<p>Mother was glad to see Sam, heel and all, and sympathetically supplied +the cream and handkerchief and a needle and thread without laying down +the mat she was putting in a difficult hundred-and-fifty round on. +Mother is so used to Sam that she forgets that he is not her fifth or +sixth son, and she treats him accordingly. After she had given us all +the surgical necessities she retired into the living-room by the lamp to +put her mind entirely on the mat, in perfect confidence that I could do +the right thing by my wounded neighbor. And I did.</p> + +<p>First, as I had always done, I bathed Sam's great big pink-and-white +foot in hot water and then in cold, sitting on the floor with a +bath-towel in my lap to get at it while Sam wriggled and squirmed at +both hot and cold just as he had always done.</p> + +<p>"Go on, boil me," he said, as I poured the last flash of heat from the +tea-kettle on the floor beside me.</p> + +<p>"Now a frost," he groaned, as I dashed ice-water out of a pitcher on the +blister and lifted the foot into my lap on the bath-towel.</p> + +<p>"If you touch the bottom of my foot I'll yell 'murder,'" he said as I +began to pat all around the blister in the gentlest and most considerate +manner possible. I knew he meant what he said, so I was careful as I +wound and clipped and sewed.</p> + +<p>"I never fixed as nice a one as that for you before," I said, with +pride, as he drew on his silk sock with its huge hole over as neat a +bandage as it was possible for human hands to accomplish. "I love to tie +you up, Sam."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, and I return the compliment," answered Sam, both smouldering +and smiling down at me as if he were saying something to tease me. "And +now as a reward for your kindness I am going to knock you down with some +news." And as he spoke we went on out to the porch, Sam walking like a +new man.</p> + +<p>"Oh, the 'worse' thing! I had forgotten about that. Tell me, Sam," I +answered, as I leaned against one of the pillars of the porch and he +seated himself on the railing beside me.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Sam, slowly, "this is not worse for you, just for me; that +is, at the present speaking, with nothing but the hay-loft handy. I +don't know just how I'll manage."</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"Pete," answered Sam.</p> + +<p>"What about Peter? Oh, Sam, Peter isn't ill, is he?" And I reached out +and clutched Sam's arm frantically. It takes alarm to test the depths of +one's affection for a friend. I found mine for Peter deeper than I knew. +If anything had happened, Sam would know it first. "Don't be cruel to +me, Sam." And I shook his arm.</p> + +<p>"Forgive me, Betty," said Sam, quickly. "Pete's all right and he'll be +here to demonstrate it to you just as soon as I can get a stall built +for him out at The Briers."</p> + +<p>"At The Briers? Peter?" I gasped.</p> + +<p>"Even at that humble abode, Betty, whose latch-string is always out to +friends," answered Sam. And I felt his arm stiffen under my fingers in a +way for which I could see no reason.</p> + +<p>"Just as I was going to begin my garden," I wailed. And Sam's stiff arm +limbered again and made a motion toward my hair that I dodged. "What +does he want?"</p> + +<p>"Direct life. I can give it to him," answered Sam. "At least that is +what he asked for in his letter to me. I don't know what he will request +in the one I wager you get by the morning mail."</p> + +<p>"Why, I had been writing him all that he needed of that, and we are +going to be so busy gardening, how can we help him live it also? Peter +does require so much affectionate attention." I positively wailed this +to Sam, in the most ungenerous spirit.</p> + +<p>"Betty dear," said Sam, gently, as he puffed at a little brier which he +had substituted for the adorable cob on account of the formality of +Sue's dance, which we could hear going on comfortably without us, beyond +the privet hedge whose buds were just beginning to give forth a +delicious tang, "Peter is a great, queer kind of sensitive plant that it +may be we will have to help cultivate. You know that for several years +his poems have really got across in great style with the writing world, +and I'm proud of him and—I—I—well, I love him. Suppose, just suppose, +dear, that Keats had had a great hulking farmer like me to stand by. +Don't you think that maybe the world would have had some grown-man stuff +from him that would have counted? I always have thought of that when I +looked at old Pete and promised myself to back him up with my brawn and +nerve when he needed it. Why, in the '13 game it was Pete's flaming face +up on the corner of the stadium that put the ginger in me to carry +across as I did. Yes, I am going to put Pete's hand to my plow and his +legs under old Buttercup at milking-time if it kills us both, if that is +what he needs or you have made him think he needs."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Sam, I'm ashamed! I'm ashamed of not wanting precious Peter in my +garden. He can have half of all of it. You know I love him dearly. I'll +work all day with him and attend to all his blisters and get everybody +to give him work and help him."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't believe I'd do all that to him, Betty," answered Sam, +with a laugh. Then his eyes glinted past mine for a second. "And say, +Betty, you know my blisters are kind of—kind of old friends to you; +Pete's might not have so many—many landmarks for you to work by," he +added, as he knocked the ashes carefully out of the brier and picked up +his hat. "Let's go for one fox, and then I'll trot on out to my patch."</p> + +<p>"I'll get Tolly to run you out in Redwheels while I do my promised +dances, and then I'll be out early in the morning to help plan about +Peter. And—and, Sam, do you want to—to give me that garden?"</p> + +<p>"Everything that is is yours, Bettykin," he answered as we went down the +steps out on to the springy greening grass and across to the back gate.</p> + +<p>Some friends taste like bread and butter and peach preserves. Sam does +and he's a peach.</p> + +<p>When I got back to the Bankheads' everybody was wondering where we had +been, and as Sam and Tolly got right off in the car without answering +any questions, I was left to explain about Sam's foot and Peter. I paid +no attention at all to Billy Robertson when he said his foot was +blistered, too; but I told them how beautiful Peter was, and how +distinguished, and all about the poor young Keats that most of them +hadn't grieved over since their Junior years at school, telling it all +in such an eloquent way that Julia's great blue eyes filled with tears, +and I saw I could depend on her to be nice to our friend.</p> + +<p>"I knew most poets were kind of calves, but I didn't know they had to +milk their poetry out of a genuine cow," said Pink, with a vulgar +attempt to be funny, at which nobody laughed, not even Julia, and she is +almost too tall and big to dance with anybody but Pink. She and Edith +and Sue and I forgot to save him the dances we had promised him; and he +had to dance with other girls he didn't like so much, until we all went +home in time to meet the sun coming down over Paradise Ridge with his +dinner-pail.</p> + +<p>Then for five days it rained—heavy, determined, soggy drops; but the +next morning introduced one of those wily, flirtatious days that come +along about the last week in April in Tennessee. I awoke to the sound of +sobbing wind and weeping clouds in which I had no confidence, and +succeeded in convincing mother that it would be a beautiful day for me +to go out to see Sam and Byrd and Mammy. She sent Byrd half a jelly-cake +and a bag of bananas, and I got a jar of jam for him when I went down in +the cellar to exhume Grandmother Nelson's garden-book. A bottle went to +Mammy, which I suspect of being a kind of liniment that mother had to +learn to make on account of the number of the boys and their bruises.</p> + +<p>Eph was a tragedy over my taking out Redwheels, and I am glad that +neither he nor I could prevision the plight the shiny new runabout would +be in before it was many hours older. With a stoical reserve he loaded +in the two young lilacs that were in the exact state of sappiness +Grandmother Nelson had recommended for transplanting, but his calmness +nearly gave way when I had him put in a dandy old rake and spade and hoe +that I had found in my raid on the cellar.</p> + +<p>"Please ma'am, Miss Betty, don't go and leave ole mistis's gyarden tools +out in no rain," he entreated, plaintively.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Eph, are they really Grandmother Nelson's?" I exclaimed, with such +radiance that it reflected from Eph's polished black face.</p> + +<p>"Yes'm, and they is too good to be throwed away on playing gyarden or +sich," he answered, with feeling.</p> + +<p>"Eph," I answered, with almost a choke in my voice, "they'll be—be +sacred to me. Oh, thank you for telling me."</p> + +<p>"Go on, child! you shore is ole mistis herself, with your pretty words +to push along your high-haided ways," he answered me while he gave +Redwheels an affectionate shove as I started down the street.</p> + +<p>I didn't spend much time down-town, but I stopped at the post-office and +got my mail to read while I waited at the drug-store for Mr. Simmons to +put up some of every kind of flower and vegetable grandmother +mentioned—if it was still in stock. He offered me a book of +instructions, which I declined. I meant to garden by ancestral +tendencies. And while I waited I looked over my letters. The volume from +Peter I put aside to enjoy in a leisure hour, as I felt sure that I knew +what was in it; but I opened another thin one that looked as if it might +be from him, if he had written it in an unpoetic mood. It was from Judge +Vandyne, and I then understood Peter's sudden determination to come down +and live with Sam for a time, though I don't believe Peter knew the real +reason of it himself. The judge is a great diplomat, and knows just when +and to whom to be frank. We have always understood each other from the +first vacation I spent with Mabel, and I value his confidence highly. +He wrote:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">No man can get a hold on the complex problems of this day and</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">especially the next, who doesn't go at them with at least some</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">sunburn on his neck and a few horny spots on his hands. Put Pete at</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">it, you and Sam. Your description of Sam's habitation and vocation</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">in letter to Mabel made me feel twenty-five again. I never had the</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">real thing; but Peter shall. Ease him along. If he kicks over the</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">traces let me know. When are you coming North again? Soon, I hope,</span><br /> + +<span style="margin-left: 14em;">Your aged admirer,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 23em;">PETER VANDYNE, Sr.</span><br /> + +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>P.S.</i>—Thought I'd better say that Dr. Herbrick doesn't like</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Peter's weight—one sixteen. You understand.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>I wonder what the paternal Keats was like. I don't remember, and I must +look him up to see. It's funny how sturdy-oak fathers can have +ferny-mimosa sons. Mothers can stand producing poets, but it is hard on +fathers. I felt that I must help out Judge Vandyne, and with that +resolve I headed Redwheels out along Providence Road.</p> + +<p>As I had told mother, the sobs and tears of the April day had been +wilfully misleading demonstrations, for by ten o'clock the whole face of +nature wore a sun-sweetened smile that was positively entrancing. The +young April world seemed to spring dripping from a bath that glistened +all over with crystal water gems. Winter is staid and dignified and +grand with its stark trees and mantle of brown earth, and summer is +glowing and glorious; but very young spring is so sappy and curly and +yellow and green and lavender that you take it to heart and let it +nestle there to suck its pink apple-blow thumb, and curl up its young +sprout toes sheltered away from the cold that sets it back and the sun +that forces it to break bud. Sometimes it stays with you a day and +sometimes a week and a day, but you can't hold it back. You can just be +thankful that you had it. I was.</p> + +<p>But if the five miles of Providence Road had been a delight, as +Redwheels and I ran along it, the dirt lane that led to The Briers was +an intoxicating joy. The wet earth, the drenched cedars, the oak buds, +the spongy moss, the reddening blackberry-bushes, and the sprouting +grain, all mingled in a queer creation odor that went right through the +pores of my skin into my vitals and made me feel as strong as an ox, or +rather, as Sam's new mule. I caught a glimpse of that mule through a +vista before I came out of the lane, plodding along before Sam and the +plow with a great splendid lurch of a gait that threw the black dirt as +high as Sam's knees as he plunged along at the plow-handles. I stopped +the car at the cedar-pole gate of Eden and stood up and shouted at the +top of my lungs, but Sam plowed on heroically, with never a glance in my +direction, and I just stood and looked at him and the mule. Seeing a man +plow cuts right down to the bottom of a woman's nature, because I +suppose it looks so—so fundamental. At least that is about the way I +felt though it was much more so until I remembered the blistered heel +and shouted again, this time in alarm. At my cry of distress Sam +suddenly looked up and jerked the mule's head so that he, too, stopped +and regarded me. They looked like wary jungle things that had been +belled from the thicket, but for just a second; then Sam threw his line +around the plow-handle, thus hitching the mule to himself, and came +running across the field to me, as lightly as the blue jay skimmed from +over my head into the branches of another cedar in answer to the same +twit I had heard the day I first came out into the habitation of the +birds. The pleasure of seeing Sam run to me was almost as keen as the +pain of seeing him run away from me, but it was mitigated by my alarm +over the poor sore foot.</p> + +<p>"Gracious sakes, Betty! is that a mud-scow you came out in?" he asked, +as he started to take my hand in his, which was brown with mud, and +ended by rubbing his cheek in my palm. That seemed to be about the only +member he had kept clean enough for the greeting.</p> + +<p>"Aren't you hurting your heel plowing like that, Sam?" I asked, +anxiously.</p> + +<p>"Heel—what heel? Oh, that's all right. I haven't heard from it since +you tucked it away in the cream Tuesday night. I have cold-bucketed +myself every morning, standing on one leg with it up on the wash-bench +so as not to wake it up. Come on up to the house. I'll walk, because I'm +too muddy to get in with you in your sedan-chair."</p> + +<p>"No; you go back to the plowing and I'll go and unload and begin my +work," I answered, with positive heroism. I wanted to get out and go and +be introduced to the mule, but I came to Sam to be not a clinging vine, +but a competent garden-hoe to him.</p> + +<p>"All right," said Sam, in the nice way he has of acquiescing in all my +serious moods until they pass. "I'll be through after about three more +rounds and then I'll come and help you. Say, Bettykin, what do you think +of that for good land?" And as he looked back at the great square of +black earth he had upturned, Sam's eyes flecked with the blue sky and +snapped with enthusiasm.</p> + + +<p class="ctr"> +<a href="images/image2.jpg" name="image2"></a><img src="images/image2.jpg" width="300" height="518" alt="THE BYRD WAS ATTIRED IN MINIATURES OF SAM'S OVERALLS" title="" /><br /> +THE BYRD WAS ATTIRED IN MINIATURES OF SAM'S OVERALLS +</p> + + +<p>"It looks good enough to eat," I answered, with a queer dirt enthusiasm +rising in me that I had never even heard of one's having before.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and you will eat it in about four months' time in the form of +roasting ears," answered Sam, smacking his lips, which had a streak of +the mud delicacy across them at right angles. "But go on up and tell +Mammy to put your name in her dinner-pot and buy the Byrd to get you +anything you need or want to the half of our kingdom. I'll be there in +ten shakes of the mule's tail."</p> + +<p>The road that leads from the cedar-pole gate through Sam's wilderness up +to the farm-house curves in and out and around the hill past as many +lovely spots as my enthusiasm could endure. Halfway up, there is a +glimpse past a gray old tree with crimson thorns, of the valley with Old +Harpeth looming opposite. Further on a rocky old road leads down around +a clump of age-distorted cedar-trees to the moss-greened stone +spring-house, from which the water gurgles and pours past Sam's huge +earthern crocks of milk. Over it all broods the low white house on the +plateau, from under whose wings I found one small blue chicken running +and cheeping wildly for a ride up the hill.</p> + +<p>The Byrd was, as usual, attired in miniatures of Sam's overalls, and his +red mop stood on ends all over his head, while his freckles shone forth +resplendently from the excitement of my arrival.</p> + +<p>"Say, Betty, what you think? Old Buttercup found a calf out in the woods +and it has got a white nose and two spots. Sam wanted to name it Chubb +for the doctor that saved its life 'fore it got borned, but I said +ladies first, and I calls it Betty. You can let it lick your fingers if +Sam milks on 'em first. And Dominick have hatched 'fore the white +hen—eleven, and one what Sam calls a half chicken, because he don't see +how it is black when the eggs was bought thoroughbreds; but Mammy says +because they is Yankee eggs. Come see all everything."</p> + +<p>Sam's barn is an old tumble-down collection of sheds and the most lovely +place I ever got into. It is running over with new-born life, and you +can get an armful of first one variety and then another. I liked the +collie puppies best, but the Byrd was crazy about the little fawn calf +which old Buttercup is so proud of that she switches her tail in the +greatest complacency. He was just showing me how to tempt her little +white nose with a wisp of hay that she was learning to eat, and I was +luxuriating with one new-born wriggler in my arms and two yellow-down +puff-balls in my hand, when Sam and the mule came up from the field.</p> + +<p>"My, it's great to have a nice family party like this to plow for!" he +said, as he led the mule into his stall and poured down his oats out of +a bucket the Byrd ran to bring him. "Any news from Petie, Bettykin?"</p> + +<p>"I've got a letter from Peter that I haven't read, but one from Judge +Vandyne that I have. Here it is—read it," and I held the letter open +for Sam to read over my shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Read it to me, Betty; I'm too dirty to come that near you," he said, as +he took the cob pipe out of his pocket and prepared to light up while +the Byrd scampered to the house to hurry Mammy's dinner.</p> + +<p>"You're not exactly dirty, Sam," I answered, surveying him with a +satisfiedly critical eye. "You only look and smell like the earth and +the sky and the barn and—and—"</p> + +<p>"Just call it cosmic, Betty, and let it go at that," he answered, as he +reached out and roughed my hair over my eyes with the long hickory +switch with which he had been merely threatening the mule all day. "Go +on, read me the judge's document on the subject of Peter while we wait +for Mammy's dinner cluck."</p> + +<p>As he had asked me to do, I read it all, slowly, while my heart, that +had been climbing like a squirrel to the tops of the trees, began to +burrow down in the reverse manner of a chipmunk. I could see Sam's +spirits doing likewise.</p> + +<p>"The judge gets under Pete's skin and peels the fat off him," said Sam, +slowly, with sadness in his deep, strong voice. "I've just got to build +some sort of a poet's corner to put him in, so he can come on down from +Philadelphia from the opening of the spring Academy. He will have burned +himself out by then, and he'll be so weak we can feed him out of a +bottle."</p> + +<p>"And it's his play, too, Sam," I answered, despondently. "He's beginning +on the third act, and just reading it all and suggesting in spots is +making me thin. It is all the terrible heroic struggle of the poor hero +now and he doesn't seem to let the heroine help him a bit. Oh, Sam, if +Peter were to fail with this play after Farrington has encouraged him I +don't know what might happen! I'm sorry you ever mentioned Keats to me. +I dream about him at night. I adored him when I was at The Manor, and so +did Mabel," and my lips quivered so I had to turn against the harness +hanging on the wall against which I drooped.</p> + +<p>"Keats or Peter?" asked Sam as he pressed his whip across my shoulders +in comforting little licks because his hand was too muddy to pat me.</p> + +<p>"Both," I sniffed.</p> + +<p>"Don't," said Sam, with cheering command in his voice. "We are too late +to help Keats, and plenty early to pull Pete out of his divine fire. +Let's go get some good grub from Mammy so we can plant the garden before +sundown, and stake out the poet's corner, too. I didn't have the money +to hire the plowing done, but I am almost through for the present; and I +can whirl in now and get in shape for Petie's rescue in no time."</p> + +<p>"It's popped its skin with stuffing, and Mammy says come on while the +'taters stands up stiff," announced the Byrd, half-way up the path from +the house to the barn.</p> + +<p>"He's talking about a duckling, but let's hope Peter can be mentioned in +the same terms in the near future," said Sam, as he drove the fleet Byrd +and me before him with the switch, in a scamper to Mammy and food.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Sam, as he stood an hour later in the middle of the plot +under the south window, which spread out in the sun like a great black +lake, smooth from his repeated plowing and harrowing, "that is the +richest bit of land at The Briers or in Benton County. It will bring +some posies for you, Bettykin."</p> + +<p>"I'm not going to plant just flowers in it, Sam," I answered in a tone +that admitted of no discussion, "Do you remember the part of +grandmother's book that told what she made off of the southern half-acre +of hers the year everything failed? I've got it right here, and I'm +going to follow it," and as I spoke I hugged the ancestral garden to my +breast with one arm, while I held the old grass basket I had made for +Sam in my infancy in the other hand, with all my town seeds in it.</p> + +<p>"Oh, there's plenty of garden-land all over the place, Betty. Come on +and sow the posies."</p> + +<p>"There's not plenty of onion and beet and lettuce and okra and tomato +and celery land right at the well, Sam, that Byrd and I can carry water +from," I answered, positively. "Is this land mine or yours?"</p> + +<p>"Yours."</p> + +<p>"Wait. I forgot!" I exclaimed in sudden, embarrassed consternation. "Are +you renting this land to me, Sam?"</p> + +<p>"Renting it to you, Betty?" For a second Sam's eyes blazed in a way I +hadn't seen since the time I didn't want to take all of the one fish we +caught after a hot day's fishing out at Little Harpeth at our tenth and +fourteenth years. Then, suddenly, a queer expression came up and drowned +the anger in his eyes and twitched at the comers of his mouth until I +recognized it as humor.</p> + +<p>"I believe it would be better for us both to crop it on shares, as you +are going to put in foodstuffs, too. I am cropping on onions with old +Charlie Wade, down the road, and with sugar-beets with Hen Bates. In +this case it would be about fair for you to furnish the seeds and I the +land, all labor that each of us puts in to be charged against the gross +receipts. I'll just enter you in my time-book now. Let's see—it is +one-fifteen," and as he spoke Sam took out, first his watch, and then a +muddy little book that had time-tables and all sorts of almanac things +in it.</p> + +<p>For a second I was as mad as I was when he handed me the two-inch fish +and ordered me to take it in for the cook to have for my supper; but in +a second I saw just what he had done to me and I didn't dare +remonstrate.</p> + +<p>"How much do I get an hour?" I asked, with the greatest dignity, as I +threw the seed-basket and my hat on the ground and picked up my rusty +old hoe, ready for business.</p> + +<p>"I charge myself at twelve and a half cents. Are you worth about—about +fifteen?" he asked in a business-like tone of voice, but I saw a twitch +at the corners of his mouth that made me boil with rage.</p> + +<p>"Put me down at six and a quarter for the present," I answered, +haughtily.</p> + +<p>"Down she goes," he answered, as he thus minimized me with his pencil +and put the book back in his pocket. "Now, where do you want me to heave +in the lilacs so as to get the two corners of the garden to guide the +rows by? Shall they run north and south or east and west? It really +doesn't make much difference."</p> + +<p>"East and west, then," I answered, calmly, though my hand clenched over +the hollyhock seeds which I had put in an envelope in the pocket of my +corduroy skirt. It was cruelly thoughtless of him—this selection of the +lilacs for the corner-stones of the garden after making me so happy, not +a month ago, with that lovely sentiment about wanting to plant the +hollyhock seeds first in memory of the dolls of our youth. "Peter will +enjoy looking down the rows from the living-room window better than +across them," I added, quickly, for fear he would humiliate me by +remembering that he had forgotten the hollyhock seeds he had stolen for +me.</p> + +<p>"Say where and I'll dig for you," he said; but I saw a glint of +something fairly shoot from his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Here," I said, and stood at a nice right angle from the corner of the +house and the old cedar-tree he had said he could nail the wires to to +save a post, when he had to put up a fence.</p> + +<p>He came over promptly with the spade and poised it to dig into the +ground—and my heart.</p> + +<p>Then he hesitated, and looked at me quickly for a second. Then he threw +down the spade and said, quietly:</p> + +<p>"I'll go get that rotted stump dirt before I break ground for the +lilacs, and you can think about things while you wait." With that he +lifted the wheelbarrow and trundled out of the situation, leaving me in +the depths of a hurt uncertainty.</p> + +<p>But if Samuel Foster Crittenden thought I was as stupid as that, he had +a chance to learn better—at least I thought I would give him one. I'm +not sure yet that I did.</p> + +<p>As soon as he was out of sight I flew to the end of the garden, where I +thought the row of hollyhocks would make a lovely background for all the +long lines of vegetables and flowers running into it, sighted with my +eye, ran a trench with the rusty old hoe, flung in my seeds, and covered +it up in less time than it takes to tell it. When Sam came back I had +spaded out at least two and a half shovelfuls of dirt, that I found +surprisingly heavy, from the hole for the first lilac. I saw him start +and hesitate as if about to say something, and then I think—I think, +but I can't be sure—his eyes rested on my hasty and surreptitious +gardening.</p> + +<p>"You are the real thing, Betty," was all he said as he roughed my hair, +first back and then down over my eyes, and took Grandmother Nelson's +spade from my hand and began to make the dirt fly out of the hole. I +wonder what I'll say when those hollyhocks come up.</p> + +<p>And then we all worked. It astonished me to find what one man, one +woman, and one small boy can do to a plot of earth in three hours, with +a string, sharpened sticks, seed, hoes, spades, rakes, and radiant +happiness. At four o'clock we all three sank down in a heap at the end +of the last row of green peas in delicious exhaustion.</p> + +<p>"Nice little seed, I'll dig you up to-morrow to see how you feel," said +the Byrd as he patted in a stray pea he had found with the beets. "I +can't dig you all up, but I will as many as I can."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you will—not," said Sam, reaching for him as he skimmed and +dipped away. And then followed a lecture on floriculture, agriculture, +and horticulture that I immensely enjoyed.</p> + +<p>"Yes," assented the fledgling, with the greatest intellectual +enthusiasm, "baby beets folds up jest that way," and he illustrated +after Sam, with his grubby little paddies, "same as chickens in eggs +and—"</p> + +<p>"Come on, Betty, let's go select the spot for the cedar-log temple for +Peter's muses," Sam interrupted as he made a lightning grab for the Byrd +and tumbled him back into the loamy earth.</p> + +<p>I realized then that up to a quarter of five o'clock on that +twenty-first-of-April day I had been really wretchedly uneasy about +Peter in every way, that I did and did not understand since that scene +at the tea-table in the Astor when I had assumed the responsibility of +him. But at that moment when Sam held back a tangle of blackberry-bushes +and low-sweeping dogwood boughs, and we stepped out on a moss-covered +rock-ledge that commanded a view of the Harpeth Valley, stretching away +and away in an iridescent shimmer of springiness and sunshine, it +completely vanished, for the time being, anyway.</p> + +<p>"Oh," I said, with a great sigh of relief, "let's plant Peter here. +He—he can grow his dream in this place."</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered Sam, quietly, "I'll log up and daub up a shack right +here, with a stone fireplace. It won't cost anything, for I'll use my +own logs and pick up my own stones. Thank God for shoulders and arms +which can make shelter for anybody that needs it anywhere," and as he +spoke Sam looked across the valley into the blaze of the sun that was +beginning to go down behind Paradise Ridge, with that earth-smolder I +was beginning to recognize. I knew that David and Moses and Christ had +all looked down across new life from a hillside, and Sam seemed almost +transfigured to me. And I had a—a vision. I saw that Sam was to be one +of a gigantic new kind of men to whom all who were ahungered and athirst +would come to be cared for. I had brought Peter to him first, and I +knew—I felt that others—that—</p> + +<p>"Sam," I said, as I reached out and laid a timid hand, for the first +time stained with earth labor, on the blue sleeve of his overalls, +"don't ever leave Peter and me anywhere you are not, will you?"</p> + +<p>"I'm always here for you both when you need me, Betty. Just call," he +answered. "And now you hustle home to Mother Hayes or she won't let me +have you at six and a quarter cents any more."</p> + +<p>"Make it five, Sam. I feel smaller now."</p> + +<p>"No, that'll be Pete's rate. Come on and take the mud-scow back to Eph. +Present my compliments to him after he has washed it."</p> + +<p>Some people have a way of pruning a friend's spirit in a manner that +makes it bush out more hardily than ever. That is the way Sam does me, +and I intend to worship him delightfully if I want to and he continues +to deserve it. It is so much better for a woman to worship a man than +love him; it puts a strong barrier between them to keep him from hurting +her, which loving him doesn't seem to, at least not with Edith and +Tolly; and I am always worried over Peter; but for long intervals I can +forget Sam comfortably and find him right there when I need him.</p> + +<p>I am glad that I had that care-free day of hard work with Sam out at The +Briers to fatigue me so that I couldn't take Peter's letter completely +to heart. I read it, cried over it a minute, and then fell into my bed +without even putting rose oil on my cheek curls to hold them in place. +My first day at farming had done me up. Still, it's no use to cover up +your head from trouble; it's right here by the bed the minute you peep +over the top of the sheet. I woke up, feeling that the whole world must +be camping on the top of my crocheted lace counterpane; but soon I +realized that it was only Peter's play. Peter is stuck in the mud at the +beginning of the third act, and he thinks it is quicksands that are +going to drown him. The last few sentences of the letter sound like a +beautiful funeral oration to himself, and they made me so miserable that +I put on my clothes and fled to daddy, who was out smoking his cigar on +the front porch in the crisp morning air.</p> + +<p>"And Sam can't possibly get ready for him to come down in less than two +weeks. He has to build the house in between the plowing and milking and +other things. Peter may die. What shall we do?" I wound up with a wail.</p> + +<p>"Sam paid off the note on two of the cows and cash for the mule last +Monday," answered daddy. "Not a farmer in the Harpeth Valley has done +better in less than two years, and I would leave Peter to him. I guess +he can fodder up the play, too. Have the poet down to visit mother while +he waits."</p> + +<p>"He can't come for a week; he's going to be decorated at the Academy. +He's the youngest that ever has been; but I'll write and ask him," I +answered, in a jumble, but very much comforted.</p> + +<p>Peter accepted my invitation and announced his arrival as ten days +later. Then real work began among Sam's friends and mine in Hayesboro.</p> + +<p>I put the case to them plainly and movingly. Here was a young and +distinguished genius coming to settle down in Hayesboro to rescue his +play, and it was the duty of everybody to help him in every way. The +first thing he had to have was shelter, and we ought to all help Sam as +much as we could to provide it for him. He was willing to stay with us +for a few days, on mother's invitation, which I had to hide nine +crochet-needles to make her write him, but he wrote that his "spirit +panted for the wilderness," and if he felt that way about it he ought to +be settled in the cabin as soon as possible.</p> + +<p>"Why, of course," said Julia, with large and responsive enthusiasm, "we +must just all turn in and help Sam. I never helped build a house, but if +you can, Betty, so can I."</p> + +<p>"I can make curtains and things and cushions for chairs," said Edith, +with no less enthusiasm than Julia's. "I have a lovely bureau-scarf all +finished and—"</p> + +<p>"Chairs—bureau!" I fairly gasped. "Neither Sam nor I had thought of +furniture. Sam paid a big note in the bank for the cows and mule, and +how can he buy more stock like chairs and bureaus and beds?"</p> + +<p>"Why, hasn't Sam got furniture? The Crittenden house had the loveliest +in Hayesboro," asked Edith, plaintively.</p> + +<p>"He's sold it; Sam is poor," I answered, proudly. "He hasn't got +anything but Mammy and Byrd and the other stock, and places for all to +sleep and eat and keep warm. Now what are we going to do?"</p> + +<p>"He wouldn't let us buy him anything, would he?" asked Sue, +thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>"I know Sam better than that," said Edith.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you," I exclaimed, suddenly and radiantly. "Of course, we +can't give Sam anything, but I believe—I believe that if I asked him +very kindly he would let us make a kind of museum of affection of +Peter's room and take all the lovely things we can borrow from people to +put in the shack to help inspire him. Mother will let me start with +Grandmother Nelson's desk, though it is dearer than life to me; and I +know she'll crochet him a lamp-mat before he gets here—maybe several, +if she likes the pattern she starts on."</p> + +<p>"Do you remember that mahogany table in my room?" exclaimed Julia, +several minutes lost in deep reflection. "It is real Chippendale, Aunt +Amanda says, and I'll send that out. Oh, to think of a poet laying his +pen down on it! Or does he use a pencil?"</p> + +<p>And it is true that from very small beginnings great trees grow. In +this case it was Peter's roof-tree, or rather what was under it. I never +saw anything like Hayesboro when it takes generosity in its teeth and +runs away, as at the time when Mr. Stanton, the Methodist minister, had +thirty-five pounds of sausage sent him from different hog-killings just +because in prayer-meeting, when he publicly thanked the Lord for his +seventh child, he mentioned that it was welcome, though one more mouth +to feed. Of course, the baby didn't need the sausage any more than Peter +really needed all the things everybody wanted to send out to make the +cabin comfortable for him. Fortunately, Sam kept his head, as the +minister did when he sold the sausage and bought groceries for the whole +family; he selected only five pieces out of the list of sixty that we +gave him, and it took me a day and a half to go around and keep people +from getting hurt because he didn't call in his wagon for the things +they had got out and rubbed and dusted. And before the sun set on the +second day of my explanations I had talked Peter into the very heart of +Hayesboro, which was all down to the station to meet him and welcome +him. The mayor wanted to have the brass band, but I persuaded him not to +do that, but to make Peter a little speech. Miss Henrietta Spain asked +to have her school children march down to throw jonquils in his path, +and I had to give in to that. Besides, I thought Peter would like it; so +did Sam.</p> + +<p>But that came later, after six of the longest days any of us ever lived +through. We spent them at The Briers, and every soft friend I had is now +a hardened specimen. Everybody went out to see Sam and advise him about +how to care for a distinguished guest that they all felt that Hayesboro +owned and was just lending to Sam for the time being, and they all +remained to farm. Most of them had never been to see him before, and +they were so delighted that they lost their heads and hearts to the +farm. The Briers is like a great, big, beautiful dog that lies there +begging you to come and plow it and scratch it and hoe it and rake it, +while it licks out green curly vegetable tongues for more. At first Sam +seemed slightly overwhelmed by all the offers of help that came with me +in Redwheels, dressed in business-like corduroys that had been made like +mine, in a hurry, and with hoes and seed-baskets, or that Pink or Tolly +drove out in their cars; but he finally entered everybody in the +time-book at two and a half cents an hour, gave each a plot of ground +that wouldn't do for anything else, and started them off, while he kept +on at real work. I'm glad to have every healthy assurance of being in +the world when Sam comes to the harvesting of his friendly crops. It +will be a great occasion. If Edith's five rows of okra do not net or +gross—I forget which is the right term for it—I know she will wilt +away, and I dread Sue if her fifty tomato-plants go down before the +humble cutworm. Sue won't be humble. Miss Editha came out with us one +afternoon and sowed a row of ladies'-slippers and princess-feathers, and +it was funny to see old Dr. Chubb, who had driven the ten miles just for +the pleasure of seeing Sam (only, Sam said it was in hopes of seeing +me), digging and raking for her, while Colonel Menefee, in true military +style, commanded them both. Father came once and took Sam away down to a +field by himself, and from the look on both their faces I was afraid Sam +had again refused to borrow money to buy the mate to the mule he needed +so badly. Father was so mad he took off his coat, and he and Tolly split +wood enough for the big fireplace to last until midsummer. Sam says that +Pink sweat enough soap-grease to make him worth more than two and a half +cents, if it could have been collected. He didn't mean us to hear him +say it to Pink, but Edith got pale with shock, while daddy roared so +that old Buttercup came up the hill to see what was the matter. Julia +laughed, and so did I—when we got away from Edith.</p> + +<p>It took six good days of such chorus work to get every odd job at The +Briers nicely finished up, and daddy and the mayor and Colonel Menefee +mended all the rail fences before they rested on the seventh.</p> + +<p>Then on Monday morning came the log-raising for the poet's lodge, and +everybody assembled long before Sam had nicked the last log with his +great big adz. We all sat around on the rocks and ends of the logs and +discussed how to begin before Sam got ready to tell us the right way. +The colonel and Miss Editha were standing a little to one side, and I +knew that he was being sentimental by the fluttering smile that came and +went on her tea-rose face; but suddenly he turned and said to daddy, +with his fierce old face lighting:</p> + +<p>"Just look, Hayes, there's pioneer blood in them yet—and brawn, too," +he added, as Tolly and Pink and Billy Robertson stripped off their coats +and came forward as Sam knocked the last crimson cedar chip from the +last log.</p> + +<p>"Steady—up now, Tolly," said Sam, as Tolly bent to one end of one of +the long, rough cedar logs, that had so lately been a forest king, but +that was now dethroned and shorn of its branching power with which to +wrestle with the wind. Pink and Billy got holds in between. "Up—up, +boys! Now roll!" shouted Sam again, and with a strain and a heave they +landed the first log level and true on the stone underpinnings.</p> + +<p>"Hip—hip—hurrah for the poet's house!" shouted Tolly, as he rolled his +shirt-sleeves up and spat on his hands to show his readiness for more +logs; and we all clapped, while Edith picked up a button that had popped +off his shirt with the strain of his big chest underneath.</p> + +<p>Then for a second Sam's kind eyes sank down deep into mine and smoldered +there. I know he was praying for Peter as the rest cheered. Then he bent +and called out:</p> + +<p>"Next. Up—up, boys! Steady!"</p> + +<p>My eyes misted for a second, and Peter's pale face rose before them in +the mist. Peter is a man of dreams, for whom was being harnessed all +this sinew and brawn of reality. And men must plow and plant and reap +and hew and lift for their vision-bringers, and women must do it also. +It is only right. I am willing. Where were the neighbors to the Keatses +that they didn't—And I was about to be dissolved in a sea of sentiment +when Sam's voice hauled me to the surface as he shouted:</p> + +<p>"Hi, Betty, get out and sight this end for a right angle-drop, as I +showed you. Wait! Back, boys!"</p> + +<p>And after that I held the metal square and sighted until I felt as if I +had eaten a right angle, while Sam's crew heaved and raised and dropped +and rolled, until all four of the low walls were fitted into the +notches, log for log, and the roof-poles were laid just as the sun began +to quit his job and get on toward China.</p> + +<p>"No four of their young Virginia pioneer ancestors who came over the +wilderness trail did it any quicker or better, Colonel," said daddy, as +he walked around to the back of the cabin and then again to the front. +As he spoke he laid his arm across Sam's shoulder—and I knew that the +breach was healed until the next time daddy tried to help him +financially.</p> + +<p>All the log-raisers went home by twilight, and daddy and I were the +last. The Byrd had insisted on showing daddy nine little curly-tailed +pigs taking their evening repast at the maternal fount, which they were +shyly late in doing because the fledgling perched so near them on the +fence to exhibit and direct the repast.</p> + +<p>This left me to help Sam gather up his tools and pick up the fragrant +cedar chips for Mammy's vesper fire.</p> + +<p>"Now, the chimney next and Pete's housed," said Sam, as he sat down on a +log right where I was crouching, filling the basket with the chips. "Are +you happy, Bettykin?"</p> + +<p>"Sam, when I know that Peter is tucked in that little old bed that +matches yours that mother gave you out of our garret I am going to +breathe so deep that maybe I'll—I'll break my belt," I answered, as I +picked a chip from under one of his big farm shoes. "I couldn't stand +him on my mind much longer."</p> + +<p>"Let him stay comfortably in your heart and don't get him on your mind," +answered Sam, as he calmly got out the cob pipe, filled and lighted it. +"Pete's great enough to fill both for any woman." And Sam's face took on +that devout young prophet-look it always does when he looks at his land +or mentions Peter—the look which then began to irritate as well as +impress me, I don't exactly know why.</p> + +<p>"My mind's not very big and my heart is smaller," I snapped, as I upset +part of the basket of chips and had to begin to pick them all up again.</p> + +<p>"You're young—you'll grow up—to Pete," said Sam, as he roughed my hair +worse than he had ever done since I had forbidden him, picked up my +basket and started to the house, leaving me to follow, squaw-fashion +and perfectly furious. Now if I don't know whether my troth is plighted +to Peter, and Peter doesn't know, I am certain that I can't see why +Samuel Foster Crittenden should be so sure of it; and he and I parted +anything but friends, a fact over which I could feel daddy chuckle as he +sat wedged beside me in the car, though he didn't dare smile. I would +wager my first mess of peas that he winked at Sam. I had seen them act +that way about me only too often in my infancy. I felt that I hated the +whole world until I had to except the fledgling, who rode down to the +gate on the running-board just over my left shoulder, while Sam came +along to hold him on.</p> + +<p>"Betty, you is the prettiest lady they is if your eyes do crinkle when +you laugh, and ain't blue. I'd let you kiss me anywhere I'm clean +enough, if you bring me just one pigeon that will lay eggs for little +ones," he said, as I slowed up for him to climb down to open the gate.</p> + +<p>"She could get one cheaper than that, Byrd," said Sam, as he got down to +open the gate, while for a second I snuggled the fledgling, whom I +always hated to leave out in the woods in the dark, even with Sam's +rough hand so near his pillow.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," I said, pleasantly, as I drove through the gate, without +stopping another ten minutes to chat, as I knew daddy wanted to. I'm +glad Samuel Foster Crittenden will never know just exactly what I was +cross about, as I wasn't sure myself. It is strange how you can hate a +person for whom you have the deep regard I have for Sam, when he has +done nothing at all to offend you.</p> + +<p>That night I fought it all out with myself about Peter. I felt that Sam +had brought the sore spot in my heart to head and I would have to +operate and find out what was really there. Accordingly, after I had +safely anchored myself in the middle of my old four-poster bed I slashed +myself. This is what I found. That I had made up my mind to marry Peter +just as soon as he wanted me to, which I knew would not be until after +the play was finished down in Sam's wilderness. I had two reasons for my +intention. Nobody in the world ever loved and depended on me as Peter +has always done since he read me the winning poem that he sent in for +his Junior Prize. Peter needs me, and nobody else in the world does. +What could love be but giving and cherishing the beloved? By the test of +how I longed to do all that to Peter I found out how I loved him. That +was the reason I openly admitted, but I am afraid that I was afraid of +Sam if I should fail his young David-Keats in any way. He had already +warned me what I must be to him, and I felt as I did about that heifer I +let get by me the first day I went to dig Sam out of the hollow tree to +which he has now had to build a new crotch in order to take in Peter. +This time I would head off his calf for him, though I didn't mean to +call Peter that, even in the heat of debate with myself. Oh, I could +take such good care of Peter and Judge Vandyne, and Mabel would be so +glad! My spirits rose at the thought of their joy, and as I felt better, +I luxuriated in the thought of Sam's approbation. I would give Peter the +answer he had begged for in every letter, help him with the play until +it was finished, and then have a glorious wedding, with Edith and Sue +and Julia and all the girls. I must have fallen asleep then, for I +dreamed that Julia was the bride at my wedding and that I couldn't get +there. When I woke from that nightmare I decided to let Sam have the +happiness of hearing Peter tell him of my submission to their wishes; +and that time I sobbed myself to sleep.</p> + +<p>From that fatal night until the afternoon of Peter's arrival, I saw Sam +only three times, and those when there were many others with us. I was +so sweet and submissive to him that I saw I alarmed him greatly.</p> + +<p>Peter arrived according to schedule and was met in the manner planned +by our friends. As he stood on the train platform just behind a woman +and a baby, I saw his great dark eyes, that seem fairly to glow out of +his beautiful face, eagerly race over the crowd. When they rested on me +they lit with what I thought was perfect joy until I saw them find Sam a +few seconds later. That was the real thing, and I never loved Peter +better than when I saw him hold Sam's hand in his while he was greeting +me in a suppressed, lover-like way and was being introduced to people. +Sam was also radiant. Peter and Sam and I are the eternal triangle that +Peter is always talking into plots for plays—only Sam is the apex +instead of me. Isn't it beautiful to have it that way?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="III" id="III">III</a></h2> + +<h3>THE BOOK OF LAUGHTER</h3> + + +<p>Hayesboro took Peter into its heart of hearts and then sighed for more +to give him. This town is like the old man's horse whose natural gait is +running away when it is not asleep. Peter woke it up and it took the bit +in its mouth and bolted with him, while Peter clung to the saddle and +had the time of his young poetic life.</p> + +<p>Mother accepted Peter with her usual placidity. She took him into her +room and I suppose she examined him physically, for I saw her give him a +dose of sarsaparilla tea every morning he was with us. I bought her five +spools of the finest silk thread, ranging in shade from gray to +lavender, to begin on a crocheted tie and pair of socks for him. Daddy +was as good as gold to him and fell immediately into Judge Vandyne's +attitude toward him. I knew he would. Eph maintained the dignity of the +haphazard family at meal-times, and waited on Peter worshipfully at all +others. The black beauty in the kitchen was heard to remark to the +house-girl:</p> + +<p>"I hope that white man's skin will stretch, for I shore am going to +stuff it. He am a insult to any respectable skillet or pot." She did, +and at times I trembled for the poet.</p> + +<p>He read to Miss Henrietta Spain's school the poem on "Space" which the +<i>Literary Opinion</i> had copied; and he was the greatest possible success. +Most of it I feel sure the school didn't understand. But just as he +finished the last two lines—those lines the magazine had called "as +perfect in winged lyric quality as any lines in the English language +could be"—the Byrd, whom Sam had groomed carefully and brought in from +the brier-patch for the occasion, rose, and, with his freckles black +with the intensity of his comprehension of the poem, spread his little +arms and said:</p> + +<p>"I fly! I fly!"</p> + +<p>"I fly! I fly, too!" A little chubkin in a blue muslin dress just +behind him jumped to her feet and echoed him before they could be +repressed.</p> + +<p>"That was the most perfect tribute I shall ever receive," Peter said, +that night out on the porch, after Sam had gone home, carrying the +exhausted Byrd, who even in sleep held in one hand the handle of a full +basket he had begged from mother, and in the other tightly grasped a +sack in which were two "little ones" daddy had got for him. These +treasures happened to be young rabbits, and Sam said he would charge +daddy with the damages.</p> + +<p>"Good old Sam," said Peter, as we stood at the gate by the old lilac, +who was beginning to beplume himself more richly than any of his +compatriots in Hayesboro—in honor of Peter, I felt sure—and watched +Sam and the Byrd jog away in the wagon down Providence Road. "He'll make +his mark on his generation yet, Betty. This is just a temporary eclipse +of the effulgence of a young planet that will shine with the warm light +of humanity when the time comes. There is no man like him. O Samboy!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I love you, Peter, for feeling that way," I exclaimed, heartily, as +I grasped his arm with enthusiasm. "You are so wonderful, Peter."</p> + +<p>"Dear, dearest Betty," said Peter, as he put his arm through mine, and +we both began to swing back and forth on the gate. "It is so marvelous +to have a woman respond to your every mood as you do to mine. It is like +having in one's possession an angel incarnate in her own harp."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Peter you <i>are</i> wonderful!" I again exclaimed, because I felt that +way and had no other feeling to draw another remark from. It is so +satisfactory to love a man with no variations. I cannot see why girls +like to tremble and blush and chill and glow and get angry and repentant +about the men they love, as Edith does about Clyde Tolbot. I wish I +could make them all understand the great calmness of true love like mine +for Peter.</p> + +<p>The five days that Peter stayed with mother, Hayesboro did many other +things to him. The mayor got up a barbecue in his honor, and they had +nine political speeches and two roast pigs and a lamb. Peter came home +pale, but we decided before we went to bed to let the hero of "The +Emergence" get beaten up a little in the strike before he made his great +speech to the capitalist. I felt so happy for the play.</p> + +<p>But the next day Peter took tea alone with Miss Editha Morris +Carruthers, and he was so charmed with her that he almost decided to let +the whole play end in separation.</p> + +<p>"But it is so lonely for a woman to be a heroine of a separation, +Peter," I pleaded with him as we sauntered up and down the long porch.</p> + +<p>"Under such stress souls grow, Betty," he answered, gloomily. "Together +lovers feed on the material; apart, on the immaterial. Can we say which +is best for the final emergence of the superman and—" Just here Julia +came across the street and into our front gate, looking like a ripe +peach, in a pink muslin gown, with a huge plate of hickory-nut +butter-candy in her hand, and we all three proceeded to material +nourishment. I left them for a few minutes while I went up to my room +and took out Grandmother Nelson's book. I wanted to be sure that not a +single thing would bloom before I got back to The Briers. Peter had +insisted that he should not go forth into the wilderness until he could +do it dramatically to stay, so I hadn't been out for five days or more +and I was wild—simply mad. To have a garden and be separated from it at +sprouting and blooming time is worse than any soul separation that ever +happened to any woman. Of that I feel sure.</p> + +<p>Sue Bankhead was as nice and lovely to Peter as could be, and even Billy +Robertson's contentment with himself was slightly ruffled with the way +she took him out horseback with her every morning, but her crowning +attention was a dance for him. Sue has the loveliest dances in Hayesboro +because of her own charm and the fact that the double parlors in the old +Bankhead house are sixty-two feet long and forty-six feet wide. The +girls were as lovely as a bunch of spring blossoms, and Julia looked +like the most gorgeous, pink, fragrant, drooping cabbage-rose as Peter +danced with her again and again. I was so glad, because he is as tall as +she is, and she is such a good dancer that it must have been as soothing +to his tired nerves as a nice wide rocking-chair with billows of blue +mull cushions. It was easy to see what she thought of him from the way +she looked at him, and poor Pink took me out in the moonlight and swore +at me in polite language.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you feed your sick poet your own self, Betty, and not let him +loose to eat up my girl?" he stormed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Pink, how can you be so ungenerous, when you know how wonderful he +is and how wonderful his play will be if you and everybody are kind and +good to him while he is writing it," I chided him.</p> + +<p>"Well, he had better not put Julia into it without me," he answered, +somewhat mollified at my reproof.</p> + +<p>"He won't, I know he won't," I hastened to assure him. "Especially if +you are nice to him, as you promised. You know, Pink, you are an awfully +interesting man in some ways, and I know it is going to do Peter a lot +of good to be friends with you; you are so—so substantial."</p> + +<p>"That's it; slap my fat! Everybody does," he answered, gloomily.</p> + +<p>"It was the mules I was talking about, not you, Pink," I answered, +hurriedly, for I know how sensitive he is.</p> + +<p>"Well, call me a mule then," he again said, with the deepest depression.</p> + +<p>"Now don't be stupid, Pink, and—"</p> + +<p>"I am stupid, too!"</p> + +<p>"Pink Herriford, will you please tell my friend, Peter Vandyne, about +your heroism in stopping the stampede of those thousand mules you were +shipping to France in time to save the lives of all of them and about +ten men? I seem to have to speak to you in words of two syllables +to-night." I could feel my cheeks burn with temper as I spoke and Pink +came immediately out of his grouch and into his own happy personality.</p> + +<p>"Holy smoke! Betty, but that was some stunt! First I saw a big red mule +lift his hind legs in ugly temper, and let fly right and left just as—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, wait Pink, let me get Peter!" I exclaimed, as I heard the dance +that Pink and I had been arguing out, instead of sitting or dancing out, +stop to get breath.</p> + +<p>Pink was a wonder as he stood in the center of everybody that I had +gathered around him to hear in particular what they had all been talking +about in general. We were all spellbound, for it was a really exciting +and tremendous recital, and even Julia came out of her daze over Peter +to listen with rapt attention, though I imagine she had heard it before.</p> + +<p>"Immense!" exclaimed Peter, with his pale, thin face in a perfect flame +of excitement just as Pink threw his own body right in front of the +largest mule and turned his neck and—</p> + +<p>"What?" said Pink, as he glared at Peter suspiciously.</p> + +<p>"Perfectly great," said Peter, laying his arm on Pink's. "And I don't +see—"</p> + +<p>Just here I slipped out onto the porch and sat down on the steps in the +starlight to get my breath while the tale of heroism went on from the +reassured hero.</p> + +<p>And as I stood on the front steps, just out of the noise of "Too Much +Mustard" that had again begun its syncopated wail in the house, I began +to worry about all my flower children in the country. Sam had not been +in for three days, and he had sent word by one of his neighbors that he +couldn't get to the dance because he had to cup up potatoes to plant. He +had explained to Byrd and me all about how you cut out each little eye +with some potato around it for moisture and nourishment while it takes +root in the earth, and the Byrd had been especially interested in all +the potato-peels ever since. He had almost worn the life out of Mammy +begging her not to cut through any of the "little ones" with her knife +until she had taken to boiling them whole. And as I sat and pictured +them all sitting on the back porch with the big lamp lighted, just +cutting away, maybe Byrd still up for the emergency, the whole dance +seemed to put on a mask of grinning foolishness and resolve itself, with +its jiggy music, into a large bunch of nothing, with me included. I was +in a bad way for the best dancer in Hayesboro, not to sound like +boastful Billy.</p> + +<p>"Well, hello! Can this be Betty the wall-flower?" called a voice from +over the fence. It was so out of sight that it might have come from the +hollow log out on Old Harpeth if it hadn't been so near. "Won't anybody +dance with you, honey-bunch?"</p> + +<p>"Nobody; unless you will," I answered, running down toward the voice. +And as I came nearer the hedge I saw that a wagon and mule were drawn up +in the shadow behind a man. "It's fine for you to come in, after all, +Sam. Peter will be so happy."</p> + +<p>"Overalls are not invited," answered Sam, as he gave my hair the usual +rough with his big horny hand while I reached up and grasped his sleeve, +too glad to see him to remonstrate. "I came in for Pete's things, and I +brought a load of new peas and ten dozen eggs at the same time, so I +couldn't dress for the dance, or have time to dance if I did. Six +seventy-five a barrel, and five barrels; how's that for wealth, +Bettykin?" As he spoke Sam reached down in his overalls pocket, brought +up a big fistful of all kinds of money, and poured it into my tunic of +embroidered mull that I held up for it.</p> + +<p>"It is the most beautiful money I ever saw," I said, and I had to +swallow hard to keep out of my voice the sentiment I knew Sam would not +like. I knew how hard he had worked for every cent of it.</p> + +<p>"I'll give you that bright new quarter if you think it is so pretty," he +said, and of course it couldn't have been emotion that cut his voice off +so indistinctly.</p> + +<p>"Come on, then, and let me dance for it," I answered. Then myself and +money and mull dress,—that came all the way from New York with a +three-figured bill—I threw into the blue-jeans arms. And out on the +smooth, hard turnpike Sam and I had one glorious fox-trot with only the +surprised mule looking on.</p> + +<p>"Bring Pete out at about eleven. Your first pea is due to pod about +noon. No, I must go now or never," said Sam as he shook me off when I +clung and begged for another dance. He climbed up in the wagon. "Good +night," he called.</p> + +<p>For a long time I stood and watched him standing bolt upright in the +wagon and clattering away with his great ugly old mule in a lurching +trot; then I went in to the dance. I didn't tell anybody that Sam had +been there, because they would all have been disappointed. The way Sam's +home town loves him and disapproves of his farming is pathetic. Five +miles is a long way for anybody that knows Sam to be separated from him, +at least that is the way I felt as Peter slid and skidded and dipped me +around while he told me how proud he was of my beauty and the lovely and +worthy friends I possessed. He mentioned Julia and Pink and the mules in +detail. I think Peter Vandyne has the most grateful, appreciative, +sympathetic nature I ever encountered, and I told him so as we walked +home across the lawn while the stars were beginning to grow pale and +flicker with no more night to burn.</p> + +<p>"My heart is full, full, dear, dearest Betty, with you and—and the +work. The vision becomes clearer," Peter said, with his great dark eyes +looking up at the retreating stars. And as we walked up the steps he +told me another struggle he had thought up for the hero to have with his +conscience about the poor little waiting heroine. The mule story hadn't +done him one bit of good, and I went to bed as cross as two sticks.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Samboy! I'm glad you are there and that you are Peter's next of +friends or first or—Good night!" I muttered, as I closed my eyes on my +favorite glimpse of Old Harpeth.</p> + +<p>The next morning at about nine-thirty occurred Peter Vandyne's +introduction into real life. He took it gallantly with his head up and +swimming for shore.</p> + +<p>The day was one of young May's maiden efforts offered with a soft smile +of tender sunshine and in a flutter of bird wing and apple-blow. Of +course, Sam had told me not to bring Peter out to The Briers until about +eleven o'clock, because he wanted to do some farm housekeeping, as I +afterward found out. But half past nine was the very limit of my +endurance, and I sat and fidgeted with the wheel while mother and Eph +packed us up with the inevitable basket for Byrd plus the also +inevitable "little ones" that daddy somehow managed to find for him. +These young were three small kittens, attended in their blindness by a +black-and-white-spotted mother cat, all safely laced into a large basket +and by that time resigned to their fate. I didn't mean to be +disrespectful to dear Peter in my thoughts, but somehow they reminded me +of him as he was led to farm life; and I laughed outright as Eph gave +Peter a parting pat and Redwheels and me a shove, while mother called +after us not to forget the sarsaparilla.</p> + +<p>As long as I live I shall remember that journey along old Providence +Road with a lovely nature like Peter's. He glowed with his inward flame +there at my side, until I felt that it would be bad for him. Peter has +seen all kinds of wonderful scenery all his life; but of course, there +is none in the world anything like the Harpeth Valley. All the other in +the world is either grand or placid or swept and garnished and tended or +brilliant or moist, but this valley under Paradise Ridge is different. +Peter expressed it so that my throat tightened and I had to hold +steadier to the wheel as we passed an old farm wagon.</p> + +<p>"It's the hollow of God's hand in which He has gathered His children and +their homes, Betty," he said, huskily. "Look at that white-haired old +grand dame in her frilled frock with the string of chickens following +her and the two kiddies bringing up the rear. And look at that old +red-gray brick house. England has nothing finer."</p> + +<p>"That is old Mrs. Georgetta Johnson," I answered, as I waved my hand and +got a stately wave in return. "She is the fifth generation to live in +that house, and the two kiddies are the eighth. Her mother danced with +Lafayette, and she is over eighty-five. I'll take you to see her some +day."</p> + +<p>"Betty," said Peter, with positive awe, "I have never seen such homes +and furniture and people as I have found here. What is it that makes it +so—so satisfying?"</p> + +<p>"It must be that everything has had time to root here, people and all," +I answered as I again avoided a farm wagon and a negro driving two fine +milk-cows with cow babies wobbling along at their flanks.</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered Peter, thoughtfully—"yes, I should say that 'rooted' +would about express the life, and I am wondering—" But just here we +turned off into Brier Lane, and Peter went up in the air and began to +float among the tree-tops, only being able to take in the high-lights +like the gnarled old cedars that jutted out from the lichen-covered +stone wall and hung over the moss-green snake-rail fences, or the old +oaks which were beginning to draw young, green loveliness around them, +or the feathery buckbushes and young hackberries that were harboring all +varieties of mating birds who were wooing and flirting and cheeping baby +talk in a delightfully confidential and unabashed manner. Peter had +become wildly absorbed in a brilliant scarlet cardinal that followed the +car, scolding and swearing in the most pronounced bird language, all for +no fault of ours that we could see, when we turned in the cedar-pole +gate of The Briers and began to wind our way up through the potato and +corn field on one side and the primeval forest on the other. It was +difficult to get Peter past the old thorn-tree view of the Harpeth +Valley we had come through, and he wanted to get out and stay for ever +at the milk-house; but I finally landed him in a Homeric daze up in +front of the house, which stood with its hospitable old door wide open +but deserted.</p> + +<p>"Sam! Byrd! Mammy!" I shouted at the top of my lungs, while Peter sat +paralyzed at the sight of Sam's farm-house. Peter had got the old +Crittenden house and all the others where he had been entertained in +his mind's eye, and that Sam's present residence was a shock to him I +could see plainly. That was the beginning.</p> + +<p>"Hi, Betty, come here quick—I need you!" came in Sam's most +business-like voice from the barn up on the hill, while I could hear +wild and excited cheeps from the Byrd and disturbed clucks from Mammy.</p> + +<p>Leaving Peter to disembark as he recovered himself, I sped around the +house and up to the barn.</p> + +<p>"Here, Betty, this blamed mule has kicked old Jude, and I must have +somebody to hold the edges together while I sew it up. Mammy's hands +aren't steady enough. Now press the edges together and never mind the +blood on your hands. Hold the halter, Mammy. You get that can of lime +ready to dust it, Byrd." Thus in dirty, blood-stained overalls, with his +hair on ends and an earth smudge as usual right across his face like a +Heidelberg scar, Sam was commanding his forces of nature.</p> + +<p>"Ugh—uu—ow, Sam," I shivered; but I came up under his arm and tried to +push one dripping section of old-roan hide until it joined the other, +though I couldn't quite make it. Over my shoulder Sam began to sew it +across with a huge crooked needle, helping me push the edges together as +best he could. At this auspicious moment the poet appeared at the barn +door in an absolutely dazed condition.</p> + +<p>"Here you, Pete, too!" Sam commanded, without looking up. "Get here on +the other side and press the hide together as Betty is doing. This is +an awful long cut, but I can manage it, thanks to seeing Chubb sew up +Bates's mule. Whoah, Jude, old girl! Hold her steady, Mammy! Now, Pete, +press hard; never mind the blood!"</p> + +<p>At Sam's determined reiteration of the word blood, my senses reeled, and +if it had been anybody but Sam sewing over my shoulder, I would have +gone down in a crumpled heap. Also I was stirred by one glance at +Peter's lovely long oval face with its Keats lock of jet-black hair +tossed aloft, and I remained conscious from astonishment.</p> + +<p>This was a new Peter. His eyes burned in his face with determination. He +squared his legs, clad in his elegant idea of farming corduroys, at the +exact angle at which Sam's were set; then his long, white hands pulled +the bloody old hide together exactly in place.</p> + +<p>"That's it, Pete, hold it there. You slip out, Betty, and hold Jude +while Mammy gets the hot water ready to wash it when it is finished. +Now, Pete, an inch farther along! Whoah, Jude!" And with his long needle +Sam began rapidly to draw the gaping wound together.</p> + +<p>"Here, Byrd, you hold Jude," I said, suddenly; and giving the halter to +the dirty fledgling, who was snubbing tears in his distress over the +accident to his old friend, I quit the scene of the operation and fled +to the woods to faint down on a log and be as ill as I wanted to. It was +rather bad; and it lasted about a quarter of an hour.</p> + +<p>Then, with my head turned determinedly away from the barn, I sought +distraction in an interview with my garden.</p> + +<p>Oh, it was rapturous! Can anything in the world be as wonderful as +putting queer little brown things in the earth, where it scares you to +think of their getting all cold and wet and rotted, and then coming to +see them sprout and curl and run out of the ground? No, nothing can +compare with it unless it is seeing whole rows of them bursting out into +blooms and tassels and little pods and burrs. I felt extravagant and +wanted to kiss the whole vegetable family in a way of encouragement and +greeting. And the two lilacs were both most beautifully plumed out in +their long, white blossoms to greet me. Now, weren't they the plucky +young things to bloom that way in a perfectly strange place? Still, +everybody always did have confidence in Sam.</p> + +<p>But then in every joy patch some weeds are bound to shoot up overnight, +and I was horrified to look down the rows of purple beet fronds and see +what a lot of bold pepper-grass and chickweed were doing in their +trenches. Without waiting to get my gloves from my bag in the car, I +fell to and began a determined onslaught. Furiously I charged down two +rows and up a third, at whose end I sank with exhaustion.</p> + +<p>"Say, Betty, could a cat give kitten dinner to a poor little duck that +all the hens peck?" asked the Byrd, anxiously, as he came and squatted +beside me with two of the new kittens and the duck orphan in question in +his arms.</p> + +<p>"No, Byrd, I don't believe so," I answered, from instinct rather than +direct knowledge.</p> + +<p>"Why is they so many little ones in the world without mothers, me and +the duck and the cow that died 'fore Dr. Chubb came, her calf, and now +that mean old dog have left her puppies to eat out of a plate?" he +asked. He let the kittens slide to the ground, where they sprawled in +their blind helplessness, while he began to tenderly pry open the small +yellow ball's wide bill and insert crumbs of bread rolled into very +realistic pills, but which the patient gobbled with evident +appreciation.</p> + +<p>"See, Byrd, you are just as good as a mother any day," I said, a choke +in my throat as I cuddled his thin little shoulder in the hollow between +my arm and my breast, and bent over to watch the orphan's meal.</p> + +<p>"Like Sam," answered Byrd, with a queer little flash of his keen eyes up +at me, and a grin that was so like Sam's that I tumbled him over onto +the grass, duck and all, and began a frolic with him which delighted his +heart and eased mine. I've loved that "little one" since the day they +let me hold him in my arms when he was only a few hours old and +motherless. Examining him from heels to head had comforted Sam in his +anguish and eased my own sympathetic sorrow. It is a tradition that +Mammy Kitty rescued him just in time; but I've always felt that nothing +would have happened to him at Sam's sixteen-year-old hands if he had +been left for hours.</p> + +<p>In the midst of our frolic Peter and Sam came on the scene, and as far +as Peter was concerned it was indeed a transformation scene. Sam was +very much washed and slick from some time at the wash-bench, and Peter +was likewise, only Peter was not the Peter whom I had brought from town +that very morning. He was attired in a pair of Sam's overalls that could +have been wrapped around him twice, and he had a bit of color in his +cheeks under his eyes, though the eyes were slightly dazed as to +expression.</p> + +<p>"Good work, Betty, for only two hours," said Sam, looking at the three +long ranks of slain weeds and then at his watch. "Pete and I are going +to pick peas for to-morrow's market right after dinner. Want to help?"</p> + +<p>I assented from pure ignorance, and we all went in to devour one of +Mammy's chicken dinners, the like of which is not cooked by another +person in the Harpeth Valley. The way Peter ate would have made the +black beauty in mother's kitchen swell with jealousy until there were +danger to her own black skin. Immediately after the gorge Sam gave me a +basket, gave Peter another, and then looked around for the Byrd, with a +smaller box; but the Byrd had flown.</p> + +<p>"I'll have to tan him for shirking like that," said Sam, looking off +into the bushes. "You Byrd!" But there was no response. That ought to +have roused my suspicions, but it didn't. I went on down to that +pea-patch as innocent as a newly born lamb, with Peter walking beside +me, enthusing over the landscape and swinging the light basket with +elegant nonchalance.</p> + +<p>"I see, Betty dear—I see that there is a great satisfaction in the +pragmatic accomplishment, and—" he was saying when we came out of the +woods onto the southern slope, where lie the long rows of peas, which +are making Sam's fortune. He got them in by working two days and all one +night in a bright spell in mid-February, and nobody for twenty miles +around has any, while he has more than he can gather to market at a top +price; that is, more than he can gather himself with Byrd's assistance, +he explained to us, as he showed us just how to snap the pod against our +thumbs.</p> + +<p>"I ought to put five barrels into Hayesboro every day now for a week +before anybody else gets any," he said, as he squatted at the head of a +row between Peter and me, and we all began to pull at the beautiful +gray-green vines and snap off the full, green pods. I looked across at +poor, innocent, enthusiastic Peter and saw his finish.</p> + +<p>About three o'clock I saw my own finish, and threw up the basket.</p> + +<p>"You poor, dear child!" exclaimed Peter as he came stiffly across the +row Sam had long since finished. He, Sam, was four rows ahead of us, and +a quarter of a mile away, more or less. I had collapsed, with my tired +legs stuck out in front of me and my thumb, swollen from snapping the +pods, in my mouth. "This is too hard work for you."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is; but Sam won't think so," I answered, with a glance at the +strong, broad back swinging so easily down the slope. "Now, Peter, we +must go right along picking the peas. Sam must get those five barrels," +I said, as I hastily scrambled up and began to pull at the vicious vines +again.</p> + +<p>"Well, I certainly don't intend to stop until they are filled," answered +Peter, stiffly, in more ways than one, and without any more waste of +sympathy he turned his back and went doggedly at the vines. That was my +opportunity, and I took it. I rose, looked with fear at the two men at +work in front of me, and fled, basket and all. I stopped long enough to +empty my full basket in one of the barrels that were already in the +wagon; and as I climbed laboriously down over the wheels, with my +paralyzed legs working slowly, I caught a glimpse of a flash of blue out +in the bushes, topped by a glint of red that was too large to be that of +any bird inhabitant of The Briers.</p> + +<p>"Byrd," I called, softly.</p> + +<p>No answer.</p> + +<p>"Byrd, do you want to go to town with me to see Mother Hayes?" I asked +in subdued tones. That brought its response.</p> + +<p>There were difficulties; but we surmounted them. We were afraid to wake +Mammy at her afternoon nap for the clean clothes of civilization, so we +purloined a fairly clean blue jumper hanging on the porch, while I left +a note for Sam pinned on my old doll seed-basket hanging by his door. It +was large enough for him to see, and it read:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">I'm a good young mule, but I've broken down. Poor Peter! All that</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">is left of</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 32.5em;">BETTY.</span><br /> + +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>P.S.</i>—I've rescued the Byrd for overnight. I'll return him to</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">his fate to-morrow. Poor Peter! Poor Peter!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>I wish I could have seen Sam's face when he found it! The next morning +mother's black beauty found my old grass basket full of delicious little +peas on the front steps with this note in it:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">You'll be docked a quarter of a cent every hour you are off your</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">job. Bring that brat home and both of you get to work.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 32.5em;">SAM.</span><br /> + +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>P.S.</i>—Something is sprouting in your garden that I don't</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">understand.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>I knew those hollyhocks would rise up some day and bear witness against +me. For the life of me I couldn't make up my mind what to say about +them, so I sent the Byrd home by Tolly, who was going to take Edith out +to see how her okra was progressing, and stayed in the safe shelter of +my home. On the Byrd's rompers I pinned this note:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Strike, if you will, my young back,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">But spare, oh spare, this little brat!</span><br /> + +<span style="margin-left: 20.5em;">BETTY.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>There are all kinds of poetry in the world.</p> + +<p>That night when I was beginning to get restless and wish I had gone out +to my fate, even if it included being throttled with a pea-vine, Tolly +and Edith came into town and stopped at my gate in such a condition that +I was positively alarmed about them.</p> + +<p>"Five baskets of peas!" gasped Tolly, as he fell forward limp over his +wheel.</p> + +<p>"My thumb! my thumb!" moaned Edith, with the afflicted member in her +mouth.</p> + +<p>"But, say, Betty," Tolly revived enough to say, "we are not going to +tell Sue and Billy and Julia and Pink. They are going out to-morrow to +call. Let 'em go—it's coming to 'em."</p> + +<p>"Oh no, I won't say a word," I agreed, with the intensest joy. "Come +over to-morrow, Edith, and let's finish <i>My Lady's Fan</i>. I'm dying to +know what happened to her at the court ball. Good night!"</p> + +<p>"No, you come over to my house; I'll be in bed," Edith wailed from the +middle of the road as Tolly turned and made his machine buzz for home.</p> + +<p>Then for five days—glorious, warm, growing, blooming days—I stayed in +town in a state of relapse from gardening of which the sorenesses in the +calves of my legs and my thumbs were the strongest symptoms, and +listened to my martyred friends' accounts of what Sam was doing to +Peter. I also had a bulletin from Peter every day by the rural-delivery +route. That is, they were in Peter's handwriting, but they read more +like government crop reports than a poet's letters to the girl to whom +he considered himself engaged. I sent them on to Judge Vandyne, and I +got a glorious written chuckle in return for them.</p> + +<p>Then, one morning when I had about got over the bashfulness about the +hollyhocks, and had decided to deny them absolutely and stick to it, for +a time at least, I happened to pick up Grandmother Nelson's book. It was +full time—maybe past time—for thinning out my sugar-beets and +resetting my cosmos. I fled out to the wilderness in greater speed than +I had left it, and fairly threw myself prostrate at the feet of my +neglected garden. Peter helped me, a sun-blistered, brier-scratched, +ragged Peter, whose face had lost none of its beautiful, lofty, aloof +expression, but which was rendered almost ordinary by a long scratch +across the top of its nose. The scratch was inflicted, he told me, when +he held one of the thoroughbred Plymouth Rock biddies to be greased by +Sam for lice under her wings.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but what about the play, Peter dear?" I asked, after we had weeded +and dug and watered and pulled up for an hour or two and had then seated +ourselves at the end of one of the long rows to rest.</p> + +<p>"The play—oh, Betty, it is—" And his old look of rapture shot across +his face. Then Sam yelled to him, and me, too.</p> + +<p>"Come on and help tie up onions," he called. "You Byrd!"</p> + +<p>We went and we tied up—a whole white smelly mountain of them; but I +didn't care, for Sam showed me his day-book, and in just one week his +balance had shot up like the beautiful pink pie-plant in my garden. A +great big entry was from my beets that he had thinned and sold without +waiting for me.</p> + +<p>"I'll give you a check when they are all sold, Betty," he said, in a +business-like way, and something in me made me glory in him and my +beets. "And isn't old Pete hitting the agricultural pace in fine style?" +he asked, as we walked out into my garden between the rows of my blush +peonies which had been grateful for the bone meal, and had bloomed, +though everybody who had given me the clumps had warned me that they +wouldn't flower until the second season.</p> + +<p>"But isn't he going to write, too, Sam?" I asked, a trifle uneasily. +"Now, you know, Sam, if somebody had kept Keats alive as a perfectly +good lawyer or bank clerk—or farmer—he wouldn't have been half as much +to the world as he is as a sadly dead poet. Now, would he?"</p> + +<p>"Well, Pete will know all about the vegetable kingdom before he makes +entry into the heavenly one, and we'll see what he reports when the time +comes. Just come over and look at the wheat in my north field." Sam +answered my anxiety so easily that I let it slip from my shoulders as I +went with him to sit on a rail fence on the edge of a gray-green ocean +of future food and be perfectly happy. "It'll fill dinner-pails and give +babies mother's milk," said Sam, as he sat beside me and smoldered out +over his crop. "The Commissioner of Agriculture was out here five times +last week, and a complete report on the whole place goes in to the Food +Commission in Washington. Pretty good for a less-than-two-year-old +farmer, eh, Bettykin?" And Sam tipped the rail enough to make me sure I +was falling before he caught me.</p> + +<p>I didn't answer—I just clung, but Sam understood and roughed my hair +into my misty eyes and lifted me off the fence.</p> + +<p>Daddy got me two copies of that Agricultural Commissioner's report, and +I sent one to Judge Vandyne and pasted the other in the front of +Grandmother Nelson's book. Little did I know that simple action of pride +in Sam would bring such results to Samuel Foster Crittenden and to +Tennessee, and even to perhaps the third and fourth generation, or +maybe—</p> + +<p>Daddy says that when a man owns a bottom field, a hillside, and a creek +in the Harpeth Valley all he has to do is to go out and swing his hoe +around his head a few times and he'll have a living before he is ready +to harvest it. I don't know about that, and I do know that since I came +home in early April Sam has worked like two men, and maybe more. But his +harvests certainly amazed even the oldest inhabitants, who had sat +around at the cross-roads grocery and spat tobacco-juice at the idea of +his farming by government books, with no experience. They came to sit on +the rail fences around his fields and to spit out of the other side of +their mouths before the end of July, and I never went out to marvel, +myself, that I didn't step on that Commissioner of Agriculture, who +couldn't seem to keep away more than a few hours at a time.</p> + +<p>As things grew and bloomed and burst and flowered and seeded, Sam went +calmly on his way of work with the crops from dawn to dark, and Peter +did likewise. I never saw anything like his friendly pride in every +successful test of Sam's work. And his own fat was getting packed on him +at a rate that beat the record-breaking red pig down in the long, clean +pens that Sam maintained in the condition of a sanitary detention +hospital. Also Peter never mentioned the play, I never mentioned it, and +Sam appeared to have completely forgotten it.</p> + +<p>I didn't quite like for Sam to forget Peter's play like that, and I +liked it less when I heard Julia say that she thought it was so +fortunate that Sam had cured Peter of being a poet, so he could go into +his father's office to learn to take care of his great fortune. Peter +likes Julia so much that I think she ought to have appreciated the great +thing in him more than she did. When the copy of the <i>Review</i>, with +Peter's poem on the Ultimate, came, he read the whole poem to her while +she embroidered an initial in the corner of a handkerchief for him. The +next day she told me that she couldn't understand a word about it, and +that it made Pink mad because she wouldn't tell him what to say to Peter +about it. Pink has grown fond of Peter, but he wouldn't try to read the +poem after the third stanza. But Peter went on back to help with the rye +crop, knowing nothing of all that.</p> + +<p>Of course, I had all the confidence that there is in the world in Sam, +but I, about the first week in July, again began to feel responsible to +the world for Peter's play; and I might have made the awful blunder of +remonstrating with Peter or Sam or both of them if I hadn't got into so +much trouble with Edith and Tolly.</p> + +<p>Now, Clyde Tolbot is a very business-like young man, and he ought to be +respected and considered for it, but that is just what Edith doesn't +seem to understand how to do. She wants to go on with her head level +with the moon, and Tolly wants to get married in November, and I think +he is perfectly right. He hasn't any family, and he says Edith's +"highstrikes," as he calls her moods and tenses, and the food at the +Hayesboro Inn, are making him thin and pale, and hurting the prospects +of The Electric Light Co.</p> + +<p>"She acts as if she thought I was a cinnamon bear if I put my paw on her +fair hand. And she seems to think it is scandal because I wanted to buy +that old mahogany sideboard that the Vertreeses had to sell when they +inherited old Mrs. Anderson and her furniture from his mother," he +groaned, as he sat on my side porch with his head in his hands.</p> + +<p>"Tolly," I said, with firm conviction in my voice and manner, "you must +do something heroic to shock Edith down to earth again, or into opening +her eyes as those kittens daddy gave Byrd did on their ninth day. The +evening of Edith's eighth day has about struck."</p> + +<p>"It most certainly has, and about eleven-thirty at that," answered +Tolly, sitting up as if about to rush forth and do what I suggested, +though neither he nor I knew what it was. "But what is your idea of a +heroic deed that will pluck the child Edith?" he asked, just as if I +were one of the clerks out at the power-house and he was conducting a +business detail.</p> + +<p>"Well, let me see, Tolly," I said, slowly, while I ran over in my mind +all the lover heroics I had ever heard of from runaway horses to the use +of a hated blond rival. "You couldn't get hurt slightly out at the +power-house, could you?"</p> + +<p>"And ruin my boast that I have the most perfectly organized force and +machinery in the state? Not if I know myself," answered Tolly, with +business indignation and an utter lack of lover's enthusiasm at the +prospect of getting his lady-love by a ruse.</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know what you are going to do," I said, limply, as I saw +that none of the things that had ever been acted before were within +Tolly's reach.</p> + +<p>"I don't know, either," answered Tolly; and again his head dropped into +his hands.</p> + +<p>"What did she say the last time you asked her?" I questioned. I +considered it my duty to get to the bottom of the matter, as I had been +called in consultation.</p> + +<p>"Ask her? Thunderation! I never have asked her! I've never got that near +to her!" he exclaimed, in a perfect outburst of indignation.</p> + +<p>Then I laughed. I laughed so that Tolly had to pat me on the back to +make me get my breath, and a sleeping mocking-bird scolded outright from +a tree by the porch.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you do it by telephone?" I gasped.</p> + +<p>"By George! that <i>is</i> the idea, all right, Betty!" Tolly exclaimed, with +his face positively radiant. I had flung his love troubles into a class +of affairs that he could handle. "I tell you what I am going to do. I am +going to have my wire chief cut Edith's line and make me a direct +connection with mine at about nine o'clock to-morrow morning, as that is +the time he is in less of a rush with all the other things to attend to. +Then I'll put it to her good and straight if she holds on to the +receiver and hears me out."</p> + +<p>"But Edith might go over to Boliver to visit May Jessamine Ray for a +week at nine o'clock to-morrow. Oh, go do it to-night, Tolly!" I +pleaded.</p> + +<p>"And let that doll-faced girl at Central hear me? Not much!" answered +Tolly, indignantly.</p> + +<p>"I didn't mean that," I answered. "Go to her armed with your love, +Tolly, and make—make her listen to you."</p> + +<p>"Armed with a sand-bag to slug her would be more like it, if I expected +to get anywhere with her. No, you've hit it, Betty, and I'm going on +down the street and see just where that Morris line goes into the trunk. +Hope Judson won't have to run more than a mile of wire to make that +connection." And with no more gratitude or good night than that Tolly +went down the street with his head up among his telephone wires, just as +Edith keeps hers in the clouds. I hope some day they will run into each +other so hard that they will crash out ignition sparks and take fire.</p> + +<p>As I said, being so interested in Edith and Tolly, and trying to get her +to postpone her visit until he could get the wires up between them both +in a material and a sentimental sense, and also wanting to let Sam and +Peter miss me sadly, I let quite a few days elapse without being in any +of the events out at The Briers. When I did go back I found that things +had happened.</p> + +<p>"Where's Peter?" I asked, as Sam came to unload me and a huge bag of +smoke iris that old Mrs. Johnson had given me for my garden. There was +also Byrd's basket from mother, and a pair of small alligators that +daddy had got from Florida for him, having run out of natural animal +inhabitants of the Harpeth Valley.</p> + +<p>"Pete's off with the bit in his mouth—haven't seen him for three days," +answered Sam as he lifted me and swung me way out into the middle of my +own clover-pink bed. It was starred with sweet, white blossoms, having +been treated according to Eph's directions and those of Grandmother +Nelson's book.</p> + +<p>"Peter off? Where? What's happened, Sam?" I exclaimed, with astonished +anxiety.</p> + +<p>"The play," answered Sam, calmly, as he lit his cob pipe and blew a +ring of smoke. "It hit him in the middle of the night before last, and +he wrote me a note. Mammy grubs him, and I haven't seen him since. I've +paid the Byrd a half interest in the next young that happens to us not +to go down the hill to the shack, and we're all just going on as usual."</p> + +<p>"Maybe I'd better not go, either," I said, with awe and sympathy for +Peter fairly dropping from the words as I uttered them.</p> + +<p>"Betty," said Sam as he looked at me through a ring of smoke that the +warm wind blew away over our heads, "you run just a little more sense to +the cubic foot of dirt than the average, it seems to me. Come on down +and watch them begin to cut wheat. It is one week ahead of time, so I +can get all the harvesters and not a grain will be lost. They say it'll +run sixty bushels to the acre. Think of that, with only a thirty-six +record to beat in the Valley. It is that Canadian cross. The +Commissioner is down there, and so is your admirer, Chubb. He wastes +many hours riding over here to see you when you are in town on frivolous +pursuits."</p> + +<p>"Frivolous!" I echoed as we went up the path back of the house; and on +our way over the hill I told him about Tolly and Edith. Sam laughed; he +always does when I want him to; but his eyes were grave after a second.</p> + +<p>"The mating season is a troublesome time, isn't it, Betty?" he asked, as +he swung me to the top rail of the fence, vaulted over it, and held up +his arms to lift me down on the other side; but I sat poised in midair +to argue his proposition.</p> + +<p>"It ought not to be, Sam," I said, with an experienced feeling rising in +my mind and voice at thus discussing fundamentals with a man that could +break a wheat record and be attended by the agricultural envoys of the +United States government. "People ought to sensibly pick each other from +their needs, and not act unintelligent about it."</p> + +<p>At which perfectly sage remark a strange thing happened to Samuel Foster +Crittenden. He laid his head down on the rail beside my knee and laughed +until he almost shook me from my perch. It made me so furious that I +slipped past him and ran on ahead. I vaulted the next fence in fine +style and landed among the Commissioner and Dr. Chubb and the +tobacco-juice neighbors, who had come to see the output of the first +book-grown acre. I did not speak again to Sam that day until he tucked +in Dr. Chubb beside me for a spin over to Spring Hill, leaving the +doctor's old roan for a week's complimentary grazing on Sam's east +meadow of thick blue-grass, grown through a rock-lime dressing that all +the neighbors had assured him would kill the land outright.</p> + +<p>"Wheez-chekk! nice young buck for a husband," wheezed the Butterball as +I shot down the hill from under Sam's big hand reached out for my hair.</p> + +<p>"Sam?" I gasped.</p> + +<p>"Women critters always back and shy, but they git the wedding-bit from a +steady hand—and like it," he chuckled, still further. I felt as if I +ought not to let Sam rest under such a suspicion, and that I ought to +tell him about Peter. But just then he launched forth on a case of a +spavined horse he had beyond the cross-roads, which he wanted me to take +him to see, and I didn't do it.</p> + +<p>I don't much like to think about the long, hot July weeks that followed. +The whole of Harpeth Valley sweltered, and everybody did likewise. That +is, I suppose Peter did, for not one glimpse did I or anybody else get +of him. Sam says Mammy set his meals down in the doorway of the shack +with one of her soft, soothing, "Dah, dah, chile," which was answered +with a growl from Peter. That ended the events of his life at The +Briers.</p> + +<p>Sam worked early and late, and got tanned to the most awful deep +mahogany. All of him held out pretty well but his heels, which he came +in three times to have me fix for him; and once mother and I had to +dress a blister on his back that he got from wearing a torn shirt in the +potato-field.</p> + +<p>I was wild with anxiety about Peter and the play and the poor little +heroine; I didn't know whether she was being murdered or separated for +life from the hero. Still, it was good to have Sam to myself for long, +quiet, hot evenings out on the front porch under the brooding doves in +the eaves above us. Sam never talks much but he listens to me, and +sometimes he tells me things from way down inside himself. And little by +little I began to understand all about the things he had been too busy +doing to tell me about.</p> + +<p>"You see, it is this way, Bettykin," he said, one evening when the young +moon was attempting to silver the dark all around us as we sat on the +front steps, with mother away rounding off the second pair of socks for +Peter. "There wasn't one cent of money for me to take Byrd and Mammy and +make a start in New York. Even with the best sort of a backing, it is +always a ten-year pull for a youngster before he counts in the world. I +could have sold The Briers, but I couldn't make up my mind to do it, and +then while I hesitated I—I"—he paused a minute and steadied his voice, +while I took his hand and held on to it tight—"I got a call—a land +call that I had to answer. God just picked me up and planted me here on +my bit of land, and I've got to root and grow or—or dishonor Him."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Sam, you have, you have honored Him," I said as I crept closer to +his arm.</p> + +<p>"I've been all uprooted and pruned, Betty, and I've lost—lost—you +know! But for Him I must go on just the same and bear fruit." At the +pain in Sam's low voice something in me throbbed.</p> + +<p>"Lost? Oh, Sam, what?" I exclaimed, as I hugged his arm against my +breast. "What's happened to you, Sam? Tell—"</p> + +<p>But just here we were interrupted by a clatter and a clash of hoofs, a +wild shout in Peter's voice, and a cheer in the fledgling's high treble. +The biggest mule lurched up to the gate, and two figures took a flying +leap from his back to the pavement. With a rush they swept up the path +and brought up panting at the bottom of our steps.</p> + +<p>"Peter!" I gasped, descending to be sure that neither of them was bodily +broken or demented.</p> + +<p>"It's across! it's across!" shouted Peter as he reached out his arms and +grabbed me in a wild embrace.</p> + +<p>"What?" Sam and I both demanded, though, of course, in a way we knew.</p> + +<p>"The play!" exclaimed Peter, putting his head down on my shoulder and +fairly sobbing out his relief. "Farrington is going to begin rehearsals +from the first two acts I've sent him, and I am to go right on to New +York with the third that I finished an hour before the wire came over +from the cross-roads station. You'll go with me, won't you, Betty? I +can't go without you and Sam." And as he hugged me close Peter reached +out and grasped Sam's big hand that rested on his arm.</p> + +<p>"Of course Betty will go, and I'll come as soon as I get the whole crop +in," answered Sam in his deep, kind, strong voice that steadied all our +nerves. "I knew you'd make it, Pete. I never doubted that all you needed +was a bit of brawn to punch from."</p> + +<p>"Peter—Sam!" I gasped, trying to get my balance as I felt as if I were +being hurried through space without even being told where to. "I don't +know. I—"</p> + +<p>"I can't do without you, Betty," Peter said again, as he held me close +and Sam withdrew from us for the distance of about two steps.</p> + +<p>"Betty is the real thing, Pete, and she'll stand by when you need her. +She always does," Sam said, in a quiet voice that sank down into the +depths of my soul and made a cold spot.</p> + +<p>"I—I—don't know. I—" I was just reiterating when daddy and Julia, +with a plate of something, came through the gate and up the walk. They +had to be told, and they had to congratulate, and then mother came out +to see what it was all about. They were all happy and gloriously +excited, and I was dead—dead.</p> + +<p>Then Sam took Peter home because he had to pack and get into town for +the morning train. I begged for the fledgling to be left with me, and +Sam consented without even mentioning the string-beans to be picked or +the weeds in the parsnips. He said good night to everybody before he did +to me, and then started to go with just the farewell word, hesitated a +second, and came back and roughed my hair down over my eyes with the +greatest roughness he had ever employed in that action. It would have +broken my heart if he hadn't.</p> + +<p>"Betty," said the Byrd, as he crouched at my side with his thin, +scantily clad little body hovered against my skirts, "you ain't going to +no New York with Pete and leave me and Sam and all the poor little ones, +is you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Byrd, I'm afraid I'll have to!" I sobbed, cuddling him close.</p> + +<p>"Well, then, damn Pete!" he exploded.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="IV" id="IV">IV</a></h2> + +<h3>THE BOOK OF LOVE</h3> + + +<p>Most men are only a fraction of the greatness that the world adds them +up to be, but Farrington is a whole man and then a fraction over. I +enjoy talking to him just as much as I do to Sam or anybody else who is +doing interesting things in a perfectly simple way. When we talked about +Peter and the play he reminded me in lots of ways of old Dr. Chubb when +he gets on the subject of spavined horses or sick cows; of course I +don't mean any disrespect to Peter in that comparison. I told Mr. +Farrington the same thing, and he didn't laugh at all; his eyes shone +out from under his bushy white eyebrows like two wise old stars, and he +said he saw exactly what I meant, and that he hoped to meet Dr. Chubb +some day. And I continued to feel enthusiasm for him even after half an +hour's talk on the subject of his treatment of Peter, which Peter had +led me to believe was atrocious.</p> + +<p>"Dear, dearest Betty," said Peter, as he met me at the train on the +first day of September, "how wonderful to have you come just when I need +you most! I am in the depths of despair." And he looked it.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Peter, is it about the play?" I gasped as I fairly hung on to his +arm while he was languidly giving my traveling-bag to a footman. Peter +looked like a literary version of what Sam called "the last of +pea-time," which is a very vivid expression to a person who has just +seen her poor peas drop away in the August garden. "What has happened?"</p> + +<p>"I care nothing more about the play, Betty. It is stolen from me," +answered Peter, gloomily, as he led me through the Pennsylvania Station +and up the steps toward the limousine, where I knew Mabel would be +waiting to eat me up and be in turn devoured.</p> + +<p>"Why, Peter, what can you mean?" I gasped.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you all about it when I get you to myself. Don't mention it +to Mabel—she doesn't understand," he answered from behind his teeth as +he put me into the car and into Mabel's arms, and also into Miss +Greenough's.</p> + +<p>But for all my joy at seeing both those dear friends again I couldn't +help being depressed by every glance at Peter, sitting opposite me, +looking white and glum.</p> + +<p>"Don't notice him—he's more impossible than ever," said Mabel, once, +when Peter leaned out to be reproachful to the chauffeur for doing his +duty and keeping us waiting for the traffic signal. "I'll tell you all +when I get you alone."</p> + +<p>Judge Vandyne met us at the lodge gate of the great Vandyne home out on +the Island. He, too, treated Peter like a sick baby. I never was so +puzzled; and dinner would have seemed long but for the fact that they +all wanted to hear so much about Sam and The Briers and the whole +Harpeth Valley. I never more enjoyed telling anything, and even Peter's +gloom lightened when I told him about the fat little duck the Byrd had +insisted on sending him—alive in a box. Daddy was secretly expressing +it to me, on the sleeping-car porter's kindly advice, when he saw it in +my baggage.</p> + +<p>"Well, well," said Judge Vandyne, as he came into the drawing-room with +us after dinner, "young Crittenden is really getting to goal on that +farm question. I'm glad you sent me that report—it set some big things +in motion. I'll tell you about it when I get you alone," he added, under +his breath. And that was another time that made me feel as if I were a +baby that ought to be sliced up to be divided. As it was, Peter got me +first, and I don't blame him for being in agony. That is, I didn't blame +Peter, but neither do I blame Farrington, now that I have talked to him. +This was Peter's tale of woe:</p> + +<p>"Stolen, it is absolutely stolen from me, Betty, and I am helpless to +protect the child of my brain," he began. The judge and Mabel had at +last left us alone, probably because they hesitated to have Peter commit +patricide and fratricide, if those are the right terms for sister and +father murder.</p> + +<p>"How, Peter?" I asked, taking his hand with deep sympathy.</p> + +<p>"Betty, since the first three rehearsals I am not allowed even in the +theater, and Farrington is a brute. I do not know what he is doing to my +play, but I do know that he was at work on a horrible laugh in the first +part of the first act that I did not intend at all. The leading woman +is coarse, with no soul, and the star is a great hulking ass. I am wild +and nobody sympathizes with me. Father has talked to Farrington, and +that is why he wired to you. Oh, I know he wired or you wouldn't have +come up to this inferno at this time of the year. That is one kindness +he did me—it <i>is</i> a comfort to me—oh, Betty." And Peter put his head +down on my arm that was next him and sobbed, as the Byrd does when +anything happens to one of his "little ones."</p> + +<p>I didn't blame Peter at all, for that play was his "little one" and his +first. I just took it out in hating and vilifying Farrington, until I +got Peter much comforted, even interested in hearing about the splendid +price Sam had got for the north-field rye. Then it was time for us to go +to bed, and I suppose it was best that it was too late for Mabel to come +into my room to tell me her version of Peter's troubles. For that one +night I sympathized fully with him. The next morning I was shown another +side of the question. And I felt decidedly different about Mr. +Farrington when he talked to me for a little while, alone before dinner +the next day, and after Judge Vandyne had also had me in solitary +conversation.</p> + +<p>"You see, my dear young lady," said Mr. Farrington, with that twin-star +smile in his eyes I have mentioned, "the very wonderful nature that +grows and flowers such an exquisite young first play as this of our +young friend's, is the undoing of the work and the producer, unless he +is a heartless old brute like the one to whom you are at present +talking."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't think you are that now, not at all. I—I think you are +wonderful, and I trust you with the play even though you haven't told me +anything about what you are doing to it," I exclaimed in great +confidence and enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>"You are a wonderful bit lass yourself, and I trust you with my poet, +even if you haven't told me just what you are going to do with him," he +answered, and looked at me with the real affection, tempered with +amusement, that daddy and Judge Vandyne and Dr. Chubb all use toward me.</p> + +<p>I blushed and was just going to tell him that—well, I don't know just +what I was going to tell him, but I am sure I'd have opened my innermost +heart to him, for that is what he invites, when in came Peter and the +rest, and we all went in to dinner. I didn't see the great dean of the +American stage alone any more, but he whispered to me just as Mabel and +Miss Greenough and I were leaving the room:</p> + +<p>"Keep my poet easy, and you'll see what you see."</p> + +<p>I am glad now when I look back on it that my presence did help Peter +through the ordeal of that two weeks. Also Mabel and I had schemes +together to take his mind off his dying child, which was being operated +on by Farrington to make it a success. The best diversion, however, was +Judge Vandyne's. He asked me to make out a list of ten of Peter's +Hayesboro friends, for whom he would send a private car over one of his +railroads, to bring them up for the first night of the play. That was to +be the 20th of September, and even then the bills were up all over New +York. I could see, from the way Judge Vandyne was taking it all, that he +intended to make the best of having a poet for a son, and to put it +through with his usual energetic force.</p> + +<p>Peter was perfectly delighted at having all his Hayesboro friends come. +He wrote them all letters, and Mabel wrote them notes. After that Peter +got uneasy and made Judge Vandyne write to everybody, and the next day +he insisted that I should write, too.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I wish Sam could come, but I know he can't," I said, with a sudden +hurt place just where I was about to swallow my mushroomed cutlet.</p> + +<p>"Sam not come?" said Peter, growing white about his mouth and throwing +down his napkin.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Peter, Sam didn't want me to say anything about it, but he doesn't +think it is possible for him to get away and—and you know, Peter, Sam +has to buy the sheep he wants to put in the woods; and I told you that +another mule—"</p> + +<p>"I can't, I can't stand it for Samboy not to be here," said Peter as he +pushed his cutlet away from him, upset his glass, and turned over a vase +that in turn knocked down the center vase of roses, besides upsetting +the composure of the butler and one footman. I saw it was going to be a +regular poetic outburst, such as Mammy would have called a tantrum in +Sam or me, and that Mabel was positively scared and Miss Greenough much +pained.</p> + +<p>"Crittenden will be here," said Judge Vandyne in a perfectly calm and +certain voice. "Don't worry, son!"</p> + +<p>I knew he meant that he would lend Sam the money, or I thought I knew +that, and I felt perfectly sure that Sam wouldn't come. Nobody knows +Samuel Foster Crittenden as I do; and the reason he is so congenial with +his mules is that he is so like them in "setness" of disposition. I just +raged at him in my heart, for I knew from the way I felt myself how poor +Peter wanted him; but I controlled myself and went right on talking +about how I knew the others would come and how much they would enjoy it.</p> + +<p>"Julia has never been to New York. Won't she be delicious?" I exclaimed +as we came to her on the list. Peter had put her first.</p> + +<p>"Delicious is the right word," said Peter, and he then launched forth in +a description of Julia that I would hardly have recognized, though I had +been born across the street from her and have loved her devotedly from +our second years. It is such a joy to have two people whom you love +appreciative of each other, and I knew that Julia fully reciprocated +Peter's interested friendship for her. She had wept on my shoulder at +parting from Peter, and had written him long and encouraging letters for +me while I was going up to Nashville to have my clothes made for the +trip to New York and trying to get a little time in my garden out at The +Briers. I have to stop; I never let myself think of that parting with +Sam and The Briers. Some things are too deep for words. Then to continue +about Julia, I wrote her how to have her dresses made, but told her to +get only one little traveling-hat and leave the rest to Mabel and me and +Fifth Avenue. I also advised Edith and Sue to do likewise, but I knew +Miss Editha would have Miss Sally Pride make her a new bonnet on the +frame of the old one, and Peter said she would not be the "wraith of an +old rose" in anything else.</p> + +<p>It was glorious that Tolly and Pink could both come, though Billy +Robertson was not sure. I did so hope that Clyde would get a real chance +to open Edith's kitten eyes for her through some heroic accident of +travel, and I was glad that Colonel Menefee was coming, because he would +engage Miss Editha's attention away from Tolly's attentions to Edith and +give them a chance to come forward out of their backwardness. The +telephone scheme had failed, Tolly told me, because the wire chief had +made a mistake and still left them connected at Central. "Central" is +the little Pride girl, the milliner's youngest niece, and very pretty. +Just as he was ready to begin firmly with Edith she sweetly said:</p> + +<p>"Now your connection is good, Mr. Tolbot."</p> + +<p>When I left home poor Tolly was really becoming embittered against the +world and was absorbing himself in putting up a new telephone line over +to Spring Hill. I told Peter how he ought to appreciate Tolly for +leaving business in that state to come up for the first night of the +play; and Peter said:</p> + +<p>"Dear old chap; we must find the shibboleth that will unleash the hooded +falcon of his soul." Isn't Peter wonderful?</p> + +<p>If all the invited guests in Hayesboro were busy getting ready to do +justice to the first night of "The Emergence," we were in the same +state. Judge Vandyne was planning to give a dinner that night to his +most distinguished lawyer friends in honor of Farrington, and daddy had +promised to try to come. Of course, Peter was going to have a dinner of +his own, to which he was inviting a lot of delightful friends to meet +his Hayesboro friends, and they were having both dinners at the Ritz, so +Peter could go in and make a speech to Judge Vandyne's party. Most of +the friends had not come back from the lakes and the shore and their +country homes, but were running into town for that one evening. It was +all the most delicious excitement, but—oh, a place way down deep in me +behind my excited breathing was so sore about Sam! I couldn't even think +about his not being there, but I went on and danced and had a good time +in sheer desperation. Sam had to plow and hoe and reap and sow for food, +while we ate and drank it and made merry!</p> + +<p>Then the first night came, and everybody was there looking in high +feather, and some of them wearing very low dress. Judge Vandyne had +taken all the boxes in the theater, and they were every one full to +overflowing with loving excitement about Peter. I was in the second box +on the right-hand side of the stage at the front, and Peter sat in the +shadow back of me. Julia and one of Peter's classmates were just behind +us. As the curtain went up Peter took a hard hold on my hand under my +white chiffon scarf, and I heard him mutter under his breath:</p> + +<p>"Oh, Samboy!"</p> + +<p>I am not going to try to describe that play of Peter's. The newspapers +used all the adjectives and things there are in the English language to +express enthusiasm with, and I haven't got any left. I will simply tell +about it.</p> + +<p>When Peter had gone out and buried himself in the shack on the hillside +of The Briers, that looked out over the Harpeth Valley, he had +unconsciously buried that frozen hero in "The Emergence" and had gone to +work and resurrected him in a kind of Samuel Foster Crittenden. Instead +of being a complicated, heroic, erratic genius he was just a big, +simple, strong young man who was doing his part in the corner of the +world's vineyard where he had been sent to work. To help him Peter had +written in a wonderful girl with a great deal of brains for one so +young. Just the sort of woman that men like Sam and the hero deserve to +have. She was so lovely that I caught my breath and—and suffered. But +what made everybody in that theater laugh themselves happy was the +essence of Hayesboro that Peter had distilled and poured into his +characters. Everybody was so mixed up with everybody else that nobody +could feel sensitive or fail to enjoy every character. I couldn't tell +whether I was the girl that practised tango steps all the time, even +when the minister (who had manners like those of Colonel Menefee and the +Mayor of Hayesboro) came to supper, or the girl that always had a plate +of hickory-nut candy in her hand and kept saying sharp things while +giving everybody something sweet to take away the taste. Julia said she +was that girl, but Peter indignantly denied anybody's being anybody, and +then we all kept still. Just then the curtain went down on the second +act, with the whole house in an uproar; and there was a call for Peter +and Farrington.</p> + +<p>Peter went and left me sitting there in the shadow alone, while he +stepped out on the stage all by himself—the stage of his life. And, oh, +I was so glad to be in the shadow all by myself, for I had been as happy +as I could and it was beginning to wear off. I wanted Sam—I wanted him +even if the wonderful woman in the play was going to have him in real +life, too, as I knew would have to happen some day. Also Sam deserved to +be there that night if anybody did, and he was way down in the Harpeth +Valley working, working, working, it seemed to me, that all the rest of +the world might play. I wanted him! I felt as if I couldn't stand it +when Peter stepped forward, looking like the most beautiful Keats the +world had ever known, and the whole house gasped at his beauty and kept +still to hear what a man that looked like that would have to say. I +stifled a sob and looked around to see if I could flee somewhere, when +suddenly my groping hand was taken in two big, warm, horny ones, and +Sam's deep voice said in the same old fish-hook tone:</p> + +<p>"Steady, Bettykin, and watch old Pete take his first hurdle."</p> + +<p>I took one look at a great big glorious Sam in all sorts of fine linen +that was purple in the mist of my eyes, and then I was perfectly quiet, +with no fish-hook at all in my arm or in my life. I heard every word of +Peter's speech, and laughed and almost cried over the one Farrington +made about the young American drama, with his arm across Peter's +shoulder. I forgot all about Sam because he was there, and just reveled +in being happier than I had been since I had adopted Peter and the play, +now that it was successfully out of our systems.</p> + +<p>And it <i>was</i> successfully out. Nobody who heard the thunder after the +last act could have doubted that. The <i>New Times</i> the next day said it +was "The burgeoning of the American poetic drama," and another paper +said, "Bubbles fresh from the fount of American youth." We got the +papers and read them coming home from Peter's supper-party over at the +Astor, which his New York friends gave because they wanted to see more +of his Hayesboro friends. Everybody was there and the success of the +evening came when Pink Herriford told his mule story. Peter made him do +it, and everybody adored it. And just as they were all laughing and +exclaiming at the droll way in which he characterized those resurgent +mules, I looked down the table and happened to see that Clyde Tolbot was +holding Editha Morris Carruthers's hand in a way that anybody who +understood these matters knew from the position of their shoulders that +such was the case.</p> + +<p>"A taxicab lost us on Broadway at ten dollars per second, and I made +connection with her wires before found," he whispered to me, as we all +rose to go, just as the night was also taking its departure from New +York. New York in the daytime is like a huge football game in which a +million or two players all fall on the ball of life at the same time and +kick and squirm and fight over it; but at night it is a dragon with +billions of flaming eyes that only blink out when it is time to crawl +away from the rising sun and get in a hole until the dark comes again. +It is the most wonderful city in the world to stay in until you are +ready to go home.</p> + +<p>Sam hadn't been at Peter's supper-party, and neither had Judge Vandyne, +but I didn't worry about that. I never worry about Sam. I just like to +know he is somewhere near and then forget him—if I am allowed, which I +am not if Sam can think up some important work for me to do. At six +o'clock in the morning I laid down the papers with Peter's triumph in +them and rolled into bed, dead with sleep; and before seven Sam had sent +me a note that forced me to open my eyes and stagger up and on. It said:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">DEAR BETTY,—Get a maid at the hotel to come with you to the</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">following address. I need you badly. A reliable taxi is waiting.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 32.5em;">SAM.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Horrible thoughts of somebody's having kidnapped Sam flashed across my +brain as I threw on my clothes. How had he happened to come to New York, +anyway, and then disappear right after the play? What kind of trouble +could he be in, and how could I help? I looked in my purse and found +only ten dollars, but I felt the roll that I always carry in my stocking +and it still felt a respectable size. I never count money when I am +spending it, because you don't enjoy it so much; and I had been away +from home three weeks. Still, if I had to bribe or buy Sam out of +anything, I could get more some place. I must hurry to do as he told me, +and then he would direct me how to rescue him.</p> + +<p>In less time than it would take most girls, as soggy with sleep as I +was, to get dressed and down to a taxi, I was on my way to Sam. I forgot +to get the maid to go with me; and, anyway, what was the use, with a +nice young white man like that taxi-car driver? He said, looking at me +so pleasantly that I was sure he didn't really mean anything, "It's +early, isn't it, miss?"</p> + +<p>I was so hustled and so dazed, and had such trouble in making the little +new kind of hook-buttons on my gloves stay fastened, that before I knew +it we drew up at a queer kind of old warehouse down in a part of New +York where I had never been, with a line of the ocean or the bay or the +river or the harbor, I couldn't tell which, just beyond. Then I was +scared, for instead of Sam being in danger, I felt that maybe I was +being kidnapped. I hesitated at the curbing as I got out of the taxi.</p> + +<p>"Through that warehouse and to your left you'll find the gentleman. Good +morning, miss," said the nice taxi-man as he touched his cap and drove +off and left me to my fate. If I had had only my own fate to consider I +would have taken to my good strong legs and fled, but Sam was also +concerned. At the thought of his needing me my courage came back, and I +went on into the long shed where queer dirty boxes and bales and barrels +and things were piled. At last I came to a turn and stepped into a low +room that was almost at the water's edge. It was still very early +morning, and a mist from the sea made things dim, but in a crowd of +queer people and bundles and voices I saw Sam standing and looking +perfectly helpless, while that Commissioner of Agriculture stood over by +the window, evidently perfectly furious and growling out expletives to +the saddest crowd of pitiful people I had ever seen.</p> + +<p>Sam was in his dress-suit with his overcoat off and his hair in a mop; +and in a faltering jumble of several languages he was trying to tell +something to a gaunt, fierce woman in a wide ragged skirt, a shapeless, +torn man's coat, with a faded woolen scarf over her head. In her arms +she had a baby, and a woman with a baby in her arms knelt beside her; +while a dozen other women with children, ragged, pale, frightened little +children in their arms, and at their skirts, hung in a sullen group +back of her. A crowd of dejected, hungry, gaunt men stood to one side, +and one very old man had his old woolen cap off his white head, which I +could see was bowed in prayer. In a moment I knew from their Flemish +patois, which I had heard so often out in the fields of beautiful +Belgium during that happy month just before the war, that they were +refugees, and my heart went out in a rush to them as I went in a rush to +Sam and grasped his arm.</p> + +<p>"Oh, what is it, Sam, and what do they want?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"They are emigrants from Belgium. The Commissioner has had me appointed +to settle them in the Harpeth Valley on lands near my own, for which he +has options. I came on in response to his telegram to meet them +to-morrow, but they were landed here on the dock at one o'clock in the +night, because of a fire on the steamer. I came right down from the +theater, but they are frightened and the women have lost all confidence +in everything. They don't seem to want to go with me to the car that we +have ready to take them to Tennessee. I can't understand them, nor they +me, and I sent for you. You're a woman, Betty. See what you can do to +comfort and hearten them and make them ready to go with me when the +train leaves in less than two hours."</p> + +<p>Oh, I know I am young and have been sheltered, and don't know what it is +to be shot at and killed, and have my children torn from my arms and to +be hungry and cold. But women do understand other suffering women, and +when I stretched out my hands to the fierce woman with her starving +child at her breast, I knew what to falter out in a mixture of her own +patois and mine.</p> + +<p>"<i>Il est bon</i>—a good, good man. <i>Alle avec</i>—go with him," I pleaded.</p> + +<p>"But it is a fine gentleman! No, we come to a master, to work that we do +not starve. A landowner," she said, and regarded Sam in his purple and +fine broadcloth with fierce and desperate distrust that the other women +also expressed with hissing breaths which brought surly growls of +suspicious acquiescence from the men.</p> + +<p>"But look, look!" I exclaimed. I turned to Sam and drew one of his big, +farm-worn hands forward and held it in mine out to the fierce woman, +behind whom the others cowered. There was the broad thumb, off of which +the barrel of peas had smashed the nail. There were the deep +plow-callouses in the palms, and the plow-ropes' hard gall around the +left wrist. The fierce woman's somber eyes lighted; for the first time +she looked up past Sam's velvety white shirt-front with its pearl studs, +up into the calm eyes that were smoldering their gridiron look down at +her and the whimpering women and children.</p> + +<p>"And here look <i>encore</i>!" I exclaimed, as I drew from my breast the +large silver "peasants' locket" I had bought in Belgium, perhaps in her +own village, and which I always wear with my street clothes, and had put +on even in the hurry of my summons. I snapped it open and let her see +what it contained. Sam saw, also! It was a picture of Sam milking old +Buttercup in the shed. Just as he turned to call me to bring an extra +bucket to feed the calf, I had snapped it. I don't know just why I had +put it in the locket, except that it is safe to have Sam around in time +of trouble.</p> + +<p>"<i>Eh, le bon Dieu</i>—I see, I see!" she exclaimed, looking first at Sam +and then at the locket. Then suddenly she clasped my wrist and looked at +the two big, hard, live callouses in my own palm, that some kind of a +queer prophetic sentiment had warned me not to let a manicure work on. +Also, she saw the pea-thumb that still held a trace of the blister. +Intently she looked for a few seconds, first at me and then at Sam. Then +with a cry of agonized joy she fell at Sam's feet, and I drew down on my +knees beside her, while the other women crowded around, kneeling, too, +as their leader bowed her tear-drenched eyes in Sam's big, warm hands. +One woman thrust a tiny baby into my arms as she kissed my sleeve and +leaned forward to clasp Sam's knees, while the old man who had been +praying all the time spread out his hands in a joyful benediction. The +men's sullen faces lightened, and they bent to take up their pitiful old +bundles and baskets.</p> + +<p>For a long minute there was a sobbing silence while the Commissioner +blew his nose over by the window. I clasped the little starved baby +close and pressed with the other women against Sam's knees, and Sam +stood calm over us all. I know, I <i>know</i> he was praying down away from +the sea, across half the world, into his own everlasting hills, over +Paradise Ridge.</p> + +<p>"Good, Bettykin!" he said as he bent and raised me and the fierce woman +to our feet. The others began to bustle and hustle the children, and +men, brushing tears from faces that had begun to smile uncertainly, as +if they had never smiled before. A big tear fell off Sam's own cheek as +he roughed my hair with his chin under the edge of my perky little hat, +and took the woman's baby from my arms, as well as her bag and bundle, +to carry them to the car. He led the way, and we all trailed after him.</p> + +<p>It was a strenuous hour that we spent getting them all settled in the +emigrant-car the Commissioner and Judge Vandyne had ready to take them +right on from the ship to Tennessee. In the midst of packing away boxes +and bundles and seating and quieting babies and women, Sam told me in +snatches the reason of it all. One of the great Belgian landowners had +written to Judge Vandyne, who was his friend, to find some suitable +place to colonize twenty of his peasant families in America. The letter +had come at about the time my copy of the government's report on Sam's +farming had reached him. He hadn't said anything to Sam about it, but +had got hold of the Commissioner and secured options on four hundred +acres back of Sam's farm in the wilderness of the Harpeth Valley. He had +fixed it all up before he offered Sam the commission of settling and +farming these people on shares for ten years. It was a little fortune +poured into Sam's hands, but he didn't seem to think about that at all. +His mind was entirely occupied by the hungry, big-eyed babies and their +sadly smiling, clinging mothers. He had a whole bunch of ripe bananas, +with other fruit and food in proportion, packed in the train for the +long trip to Tennessee.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you write me all about it, Sam?" I asked as I patted a +sleeping infant over my shoulder while the mother jolted a big-eyed twin +of the same variety. Sam was undoing a strap from a large bundle for the +fierce woman, whose eyes now followed him like those of a great, +faithful dog—or my eyes.</p> + +<p>"It was all settled less than a week ago, Bettykin, and I—I wanted to +surprise you and Pete at 'The Emergence' first night. This ship wasn't +due until to-morrow, and I was to have had a frolic. I asked the judge +not to tell you. I wanted to break it to you myself. And I did with a +brickbat, didn't I—at daylight to boot?"</p> + +<p>"Where are you going to—to house them all, Sam?" I asked, anxiously, +thinking of the little house with the Byrd and Mammy and all the baskets +and seed and things, especially the one iron pot that only held chicken +enough for them and—</p> + +<p>"Got a tent village out of the colonel's Menefee Rifles' tents over by +the spring. It will be fine for them until I can divide out the land and +set each man to log-rolling his shack. Dad Hayes is finishing the camp +for me, and Chubb is helping to make things all shipshape, also buying +a fine mule for each family. Oh, they'll have a great welcome, or would +have if only you were there." Sam didn't look at me, but smiled gently +at the fierce woman's thanks and turned to another strap and another +bundle. Again I went dead inside, and I turned away and hid my tears in +the back of the neck of the tiny Belgian in my arms.</p> + +<p>"Just about five minutes before we put you off, Miss Hayes," said the +Commissioner as he came bustling up to me, smiling with the same energy +he had used in swearing so short a time ago.</p> + +<p>Surreptitiously wiping my eyes and swallowing the sobs in my throat, I +held out the baby to its mother and began to say a halting "adieu" to +all of them.</p> + +<p>Then an uproar arose. They had thought I was going with them, and they +clung and wept and kissed my hand and begged in broken words for me not +to leave them, though in their conduct there was not a trace of a lack +of confidence in Sam. Of course, nobody that knew Samuel Foster +Crittenden a whole hour, even in his dress clothes in the daytime, could +fail to have confidence in him for life. But those women wanted me, too, +and they wanted me badly. I had to be torn from their arms and flung off +the train. Sam did the tearing and the flinging, and he did it tenderly. +Just before the final shove, as I clung to his arm and sobbed, the big +hand went to my hair, and he said under his breath against my ear:</p> + +<p>"God bless and keep you, darling—and Pete!" Then he swung up on the +last step of the train and left me—shoved off into a hard, cold world +full of luncheons and sight-seeing and dinner-parties and plays and +dances and suppers and lights and music and flowers and like miseries. +At the agony of the thought I staggered into the huge waiting-room at +the station and sank on one of the benches and closed my eyes to keep +the tears from dripping.</p> + +<p>At first I just sat dumb and suffering—reviewing all the wonderful and +exciting and magnificent things I had been planning to do for and with +Peter and all the rest of my dear friends who were then in New York +having the times of their aristocratically rustic lives. I reminded +myself of the shopping excursion Mabel and I were going to make with +Edith and Julia on that very day. The responsibility of Julia's hats was +certainly mine, for I had told her to wait to get them in New York, and +she would surely need them immediately in the round of gaieties that had +been planned for them all. Then, who could help being delighted at the +thought of seeing Miss Editha and the colonel introduced to one of the +follies at the Whiter Garden? I knew that I would be needed greatly +then, and had rather dreaded it; though from Miss Editha's pink cheeks +at the supper-party the night before, as she sipped her champagne I had +rather hoped that she was making up her mind to a time of it. And then +the joy of watching united Tolly and Edith! And Peter, how he would need +me to help him to be responsible for all the wonderful things that were +going to happen to him right along, now that he was the success of the +hour. Even the papers had begun to speculate that first morning on his +"next play."</p> + +<p>"I'm weaving the laurel wreath rapidly now to bind your tresses, am I +not, dear, dearest Betty?" he had whispered, as he told me good night at +the hotel only a few short hours ago. Yes, I was needed in life, even if +not down in a brier-patch in the Harpeth Valley, Tennessee, and I must +bear my honors and responsibilities with as beautiful a spirit as Sam +bore his burden of Belgians. I would have all I could do out in the +world, and he would have his life full in the wilderness; but we would +be a thousand miles apart.</p> + +<p>And just here a very strange thing happened. From the weak, cowering, +sobbing girl on the bench arose a very determined, red-cheeked, +executive young woman who walked over to the nearest ticket-office and +demanded of the brisk young clerk what time the different trains left +for Tennessee. She found that by going at ten o'clock direct through +Cincinnati she could reach Hayesboro two hours ahead of that Belgian +emigrant-train that was to go around through Atlanta. Then she went into +the dressing-room and got her wad of money out of her stocking, bought a +ticket and a Pullman berth, six magazines, some oranges, and a little +traveling powder-puff for the end of her red nose, and seated herself in +the train before she woke up and found she was I.</p> + +<p>Then I took a hand and sent Peter a telegram from Philadelphia, though +to this day I can't remember what it said; and I settled down to the day +and night and part of another day's journey with peace in my heart and +the courage to take whatever was coming to me from Sam.</p> + +<p>When you are doing a thing you know is wholly wrong it is best to make +up your mind beforehand just what kind of a right action you are going +to claim it to be. It only took me until Pittsburg to have my course +with Sam mapped out. I was just going to ask him fairly what right he +had to go to farming with a lot of strange and untried Belgians and +refuse to take me in, when I had proved myself a good and faithful +comrade and worker for him ever since I could stand on my feet.</p> + +<p>"I just want him to answer me that," I said to myself, and went to bed +in the berth at six-thirty and didn't wake up any more until I was at +Louisville at eleven. I had been in New York two weeks, and I needed +sleep. The interval between that time and three o'clock, which was the +hour that I stood before mother and her latest rose-crocheted mat, I +spent in strengthening and fortifying my position.</p> + +<p>"Why, Betty!" said mother, keeping the place open in the magazine she +was crocheting from, but kissing me so tenderly that I knew she +suspected something had happened to me.</p> + +<p>"I came home because I had to, and I'll tell you about it just as soon +as I come back from out at Sam's, where I have to go as fast as I can on +business," I said, as I hurried out to Eph for Redwheels and up to my +room for my corduroys and middy blouse. I knew Sam would get his new +family off at the station at the cross-roads. I wanted to be at The +Briers all established and at work when he got there. I have heard lots +of times that possession is nine points of the law, and I was determined +to possess all nine.</p> + +<p>In less time than it takes to tell it Redwheels and I were spinning away +out Providence Road. I had gone out on that road in early April in +search of Sam, when I thought nothing could equal the young loveliness +of the valley; I had driven Peter out when it was in its May flowering, +and back and forth I had gone through all its midsummering, but it had +never looked to me as it did when I came down into it from a far +country, in the ripeness of its mid-September. All the leaves were still +on the trees and many of them still rich green, but there was frost in +the air, and along the edges of the early sweet-gum and sugar-maple +branches there were crimson and bronze trimmings. Most of the gorgeous, +molten-gold grain was in stacks in the fields, and everywhere for miles +and miles were stretched the wigwams of the shocked corn, seeming to +offer homes for as many homeless as could come and ask shelter. +Goldenrod stood up stiff and glorious in all the fence corners, while +gnarled vines, fairly dragged down with wild grapes, festooned +themselves from tree to tree, some of which were already heavily loaded +with their own big, round, blackening walnuts.</p> + +<p>Along the road there was a procession of foodstuffs going to town in +heavy old farm wagons with their overalled drivers. Wheat in bales and +wheat in sacks was piled on wagon after wagon, and I counted eleven +teams hauling in loads of shucked ears of corn that looked almost two +feet long. Oh, I was glad to think that those people who had fled from a +famine-stricken land would meet that procession as soon as they got off +the train, and my eyes misted so, as I thought of the joy that must well +up in their hearts, that I came very near running over an old pig mother +who was waddling across the road in the lead of nine of the fattest +little black-and-white sucklings I have ever seen, each one with his +tail curled at exactly the same angle. Giving her a wide run I swung off +into Brier Lane. The old cardinal that had been so cross to me all +summer, when poor Redwheels's puff had disturbed his family, was +trillingly glad to see me, and flew almost across my shoulder as he +darted and whirled his welcome. And what should I meet in the middle of +the lane, evidently off playing hooky where she should not have been, +but Mrs. Buttercup and my young spotted namesake! I immediately climbed +out of the car and greeted them both so affectionately that, with my +arms around Mrs. Buttercup's neck, I persuaded her to go back the way +she had come, while I drove along behind her at a suitable snail's pace. +I had to stop every once in a while, when she turned around, to assure +her that I knew it was best for her to go home with her full udder, as +Sam would soon be there to be welcomed and with company to be fed.</p> + +<p>After I had turned her into the south meadow gate, opposite the +cedar-pole entrance to The Briers, I went up the hill at a lightning +pace because the nearer I got to the fledgling and my garden the more +anxious I was for a reunion with them both. I met the garden first, as I +rounded up in front of the old hovering, red-roofed house that looked +more like home to me than any building I had ever seen in my short and +eventful life.</p> + +<p>There is no love in the world that reciprocates like that of a garden. +If you work and love and plan for it, promptly it turns around and over +and gives back a hundredfold more than you put into it. All summer long +we had been digging out of, picking from, and cutting off of that little +plot of ground, and there it was reaching out with more to return to me. +Long rows of white and purple cosmos danced and fluttered round-eyed +blossoms in welcome, while some bronze xenias fairly bobbed over and +kissed my rough garden boots. Miss Editha's cock's-combs strutted in a +gorgeous row down the east walk, and what could have been a greater +surprise than that handed me by a row of jolly round squash, though I +had been sure we had picked the last languishing fluted fruit from the +vine the last week of August? But there lay long green vines completely +resuscitated by the September rains; and nestled among their draperies +of huge leaves were squash and squash, also big yellow blossoms and +small green-yellow buds, I was so perfectly delighted at the recovery of +my friends that I reached down and patted one of their head branches +with its green tendril curls. There were a lot of gorgeous nasturtiums +under the window of the living-room; but, of course, nobody expects more +of nasturtiums than for them to be faithful unto death by frost. +However, I did pick off a red one and proceed to chew it up with the +deepest appreciation of its peppery flavor. And as I chewed with +smarting tongue I cast my eyes along a row of beans that was fairly +loaded with snaps, which made my thumb smart in anticipation of their +gathering, until my gaze was suddenly arrested by something that sent me +flying down the walk to the south end of the garden.</p> + +<p>Now, a few weeks after I had hastily planted those hollyhock seeds Sam +and I had sentimentalized over, I had found in Grandmother Nelson's book +that hollyhocks never bloom their first season, but have to root and +grow about twenty-four months before they blossom; and, somehow, that +depressed me because everything in the world seemed slow at that time. +How did I know where I would be after all that time, or that I would +ever see them bloom, though they were making great leafy heads which +both Sam and I strenuously ignored, while every time I went to dig +around their roots somebody had done it before me! There they were, +perfectly huge with their great fluted leaves, and right at the end of +the row an extra-large plant had sent up a tall, green spike on the end +of which a great, pink doll-blossom was shaking out her rosy skirts in +the afternoon sun. I stood for a minute looking at her in utter rapture. +Then I reached out my arms and gathered her in and put a kiss right in +the center of her sweet heart. After that I fled to the barn in search +of the fledgling.</p> + +<p>I found him sheltering in his small jacket five little late chicks that +would insist in running out from under the old hen, who was busily +engaged hatching out their small brothers and sisters. He was afraid +they would get fatally chilled.</p> + +<p>"I needed you bad, Betty, if any more of these little ones was to act +crazy like this," he said as I cautiously embraced him and his downy +babies. "Put these three in your jacket so I can catch the next one that +comes out. Old Dommie is 'most through, and then she can take them all." +His faith in old Dommie, who to my certain knowledge had hatched two +other families since spring, was not misplaced. In less than a half-hour +all egg debris of the family advent had been removed and the babies put +to bed under her breast and subjected to a sharp peck of her controlling +bill.</p> + +<p>By this time the sun had begun to drop down over toward Old Harpeth, and +a lovely purple was stealing all over the place which mingled with a +great veil of blue smoke from over by the spring, where, I felt sure, +Dr. Chubb had lighted twenty new altar fires for the welcome of the +home-comers. I wanted to go and see the camp, but someway I felt that it +was time to go to the gate to meet Sam and his great big children, so +down the Byrd and I went.</p> + +<p>When we got to the gate they were not in sight, and we started up Brier +Lane to meet them. In my heart there was not the least particle of doubt +that they would all be glad to see me, but I never expected it to happen +as it did. Just as we came to the bend in Brier Lane that skirts around +the first hill I heard beautiful voices raised in a weird joy-chant, and +in a moment they all came into view, all walking and singing, with their +things piled high on the wagons that followed them. In the midst of the +tumbling, frolicking children, the chattering, pointing, exclaiming +women, and the eagerly questioning men strode Sam with a small girl +pickaback across his broad shoulders and the old praying-man walking by +his side in deep conversation. I stood still to wait and let them all +see me. The result was glorious. I had never known anything like it +before. The women all laughed and cried in their excitable foreign way, +and the men's faces showed great white teeth in radiant smiles. They +kissed my hands and even the sleeves of my dress, and some of the +children danced around and around in a very ecstasy of welcome, for I +felt sure that to them I was the keeper of mammoth banana-bags. And I +laughed and sniffed and patted and hugged the women in return, and +nodded and called broken Belgian-English greeting to the men—to all but +Sam. Sam stood perfectly still in the middle of the lane in the exact +place that he had been when he caught sight of me coming out of the +sunset toward him. He let the child slip from his shoulders and never +took his eyes off me during the five minutes of the reunion rejoicings. +And I never looked at or spoke to Sam, but walked on back to The Briers +ahead of him, with the women chattering and gesticulating around me.</p> + +<p>When we came to the gate I waited for Sam to come forward to open it. I +wanted him to lead his flock into their promised land and—and I wanted +to follow at his heels with them.</p> + +<p>Around up the hill he led us, down the old road, past the big rock +spring-house with its nine crocks of milk that I could see the women +eagerly point out to one another, and into the little town of tents, at +whose entrance stood daddy and Dr. Chubb, with their sleeves rolled up +and energetic welcome in their eyes.</p> + +<p>Then for an hour there was sorting of bundles and bedding; locating and +housing; assuring and reassuring; nursing babies by camp-fires, and +feeding little mouths out of the huge chicken-dumpling pots that Mammy, +with Dr. Chubb's assistance, had been brewing since morning. A big heap +of coals was shoveled off a perfect mound of corn-pones; and there was +plenty for all and some left over. I think I never saw anything so happy +as the fledgling as he squatted on the ground and fed two toddlers from +a bowl of corn-bread and gravy, strictly turnabout, the odd one to his +own mouth.</p> + +<p>Then, as the twilight came down softly like a beautiful benediction, we +left them all, strangers in a strange land, fed, housed, and comforted.</p> + +<p>We went up to the old white, hovering house, and while Mammy and I +planned and in a measure mixed breakfast for the multitude down the +hill, daddy and Dr. Chubb went with Sam, who had slipped on his +overalls, to look at the new mules tied out behind the barn to long +temporary stable poles. The Byrd I could not get from the company down +by the spring. Later Mammy had to go down and extract him, fast asleep, +from the midst of the largest Belgian family, where he was watched over +tenderly by the fierce-eyed woman and the mother of the twins.</p> + +<p>I had wiped the meal off my hands and taken off Mammy's apron when Sam +came to the door and called me; and I felt very much as I used to when +at school I went in to get my examination marks, as I followed him down +to Peter's shack on the hillside. I wasn't one bit afraid of Samuel +Foster Crittenden, I told myself, while I walked along behind him as he +held the coral-strung buck-bushes out of my path; but my knees did +tremble, and my teeth chattered so that I felt sure he would hear them.</p> + +<p>For a long moment Sam stood in front of the shack and looked out over to +Paradise Ridge. I knew that now was the time for me to marshal up my +defense and demand to be put on the same footing in life with those +peasant women sleeping below us beside the covered camp-fires.</p> + +<p>"What right has any man to say that a woman shall not plow and sow and +reap and dig if she wants to, and especially if it is so much in her +blood that she can't keep away from it?" I was just getting ready to +demand. Then suddenly Sam sobbed, choked, sobbed again, and reached out +his arms to fold me in against the sobs so closely that I could feel +them rising out of his very heart.</p> + +<p>"Betty, Betty," he fairly groaned, with his face pressed close to mine. +A tear wet my cheek, larger and warmer than the ones which were +beginning to drip from my own eyes.</p> + +<p>"I can't help it, Sam," I sobbed. "I will be just as good as any of the +other women; but I want a—a mule and twenty acres here with you. I +don't feel safe anywhere else. I might starve, away from you."</p> + +<p>And then, very quietly, very surely, I found out what it was I had been +hungry for and thirsty for, what it was I had been used to having fed me +ever since I could remember—it was Sam's love. He held me close, then +closer for a long second—and then he pressed his lips on mine until I +knew what it was to feel—fed.</p> + +<p>"My woman," he said, when at last I turned my face away for breath and +to get room to raise my arms around his neck and hold on tight until I +could get used to being certain that he was there.</p> + +<p>"I tried to let you give me away, Sam, but I couldn't," I said, with a +dive into the breast of his overalls, which had that glorious barn and +field—was it cosmic he told me to call it?—smell.</p> + +<p>"When I've loved you a little longer I'm going to shake the life out of +you for this mix-up," said Sam, hollowing his long arms and breast still +deeper to fold me fast.</p> + +<p>"I—I held Peter's hand all during that long play-making, and I can't +stand it any longer," I said, squirming still closer and hiding my +abashed eyes under his chin.</p> + +<p>"Just hold my heart awhile now," Sam answered, as he sank down on the +door-sill of the shack and cradled me close and warm, safe from the +little chill breeze that blew up from the valley.</p> + +<p>I don't know how long we sat there with arms and breasts and cheeks +close, but I do know that some of the time Sam was praying, and I +prayed, too. That is, I thanked God for Sam in behalf of myself and the +helpless people in the camp below us and the rest of the world, even if +they don't know about him yet. Amen.</p> + +<p>Of course, it is easy enough, if you have a little money in your +stocking, to cut any kind of hard knot and go off on a railroad train, +leaving the ravelings behind you. But I believe that sooner or later +people always have to tie up all the strings of all the knots they +ruthlessly cut. Sam made me do it the very next day, after a long talk +out on the front porch under the honeysuckle that was still blowing a +few late flowers.</p> + +<p>First he made me tell mother. She said:</p> + +<p>"Why, of course, Betty dear, I always expected you to marry Sam, and I +am so glad that you are so like my mother and will be a good farmer's +wife. Did I give you that gardening-book of hers that I found? It might +be a help to you both."</p> + +<p>Did she give me that gardening-book which had made all the mischief? I +felt Sam laugh, for I was hanging on to his arm just as I always did +when he took me in to tell mother on myself. I was glad that she +finished the eighth row of the mat and began on the ninth at that exact +moment, so we could go on back to the honeysuckles and the young moon.</p> + +<p>Then Sam made me tell daddy. Daddy said:</p> + +<p>"Now I suppose I will be allowed to purchase a mule and cow or an +electric reaper for that farm when I think it necessary?" And as he +spoke he looked Sam straight in the face, with belligerency making the +corners of his white mustache stand straight up.</p> + +<p>"Make it a big steam-silo, first, Dad Hayes," answered Sam, laughing and +red up to the edges of his hair—and daddy got an arm around us both for +a good hug.</p> + +<p>But the letter to Peter was another thing, and I didn't wait for Sam to +tell me to write it. I smudged and snubbed and scratched over it all day +and flung myself weeping into Sam's arms that night with it in my hand.</p> + +<p>"Why, I wrote to Peter that night—the night I—took you over, Bettykin. +And here's the answer that came an hour ago by wire. Take your hair out +of my eyes and let me read it to you."</p> + +<p>I snuggled two inches lower against Sam, and this is what he read:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">My life for your life, yours for mine, and joy to us both.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 29em;">PETE.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>I got a letter from Peter the next day, and it said such wonderful +things about Sam that I pasted it in Grandmother Nelson's book with the +Commissioner's report. I had to cut out a whole page about Julia's +beauty and the way New York was crazy about her. Peter is the most +wonderful man in the world in some ways, and I believe that, as he +deserves all kinds of happiness, he'll get it; maybe a nice, big, pink +happiness in a blue chiffon and gold dress that will rock his nerves +through a long career of play-writing. I told Sam my hopes.</p> + +<p>He ruffled my hair with his big hand, and my lips with his, as he +smoldered out toward Old Harpeth. In his eyes was the gridiron land look +that started the flow of sap along the twigs of my heart just a few +months ago. Then he said:</p> + +<p>"A man must plow his field of life deep, Betty, but if a woman didn't +trudge 'longside with her hoe and seed-basket, what would the harvest +be?"</p> + +<p>THE END</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Over Paradise Ridge, by Maria Thompson Daviess + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OVER PARADISE RIDGE *** + +***** This file should be named 15243-h.htm or 15243-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/2/4/15243/ + +Produced by David Garcia, Edna Badalian and the PG Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Over Paradise Ridge + A Romance + +Author: Maria Thompson Daviess + +Release Date: March 3, 2005 [EBook #15243] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OVER PARADISE RIDGE *** + + + + +Produced by David Garcia, Edna Badalian and the PG Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. Page images were generously provided by the +Kentuckiana Digital Library. + + + + + + +[Illustration: "I GOT A CALL--A LAND CALL THAT I HAD TO ANSWER."] + +PARADISE RIDGE + +A ROMANCE + + +BY + +MARIA THOMPSON DAVIESS + +AUTHOR OF + +"THE MELTING OF MOLLY" ETC. + + +ILLUSTRATED + + +TO + +BERNICE LANIER DICKINSON + + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAP. + +I. THE BOOK OF FOOD + +II. THE BOOK OF SHELTER + +III. THE BOOK OF LAUGHTER + +IV. THE BOOK OF LOVE + + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + +"I GOT A CALL--A LAND CALL THAT I HAD TO ANSWER" + +THE BYRD WAS ATTIRED IN MINIATURES OF SAM'S OVERALLS + + + + + + +OVER PARADISE RIDGE + + + +I + +THE BOOK OF FOOD + + +Nobody knows what starts the sap along the twigs of a very young, +tender, and green woman's nature. In my case it was Samuel Foster +Crittenden, though how could he have counted on the amount of +Grandmother Nelson that was planted deep in my disposition, ready to +spring up and bear fruit as soon as I was brought in direct acquaintance +with a seed-basket and a garden hoe? Also why should Sam's return to a +primitive state have forced my ancestry up to the point of flowering on +the surface? I do hope Sam will not have to suffer consequences, but I +can't help it if he does. What's born in us is not our fault. + +"Yes, Betty, I know I'm an awful shock to you as a farmer. I ought to +have impressed it on you more thoroughly before you--you saw me in the +act. I'm sorry, dear," Sam comforted me gently and tenderly as I wept +with dismay into the sleeve of his faded blue overalls. + +"I can't understand it," I sniffed as I held on to his sustaining hand +while I balanced with him on the top of an old, moss-covered stone wall +he had begged me to climb to for a view of Harpeth Valley which he +thought might turn my attention from him. "Have you mislaid your +beautiful ambitions anywhere?" + +"I must have planted them along with my corn crop, I reckon," he +answered, quietly, as he steadied his shoulder against an old oak-tree +that grew close to the fence and then steadied my shoulder against his. + +"It is just for a little while, to get evidence about mud and animals +and things like that, isn't it?" I asked, with great and undue +eagerness, while an early blue jay flitted across from tree-top to +tree-top in so happy a spirit that I sympathized with the admiring lady +twit that came from a bush near the wall. "You are going back out into +the world where I left you, aren't you?" + +"No," answered Sam, in an even tone of voice that quieted me completely; +it was the same he had used when he made me stand still the time his +fishhook caught in my arm at about our respective sixth and tenth years. +"No, I'm going to be just a farmer. It's this way, Betty. That valley +you are looking down into has the strength to feed hundreds of thousands +of hungry men, women, and children when they come down to us over +Paradise Ridge from the crowded old world; but men have to make her +give it up and be ready for them. At first I wasn't sure I could, but +now I'm going to put enough heart and brain and muscle into my couple of +hundred acres to dig out my share of food, and that of the other folks a +great strapping thing like I am ought to help to feed. I'll plow your +name deep into the potato-field, dear," he ended, with a laugh, as he +let go my hand, which he had almost dislocated while his eyes smoldered +out over the Harpeth Valley, lying below us like an earthen cup full of +green richness, on whose surface floated a cream of mist. + +"It just breaks my heart to see you away from everything and everybody, +all burned up and scratched up and muddy, and--and--" I was saying as he +lifted me back into the road again beside my shiny new Redwheels that +looked like an enlarged and very gay sedan-chair. + +"Look, look, Betty!" Sam interrupted my distress over his farmer aspect, +which was about to become tearful, and his eyes stopped regarding me +with sad seriousness and lit with affectionate excitement as he peered +into the bushes on the side of the road. "There's my lost heifer calf! +You run your car on up to my house beyond the bend there and I'll drive +her back through the woods to meet you. Get out and head her off if she +tries to pass you." With which command he was gone just as I was about +to begin to do determined battle for his rescue. + +I did not run my car up to his farm-house. I "negotiated a turn" just as +the man I bought it from in New York had taught me to do; only he +hadn't counted on a rail fence on one side, a rock wall just fifty feet +across from it, and two stumps besides. It was almost like a maxixe, but +I finally got headed toward Providence Road, down which, five miles +away, Hayesboro is firmly planted in a beautiful, dreamy, vine-covered +rustication. + +"Oh, I wonder if it could be a devil that is possessing Sam?" I asked +myself, stemming with my tongue a large tear that was taking a +meandering course down my cheek because I was afraid to take either hand +off the steering-gear for fear I would run into a slow, old farm horse, +with a bronzed overalled driver and wagon piled high with all sorts of +uninteresting crates and bales and unspeakable pigs and chickens. As I +skidded past them I told myself I had more than a right to weep over Sam +when I thought of the last time I had seen him before this distressing +interview; the contrast was enough to cause grief. + +It had happened the night after Sam's graduation in June and just the +night before I had sailed with Mabel Vandyne and Miss Greenough for a +wander-year in Europe. Sam was perfectly wonderful to look at with his +team ribbon in the buttonhole of his dress-coat, and I was very proud of +him. We were all having dinner at the Ritz with two of Sam's classmates +and the father of one, Judge Vandyne, who is one of the greatest +corporation lawyers in New York. He had just offered Sam a chance in his +offices, together with his own son. + +"You'll buck right on up through center just as you do on the gridiron, +old man, to the Supreme bench before you are forty. I'm glad the +governor will have you, for I'll never make it. Oh, you Samboy!" said +Peter Vandyne, who was their class poet and who adored Sam from every +angle--from each of which Sam reciprocated. + +And all the rest raised their glasses and said: + +"Oh, Samboy!" + +The waiters even knew who Sam was on account of the last Thanksgiving +game, and beamed on him with the greatest awe and admiration. And I +beamed with the rest, perhaps even more proudly. Still, that twinkle in +Sam's hazel eyes ought to have made me uneasy even then. I had seen it +often enough when Sam had made up his mind to things he was not talking +about. + +"The ladies and all of us," answered Sam to Peter's toast, as he raised +his glass and set it down still full, then grinned at me as he said, so +low that the others couldn't hear, "Will you meet me in Hayesboro after +a year and a day, Betty?" + +I don't see why I didn't understand and begin to defend Sam from himself +right then instead of going carelessly and light-heartedly to Europe and +letting him manage his own affairs. I didn't even write to him, except +when I saw anything that interested or moved me, and then I just +scribbled "remind me to tell you about this" on a post-card and sent it +to him. You can seal some friends up in your heart and forget about +them, and when you take them out they are perfectly fresh and good, but +they may have changed flavor. That is what Sam did, and I am not +surprised that the rural flavor of what he offered me out there in dirt +lane shocked me slightly. I didn't think then that I liked it and I also +felt that I wished I had stayed by Sam at that wobbling period of his +career; but, on the other hand, it was plainly my duty to go to Europe +with Mabel and Peter Vandyne and Miss Greenough. The inclination to do +two things at once is a sword that slices you in two, as the man in the +Bible wanted to do to the baby to make enough of him for the two +mothers; and that is the way I felt about Peter and Sam as I whirled +along the road. I am afraid Sam is going to be the hardest to manage. He +is harder than Peter by nature. If Sam had just taken to drink instead +of farming I would have known better what to do. I reformed Peter in one +night in Naples when he took too much of that queer Italian wine merely +because it was his birthday. I used tears, and he said it should never +happen again. I don't believe it has, or he wouldn't have got an act and +a half of his "Epic of American Life" finished as he told me he had done +when I dined with him in New York the night I landed. I missed Peter +dreadfully when he left us in London in June, and so did Miss Greenough +and Mabel, though she is his sister. We all felt that if he had been +with us it wouldn't have taken us all these months of that dreadful war +to get comfortably home. Peter said at the dock that he hadn't drawn a +full breath since war had been declared until he got my feet off the +gang-plank on to American soil. He needn't have worried quite as much +as that, for we had a lovely, exciting time visiting at the Gregorys' up +in Scotland while waiting for state-rooms. And it was while hearing all +those Scotchmen and Englishmen talk about statesmanship and +jurisprudence and international law that I realized how America would +need great brains later on, more and more, as she would have to +arbitrate, maybe, for the whole world. + +I smiled inwardly as I listened, for didn't I know that in just a few +years the nation would have Samuel Foster Crittenden to rely on? Sam is +a statesman by inheritance, for he has all sorts of remarkable Tennessee +ancestry back of him from Colonial times down to his father's father, +who was one of the great generals of our own Civil War. And as I +listened to those splendid men talk about military matters, just as +Judge Crittenden had talked to Sam and me about his father, the general, +ever since we were big enough to sit up and hear about it, and discuss +what American brains and character could be depended upon to do, I +glowed with pride and confidence in Sam. I'm glad I didn't know then +about the collapsed structure of my hopes for him that Sam was even then +secretly unsettling. At the thought my hand trembled on the wheel and I +turned my car hastily away from two chickens and a dog in the road and +my mind from the anxiety of Sam to further pleasant thoughts of Peter. + +I don't believe Judge Vandyne's thoughts of Peter are as pleasant as +mine, for Peter doesn't go to the office at all any more; he spends his +waking moments at a club where players and play-writers and all men +play a great deal of the time. I forget its name, but it makes the judge +mad to mention it. + +"The dear old governor's mind is gold-bound," said Peter, sadly, after +we came away from luncheon with the judge down in Wall Street. "Why +should I grub filthy money when he has extracted the bulk of it that he +has? I must go forward and he must realize that he should urge me on up. +I ought not to be tied down to unimportant material things. I must not +be. You of all people understand me and my ambitions, Betty." As he said +it he leaned toward me across the tea-table at the Astor, where we had +dropped exhaustedly down to finish the discussion on life which the +judge's practical tirade had evoked. + +"But then, Peter, you know it was a very great thing Judge Vandyne +showed his bank how to do about that international war loan. In England +and Scotland they speak of him with bated breath. It was so brilliant +that it saved awful complications for Belgium." + +"Oh, he's the greatest ever--in all material ways," answered Peter, with +hasty loyalty and some pride, "but I was speaking of those higher +things, Betty, of the spirit. The things over which your soul and mine +seem to draw near to each other. Betty, the second act of 'The +Emergence' is almost finished, and Farrington is going to read it +himself when I have it ready. He told me so at the club just yesterday. +You know he awarded my junior prize for the 'Idyl.' Think of +it--_Farrington_!" And Peter leaned forward and took my hand. + +"Oh, Peter, I am so glad!" I said, with a catch of joy in my breath, but +I drew away my hand. I knew I liked Peter in many wonderful ways, but in +some others I was doubtful. I had only known Peter the three years I've +been away from Hayesboro, being finished in the North, and even if I did +room with his sister at the Manor on the Hudson and travel with her a +year, it is not the same as being born next door to him, as in the case +of Sam, for instance. But then I ought not to compare Peter and Sam. +Peter is of so much finer clay than Sam. Just thinking about clay made +me remember those unspeakable boots of Sam's I had encountered out on +the road, and again I determinedly turned my thoughts back to that +wonderful afternoon with Peter at the Astor a few short days ago. Miss +Greenough kept telling Mabel and me all over Europe to look at +everything as material to build nests of pleasant thoughts for our souls +to rest in, as Ruskin directed in the book she had. I've made one that +will last me for life of Peter, who is the most beautiful man in the +whole wide world; also of the yellow shade on the Astor lamp, the +fountain, and the best chicken sandwich I ever ate. It will be a warmer +place to plump down in than most of the picture-galleries and cathedrals +I had used for nest-construction purposes at Miss Greenough's direction. + +Yes, I drew my hand away from Peter's, but a little thing like that +would never stop a poet; and before the waiter had quite swept us out +with the rest of the tea paraphernalia to make way for that of dinner he +had made me see that I was positively necessary to his career, +especially as both his father and Mabel are so unsympathetic. It is a +great happiness to a woman to feel necessary to a man, though she may +not enjoy it entirely. + +"Oh, I know I can write it all--all that is in my heart if I feel that +it is--is for you, dearest dear Betty," was the last thing that Peter +said as he put me on a train headed for the Harpeth Valley that night. + +I didn't answer--I don't know that I ever did answer Peter anything, but +he never noticed that when he thought of how my loving him would help +out with the play. + +Just here I was musing so deeply on the intricacies of love that I +nearly ran over a nice, motherly old cow that had come to the middle of +the road with perfectly good faith in me when she saw me coming. And as +I rounded her off well to the left again my thoughts skidded back to Sam +and the way he had treated me as less than a heifer calf after _I_ had +not seen him for a year, and _she_ had just seen him that morning at +feeding-time. + +"Head off that saucy young cow, indeed!" I sniffed, as I ran the car +into the side yard between my home and the old Crittenden house. + +"I wonder if he really expected me to be waiting there in that lane for +him?" I questioned myself. And the answer I got from the six-year-old +girl that is buried alive in me was that Sam did expect me to do as he +told me, and that something serious might happen if I didn't. As I +turned Redwheels over to old Eph, who adores it because it is the only +one he ever had his hands on, I felt a queer sinking somewhere in the +heart of that same young self. I always had helped Sam--and suppose that +unspeakable animal had got lost to him for ever just because I hadn't +done as he told me! I reached out my hand for the runabout to start +right back; then I realized it was too late. The night had erected a +lovely spangled purple tent of twilight over Hayesboro, and the +all-evening performances were about to begin. + +Lovely women were lighting lamps and drawing shades or meeting the +masculine population at front gates with babies in their arms or +beau-catcher curls set on their cheeks with deadly intent. Negro cooks +were hustling suppers on their smoking stoves, and one of the doves that +lives up in the vines under the eaves of my home moaned out and was +answered by one from under the vines that grow over the gables at the +Crittendens'. I haven't felt as lonesome as all that since the first +week of Sam's freshman year at college. As I looked across the lilac +hedge, which was just beginning to show a green sap tint along its gray +branches, I seemed to see my poor little blue-ginghamed, pigtailed self +crouched at Judge Crittenden's feet on the front steps, sobbing my +lonely heart away while he smoked his sorrow down with a long brier +pipe, and the Byrd chirped his little three-year-old protest in concert +with us both. Most eighteen-year-old men would have resented having a +motherless little brother and a long-legged girl neighbor eternally at +their heels, but Sam never had; or, if he did, he gently kicked the Byrd +and me out of the way, and we never knew that was what he was doing. We +even loved him for the kicks. Then as the tears misted across my eyes a +woman with a baby in her arms came out and called in two children who +were playing under the old willow-tree over by the side gate--the willow +that had belonged to Sam and me--and my eyes dried themselves with +indignant astonishment. + +"Who are those people over at the Crittendens', mother?" I asked, in a +stern voice, as I walked in and interrupted mother counting the +fifteenth row on a lace mat she was making. + +"Why, the Burtons bought the place from Sam after the judge's death. +Don't you remember I wrote you about it, Betty dear?" she answered, with +the gentle placidity with which she has always met all my tragic +moments. Mother raised seven boys before she produced me, and her +capacity for any sort of responsive excitement gave out long before I +needed it. After her sons a woman seems to consider a daughter just a +tame edition of a child. Mother has calmly crocheted herself through +every soul-storm I have ever had, and she is the most dear and +irresponsible parent an executive girl would wish to have leave her +affairs alone. As for daddy, he has always smiled and beckoned me away +from her into a corner and given me what I was making a stand for. My +father loves me with such confidence that he pays no attention to me +whatever except when he thinks it is about time for him to write my name +on a check. His phosphate deals have made him rich in an +un-Hayesboro-like way, and all the boys are in business for him in +different states, except the oldest one, who is Congressman from this +district, and one other who is in a Chicago bank. Yes, I know I have the +most satisfactorily aloof family in the wide world. I can just go on +feeding on their love and depend upon them not to interfere with any of +my plans for living life. However, if anything happens to me I can be +sure that their love will spring up and growl. + +Now, when I stalked into the room and asked about the Crittenden home, +daddy reared his head from his evening paper and immediately took notice +of whatever it was in my voice that sounded as if something had hurt me. + +"Daddy," I asked him, with a little gulp, "did Sam--Sam sell his +ancestral home even to the third and fourth generation and go to farming +just for sheer wickedness?" + +"No, madam, he did not," he answered, looking at me over his glasses, +and I could see a pain straighten out the corners of his mouth under his +fierce white mustache. "The judge's debts made a mortgage that nicely +blanketed the place, and Sam had only to turn it over to the creditors +and walk out to that little two-hundred-acre brier-patch the judge had +forgot to mortgage." + +"Then Sam can sell it for enough to go out and take his place in the +world," I said, with the greatest relief in my voice. + +"He could, but he won't," answered daddy, looking at me with keen +sympathy. "I tried that out on him. Just because that brier-patch has +never had a deed against it since the grant from Virginia to old Samuel +Foster Crittenden of 1793 he thinks it is his sacred duty to go out and +dig a hole in a hollow log for Byrd and himself and get in it to +sentimentalize and starve." + +"Oh, I think that is a beautiful thought about the land, and I wish I +had known it earlier! But could they be really hungry--hungry, daddy?" I +said, with a sudden vacant feeling just under my own ribs in the region +between my heart and my stomach. + +"Oh no," answered daddy, comfortably. "They both looked fat enough the +last time I saw Sam coming to town in a wagon with Byrd, leading a +remarkably fine Jersey calf. We'll go out in that new flying-machine you +brought home with you and pull them out of their burrow some day when +you get the time. Fine boy, that; and, mother, when is that +two-hundred-pound black beauty in your kitchen going to have supper?" + +I didn't tell daddy I had gone to the ends of the earth to hunt for Sam +in less than thirty-six hours after I had landed in Hayesboro, but I +went up to my room to slip into something clean and springy, walking +behind a thin mist of tears of pure sentiment. That was the third time +in about seven hours I had been crying over Sam Crittenden, and then I +had to eat a supper of fried chicken and waffles that would have been +delicious if it hadn't been flavored by restrained sobs in my throat. I +was so mad at my disloyal thoughts about a beautiful character, which +Sam's reverence for his ancestral land proves his to be, and so afraid +of what I had done to him about the calf, and so hungry to see him, that +by the time the apple-float came on the table I thought it would have to +be fed to me by old Eph. Mother made it worse by remarking, as she put a +lovely dab of thick cream right on top of my saucer: + +"Did you hear, father, that all of Sam's cows had been sick and that he +has lost his two finest calves?" + +I couldn't stand any more. I gulped the cream, remarked huskily on how +warm the April night was, and escaped down the front walk to the old +purple lilac-bush by the gate where up to my seventh year I had always +kept house with and for Sam whenever he would enter into the bonds of an +imaginary marriage with me for an hour or two. Sam made a good father of +a hollyhock doll family whenever he undertook the relation, and provided +liberally for us all in the way of honey, locusts, and grass nuts. + +"And I, maybe, let him lose the last calf he has when he is noble and +poor and alone," I sobbed into my silk sleeve, which was so thin that I +shivered in the cool April moonlight as I leaned against the gate and +looked away out at the dim blue hills that rim the Harpeth Valley, at +the foot of one of which I seemed to see Sam's and Byrd's hollow log. + +"Hello, Bettykin! Out putting our hollyhock family to bed?" laughed a +crisp, comforting, jolly voice right at my elbow as a big, rough hand +ruffled my beautifully smoothed hair and then gave a friendly shake to +my left shoulder. "How do you find all our children after a three-year +foreign sojourn?" + +"I told you five years ago, when I put it up on my head, to stop ruffing +my hair, Sam Crittenden; and did you find that cow?" I answered, with +both defiance and anxiety in my voice. + +"I did," answered Sam, cheerfully, "but how did I lose you in the +shuffle? I tied her up in the shack with a rope and then beat it in all +these five miles, partly by foot and partly by a neighbor's buggy, to +find and--er--rope you in. I am glad to see you are standing quietly at +the bars waiting for me, and as soon as I've greeted your mother and Dad +Hayes and got a little of the apple-float that I bet was the fatted calf +they killed for your prodigal return, I'll foot it the five miles back +in a relieved and contented frame of mind." + +"How did you happen to let your cows get sick, Sam?" I demanded, +sternly, instead of putting my arms around his neck to tell him how +noble I had found out he was, and how glad I was that he had come all +that way to see me, and not to be mad at me because I didn't obey him +out in the lane. + +"I don't know, Betty, I just don't know," answered Sam, as he lit a +corn-cob pipe and leaned closer to me in a thoughtful manner. "Cows are +such feminine things and so contrary. I don't know what I will do if I +lose any more. I--I may get discouraged." + +"Have you had a doctor?" I asked, briskly and unfeelingly, though I did +take his big rough hand in my own and hold on to it with a sympathy that +was not in my voice. + +"No, I've sorter doctored them by a book I have. The only good +veterinary doctor about here lives way over by Spring Hill, and it would +take him a day to drive over and back, besides costing me about ten +dollars. Still, I ought to get him. Buttercup is pretty sick," answered +Sam, and I could see that his broad shoulders under his well-cut blue +serge coat of last season seemed to sag with the weight of his animal +responsibilities. + +"I can take my car over to Spring Hill in less than an hour, get the +doctor, and have you and the doctor out to those animals by ten. This +moon will last all night; and you go get the apple-float from mother +while I make Eph run out the car and jump into my corduroys. Come on, +quick!" And as I talked I opened the gate, drew him in, and started +leading him up the front walk by the sleeve of his coat. + +"Not if I know myself, Betty, will I let you undertake such a red-cross +expedition as that. They'll have to wait. I came in to call on you and +whisper sweet nothings to you in the parlor while you tell me--" + +"Eat the float in a hurry if you want it," I interrupted him, as I +deposited him beside mother, who was still sipping a last cup of coffee +with her jelly-cake, and went for my room and my motor clothes. + +And it was one grand dash that Redwheels and I made out Providence Road +and over Paradise Ridge down to Spring Hill in less than thirty-five +minutes. In the moonlight the road was like a lovely silver ribbon that +we wound up on a spool under the machine, and a Southern spring breeze +seemed to be helping the gasoline to waft us on more rapidly in our +flight as it stung our faces with its coolness, which was scented with +the sap that was just beginning to rise against bark and bud in the +meadows and woods past which we sped. + +"It will be great to die together, won't it, Betty?" said Sam once as +Redwheels ran a few yards on two wheels, then tried the opposite two +before it settled back to the prosaic though comfortable use of four as +we took a flying leap across a little creek ditch. + +"We can't die sentimentally; we've got to get back to those suffering +cows," I answered him, firmly, as I whirled into Spring Hill and stopped +Redwheels, panting and hot, in front of the dry-goods, feed, and drug +store. There I knew we could find out anything we wanted to know about +the whereabouts or profession of any of the fifteen hundred inhabitants +of the little old hamlet which has nestled under the hills for a hundred +years or more. "Ask where the cow physician lives. Quick!" + +And at my urge Sam sprang out and across the old, uneven brick pavement +that lay between us and the store door. Then in less than two minutes he +appeared with a round, red-faced, white-headed old man who wheezed +chuckles as he talked. + +His fear of the car was only equaled by his fascination at the idea of +the long ride in it, which would be the first motor-driven sortie he had +ever made out into life. + +"Air ye sure, little missie, that you can drive the contraption so as +not to run away with us? Old folks is tetchy, like a basket of pullet +eggs," he said, as Sam seated him in the back seat and sprang to my +side. + +"I wish I had a rope to tie him in," he muttered, as he sank into his +seat. "If you run as you did coming, we'll sure lose him. He'll bounce +like a butter-ball." + +"I'm not taking any risks," I answered, and it was with greatest +mildness that we sauntered up Paradise Ridge and started down the other +side. And as I drove along carefully my mind began to work out into the +byways of the situation. I don't see how my athletic and executive +generation is going to do its appointed work in its day if we are going +to go on using the same set of social conventions that tied up our +mothers. As we neared the cross-road that turned off to Sam's +brier-patch I began to wonder how long it would take me to rush back +into Hayesboro, bundle mother into Redwheels, and get back to the cows. +It was just a quarter after nine o'clock, but I knew she would be sleepy +and would have to be forced to come with me very gently and slowly. +Still, I didn't see how I could go on out into the woods with only Sam +and the Butterball which was wheezing out cow conversation to Sam that I +was intensely interested in and ought to have been listening to rather +than wasting force on foolish proprieties. I was about to turn and take +Sam's advice on the matter when he suddenly laid his fingers on my arm +and said: + +"Stop a minute, Betty. What's that roosting on that stone wall?" And as +he spoke he peered out toward a strange, huge bird sitting by the side +of the road. + +I stopped just about opposite the object and Sam sprang out. + +"You, Byrd Crittenden, where did you come from?" I heard Sam demand of +the huddled bundle as he lifted it off the wall. It was attired in +scanty night-drawers and a short coat, and shivered as it stood, first +on one foot and then on the other. + +"I ain't a-going to stay in no country with a hoot-owl, Sam. I'm going +to somewhere that a lady lives at, too." And the manful little voice +broke as the bunch shivered up against Sam's legs. + +"Honest, Byrd, I thought you were asleep and wouldn't wake up till +morning. You never did before; but when I go--go gallivanting, have I +got to take you or not go?" And Sam's voice was bravely jocular. + +"Bring him here to me, Sam," I cried out, quickly. "Come in here with +Betty, Byrd." And I cuddled his long, thin, little legs down under my +lap-blanket beyond the steering-gear. "You didn't forget Betty while she +was away, did you?" I asked, as we snuggled to each other and I started +the motor, while Dr. Chubb chuckled and Sam still stood in the middle of +the moonlit road as if uncertain what to do next. + +"Yes, I forgot you," answered Byrd, candidly, though I had adored him +since his birth; "but I like to go see Mother Hayes and eat jelly-cake. +Can I go home with you?" + +"No. I'm going as fast as I can with you to your home to keep you from +freezing to death," I answered, quickly adopting this recovered old +friend in the double capacity of an excuse and a chaperon. "Just sit +here in the seat by me and watch me get us all back to your house in a +hurry. You sit with the doctor, Sam." + +"Oh no, Betty," answered Sam, quickly. "It is only a little over a mile +now, and the doctor and Byrd and I can walk it all right. You come out +in the morning and--" + +"I'm going on with the doctor to those cows, Sam, and if you want to go +with us, get in quick," I answered, in a tone of voice I have used on +Sam once or twice in our lives with great effect. He hopped in and I +started at top speed. + +"Hic-chew! Fine goer that," wheezed the doctor, and I didn't know +whether he alluded to me or Redwheels. But there was evident relish of +real pace in his voice, so I speeded up and shot away from the main road +into the hard dirt lane in good style. + +"I'm a bird--I'm a bird!" shouted the picked fledgling at my side as we +whizzed under dark cedar boughs that waved funereal plumes over our +heads, and over stumps and stones with utter disregard of the heavy new +tires. One of the lessons I learned early is that men are timid of a +woman's driving them in any vehicle, and I was surprised that I at last +rounded the bend and drew up beside a long, low shed which Sam had +calmly pointed out to me, without having had a single remonstrance from +the back seat. + +"Moo," came in a gentle, sad voice from the depths of the shed as we all +began to disembark at the same time. + +"Well, one is alive, anyway," said Sam as he set Byrd on the ground and +held up his arms to me. "It's good to have you back, Betty," he +whispered, in an undertone, as he turned me against his shoulder to set +me down. "It 'll all go right now that you are here to--" + +"Now tell us what to do, Doctor." I interrupted him determinedly, +because I felt that it was not the occasion for friendly +sentimentalities. + +If at any time in the three years that preceded that night I had +foreseen the way I was to spend it I would have been justified in flatly +refusing to carry out my horoscope. Suppose, for instance, while I was +in the midst of the wonderful dinner Peter Vandyne's cousin, Count Henri +de Berssan, gave me in Brussels, a week before the storm broke that +carried him before cannon and bayonet, I had seen a mental picture of +myself six months from that minute, out in the woods on the side of a +Harpeth hill under an old cedar-pole shed with my jacket off, my +embroidered blouse sleeves rolled to the shoulder, filling a tin can, +which had a long spout to be poked down a cow's throat, with a vile, +greasy mixture out of a black bottle, at the directions of a +shirt-sleeved little man and a red-headed farmer in blue overalls, while +a wisp of a boy writhed in and out and around and under a pathetic old +Jersey cow, who was being rescued from the jaws of death. Now I wonder +just what I would have done to escape such an experience? Slated myself +for Belgian widowhood, perhaps, as a kinder fate, or stayed right there +in New York to help Peter on "The Emergence." I wonder if Peter ever saw +a dear, big-eyed, trustful old Jersey cow have medicine poured down her +throat. It is called "drenching." I wish he could see it before he +finishes that play. The sight produces a peculiar kind of emotion that +might be worth recording in an all-comprehensive drama of American life. +In fact, I know that what I felt at the end was worth recording in any +kind of literature, by any kind of a poet--if we were equal to it. Old +Dr. Chubb leaned breathlessly against a rough post, I staggered down on +an upturned bucket, and Sam reached out his long, blue-overalled arms +and embraced Buttercup's neck and buried his head on her patient +shoulder, just as a faint streak of April dawn showed behind the +oak-trees, for we realized then that the dreadful cramp was gone and +that she could chew the wisp of hay offered by Byrd. + +"Hic-chew! All out of the woods," wheezed Dr. Chubb, as he looked at old +Buttercup and the two other young cows we had been working over all +night, with as fine an exaltation of achievement as any I ever saw, not +excepting that of an American man of letters I witnessed take his degree +at Oxford. + +But Sam's head was still bowed on old Buttercup's back and I went and +stood beside him. + +"Will I ever learn how to take care the right way of--of life?" he said +under his breath, as he stood up straight and tall with the early light +streaming over his great mop of sun-bronzed hair and the bare breast +from which his open shirt fell away. + +"I'll help you," I said, as I came still nearer and leaned against +Buttercup's warm, yellow side so closely that she looked around from her +meal from the Byrd's hand and mooed with grateful affection plus +surprise to find us still standing by her so determinedly. "That is, +if--if--I can learn myself." + +"You haven't found out you are a woman yet, have you, Betty?" answered +Sam, with a laugh that embarrassed me. I would have considered it +ungrateful if it hadn't sounded so comfortable and warm out in the cold +of the dawn--which had come before I realized that midnight had passed, +about which time I had intended to go home. But how could a person feel +guilty while playing Good Samaritan to a cow? I didn't. + +Then, as the streak of new day widened into a soft pink flush over the +tops of the bare trees that etched their fine twigs into an archaic +pattern against a purple sky lit by the gorgeous flame of the morning +star retreating before the coming sun, we all collected buckets and rags +and bottles and sponges. In Indian file we were led by Sam around the +hill, up a steep path that was bordered by coral-strung buck-bushes and +rasping blackberry brush, and to his little farm-house perched on a +plateau almost up to the top of the hill. It was long and low, with a +wide red roof that seemed to hover in the whitewashed walls and green +shutters; while white smoke from an old gray-rock, mud-daubed chimney +melted away among the tree-tops into the lavender of the coming day. It +looked like a great brooding white hen setting in a nest of radiant +woods, and I felt like a little cold chicken as Sam led the way through +the low, wide door for me to creep under the sheltering wings. In about +two seconds we were all sheltered in complete comfort. At a huge fire +that was a great glow of oak coals old Mammy Kitty, who had +superintended Sam's birth and childhood, as well as "neighbored" mine, +was gently stirring a mixture that smelled like the kind of breakfast +nectar they must have in heaven, while she also balanced a steaming +coffee-pot on a pair of crossed green sticks at one corner of the +chimney. In the ashes I could see little mounds which I afterward found +to be flaky, nutty com-pones, and I flew to kneel at her side with my +head on her gaudy neckerchief. + +"Dah, dah, dah, child," she crooned, as she smiled a queer, loving, old +smile that showed me how glad she was to see me, but never another word +did she utter. I almost never remember hearing Mammy say an articulate +word; but all children and those grown up who have any child left in +their hearts can understand her croon. It is cradle music--to the +initiated. + +"Mammy's rheumatism is mighty bad, but she can still shake up corn ash +cake and chicken hash with the best," said Sam, coming over to warm his +hands and tower above us, while Byrd volunteered to lead Dr. Chubb out +to what he called the wash-up bench on the back porch. + +I looked up at Sam as he stood above me in a mingling of fire-glow and +the early morning light with his low-beamed, deep-toned humble home as a +background, and he--he loomed. + +"I--I love this place," I positively gasped, as I moved still closer to +Mammy and stirred the spoon in the pot of hash. + +"Shelter, fire, a chicken in the pot, and a woman crouched on the hearth +stirring it--what more could any man want or get, no matter how he +worked?" answered Sam, as he looked down at me with the smolder in his +blue-flecked hazel eyes to which Peter had once written a poem called +"On the Gridiron." + +"Yes, but what would you do if you didn't have Mammy?" I ventured back, +as I bent across Mammy's knee and began to stir more vigorously while +she shook up her coffee-pot and raked a few last coals over the cakes +for their complete browning. "You always were a good provider, Sam," I +added, under the excitement of the bubbling over of the coffee. + +"Yes, locusts for hollyhock children and the wife of a summer day who--" + +"Whew-shk! but my stomick have got a breakfas' notice," interrupted Dr. +Chubb. He and the Byrd had come into the room as hungry as ravening +wolves. + +While Mammy stirred and shoveled off ashes I fed all three men to the +point of utter repletion, feeding myself from Sam's plate as I brought +the food back and forth. He didn't want me to wait on them, and I +suppose that is the reason I insisted on it, and partly ate his +breakfast while doing it, just as an act of defiance. + +"You taught me to eat out of your hand, even when it was unspeakably +dirty, and you had only saved me about two good bites and the core," I +answered one of his remonstrances. + +"But think of the pain it was to save even a third of a tea-cake in +your pocket when your stomach was so near it," he answered as he +finished the bottom half of a pone I had spread thick with the juicy +hash before I had greedily eaten the upper crust. + +"I'd rather eat my breakfast out of my own plate and let ladies eat +they's. Sam has to tie up cows that eat out of other's stalls, and the +old white rooster has to be put in a coop 'cause he gobbles the hen +feed; but 'cause you are company he lets you do it," the Byrd remarked, +all in one breath between two pieces of his pone. At which Dr. Chubb +wheezed and chuckled delightedly and Sam roared. + +"Women critters ain't ever so free with vittels as men; they have to +kinder toll 'em along to nibble feed, and life, too," remarked the +doctor of distressed animals as we all rose from the table just as the +sun burst in on the situation from over Paradise Ridge. + +And while he and the Byrd went to again look at the invalids, and Mammy +Kitty removed the dishes into a little cupboard that served as butler's +pantry and storeroom, Sam showed me the rest of his house--which +consisted of his own room, that "leaned-to" the long living-room +opposite that of Mammy Kitty, and a back porch. That little room made me +feel queer and choky. It was neat and poor; and a narrow, old mahogany +bed, that had always been in the Crittenden nursery, was pushed back +under the low side. It had a shelf or two with a curtain of dark chintz +under which farm clothes hung, a gun in the corner, a jolly little wood +stove, and close beside Sam's bed was the young Byrd's cot with its +little pillow my mother had made for him before he was ushered into the +world on the day his mother left it. I could almost see the big rough +hand go out to comfort the little fledgling in the dark. I choked still +further, and turned hurriedly out on to the low, wide old porch that ran +all the way across the back of the house and which apparently was +bath-room, refrigerator, seed-rack as to its beams, and the general +depositing-place of the farm; but not before I had remarked, hanging by +his door, a grass basket I had woven for Sam to bring locust pods to the +hollyhock family. Then I fled, only stopping to squeeze Mammy over her +dish-pan and get my hat off the cedar pegs that stuck out of the side of +the old chimney to serve just such a purpose. + +I found Dr. Chubb and the Byrd, who was now attired in overalls of the +exact shade and cut of Sam's, standing by Redwheels with their mouths +and eyes wide open in rapture. + +"Well, 'fore I die I've saw a horse with steel innards and rid it," +remarked the old doctor. "Machines is jest the common sense of God +Almighty made up by men, 'ste'd er animals made up by His-self. But I +must git on, missie, or some critter over at Spring Hill will have a +conniption and die in it fer lack of a drench or a dose." + +I left Sam and the Byrd standing in the sunshine at the gate of cedar +poles that Sam had set up at the entrance of his wilderness, and I +don't believe I would have had the strength of character to go until I +had been introduced to every stick and stone on the farm if I hadn't +wanted so much to find out all about cows from Dr. Chubb. I drove slowly +and extracted the whole story from his enthusiastic old mind. What I +don't know about the bovine family now is not worth knowing, and I +believe I would enjoy undertaking to doctor a Texas herd. We parted with +vows of eternal mutual interest, and I expect to cherish that +friendship. It is not every day a girl has the chance to meet and profit +by such wisdom as a successful seventy-year-old veterinary surgeon is +obliged to possess. + +As I went up the stairs to my room I met mother coming down to her +half-after-eight breakfast, and she was mildly surprised that I had not +come home at a proper time and gone to bed; but when she heard that I +had been with Sam's sick cows all night she was perfectly satisfied, +even pleased. Mother rarely remembers that I am a girl. She has thought +in masculine terms so long that it is impossible for her to get her mind +to bear directly on the small feminine proprieties. + +"That's right, Betty, be a doer, no matter whom you do, even if it is +Sam's cow," said daddy, when I had finished my eulogy of Dr. Chubb and +beautiful old Mrs. Buttercup. Then he kissed mother and me and went on +down to his office, while she followed him to the gate, crocheting and +quite forgetting me. + +Completely exhausted, but feeling really more effective in life than I +ever had before, even at the Astor tea-table (because Peter had been +perfectly well and Sam's cows hadn't), I took a magazine with an +entrancing portrayal of a Belgian soldier apparently eleven feet tall on +the cover and went out on the side porch to sit in the cool spring +sunshine and pick up the pieces of myself. When I put myself together +again I found that I made something that looked like an illustration to +a farm article rather than the frontispiece to an American epic. Still, +if for a friend I could grasp a farm problem with that executive +enthusiasm, had I any reason to doubt that I would have any trouble in +helping along an epic of American life? I decided that I would not, and +settled down to find out about the eleven-foot Belgian before I crept +off for a nap, when an interruption came and I had to prop my eyes open. +It was Eph with a letter and the information that Redwheels had shed a +bolt in its flight last night. I settled the bolt question with a +quarter and turned to the letter. It was from Peter, and I knew by the +amount of ink splashed all over the envelope that it must contain a high +explosive splashed on the inside. + +Peter Vandyne really is a wonderful man, and he will enrich American +letters greatly after he has had time to live a lot of the things he has +planned to write. Farrington, the great producer and dramatist, had read +the first act of his epic and said good things about it, Farrington is +not a friend of Peter's sister, Mabel, nor does he own or want to buy +any of Judge Vandyne's stock in railroads or things. He's just really +the dean of the American stage. Could anybody blame Peter if he had used +ten pounds of paper, if paper comes by the pound, and a quart of ink +telling about it? But he didn't; about five of the seven pages were all +about me and Farrington. I never was so astonished. The morning I got +home I had written Peter about how all my friends had been glad to see +me, and the way the different ones had shown it, and Peter had read that +part to Mr. Farrington and he had said that Peter ought to get me to +supply some of the human comedy that Peter's play lacked. Peter knows so +much about life from his literary researches that it goes off and hides +from him when he sets out in search for it, and I understood immediately +what the great dramatist meant, though Peter probably did not. + + So weave some of your heart spells for me, dearest dear + Betty [Peter wrote], I am sending you the manuscript of + Act I and part of Act II, and I know you will read them carefully + and let me know fully what you think of them. Criticize + them from your splendid human viewpoint. The dear old + governor has been rather hard on me of late, and I may have + to go into the office yet. Death! Help, rescue me, dear, + for to put a play across will be my salvation from his prejudices. + I must do it this summer, and then--then by the new year + perhaps I can lay the gems of success at your feet. May I + come down and talk to you soon about it all? No one knows + what's in my heart but you, my own Betty. May I come? + + PETER. + +I was extremely happy and excited over the poetical way in which Peter +was calling on my common sense to help him in his crisis, but I felt +weighted down with the responsibility. Yes, I understood the great +Farrington. He felt as I did--that Peter's genius needed to see and help +old Dr. Chubb drench Buttercup with a can of condition-mixture. Now, +could I supply all that, or enough of it to keep Peter from being +murdered in his father's office? The inky bundle at my side began to +look as if it weighed a ton, but my loyalty and affection for Peter made +me know that I must put my back to the burden and raise it somehow. If +it had been a simple burden, like three sick cows, it would have been +easier to take upon my shoulders. Then suddenly, as I was about to be in +a panic about it all, the thought of the cows reminded me of Sam, and +immediately, in my mind, I shared the weight of the manuscript with him +and began to breathe easier. The way Sam and Peter love each other +inspires positive awe in my heart, though Mabel says it is provoking +when they go off to their fraternity fishing-camp for week-ends instead +of coming to her delightful over-Sunday parties out on Long Island. +Judge Vandyne feels as I do about it, and he loves Sam as much as Peter +does, though I don't believe that he has any deeper affection for Peter +than Sam has. I've been intending to read up about David and Jonathan, +but I feel sure, from dim memories, that their histories about describe +Peter and Sam. I couldn't for the life of me see why any woman should +resent "a love that passes the love of" her, and I am sure she wouldn't +if one of them was a poet born to enlighten the world. Yes, I breathed +easier at the thought of Sam's affection for Peter, and went back to the +case of the giant Belgian, though I don't think the artist quite +intended him to be taken that way. + +Just as I had turned the front page I was interrupted by Clyde Tolbot, +who came whistling down the street and broke out all over with smiles +when he saw me out sunning myself. + +"Gee! Betty, but it is good to see you at home!" he said. + +They wore almost the exact words Sam had used, but they sounded +different. The sound is about all that is different in any of the things +men say to girls when they like them a lot. Tolly and I are very +appreciative of each other, and always have been. + +"You are going to settle down and have a royal good time, aren't you, +Betty? I learned a new foxtrot up in Louisville last week I'm dying to +teach you, and now that Sue Bankhead has got a great big dance machine +we can fox almost every night. Will you come with me this evening?" + +"I wish I could, Tolly," I said, with utter sincerity, for Tolly is the +very best dancer in the Harpeth Valley, not excepting Tom Pollard over +at Hillsboro. "But, Tolly, I must give up all thought of social +pleasures for a time." I spoke with a dignified reserve that fitted the +spirit that I ought to have when undertaking a great responsibility, +though I did want to dance. "I have some hard mental work to do." + +"Well, blast old Hayesboro for a sad hole! You are going to go in for +brain athletics, Sam Crittenden for farmer heroics, and the only movie +that has peeped into town is going to be closed because it ran a Latin +Quarter film the afternoon the ladies stopped in from the United +Charities sewing circle, expecting a Cuban missionary thriller. I might +as well have my left foot amputated, it itches so for good dancing." +Tolly was so furious that I was positively sorry for him, and to comfort +and calm him I told him all about Peter's letter and the play, and the +way I had to read and criticize and help. He sniffed at the idea of +Peter, but the dramatist impressed him slightly. + +"Say, that old boy is the real thing, Betty, child. He's the sure +win-out on Broadway. But how long will it take you to write that play +for your mollycoddle poet? You can get through with it before the +Country Club gets going good, can't you? We've had a new floor in the +dancing-pavilion built, and the directors ordered a foxy music machine +last night." + +"Oh yes, I ought to be able to tell Peter all I know in two and a half +months," I answered, ignoring Tolly's disrespect for my poet friend. + +"And a lot you don't know," Tolly added, with the candor of real +affection. "I wish Sam, the old calf, could be weaned from his cows and +take the position your dad is offering him at the Phosphate Works, so he +would be able to shake a foot occasionally. Can't you handle him a bit, +Betty? It's as if he just came out and looked at life and then dived +back in a hollow log." + +"I--I don't know," I answered, doubtfully. A pang shot through me at the +thought of any one extracting Sam from that wonderful retreat in the +woods, but then also this news of the honors that were coming to Peter +made me long to have Samuel Foster Crittenden come forth and take his +place in the world beside his friends. Sam, I felt sure, was made to +shine, not to have his light hid under a farm basket. Why, even Tolly, +there beside me on the steps, was the head of the new Electric Light +Company that Hayesboro has had a little over a year. He did it all +himself, though he had failed to pass his college examinations when he +went up for them with Sam. + +"I'm proud of the way you've been doing things, Tolly," I added, warmly, +putting my thoughts of Sam away where I keep them when I'm not using +them. + +"Oh, I'm just an old money-grubber and nobody's genius child, but I'll +rustle the gold boys to get up to New York to see your play, Betty, and +send you a wagon-load of florist's spinnach on the first night," +answered Tolly, beaming at my words of praise. + +"Oh, Tolly, please don't think I'm going to write a play," I answered, +quickly. "I'm--well, I'm just going to tell Peter a whole lot of useful +things I find out about life. You see, Tolly, Peter's father has so many +millions of dollars that it has been almost impossible for Peter to +climb over them into real life as we have. I have to do it for him. +Please pity Peter, Tolly, and tell me what you think would be nice in +his play if you find anything." + +"Well--er--well, I have right in stock at present a little love-interest +tale I could unfold to you, Betty, about--Help! There comes the gentle +child Edith up the street now. I must go. I am too coarse-grained for +association with her." And before I could stop him he was gone through +the house and out the back way. That is the way it always is with Tolly +and Edith, either they are inseparable or entirely separate. They can't +seem to be coexistent citizens, and they have been fighting this way +since they both had on rompers. I wondered what Tolly had been doing +now. + +"Clyde Tolbot needn't have gone just because I came. I can endure him +when I have other people to help me," said Edith, as she kissed me and +sat down sadly. She is always sad when Tolly has been sinful. + +"What has Tolly been doing now?" I asked her, as I put that fascinating +Belgian face down on the floor and ruthlessly sat upon him, for the step +was getting cold, though the sun was delicious and had drawn out a nice +old bumblebee from his winter quarters to scout about the budding +honeysuckle over our heads. + +"I am so hurt that I wouldn't tell anybody about it but you, dear, but +last night as he walked home with me, after we had been dancing down at +Sue's to the new phonograph, he--he put his arm almost around me and I +think--I think he was going to kiss me if I hadn't prevented him--that +is, he did kiss my hair--I think." Edith is the pale-nun type, and I +wish she could have seen how lovely she was with the blush that even the +failure of Tolly to kiss her brought up under her deep-blue eyes. Edith +didn't get any farther north to school than Louisville, and her maiden +aunt, Miss Editha Shelby Morris Carruthers, brought her up perfectly +beautifully. I didn't know how to comfort her because I had been two +years at the Manor on the Hudson and then a year in Europe, and, though +nobody ever has directly kissed me, a girl's hand and hair don't seem to +count out in the world. + +To take Edith's mind off Tolly's perfidy I told her about the play, and +she was as impressed as anybody could wish her to be, and promised to +stand by me and make people understand why I couldn't dance and picnic +like other people because of this great work I had to do for a dear +friend. I told her not to tell anybody but Sue, and she went home +completely comforted by her friendly interest in Peter and me. In fact, +she really adored the idea of helping me help Peter, and seemed to +forget her anger at Tolly with a beautiful spirit. + +About that time Eph solemnly called me in to lunch. Eph is a nice, +jolly old negro until he gets a white linen jacket and apron on, and +then he turns into a black mummy. I think it is because I used to want +to talk to him at the table when I still sat in a high chair. I don't +believe he has any confidence in my discretion even now, and that is why +he seats me with such a grand and forbidding display of ceremony. + +"Betty dear," said mother, after Eph had served her chicken soup and +passed her the beaten biscuits, "I found an old note-book of my mother's +that has all the wonderful things she did to the negroes and other live +stock on her farm out in Harpeth Valley. You know she ran the whole +thousand acres herself after father's death in her twenty-seventh year, +and she was a wonderful woman, though she did have three girls and only +one son. There is a section of her notes devoted to cows and their +diseases, and Sam might be interested to hear how she managed them so +that even then her cows sold for enormous sums. Suppose you look over it +and tell him about it." + +"Oh, I will. Thank you, mother!" I answered, as I took three little +brown biscuits, to Eph's affectionate delight, and also as a shock to +his proprieties. + +I had planned to open the bundle and begin my work for Peter right after +dinner, but I sat down and devoured whole that note-book of my maternal +ancestor's. I never was so thrilled over anything, and the chapter on +gardening really reads like a beautiful idyl of summer. It changed my +entire nature. As I read I glowed to think that I could go right to +Sam's wilderness and try it all out. I didn't own any land, and it might +take a little time to force daddy to buy me some, and the planting +season and fever were upon me. There is a wide plateau to the south of +Sam's living-room, and I had in my mind cleared it of bushes, enriched +it with all the wonderful things grandmother had directed, beginning +with beautiful dead leaves, and I was planting out the row of great +blush peonies in my mind as I intended to plant it in Sam's garden when +the tall old clock in the hall toned out four long strokes. Then I +remembered that I wanted to go down to the post-office to get my mail +and to see everybody and hear the news. So with the greatest reluctance +I tucked the garden idyl in the old desk which had been that very +Grandmother Nelson's, and heaved Peter's heavy manuscript in on top of +it. + +No mass-meeting, no picnic, and no function out in the great world, even +New-Year's reception at the White House or afternoon tea at the Plaza, +could be half the fun that going to the Hayesboro post-office for the +afternoon mail is. I think the distinct flavor is imparted by the fact +that all our forefathers and foremothers have done it before us. The +Hayesboro resurrection will be held right there, I feel sure. + +And if mail-time is fun usually, it is great when all the news is about +you and your friends all swarm around you with interest. Everybody had +heard about Peter and his play, though neither Edith nor Tolly thought +they had told, and that he was soon coming down to visit me, and, of +course, that meant to visit all of Hayesboro. Miss Henrietta Spain, who +teaches literature from spelling to the English poets, in the Hayesboro +Academy, had read Peter's new poem--the one the _Literary Opinion_ had +copied last month--and she was pink with excitement over the prospect of +having such a genius in our midst, + +"Look out that you don't get put in the play on the other side of the +footlights, Hayes," said the mayor, slapping daddy on the back. "Be +careful how you have a poet sitting around your house." + +"The South has long waited to have a genius come down and write a +fitting epic about her Homeric drama of Civil War, Elizabeth," said old +Colonel Menefee. "Let your young friend come, and I can give him +material, beginning with that Bedford Forest charge just before +Chickamauga that--" + +"And just remember," interrupted Mrs. Winston Polk, "how Elizabeth's +mother, Betty's own Grandmother Nelson, rode fifty miles and back in +twenty-four hours to get Morgan to send wagons for her barnful of corn +to feed his soldiers, though she and her negroes were dependent on what +she could grow between then and frost. She never faltered, but--" + +"The Nashville and Louisville papers all wrote up the way Clyde Tolbot +swam Salt River and stopped the L. & N. express from going down in the +cut during the storm last year," Edith hastened to say when Mrs. Folk's +breath had given out. Tolly's ugly good face was beautiful to see when +she spoke of him thus, though Edith didn't notice it. + +When you start a Harpeth Valley town to telling how wonderful it is to +the third and fourth generation back, it is like a seething torrent and +can go on for ever. I glowed to think of all the wonderful things I +could write Peter, and we all started home from the post-office as late +as supper hour would admit. + +After I got home, escorted by the reunited Edith and Tolly, as well as +by Billy Robertson, who wants to be Peter's hero, though he wasn't +directly saying so, I sat down determinedly to write to Peter at +inspiring length and make him feel how I valued his confidence in me, +also to mention the war drama. Just then I raised my eyes and that +wonderful notebook had pushed a corner of itself out of the desk from +under the manuscript. I couldn't use my mind advising between a modern +epic and a war drama while it was plowed up ready for peonies, so I +decided to wait and ask Sam's advice about advising Peter, and I read +the rest of the peony pages in comfort. Right then, too, I made up my +mind that I was going to get ground bone to plant at the roots of all +the peonies if I had to use my own skeleton to do it and would only see +them bloom with astral eyes. + +I was still reading when the supper-bell rang, and was only interested +in reminiscences of Grandmother Nelson during the meal. + +"No, ma'am, Miss Caroline, you got it wrong. Ole Mis' didn't divide +clover pinks 'cepting every third year 'stid of second. _Hers_ bloomed, +they did," Eph interrupted mother to say, indulging in perhaps his first +speech while waiting on the table during the long and honorable life as +a butler which that grandmother had started at his sixth year. He then +retired in the blackest consternation, and his yellow granddaughter, the +house-girl, brought in the wine-jelly. + +One thing is certain--I must contrive some way to get Sam back and forth +to me from The Briers in less time than it takes him to walk five miles. +He has got just one old roan plow mare and he won't ride her after he +has worked her all day, and I am afraid it won't do for me to go after +him with Redwheels every time I want him. I can go about two-thirds of +the time, but he must be allowed some liberty about expressing his +desire for my company. Of course a tactful woman can go nine-tenths of +the way in all things to meet a man she likes, and he'll think she +hasn't even started from home; but she ought to be honorable enough not +to do it at that rate. I believe in liberty for men as well as women. + +Still, I can't express the strain it was on me to wait until after eight +o'clock for Sam with Grandmother Nelson's farm-book on my knee, and I +don't want to do it ever again, especially if the Byrd or Mammy or the +cows or any of the other live stock might be sick. I felt that it must +be midnight before I got Sam seated by me on the deep old mahogany sofa +in front of one nice April blaze in behind the brass fender, and under +another from Tolly's power-house. He was pretty tired, as he had been up +since daylight, but the cows were all right and on feed again, Mammy +wasn't any stiffer than usual, and he had promised the Byrd the first +chicken that the old Dominicker hatched out to stay at home and let him +come to see me. Mammy had sent me five fresh eggs, and Sam presented +them with a queer pod of little round black seeds, and a smile that +wouldn't look me in the face. + +"Hollyhocks! I climbed over the Johnson fence about two miles from town +and stole them for you," he said, as he squirmed around from me and +picked a brown burr off the leg of his trousers. + +"Aren't they sweeties?" I exclaimed, not noticing his entirely +unnecessary bashfulness. "And that is just what I want to talk to you +about." With which I produced my ancestral treasure, and with our heads +close together we dove into it, didn't come up until after ten o'clock, +and then were breathless. + +"Oh, Sam, can I do all these things out at your farm?" I exclaimed, and +I fairly clung against his shoulder while his strong, rough hand folded +over mine as the husk did over the hollyhock seeds I had been holding +warm and moist in my palm. + +"All of them, and then some, Betty," he answered, blowing away a wisp of +my hair that he had again roughed up instead of shaking hands in +greeting, despite my reproof. "I'll plow up that southern plot for you +just after daylight to-morrow, and every minute I can take from +grubbing at the things I have to work to make the eats for all of us +I'll put in on the posy-garden for you." + +"I'm much obliged to you for the plowing, but I'll be out at about nine +o'clock and I'll bring my own spade and hoe and rake and things. I think +I'll take those two young white lilacs that are crowded over by the +fence in the front yard to start the garden. Don't you think lilacs +would be a lovely corner for a garden like my grandmother's, Sam?" + +"I--I think it would be nice to--plant the hollyhock seeds you have in +your hand the first thing, Betty," answered Sam, with the gridiron +smolder in his eyes which snapped up into a twinkle as he added, "Could +you help me set onions for a few hours later on?" + +"Oh, I'd adore it!" I answered, enthusiastically. "Of course, I mean to +help plant all the eat things, too. I may like them best. Let's see what +grandmother says about onions." And I began to ruffle back the pages of +the book that Sam held in both his hands for me. + +"Good gracious! Betty, couldn't the old lady write!" exclaimed Sam, a +half-hour later, after we had finished with onions and many other +profitable vegetables. "Why, that description of her hog's dying with +cholera and the rescue reads like a--a Greek tragedy in its simplicity." + +"Oh, Sam," I exclaimed in dismay, "that reminds me, I forgot to tell you +about the play, and now you ought to go home, with all those five miles +to walk and plowing to do at daylight." "Play? What play? Won't it +keep?" asked Sam, as he rose and reached for his hat on the table. +"Let's enjoy this last ten minutes before my hike, down at the gate." + +"Oh no, it won't keep, and I don't know exactly what I will do about it +and the garden. Here's Peter's letter; read it for yourself," I wailed, +as I drew the splashed letter out from the ruffle in the front of my +dress where I had stuck it for safe keeping, and handed it to Sam. If I +hadn't been so distressed by the collision of the play and the garden in +my heart I never would have been so dishonorable as to let Sam read the +last paragraph in Peter's letter, which was more affectionate than I +felt was really right for Peter to write me, even after the Astor +tea-party, and which had troubled me faintly until I had forgotten about +it in my excitement about Farrington and the play. I saw Sam's hand +shake as he read that last page, and he held it away from me and +finished it, as I remembered and gasped and reached for it. + +"Good old Pete," said Sam, in a voice that shook as his hand did while +he handed me back the letter. "It is a great chance for him, and if you +can help you'll have to go to it, Betty. Pete only needs ballast, and +you are it--he seems to think." + +"But how will I find time enough from making our garden to help make his +play?" I asked as I rose and clung to his sleeve as I had done in all +serious moments of my life, even when his coat-sleeve had been that of +a roundabout jacket. My heart was weak and jumpy as I asked the +question. + +"Betty," said Sam, gently, lifting my hand from his arm into his for a +second and then handing it firmly back to me, "that garden was just a +dream you and I have been having this evening. It can't be. Don't you +see, dear, I am in a hard hand-to-hand struggle with my land, which is +all I possess, for--for bread for myself and the kiddie, and I--I can't +have a woman's flower-garden. It looks as if you and old Petie can do a +real literary stunt together. Just get at it, and God bless you both. +Good night now; I must sprint." And as he spoke he was through one of +the long windows and out on the front porch in the moonlight. + +"Oh, wait, Sam, wait!" I gasped, as I flew after him and clung to him +determinedly. + +"Well," he said, patiently, as he stood on the step below me and turned +his bronze head away from me out toward his dim hills sleeping in the +soft mystery of the moonlight. + +"I will, Sam, I _will_ have that garden," I said, with the same angry +determination in my voice I had used when I had clung to him and kicked +and fought to go to places with him when he didn't want me, and when my +skirts were several inches above my bare knees and his feet were +scratched and innocent of shoes. + +"Betty," said Sam, as he shook me away from him and then took my +shoulders under their thin covering of chiffon in his plow-calloused, +big, warm hands, "forget it! There are lots of dream gardens out in the +world you can play in when you have time away from the bright lights. +Everybody grows 'em without a lick of work. I have to work mine or +starve. Good night!" Then with a rough of my hair down across my eyes he +was out in the moonlit road, running away from me to his hollow log in a +way he had never done before, no matter how I had tagged him. + +I ran as far as the gate to watch him out of sight, and then I put my +head down against the tall old post that had been one of Sam's perches +when he wanted to climb away from me in former years, and sobbed and +sobbed. I had never expected Sam to cast me off. + +Girls' hearts are covered all over with little thin crystallizations of +affection, and men ought to be very careful not to smash any of them +with their superior strength. Sam had hurt me so that I didn't even dare +think about it. I knew he was poor, and I hadn't expected him to plow +and plant things for me while I went about in a picture-hat snipping +them with garden scissors. I had asked him to let me set onions and weed +beans and drop peas and corn for him and share his poverty and hard work +as a true friend, and he had shut his cedar-pole gate in my face and +heart. And I didn't understand why. I tried to think it was his +affection for Peter that made him thus rudely switch my mind from him +and his garden to Peter and his need of me, which Sam may have thought +was greater than the need of his onions and turnip salad; but I don't +see how Sam could have construed cruelty to me as generosity to Peter. + +"Please God," I prayed out into the everlasting hills toward which Sam +was running away from me and from which I had heard intoned "cometh +help," "give me dirt to work in somewhere except in just a yard if I +can't have Sam's. Help me to get somebody to help me to raise things for +people to eat and milk, as well as to inspire a play. I'll do both +things, but I must have earth with rotted leaves in it. Amen." + +Then I went to bed heartbroken for life, and my sad eyes closed on the +little glimpse which my window framed of Old Harpeth, the tallest hill +in Paradise Ridge, while my hand still folded in the moist hollyhock +seeds. + + + + +II + +THE BOOK OF SHELTER + + +Peter's play is remarkable; it really is. He has collected all the great +and wonderful things that life in America contains and put them together +in a way that reads as if Edgar Allan Poe had helped Henry James to +construct it, though they had forgotten to ask Mark Twain to dinner and +had never heard of John Burroughs. I felt when I got through the first +act as if I had been living for a week shut into an old Gothic cathedral +aisle decorated by marble-carved inspired words, and I was both cold and +hungry. The more I read of Peter's play the more congenial I felt with +Farrington. I had enough education to see that it was a genuine literary +achievement, but I had heart enough to know that something had to be +done to rescue all his characters from the arctic region. Could I do it +single-handed even for a person I cared as much for as I did for Peter? +I decided that I could not, and that the only way I could prove my +loyalty and affection for Peter was to abase myself before Sam +Crittenden and his cruelty to me, and get his help. Only for Peter would +I have done such a thing, which in the end I didn't have to do at all. + +Since the night Sam refused me the use of his farm and put me out of his +life for ever I had not seen him until by his own intention. Or maybe it +was Tolly's. + +"See here, Betty, what you need is a good fox or tango and you had +better come to it up at Sue's to-night." + +Tolly had broken in upon my despairing meditations over the way in which +Peter's hero talks wicked business and congested charity to the poor +little heroine in the very first act while she is full of a beautiful +affection Peter didn't seem to see, and ready to pour it forth to the +hero before he started out on a long life mission. Maybe it was +sorrowing with her at being thus suppressed by everybody that made me +write her case to Peter with such fervor. I had just finished the letter +when Tolly came to my rescue with the offer of a nice warm dance to +nourish me up. + +"Don't make me kidnap you, Betty; go fluff and rose up a bit," he +commanded, as he seated himself on the front steps with a determination +which was as business-like as his management of the Electric Light +Company. + +"I think I had better go to Sue's to thaw out some of my loneliness +over this play," I answered him as I looked up with desperation and a +smudge on my face. Then I went to my room and left Tolly alone with +Peter's poor little heroine. "Say, tell the poet to get the man with the +dinner-pail who is eating hunk sandwiches at lunch-time on the pavement +in front of any construction job in New York to tell him what he did and +said to his girl at the firemen's ball the night before, and then +translate it into some of this first-class poetry. That'll be a great +play," said Tolly, as I came down-stairs just as he had turned page +twenty-five of Peter's manuscript. Tolly's coarseness doesn't affect me +as it does Edith because there is always so much point to it. + +"You don't quite understand Peter and his play, Tolly, dear," I said, +with dignity, though I felt exactly the same way about it and hadn't +known how to express it in human interest terms as well as Tolly. + +"I sure don't," answered Tolly, cheerfully, and not at all as if I had +put him in his place in regard to his criticism of our epic. "Come on; +let's hurry. Everybody is waiting for us." + +It was good to be in a buzz of girls and men once more for the first +time in two weeks since I settled down to do my worst or best by Peter, +with my Grandmother Nelson's garden-book locked up in the +preserve-closet down in the darkest corner of the cellar, and Sam lost +in the fastness of The Briers. + +Everybody wanted to dance with me at the same time, and the girls +kissed me into a lovely, warm cheerfulness. The girls in Hayesboro are +the sustaining kind of friends, like pound-cake, sweetened and +beautifully frosted. "Has he consented to let the hero kiss the poor +thing's hand before he goes to fight the case of the miners?" Julia +whispered, warmly, as she took a few tango steps with me in her arms +before Billy Robertson claimed her and Tolly picked me up to juggle with +me in his new Kentucky version of the fox-trot. + +"I'm expecting a letter to-morrow," I answered her as Tolly slid me away +three steps, skidded two, and slid back four. And then, having begun, I +danced; all of me danced; even my heart, which had started out as heavy +as lead, got into the feather class before I went around the room three +times. It is strange how even great responsibilities melt away before +dance music like icicles on the southern side of the house. It was in a +perfectly melted condition that I at last dropped from Tolly's grasp +into a pair of new arms which cradled me against a broad breast with +such gentleness that I might have thought it was mother come to the +dance if I hadn't caught a whiff of cedar woodsiness when I turned my +nose into a miniature brier-patch of blue-berried cedar in the +buttonhole of the coat against which my face was pressed as my feet +caught step with a pair of smart shoes bearing a smear of moss loam on +one side. + +"Sam!" I gasped, with emotional indignation that had a decided trace of +joy. + +"Yes, I feel that way, too," answered Sam, roughing my hair slightly +with his chin as both his hands were employed holding me to him while we +slid and skidded and slid again. "I don't forgive you; I never shall," I +said, haughtily, as I drew away from him the fraction of an inch that +came very near making us collide with Sue and Billy, who were dancing +wildly, but in perfect accord. + +"You'll have to when you hear the worst," answered Sam, as he firmly +pressed my shoulder into his while he manoeuvered me first past Edith +and Tolly and then across right in front of Pink Herriford, who weighs +all of two hundred, dancing with Julia Buford, who must tip the scales +at one hundred and sixty. It was a hairbreadth rapture of escape. + +"Is anything the matter with the cows or anybody else?" I demanded, +anxiously, from his shoulder. + +"Worse!" + +"Oh, Sam, has anything died at The Briers?" + +"Worse," he answered again, while he defied Tolly with a double cross +and then took a chance with Pink and Julia as I pressed him closer with +my arms and my questions. + +"Dance me out on the porch through the window and tell me, Sam," I +demanded. + +"Not when this music and Julia and Pink hold out like that, Bettykin. +It'll be bad enough when you do hear it," answered Sam, laughing down at +me with the same wide-mouthed smile he had always used on me when +holding something over my head and making me reach up for it. "Besides, +it has been two whole weeks since I've--had you," he added, and again +his strong arms cradled as well as guided. Getting back into some +people's atmosphere is like recovering the use of a lung a person had +temporarily lost; breathing improves. I've always breathed easily in +Sam's friendship. That was why I could dance with him as I did even up +to the last bar of the music. Then he swung me out through one of the +long windows on to the porch under the dusky spring starlight. + +"I hate to tell you, Betty, though I have walked a five-mile blister on +my left heel in these dancing-shoes just to break the news to you," Sam +answered my repeated demand to be told his "worse." + +"Oh, Sam, a real blister?" I exclaimed, losing sight of the threatened +catastrophe at the thought of his blistered heel. I knew how tender +Sam's feet were, for I had doctored them since infancy. I used to pay +tribute in the form of apples and tea-cakes for the privilege of binding +up his ten and twelve year old wounded toes, and I suppose I hadn't +really got over my liking for thus operating. + +"Oh, not all from the walk," answered Sam, as he smiled down on me +consolingly. "I've got a brand-new mule and I nearly plowed him and +myself to death to-day. I don't seem to be well heeled enough to plow +and dance both." + +"What did you plow, Sam?" I came close up to his shoulder so that the +bit of woods in his buttonhole grazed my cheek as my head drooped with +an embarrassed hope. + +"I plowed for the early potatoes on the south slope and--and--" + +"And what?" + +"I'm thinking of growing a crop of--hollyhocks, if I get time to plant +'em." + +"Where did you plow, Sam?" + +"In spots all over the place." + +"Where?" + +"Well, then, about a hundred feet south by southwest from my door-step, +if you must have it. Great sakes! do you think this heel is going to +swell, Betty, from your deep experience?" + +"I--I'm so happy, Sam," I faltered, with more emotion than I knew Sam +liked, but I think all apologies ought to be met enthusiastically at the +front gate, whether they intended to come in or not. + +"Well, I'm not--I'm blistered." He again plaintively referred to his +sufferings which I had forgotten in my joy at having him back in the +bonds of friendship, even if slightly damaged. + +"Come over home with me and I'll plaster it so it won't break or swell. +You know I know how," I answered, eagerly. + +"Cold cream and an old handkerchief like you used to keep. Um--um! the +thought is good, Betty," he answered, as he stood on his left foot for a +second and then lifted it as if he were a huge crane. + +"Come, now, so I can get the cream before mother goes to bed," I said, +with energy; and I led him, faintly remonstrating, through the Bankhead +back gate that opens opposite ours. + +Mother was glad to see Sam, heel and all, and sympathetically supplied +the cream and handkerchief and a needle and thread without laying down +the mat she was putting in a difficult hundred-and-fifty round on. +Mother is so used to Sam that she forgets that he is not her fifth or +sixth son, and she treats him accordingly. After she had given us all +the surgical necessities she retired into the living-room by the lamp to +put her mind entirely on the mat, in perfect confidence that I could do +the right thing by my wounded neighbor. And I did. + +First, as I had always done, I bathed Sam's great big pink-and-white +foot in hot water and then in cold, sitting on the floor with a +bath-towel in my lap to get at it while Sam wriggled and squirmed at +both hot and cold just as he had always done. + +"Go on, boil me," he said, as I poured the last flash of heat from the +tea-kettle on the floor beside me. + +"Now a frost," he groaned, as I dashed ice-water out of a pitcher on the +blister and lifted the foot into my lap on the bath-towel. + +"If you touch the bottom of my foot I'll yell 'murder,'" he said as I +began to pat all around the blister in the gentlest and most considerate +manner possible. I knew he meant what he said, so I was careful as I +wound and clipped and sewed. + +"I never fixed as nice a one as that for you before," I said, with +pride, as he drew on his silk sock with its huge hole over as neat a +bandage as it was possible for human hands to accomplish. "I love to tie +you up, Sam." + +"Thank you, and I return the compliment," answered Sam, both smouldering +and smiling down at me as if he were saying something to tease me. "And +now as a reward for your kindness I am going to knock you down with some +news." And as he spoke we went on out to the porch, Sam walking like a +new man. + +"Oh, the 'worse' thing! I had forgotten about that. Tell me, Sam," I +answered, as I leaned against one of the pillars of the porch and he +seated himself on the railing beside me. + +"Well," said Sam, slowly, "this is not worse for you, just for me; that +is, at the present speaking, with nothing but the hay-loft handy. I +don't know just how I'll manage." + +"What?" + +"Pete," answered Sam. + +"What about Peter? Oh, Sam, Peter isn't ill, is he?" And I reached out +and clutched Sam's arm frantically. It takes alarm to test the depths of +one's affection for a friend. I found mine for Peter deeper than I knew. +If anything had happened, Sam would know it first. "Don't be cruel to +me, Sam." And I shook his arm. + +"Forgive me, Betty," said Sam, quickly. "Pete's all right and he'll be +here to demonstrate it to you just as soon as I can get a stall built +for him out at The Briers." + +"At The Briers? Peter?" I gasped. + +"Even at that humble abode, Betty, whose latch-string is always out to +friends," answered Sam. And I felt his arm stiffen under my fingers in a +way for which I could see no reason. + +"Just as I was going to begin my garden," I wailed. And Sam's stiff arm +limbered again and made a motion toward my hair that I dodged. "What +does he want?" + +"Direct life. I can give it to him," answered Sam. "At least that is +what he asked for in his letter to me. I don't know what he will request +in the one I wager you get by the morning mail." + +"Why, I had been writing him all that he needed of that, and we are +going to be so busy gardening, how can we help him live it also? Peter +does require so much affectionate attention." I positively wailed this +to Sam, in the most ungenerous spirit. + +"Betty dear," said Sam, gently, as he puffed at a little brier which he +had substituted for the adorable cob on account of the formality of +Sue's dance, which we could hear going on comfortably without us, beyond +the privet hedge whose buds were just beginning to give forth a +delicious tang, "Peter is a great, queer kind of sensitive plant that it +may be we will have to help cultivate. You know that for several years +his poems have really got across in great style with the writing world, +and I'm proud of him and--I--I--well, I love him. Suppose, just suppose, +dear, that Keats had had a great hulking farmer like me to stand by. +Don't you think that maybe the world would have had some grown-man stuff +from him that would have counted? I always have thought of that when I +looked at old Pete and promised myself to back him up with my brawn and +nerve when he needed it. Why, in the '13 game it was Pete's flaming face +up on the corner of the stadium that put the ginger in me to carry +across as I did. Yes, I am going to put Pete's hand to my plow and his +legs under old Buttercup at milking-time if it kills us both, if that is +what he needs or you have made him think he needs." + +"Oh, Sam, I'm ashamed! I'm ashamed of not wanting precious Peter in my +garden. He can have half of all of it. You know I love him dearly. I'll +work all day with him and attend to all his blisters and get everybody +to give him work and help him." + +"Well, I don't believe I'd do all that to him, Betty," answered Sam, +with a laugh. Then his eyes glinted past mine for a second. "And say, +Betty, you know my blisters are kind of--kind of old friends to you; +Pete's might not have so many--many landmarks for you to work by," he +added, as he knocked the ashes carefully out of the brier and picked up +his hat. "Let's go for one fox, and then I'll trot on out to my patch." + +"I'll get Tolly to run you out in Redwheels while I do my promised +dances, and then I'll be out early in the morning to help plan about +Peter. And--and, Sam, do you want to--to give me that garden?" + +"Everything that is is yours, Bettykin," he answered as we went down the +steps out on to the springy greening grass and across to the back gate. + +Some friends taste like bread and butter and peach preserves. Sam does +and he's a peach. + +When I got back to the Bankheads' everybody was wondering where we had +been, and as Sam and Tolly got right off in the car without answering +any questions, I was left to explain about Sam's foot and Peter. I paid +no attention at all to Billy Robertson when he said his foot was +blistered, too; but I told them how beautiful Peter was, and how +distinguished, and all about the poor young Keats that most of them +hadn't grieved over since their Junior years at school, telling it all +in such an eloquent way that Julia's great blue eyes filled with tears, +and I saw I could depend on her to be nice to our friend. + +"I knew most poets were kind of calves, but I didn't know they had to +milk their poetry out of a genuine cow," said Pink, with a vulgar +attempt to be funny, at which nobody laughed, not even Julia, and she is +almost too tall and big to dance with anybody but Pink. She and Edith +and Sue and I forgot to save him the dances we had promised him; and he +had to dance with other girls he didn't like so much, until we all went +home in time to meet the sun coming down over Paradise Ridge with his +dinner-pail. + +Then for five days it rained--heavy, determined, soggy drops; but the +next morning introduced one of those wily, flirtatious days that come +along about the last week in April in Tennessee. I awoke to the sound of +sobbing wind and weeping clouds in which I had no confidence, and +succeeded in convincing mother that it would be a beautiful day for me +to go out to see Sam and Byrd and Mammy. She sent Byrd half a jelly-cake +and a bag of bananas, and I got a jar of jam for him when I went down in +the cellar to exhume Grandmother Nelson's garden-book. A bottle went to +Mammy, which I suspect of being a kind of liniment that mother had to +learn to make on account of the number of the boys and their bruises. + +Eph was a tragedy over my taking out Redwheels, and I am glad that +neither he nor I could prevision the plight the shiny new runabout would +be in before it was many hours older. With a stoical reserve he loaded +in the two young lilacs that were in the exact state of sappiness +Grandmother Nelson had recommended for transplanting, but his calmness +nearly gave way when I had him put in a dandy old rake and spade and hoe +that I had found in my raid on the cellar. + +"Please ma'am, Miss Betty, don't go and leave ole mistis's gyarden tools +out in no rain," he entreated, plaintively. + +"Oh, Eph, are they really Grandmother Nelson's?" I exclaimed, with such +radiance that it reflected from Eph's polished black face. + +"Yes'm, and they is too good to be throwed away on playing gyarden or +sich," he answered, with feeling. + +"Eph," I answered, with almost a choke in my voice, "they'll be--be +sacred to me. Oh, thank you for telling me." + +"Go on, child! you shore is ole mistis herself, with your pretty words +to push along your high-haided ways," he answered me while he gave +Redwheels an affectionate shove as I started down the street. + +I didn't spend much time down-town, but I stopped at the post-office and +got my mail to read while I waited at the drug-store for Mr. Simmons to +put up some of every kind of flower and vegetable grandmother +mentioned--if it was still in stock. He offered me a book of +instructions, which I declined. I meant to garden by ancestral +tendencies. And while I waited I looked over my letters. The volume from +Peter I put aside to enjoy in a leisure hour, as I felt sure that I knew +what was in it; but I opened another thin one that looked as if it might +be from him, if he had written it in an unpoetic mood. It was from Judge +Vandyne, and I then understood Peter's sudden determination to come down +and live with Sam for a time, though I don't believe Peter knew the real +reason of it himself. The judge is a great diplomat, and knows just when +and to whom to be frank. We have always understood each other from the +first vacation I spent with Mabel, and I value his confidence highly. +He wrote: + + No man can get a hold on the complex problems of this day and + especially the next, who doesn't go at them with at least some + sunburn on his neck and a few horny spots on his hands. Put Pete at + it, you and Sam. Your description of Sam's habitation and vocation + in letter to Mabel made me feel twenty-five again. I never had the + real thing; but Peter shall. Ease him along. If he kicks over the + traces let me know. When are you coming North again? Soon, I hope, + + Your aged admirer, + PETER VANDYNE, Sr. + + _P.S._--Thought I'd better say that Dr. Herbrick doesn't like + Peter's weight--one sixteen. You understand. + +I wonder what the paternal Keats was like. I don't remember, and I must +look him up to see. It's funny how sturdy-oak fathers can have +ferny-mimosa sons. Mothers can stand producing poets, but it is hard on +fathers. I felt that I must help out Judge Vandyne, and with that +resolve I headed Redwheels out along Providence Road. + +As I had told mother, the sobs and tears of the April day had been +wilfully misleading demonstrations, for by ten o'clock the whole face of +nature wore a sun-sweetened smile that was positively entrancing. The +young April world seemed to spring dripping from a bath that glistened +all over with crystal water gems. Winter is staid and dignified and +grand with its stark trees and mantle of brown earth, and summer is +glowing and glorious; but very young spring is so sappy and curly and +yellow and green and lavender that you take it to heart and let it +nestle there to suck its pink apple-blow thumb, and curl up its young +sprout toes sheltered away from the cold that sets it back and the sun +that forces it to break bud. Sometimes it stays with you a day and +sometimes a week and a day, but you can't hold it back. You can just be +thankful that you had it. I was. + +But if the five miles of Providence Road had been a delight, as +Redwheels and I ran along it, the dirt lane that led to The Briers was +an intoxicating joy. The wet earth, the drenched cedars, the oak buds, +the spongy moss, the reddening blackberry-bushes, and the sprouting +grain, all mingled in a queer creation odor that went right through the +pores of my skin into my vitals and made me feel as strong as an ox, or +rather, as Sam's new mule. I caught a glimpse of that mule through a +vista before I came out of the lane, plodding along before Sam and the +plow with a great splendid lurch of a gait that threw the black dirt as +high as Sam's knees as he plunged along at the plow-handles. I stopped +the car at the cedar-pole gate of Eden and stood up and shouted at the +top of my lungs, but Sam plowed on heroically, with never a glance in my +direction, and I just stood and looked at him and the mule. Seeing a man +plow cuts right down to the bottom of a woman's nature, because I +suppose it looks so--so fundamental. At least that is about the way I +felt though it was much more so until I remembered the blistered heel +and shouted again, this time in alarm. At my cry of distress Sam +suddenly looked up and jerked the mule's head so that he, too, stopped +and regarded me. They looked like wary jungle things that had been +belled from the thicket, but for just a second; then Sam threw his line +around the plow-handle, thus hitching the mule to himself, and came +running across the field to me, as lightly as the blue jay skimmed from +over my head into the branches of another cedar in answer to the same +twit I had heard the day I first came out into the habitation of the +birds. The pleasure of seeing Sam run to me was almost as keen as the +pain of seeing him run away from me, but it was mitigated by my alarm +over the poor sore foot. + +"Gracious sakes, Betty! is that a mud-scow you came out in?" he asked, +as he started to take my hand in his, which was brown with mud, and +ended by rubbing his cheek in my palm. That seemed to be about the only +member he had kept clean enough for the greeting. + +"Aren't you hurting your heel plowing like that, Sam?" I asked, +anxiously. + +"Heel--what heel? Oh, that's all right. I haven't heard from it since +you tucked it away in the cream Tuesday night. I have cold-bucketed +myself every morning, standing on one leg with it up on the wash-bench +so as not to wake it up. Come on up to the house. I'll walk, because I'm +too muddy to get in with you in your sedan-chair." + +"No; you go back to the plowing and I'll go and unload and begin my +work," I answered, with positive heroism. I wanted to get out and go and +be introduced to the mule, but I came to Sam to be not a clinging vine, +but a competent garden-hoe to him. + +"All right," said Sam, in the nice way he has of acquiescing in all my +serious moods until they pass. "I'll be through after about three more +rounds and then I'll come and help you. Say, Bettykin, what do you think +of that for good land?" And as he looked back at the great square of +black earth he had upturned, Sam's eyes flecked with the blue sky and +snapped with enthusiasm. + +[Illustration: THE BYRD WAS ATTIRED IN MINIATURES OF SAM'S OVERALLS] + +"It looks good enough to eat," I answered, with a queer dirt enthusiasm +rising in me that I had never even heard of one's having before. + +"Yes, and you will eat it in about four months' time in the form of +roasting ears," answered Sam, smacking his lips, which had a streak of +the mud delicacy across them at right angles. "But go on up and tell +Mammy to put your name in her dinner-pot and buy the Byrd to get you +anything you need or want to the half of our kingdom. I'll be there in +ten shakes of the mule's tail." + +The road that leads from the cedar-pole gate through Sam's wilderness up +to the farm-house curves in and out and around the hill past as many +lovely spots as my enthusiasm could endure. Halfway up, there is a +glimpse past a gray old tree with crimson thorns, of the valley with Old +Harpeth looming opposite. Further on a rocky old road leads down around +a clump of age-distorted cedar-trees to the moss-greened stone +spring-house, from which the water gurgles and pours past Sam's huge +earthern crocks of milk. Over it all broods the low white house on the +plateau, from under whose wings I found one small blue chicken running +and cheeping wildly for a ride up the hill. + +The Byrd was, as usual, attired in miniatures of Sam's overalls, and his +red mop stood on ends all over his head, while his freckles shone forth +resplendently from the excitement of my arrival. + +"Say, Betty, what you think? Old Buttercup found a calf out in the woods +and it has got a white nose and two spots. Sam wanted to name it Chubb +for the doctor that saved its life 'fore it got borned, but I said +ladies first, and I calls it Betty. You can let it lick your fingers if +Sam milks on 'em first. And Dominick have hatched 'fore the white +hen--eleven, and one what Sam calls a half chicken, because he don't see +how it is black when the eggs was bought thoroughbreds; but Mammy says +because they is Yankee eggs. Come see all everything." + +Sam's barn is an old tumble-down collection of sheds and the most lovely +place I ever got into. It is running over with new-born life, and you +can get an armful of first one variety and then another. I liked the +collie puppies best, but the Byrd was crazy about the little fawn calf +which old Buttercup is so proud of that she switches her tail in the +greatest complacency. He was just showing me how to tempt her little +white nose with a wisp of hay that she was learning to eat, and I was +luxuriating with one new-born wriggler in my arms and two yellow-down +puff-balls in my hand, when Sam and the mule came up from the field. + +"My, it's great to have a nice family party like this to plow for!" he +said, as he led the mule into his stall and poured down his oats out of +a bucket the Byrd ran to bring him. "Any news from Petie, Bettykin?" + +"I've got a letter from Peter that I haven't read, but one from Judge +Vandyne that I have. Here it is--read it," and I held the letter open +for Sam to read over my shoulder. + +"Read it to me, Betty; I'm too dirty to come that near you," he said, as +he took the cob pipe out of his pocket and prepared to light up while +the Byrd scampered to the house to hurry Mammy's dinner. + +"You're not exactly dirty, Sam," I answered, surveying him with a +satisfiedly critical eye. "You only look and smell like the earth and +the sky and the barn and--and--" + +"Just call it cosmic, Betty, and let it go at that," he answered, as he +reached out and roughed my hair over my eyes with the long hickory +switch with which he had been merely threatening the mule all day. "Go +on, read me the judge's document on the subject of Peter while we wait +for Mammy's dinner cluck." + +As he had asked me to do, I read it all, slowly, while my heart, that +had been climbing like a squirrel to the tops of the trees, began to +burrow down in the reverse manner of a chipmunk. I could see Sam's +spirits doing likewise. + +"The judge gets under Pete's skin and peels the fat off him," said Sam, +slowly, with sadness in his deep, strong voice. "I've just got to build +some sort of a poet's corner to put him in, so he can come on down from +Philadelphia from the opening of the spring Academy. He will have burned +himself out by then, and he'll be so weak we can feed him out of a +bottle." + +"And it's his play, too, Sam," I answered, despondently. "He's beginning +on the third act, and just reading it all and suggesting in spots is +making me thin. It is all the terrible heroic struggle of the poor hero +now and he doesn't seem to let the heroine help him a bit. Oh, Sam, if +Peter were to fail with this play after Farrington has encouraged him I +don't know what might happen! I'm sorry you ever mentioned Keats to me. +I dream about him at night. I adored him when I was at The Manor, and so +did Mabel," and my lips quivered so I had to turn against the harness +hanging on the wall against which I drooped. + +"Keats or Peter?" asked Sam as he pressed his whip across my shoulders +in comforting little licks because his hand was too muddy to pat me. + +"Both," I sniffed. + +"Don't," said Sam, with cheering command in his voice. "We are too late +to help Keats, and plenty early to pull Pete out of his divine fire. +Let's go get some good grub from Mammy so we can plant the garden before +sundown, and stake out the poet's corner, too. I didn't have the money +to hire the plowing done, but I am almost through for the present; and I +can whirl in now and get in shape for Petie's rescue in no time." + +"It's popped its skin with stuffing, and Mammy says come on while the +'taters stands up stiff," announced the Byrd, half-way up the path from +the house to the barn. + +"He's talking about a duckling, but let's hope Peter can be mentioned in +the same terms in the near future," said Sam, as he drove the fleet Byrd +and me before him with the switch, in a scamper to Mammy and food. + +"Yes," said Sam, as he stood an hour later in the middle of the plot +under the south window, which spread out in the sun like a great black +lake, smooth from his repeated plowing and harrowing, "that is the +richest bit of land at The Briers or in Benton County. It will bring +some posies for you, Bettykin." + +"I'm not going to plant just flowers in it, Sam," I answered in a tone +that admitted of no discussion, "Do you remember the part of +grandmother's book that told what she made off of the southern half-acre +of hers the year everything failed? I've got it right here, and I'm +going to follow it," and as I spoke I hugged the ancestral garden to my +breast with one arm, while I held the old grass basket I had made for +Sam in my infancy in the other hand, with all my town seeds in it. + +"Oh, there's plenty of garden-land all over the place, Betty. Come on +and sow the posies." + +"There's not plenty of onion and beet and lettuce and okra and tomato +and celery land right at the well, Sam, that Byrd and I can carry water +from," I answered, positively. "Is this land mine or yours?" + +"Yours." + +"Wait. I forgot!" I exclaimed in sudden, embarrassed consternation. "Are +you renting this land to me, Sam?" + +"Renting it to you, Betty?" For a second Sam's eyes blazed in a way I +hadn't seen since the time I didn't want to take all of the one fish we +caught after a hot day's fishing out at Little Harpeth at our tenth and +fourteenth years. Then, suddenly, a queer expression came up and drowned +the anger in his eyes and twitched at the comers of his mouth until I +recognized it as humor. + +"I believe it would be better for us both to crop it on shares, as you +are going to put in foodstuffs, too. I am cropping on onions with old +Charlie Wade, down the road, and with sugar-beets with Hen Bates. In +this case it would be about fair for you to furnish the seeds and I the +land, all labor that each of us puts in to be charged against the gross +receipts. I'll just enter you in my time-book now. Let's see--it is +one-fifteen," and as he spoke Sam took out, first his watch, and then a +muddy little book that had time-tables and all sorts of almanac things +in it. + +For a second I was as mad as I was when he handed me the two-inch fish +and ordered me to take it in for the cook to have for my supper; but in +a second I saw just what he had done to me and I didn't dare +remonstrate. + +"How much do I get an hour?" I asked, with the greatest dignity, as I +threw the seed-basket and my hat on the ground and picked up my rusty +old hoe, ready for business. + +"I charge myself at twelve and a half cents. Are you worth about--about +fifteen?" he asked in a business-like tone of voice, but I saw a twitch +at the corners of his mouth that made me boil with rage. + +"Put me down at six and a quarter for the present," I answered, +haughtily. + +"Down she goes," he answered, as he thus minimized me with his pencil +and put the book back in his pocket. "Now, where do you want me to heave +in the lilacs so as to get the two corners of the garden to guide the +rows by? Shall they run north and south or east and west? It really +doesn't make much difference." + +"East and west, then," I answered, calmly, though my hand clenched over +the hollyhock seeds which I had put in an envelope in the pocket of my +corduroy skirt. It was cruelly thoughtless of him--this selection of the +lilacs for the corner-stones of the garden after making me so happy, not +a month ago, with that lovely sentiment about wanting to plant the +hollyhock seeds first in memory of the dolls of our youth. "Peter will +enjoy looking down the rows from the living-room window better than +across them," I added, quickly, for fear he would humiliate me by +remembering that he had forgotten the hollyhock seeds he had stolen for +me. + +"Say where and I'll dig for you," he said; but I saw a glint of +something fairly shoot from his eyes. + +"Here," I said, and stood at a nice right angle from the corner of the +house and the old cedar-tree he had said he could nail the wires to to +save a post, when he had to put up a fence. + +He came over promptly with the spade and poised it to dig into the +ground--and my heart. + +Then he hesitated, and looked at me quickly for a second. Then he threw +down the spade and said, quietly: + +"I'll go get that rotted stump dirt before I break ground for the +lilacs, and you can think about things while you wait." With that he +lifted the wheelbarrow and trundled out of the situation, leaving me in +the depths of a hurt uncertainty. + +But if Samuel Foster Crittenden thought I was as stupid as that, he had +a chance to learn better--at least I thought I would give him one. I'm +not sure yet that I did. + +As soon as he was out of sight I flew to the end of the garden, where I +thought the row of hollyhocks would make a lovely background for all the +long lines of vegetables and flowers running into it, sighted with my +eye, ran a trench with the rusty old hoe, flung in my seeds, and covered +it up in less time than it takes to tell it. When Sam came back I had +spaded out at least two and a half shovelfuls of dirt, that I found +surprisingly heavy, from the hole for the first lilac. I saw him start +and hesitate as if about to say something, and then I think--I think, +but I can't be sure--his eyes rested on my hasty and surreptitious +gardening. + +"You are the real thing, Betty," was all he said as he roughed my hair, +first back and then down over my eyes, and took Grandmother Nelson's +spade from my hand and began to make the dirt fly out of the hole. I +wonder what I'll say when those hollyhocks come up. + +And then we all worked. It astonished me to find what one man, one +woman, and one small boy can do to a plot of earth in three hours, with +a string, sharpened sticks, seed, hoes, spades, rakes, and radiant +happiness. At four o'clock we all three sank down in a heap at the end +of the last row of green peas in delicious exhaustion. + +"Nice little seed, I'll dig you up to-morrow to see how you feel," said +the Byrd as he patted in a stray pea he had found with the beets. "I +can't dig you all up, but I will as many as I can." + +"Yes, you will--not," said Sam, reaching for him as he skimmed and +dipped away. And then followed a lecture on floriculture, agriculture, +and horticulture that I immensely enjoyed. + +"Yes," assented the fledgling, with the greatest intellectual +enthusiasm, "baby beets folds up jest that way," and he illustrated +after Sam, with his grubby little paddies, "same as chickens in eggs +and--" + +"Come on, Betty, let's go select the spot for the cedar-log temple for +Peter's muses," Sam interrupted as he made a lightning grab for the Byrd +and tumbled him back into the loamy earth. + +I realized then that up to a quarter of five o'clock on that +twenty-first-of-April day I had been really wretchedly uneasy about +Peter in every way, that I did and did not understand since that scene +at the tea-table in the Astor when I had assumed the responsibility of +him. But at that moment when Sam held back a tangle of blackberry-bushes +and low-sweeping dogwood boughs, and we stepped out on a moss-covered +rock-ledge that commanded a view of the Harpeth Valley, stretching away +and away in an iridescent shimmer of springiness and sunshine, it +completely vanished, for the time being, anyway. + +"Oh," I said, with a great sigh of relief, "let's plant Peter here. +He--he can grow his dream in this place." + +"Yes," answered Sam, quietly, "I'll log up and daub up a shack right +here, with a stone fireplace. It won't cost anything, for I'll use my +own logs and pick up my own stones. Thank God for shoulders and arms +which can make shelter for anybody that needs it anywhere," and as he +spoke Sam looked across the valley into the blaze of the sun that was +beginning to go down behind Paradise Ridge, with that earth-smolder I +was beginning to recognize. I knew that David and Moses and Christ had +all looked down across new life from a hillside, and Sam seemed almost +transfigured to me. And I had a--a vision. I saw that Sam was to be one +of a gigantic new kind of men to whom all who were ahungered and athirst +would come to be cared for. I had brought Peter to him first, and I +knew--I felt that others--that-- + +"Sam," I said, as I reached out and laid a timid hand, for the first +time stained with earth labor, on the blue sleeve of his overalls, +"don't ever leave Peter and me anywhere you are not, will you?" + +"I'm always here for you both when you need me, Betty. Just call," he +answered. "And now you hustle home to Mother Hayes or she won't let me +have you at six and a quarter cents any more." + +"Make it five, Sam. I feel smaller now." + +"No, that'll be Pete's rate. Come on and take the mud-scow back to Eph. +Present my compliments to him after he has washed it." + +Some people have a way of pruning a friend's spirit in a manner that +makes it bush out more hardily than ever. That is the way Sam does me, +and I intend to worship him delightfully if I want to and he continues +to deserve it. It is so much better for a woman to worship a man than +love him; it puts a strong barrier between them to keep him from hurting +her, which loving him doesn't seem to, at least not with Edith and +Tolly; and I am always worried over Peter; but for long intervals I can +forget Sam comfortably and find him right there when I need him. + +I am glad that I had that care-free day of hard work with Sam out at The +Briers to fatigue me so that I couldn't take Peter's letter completely +to heart. I read it, cried over it a minute, and then fell into my bed +without even putting rose oil on my cheek curls to hold them in place. +My first day at farming had done me up. Still, it's no use to cover up +your head from trouble; it's right here by the bed the minute you peep +over the top of the sheet. I woke up, feeling that the whole world must +be camping on the top of my crocheted lace counterpane; but soon I +realized that it was only Peter's play. Peter is stuck in the mud at the +beginning of the third act, and he thinks it is quicksands that are +going to drown him. The last few sentences of the letter sound like a +beautiful funeral oration to himself, and they made me so miserable that +I put on my clothes and fled to daddy, who was out smoking his cigar on +the front porch in the crisp morning air. + +"And Sam can't possibly get ready for him to come down in less than two +weeks. He has to build the house in between the plowing and milking and +other things. Peter may die. What shall we do?" I wound up with a wail. + +"Sam paid off the note on two of the cows and cash for the mule last +Monday," answered daddy. "Not a farmer in the Harpeth Valley has done +better in less than two years, and I would leave Peter to him. I guess +he can fodder up the play, too. Have the poet down to visit mother while +he waits." + +"He can't come for a week; he's going to be decorated at the Academy. +He's the youngest that ever has been; but I'll write and ask him," I +answered, in a jumble, but very much comforted. + +Peter accepted my invitation and announced his arrival as ten days +later. Then real work began among Sam's friends and mine in Hayesboro. + +I put the case to them plainly and movingly. Here was a young and +distinguished genius coming to settle down in Hayesboro to rescue his +play, and it was the duty of everybody to help him in every way. The +first thing he had to have was shelter, and we ought to all help Sam as +much as we could to provide it for him. He was willing to stay with us +for a few days, on mother's invitation, which I had to hide nine +crochet-needles to make her write him, but he wrote that his "spirit +panted for the wilderness," and if he felt that way about it he ought to +be settled in the cabin as soon as possible. + +"Why, of course," said Julia, with large and responsive enthusiasm, "we +must just all turn in and help Sam. I never helped build a house, but if +you can, Betty, so can I." + +"I can make curtains and things and cushions for chairs," said Edith, +with no less enthusiasm than Julia's. "I have a lovely bureau-scarf all +finished and--" + +"Chairs--bureau!" I fairly gasped. "Neither Sam nor I had thought of +furniture. Sam paid a big note in the bank for the cows and mule, and +how can he buy more stock like chairs and bureaus and beds?" + +"Why, hasn't Sam got furniture? The Crittenden house had the loveliest +in Hayesboro," asked Edith, plaintively. + +"He's sold it; Sam is poor," I answered, proudly. "He hasn't got +anything but Mammy and Byrd and the other stock, and places for all to +sleep and eat and keep warm. Now what are we going to do?" + +"He wouldn't let us buy him anything, would he?" asked Sue, +thoughtfully. + +"I know Sam better than that," said Edith. + +"I'll tell you," I exclaimed, suddenly and radiantly. "Of course, we +can't give Sam anything, but I believe--I believe that if I asked him +very kindly he would let us make a kind of museum of affection of +Peter's room and take all the lovely things we can borrow from people to +put in the shack to help inspire him. Mother will let me start with +Grandmother Nelson's desk, though it is dearer than life to me; and I +know she'll crochet him a lamp-mat before he gets here--maybe several, +if she likes the pattern she starts on." + +"Do you remember that mahogany table in my room?" exclaimed Julia, +several minutes lost in deep reflection. "It is real Chippendale, Aunt +Amanda says, and I'll send that out. Oh, to think of a poet laying his +pen down on it! Or does he use a pencil?" + +And it is true that from very small beginnings great trees grow. In +this case it was Peter's roof-tree, or rather what was under it. I never +saw anything like Hayesboro when it takes generosity in its teeth and +runs away, as at the time when Mr. Stanton, the Methodist minister, had +thirty-five pounds of sausage sent him from different hog-killings just +because in prayer-meeting, when he publicly thanked the Lord for his +seventh child, he mentioned that it was welcome, though one more mouth +to feed. Of course, the baby didn't need the sausage any more than Peter +really needed all the things everybody wanted to send out to make the +cabin comfortable for him. Fortunately, Sam kept his head, as the +minister did when he sold the sausage and bought groceries for the whole +family; he selected only five pieces out of the list of sixty that we +gave him, and it took me a day and a half to go around and keep people +from getting hurt because he didn't call in his wagon for the things +they had got out and rubbed and dusted. And before the sun set on the +second day of my explanations I had talked Peter into the very heart of +Hayesboro, which was all down to the station to meet him and welcome +him. The mayor wanted to have the brass band, but I persuaded him not to +do that, but to make Peter a little speech. Miss Henrietta Spain asked +to have her school children march down to throw jonquils in his path, +and I had to give in to that. Besides, I thought Peter would like it; so +did Sam. + +But that came later, after six of the longest days any of us ever lived +through. We spent them at The Briers, and every soft friend I had is now +a hardened specimen. Everybody went out to see Sam and advise him about +how to care for a distinguished guest that they all felt that Hayesboro +owned and was just lending to Sam for the time being, and they all +remained to farm. Most of them had never been to see him before, and +they were so delighted that they lost their heads and hearts to the +farm. The Briers is like a great, big, beautiful dog that lies there +begging you to come and plow it and scratch it and hoe it and rake it, +while it licks out green curly vegetable tongues for more. At first Sam +seemed slightly overwhelmed by all the offers of help that came with me +in Redwheels, dressed in business-like corduroys that had been made like +mine, in a hurry, and with hoes and seed-baskets, or that Pink or Tolly +drove out in their cars; but he finally entered everybody in the +time-book at two and a half cents an hour, gave each a plot of ground +that wouldn't do for anything else, and started them off, while he kept +on at real work. I'm glad to have every healthy assurance of being in +the world when Sam comes to the harvesting of his friendly crops. It +will be a great occasion. If Edith's five rows of okra do not net or +gross--I forget which is the right term for it--I know she will wilt +away, and I dread Sue if her fifty tomato-plants go down before the +humble cutworm. Sue won't be humble. Miss Editha came out with us one +afternoon and sowed a row of ladies'-slippers and princess-feathers, and +it was funny to see old Dr. Chubb, who had driven the ten miles just for +the pleasure of seeing Sam (only, Sam said it was in hopes of seeing +me), digging and raking for her, while Colonel Menefee, in true military +style, commanded them both. Father came once and took Sam away down to a +field by himself, and from the look on both their faces I was afraid Sam +had again refused to borrow money to buy the mate to the mule he needed +so badly. Father was so mad he took off his coat, and he and Tolly split +wood enough for the big fireplace to last until midsummer. Sam says that +Pink sweat enough soap-grease to make him worth more than two and a half +cents, if it could have been collected. He didn't mean us to hear him +say it to Pink, but Edith got pale with shock, while daddy roared so +that old Buttercup came up the hill to see what was the matter. Julia +laughed, and so did I--when we got away from Edith. + +It took six good days of such chorus work to get every odd job at The +Briers nicely finished up, and daddy and the mayor and Colonel Menefee +mended all the rail fences before they rested on the seventh. + +Then on Monday morning came the log-raising for the poet's lodge, and +everybody assembled long before Sam had nicked the last log with his +great big adz. We all sat around on the rocks and ends of the logs and +discussed how to begin before Sam got ready to tell us the right way. +The colonel and Miss Editha were standing a little to one side, and I +knew that he was being sentimental by the fluttering smile that came and +went on her tea-rose face; but suddenly he turned and said to daddy, +with his fierce old face lighting: + +"Just look, Hayes, there's pioneer blood in them yet--and brawn, too," +he added, as Tolly and Pink and Billy Robertson stripped off their coats +and came forward as Sam knocked the last crimson cedar chip from the +last log. + +"Steady--up now, Tolly," said Sam, as Tolly bent to one end of one of +the long, rough cedar logs, that had so lately been a forest king, but +that was now dethroned and shorn of its branching power with which to +wrestle with the wind. Pink and Billy got holds in between. "Up--up, +boys! Now roll!" shouted Sam again, and with a strain and a heave they +landed the first log level and true on the stone underpinnings. + +"Hip--hip--hurrah for the poet's house!" shouted Tolly, as he rolled his +shirt-sleeves up and spat on his hands to show his readiness for more +logs; and we all clapped, while Edith picked up a button that had popped +off his shirt with the strain of his big chest underneath. + +Then for a second Sam's kind eyes sank down deep into mine and smoldered +there. I know he was praying for Peter as the rest cheered. Then he bent +and called out: + +"Next. Up--up, boys! Steady!" + +My eyes misted for a second, and Peter's pale face rose before them in +the mist. Peter is a man of dreams, for whom was being harnessed all +this sinew and brawn of reality. And men must plow and plant and reap +and hew and lift for their vision-bringers, and women must do it also. +It is only right. I am willing. Where were the neighbors to the Keatses +that they didn't--And I was about to be dissolved in a sea of sentiment +when Sam's voice hauled me to the surface as he shouted: + +"Hi, Betty, get out and sight this end for a right angle-drop, as I +showed you. Wait! Back, boys!" + +And after that I held the metal square and sighted until I felt as if I +had eaten a right angle, while Sam's crew heaved and raised and dropped +and rolled, until all four of the low walls were fitted into the +notches, log for log, and the roof-poles were laid just as the sun began +to quit his job and get on toward China. + +"No four of their young Virginia pioneer ancestors who came over the +wilderness trail did it any quicker or better, Colonel," said daddy, as +he walked around to the back of the cabin and then again to the front. +As he spoke he laid his arm across Sam's shoulder--and I knew that the +breach was healed until the next time daddy tried to help him +financially. + +All the log-raisers went home by twilight, and daddy and I were the +last. The Byrd had insisted on showing daddy nine little curly-tailed +pigs taking their evening repast at the maternal fount, which they were +shyly late in doing because the fledgling perched so near them on the +fence to exhibit and direct the repast. + +This left me to help Sam gather up his tools and pick up the fragrant +cedar chips for Mammy's vesper fire. + +"Now, the chimney next and Pete's housed," said Sam, as he sat down on a +log right where I was crouching, filling the basket with the chips. "Are +you happy, Bettykin?" + +"Sam, when I know that Peter is tucked in that little old bed that +matches yours that mother gave you out of our garret I am going to +breathe so deep that maybe I'll--I'll break my belt," I answered, as I +picked a chip from under one of his big farm shoes. "I couldn't stand +him on my mind much longer." + +"Let him stay comfortably in your heart and don't get him on your mind," +answered Sam, as he calmly got out the cob pipe, filled and lighted it. +"Pete's great enough to fill both for any woman." And Sam's face took on +that devout young prophet-look it always does when he looks at his land +or mentions Peter--the look which then began to irritate as well as +impress me, I don't exactly know why. + +"My mind's not very big and my heart is smaller," I snapped, as I upset +part of the basket of chips and had to begin to pick them all up again. + +"You're young--you'll grow up--to Pete," said Sam, as he roughed my hair +worse than he had ever done since I had forbidden him, picked up my +basket and started to the house, leaving me to follow, squaw-fashion +and perfectly furious. Now if I don't know whether my troth is plighted +to Peter, and Peter doesn't know, I am certain that I can't see why +Samuel Foster Crittenden should be so sure of it; and he and I parted +anything but friends, a fact over which I could feel daddy chuckle as he +sat wedged beside me in the car, though he didn't dare smile. I would +wager my first mess of peas that he winked at Sam. I had seen them act +that way about me only too often in my infancy. I felt that I hated the +whole world until I had to except the fledgling, who rode down to the +gate on the running-board just over my left shoulder, while Sam came +along to hold him on. + +"Betty, you is the prettiest lady they is if your eyes do crinkle when +you laugh, and ain't blue. I'd let you kiss me anywhere I'm clean +enough, if you bring me just one pigeon that will lay eggs for little +ones," he said, as I slowed up for him to climb down to open the gate. + +"She could get one cheaper than that, Byrd," said Sam, as he got down to +open the gate, while for a second I snuggled the fledgling, whom I +always hated to leave out in the woods in the dark, even with Sam's +rough hand so near his pillow. + +"Thank you," I said, pleasantly, as I drove through the gate, without +stopping another ten minutes to chat, as I knew daddy wanted to. I'm +glad Samuel Foster Crittenden will never know just exactly what I was +cross about, as I wasn't sure myself. It is strange how you can hate a +person for whom you have the deep regard I have for Sam, when he has +done nothing at all to offend you. + +That night I fought it all out with myself about Peter. I felt that Sam +had brought the sore spot in my heart to head and I would have to +operate and find out what was really there. Accordingly, after I had +safely anchored myself in the middle of my old four-poster bed I slashed +myself. This is what I found. That I had made up my mind to marry Peter +just as soon as he wanted me to, which I knew would not be until after +the play was finished down in Sam's wilderness. I had two reasons for my +intention. Nobody in the world ever loved and depended on me as Peter +has always done since he read me the winning poem that he sent in for +his Junior Prize. Peter needs me, and nobody else in the world does. +What could love be but giving and cherishing the beloved? By the test of +how I longed to do all that to Peter I found out how I loved him. That +was the reason I openly admitted, but I am afraid that I was afraid of +Sam if I should fail his young David-Keats in any way. He had already +warned me what I must be to him, and I felt as I did about that heifer I +let get by me the first day I went to dig Sam out of the hollow tree to +which he has now had to build a new crotch in order to take in Peter. +This time I would head off his calf for him, though I didn't mean to +call Peter that, even in the heat of debate with myself. Oh, I could +take such good care of Peter and Judge Vandyne, and Mabel would be so +glad! My spirits rose at the thought of their joy, and as I felt better, +I luxuriated in the thought of Sam's approbation. I would give Peter the +answer he had begged for in every letter, help him with the play until +it was finished, and then have a glorious wedding, with Edith and Sue +and Julia and all the girls. I must have fallen asleep then, for I +dreamed that Julia was the bride at my wedding and that I couldn't get +there. When I woke from that nightmare I decided to let Sam have the +happiness of hearing Peter tell him of my submission to their wishes; +and that time I sobbed myself to sleep. + +From that fatal night until the afternoon of Peter's arrival, I saw Sam +only three times, and those when there were many others with us. I was +so sweet and submissive to him that I saw I alarmed him greatly. + +Peter arrived according to schedule and was met in the manner planned +by our friends. As he stood on the train platform just behind a woman +and a baby, I saw his great dark eyes, that seem fairly to glow out of +his beautiful face, eagerly race over the crowd. When they rested on me +they lit with what I thought was perfect joy until I saw them find Sam a +few seconds later. That was the real thing, and I never loved Peter +better than when I saw him hold Sam's hand in his while he was greeting +me in a suppressed, lover-like way and was being introduced to people. +Sam was also radiant. Peter and Sam and I are the eternal triangle that +Peter is always talking into plots for plays--only Sam is the apex +instead of me. Isn't it beautiful to have it that way? + + + + +III + +THE BOOK OF LAUGHTER + + +Hayesboro took Peter into its heart of hearts and then sighed for more +to give him. This town is like the old man's horse whose natural gait is +running away when it is not asleep. Peter woke it up and it took the bit +in its mouth and bolted with him, while Peter clung to the saddle and +had the time of his young poetic life. + +Mother accepted Peter with her usual placidity. She took him into her +room and I suppose she examined him physically, for I saw her give him a +dose of sarsaparilla tea every morning he was with us. I bought her five +spools of the finest silk thread, ranging in shade from gray to +lavender, to begin on a crocheted tie and pair of socks for him. Daddy +was as good as gold to him and fell immediately into Judge Vandyne's +attitude toward him. I knew he would. Eph maintained the dignity of the +haphazard family at meal-times, and waited on Peter worshipfully at all +others. The black beauty in the kitchen was heard to remark to the +house-girl: + +"I hope that white man's skin will stretch, for I shore am going to +stuff it. He am a insult to any respectable skillet or pot." She did, +and at times I trembled for the poet. + +He read to Miss Henrietta Spain's school the poem on "Space" which the +_Literary Opinion_ had copied; and he was the greatest possible success. +Most of it I feel sure the school didn't understand. But just as he +finished the last two lines--those lines the magazine had called "as +perfect in winged lyric quality as any lines in the English language +could be"--the Byrd, whom Sam had groomed carefully and brought in from +the brier-patch for the occasion, rose, and, with his freckles black +with the intensity of his comprehension of the poem, spread his little +arms and said: + +"I fly! I fly!" + +"I fly! I fly, too!" A little chubkin in a blue muslin dress just +behind him jumped to her feet and echoed him before they could be +repressed. + +"That was the most perfect tribute I shall ever receive," Peter said, +that night out on the porch, after Sam had gone home, carrying the +exhausted Byrd, who even in sleep held in one hand the handle of a full +basket he had begged from mother, and in the other tightly grasped a +sack in which were two "little ones" daddy had got for him. These +treasures happened to be young rabbits, and Sam said he would charge +daddy with the damages. + +"Good old Sam," said Peter, as we stood at the gate by the old lilac, +who was beginning to beplume himself more richly than any of his +compatriots in Hayesboro--in honor of Peter, I felt sure--and watched +Sam and the Byrd jog away in the wagon down Providence Road. "He'll make +his mark on his generation yet, Betty. This is just a temporary eclipse +of the effulgence of a young planet that will shine with the warm light +of humanity when the time comes. There is no man like him. O Samboy!" + +"Oh, I love you, Peter, for feeling that way," I exclaimed, heartily, as +I grasped his arm with enthusiasm. "You are so wonderful, Peter." + +"Dear, dearest Betty," said Peter, as he put his arm through mine, and +we both began to swing back and forth on the gate. "It is so marvelous +to have a woman respond to your every mood as you do to mine. It is like +having in one's possession an angel incarnate in her own harp." + +"Oh, Peter you _are_ wonderful!" I again exclaimed, because I felt that +way and had no other feeling to draw another remark from. It is so +satisfactory to love a man with no variations. I cannot see why girls +like to tremble and blush and chill and glow and get angry and repentant +about the men they love, as Edith does about Clyde Tolbot. I wish I +could make them all understand the great calmness of true love like mine +for Peter. + +The five days that Peter stayed with mother, Hayesboro did many other +things to him. The mayor got up a barbecue in his honor, and they had +nine political speeches and two roast pigs and a lamb. Peter came home +pale, but we decided before we went to bed to let the hero of "The +Emergence" get beaten up a little in the strike before he made his great +speech to the capitalist. I felt so happy for the play. + +But the next day Peter took tea alone with Miss Editha Morris +Carruthers, and he was so charmed with her that he almost decided to let +the whole play end in separation. + +"But it is so lonely for a woman to be a heroine of a separation, +Peter," I pleaded with him as we sauntered up and down the long porch. + +"Under such stress souls grow, Betty," he answered, gloomily. "Together +lovers feed on the material; apart, on the immaterial. Can we say which +is best for the final emergence of the superman and--" Just here Julia +came across the street and into our front gate, looking like a ripe +peach, in a pink muslin gown, with a huge plate of hickory-nut +butter-candy in her hand, and we all three proceeded to material +nourishment. I left them for a few minutes while I went up to my room +and took out Grandmother Nelson's book. I wanted to be sure that not a +single thing would bloom before I got back to The Briers. Peter had +insisted that he should not go forth into the wilderness until he could +do it dramatically to stay, so I hadn't been out for five days or more +and I was wild--simply mad. To have a garden and be separated from it at +sprouting and blooming time is worse than any soul separation that ever +happened to any woman. Of that I feel sure. + +Sue Bankhead was as nice and lovely to Peter as could be, and even Billy +Robertson's contentment with himself was slightly ruffled with the way +she took him out horseback with her every morning, but her crowning +attention was a dance for him. Sue has the loveliest dances in Hayesboro +because of her own charm and the fact that the double parlors in the old +Bankhead house are sixty-two feet long and forty-six feet wide. The +girls were as lovely as a bunch of spring blossoms, and Julia looked +like the most gorgeous, pink, fragrant, drooping cabbage-rose as Peter +danced with her again and again. I was so glad, because he is as tall as +she is, and she is such a good dancer that it must have been as soothing +to his tired nerves as a nice wide rocking-chair with billows of blue +mull cushions. It was easy to see what she thought of him from the way +she looked at him, and poor Pink took me out in the moonlight and swore +at me in polite language. + +"Why don't you feed your sick poet your own self, Betty, and not let him +loose to eat up my girl?" he stormed. + +"Oh, Pink, how can you be so ungenerous, when you know how wonderful he +is and how wonderful his play will be if you and everybody are kind and +good to him while he is writing it," I chided him. + +"Well, he had better not put Julia into it without me," he answered, +somewhat mollified at my reproof. + +"He won't, I know he won't," I hastened to assure him. "Especially if +you are nice to him, as you promised. You know, Pink, you are an awfully +interesting man in some ways, and I know it is going to do Peter a lot +of good to be friends with you; you are so--so substantial." + +"That's it; slap my fat! Everybody does," he answered, gloomily. + +"It was the mules I was talking about, not you, Pink," I answered, +hurriedly, for I know how sensitive he is. + +"Well, call me a mule then," he again said, with the deepest depression. + +"Now don't be stupid, Pink, and--" + +"I am stupid, too!" + +"Pink Herriford, will you please tell my friend, Peter Vandyne, about +your heroism in stopping the stampede of those thousand mules you were +shipping to France in time to save the lives of all of them and about +ten men? I seem to have to speak to you in words of two syllables +to-night." I could feel my cheeks burn with temper as I spoke and Pink +came immediately out of his grouch and into his own happy personality. + +"Holy smoke! Betty, but that was some stunt! First I saw a big red mule +lift his hind legs in ugly temper, and let fly right and left just as--" + +"Oh, wait Pink, let me get Peter!" I exclaimed, as I heard the dance +that Pink and I had been arguing out, instead of sitting or dancing out, +stop to get breath. + +Pink was a wonder as he stood in the center of everybody that I had +gathered around him to hear in particular what they had all been talking +about in general. We were all spellbound, for it was a really exciting +and tremendous recital, and even Julia came out of her daze over Peter +to listen with rapt attention, though I imagine she had heard it before. + +"Immense!" exclaimed Peter, with his pale, thin face in a perfect flame +of excitement just as Pink threw his own body right in front of the +largest mule and turned his neck and-- + +"What?" said Pink, as he glared at Peter suspiciously. + +"Perfectly great," said Peter, laying his arm on Pink's. "And I don't +see--" + +Just here I slipped out onto the porch and sat down on the steps in the +starlight to get my breath while the tale of heroism went on from the +reassured hero. + +And as I stood on the front steps, just out of the noise of "Too Much +Mustard" that had again begun its syncopated wail in the house, I began +to worry about all my flower children in the country. Sam had not been +in for three days, and he had sent word by one of his neighbors that he +couldn't get to the dance because he had to cup up potatoes to plant. He +had explained to Byrd and me all about how you cut out each little eye +with some potato around it for moisture and nourishment while it takes +root in the earth, and the Byrd had been especially interested in all +the potato-peels ever since. He had almost worn the life out of Mammy +begging her not to cut through any of the "little ones" with her knife +until she had taken to boiling them whole. And as I sat and pictured +them all sitting on the back porch with the big lamp lighted, just +cutting away, maybe Byrd still up for the emergency, the whole dance +seemed to put on a mask of grinning foolishness and resolve itself, with +its jiggy music, into a large bunch of nothing, with me included. I was +in a bad way for the best dancer in Hayesboro, not to sound like +boastful Billy. + +"Well, hello! Can this be Betty the wall-flower?" called a voice from +over the fence. It was so out of sight that it might have come from the +hollow log out on Old Harpeth if it hadn't been so near. "Won't anybody +dance with you, honey-bunch?" + +"Nobody; unless you will," I answered, running down toward the voice. +And as I came nearer the hedge I saw that a wagon and mule were drawn up +in the shadow behind a man. "It's fine for you to come in, after all, +Sam. Peter will be so happy." + +"Overalls are not invited," answered Sam, as he gave my hair the usual +rough with his big horny hand while I reached up and grasped his sleeve, +too glad to see him to remonstrate. "I came in for Pete's things, and I +brought a load of new peas and ten dozen eggs at the same time, so I +couldn't dress for the dance, or have time to dance if I did. Six +seventy-five a barrel, and five barrels; how's that for wealth, +Bettykin?" As he spoke Sam reached down in his overalls pocket, brought +up a big fistful of all kinds of money, and poured it into my tunic of +embroidered mull that I held up for it. + +"It is the most beautiful money I ever saw," I said, and I had to +swallow hard to keep out of my voice the sentiment I knew Sam would not +like. I knew how hard he had worked for every cent of it. + +"I'll give you that bright new quarter if you think it is so pretty," he +said, and of course it couldn't have been emotion that cut his voice off +so indistinctly. + +"Come on, then, and let me dance for it," I answered. Then myself and +money and mull dress,--that came all the way from New York with a +three-figured bill--I threw into the blue-jeans arms. And out on the +smooth, hard turnpike Sam and I had one glorious fox-trot with only the +surprised mule looking on. + +"Bring Pete out at about eleven. Your first pea is due to pod about +noon. No, I must go now or never," said Sam as he shook me off when I +clung and begged for another dance. He climbed up in the wagon. "Good +night," he called. + +For a long time I stood and watched him standing bolt upright in the +wagon and clattering away with his great ugly old mule in a lurching +trot; then I went in to the dance. I didn't tell anybody that Sam had +been there, because they would all have been disappointed. The way Sam's +home town loves him and disapproves of his farming is pathetic. Five +miles is a long way for anybody that knows Sam to be separated from him, +at least that is the way I felt as Peter slid and skidded and dipped me +around while he told me how proud he was of my beauty and the lovely and +worthy friends I possessed. He mentioned Julia and Pink and the mules in +detail. I think Peter Vandyne has the most grateful, appreciative, +sympathetic nature I ever encountered, and I told him so as we walked +home across the lawn while the stars were beginning to grow pale and +flicker with no more night to burn. + +"My heart is full, full, dear, dearest Betty, with you and--and the +work. The vision becomes clearer," Peter said, with his great dark eyes +looking up at the retreating stars. And as we walked up the steps he +told me another struggle he had thought up for the hero to have with his +conscience about the poor little waiting heroine. The mule story hadn't +done him one bit of good, and I went to bed as cross as two sticks. + +"Oh, Samboy! I'm glad you are there and that you are Peter's next of +friends or first or--Good night!" I muttered, as I closed my eyes on my +favorite glimpse of Old Harpeth. + +The next morning at about nine-thirty occurred Peter Vandyne's +introduction into real life. He took it gallantly with his head up and +swimming for shore. + +The day was one of young May's maiden efforts offered with a soft smile +of tender sunshine and in a flutter of bird wing and apple-blow. Of +course, Sam had told me not to bring Peter out to The Briers until about +eleven o'clock, because he wanted to do some farm housekeeping, as I +afterward found out. But half past nine was the very limit of my +endurance, and I sat and fidgeted with the wheel while mother and Eph +packed us up with the inevitable basket for Byrd plus the also +inevitable "little ones" that daddy somehow managed to find for him. +These young were three small kittens, attended in their blindness by a +black-and-white-spotted mother cat, all safely laced into a large basket +and by that time resigned to their fate. I didn't mean to be +disrespectful to dear Peter in my thoughts, but somehow they reminded me +of him as he was led to farm life; and I laughed outright as Eph gave +Peter a parting pat and Redwheels and me a shove, while mother called +after us not to forget the sarsaparilla. + +As long as I live I shall remember that journey along old Providence +Road with a lovely nature like Peter's. He glowed with his inward flame +there at my side, until I felt that it would be bad for him. Peter has +seen all kinds of wonderful scenery all his life; but of course, there +is none in the world anything like the Harpeth Valley. All the other in +the world is either grand or placid or swept and garnished and tended or +brilliant or moist, but this valley under Paradise Ridge is different. +Peter expressed it so that my throat tightened and I had to hold +steadier to the wheel as we passed an old farm wagon. + +"It's the hollow of God's hand in which He has gathered His children and +their homes, Betty," he said, huskily. "Look at that white-haired old +grand dame in her frilled frock with the string of chickens following +her and the two kiddies bringing up the rear. And look at that old +red-gray brick house. England has nothing finer." + +"That is old Mrs. Georgetta Johnson," I answered, as I waved my hand and +got a stately wave in return. "She is the fifth generation to live in +that house, and the two kiddies are the eighth. Her mother danced with +Lafayette, and she is over eighty-five. I'll take you to see her some +day." + +"Betty," said Peter, with positive awe, "I have never seen such homes +and furniture and people as I have found here. What is it that makes it +so--so satisfying?" + +"It must be that everything has had time to root here, people and all," +I answered as I again avoided a farm wagon and a negro driving two fine +milk-cows with cow babies wobbling along at their flanks. + +"Yes," answered Peter, thoughtfully--"yes, I should say that 'rooted' +would about express the life, and I am wondering--" But just here we +turned off into Brier Lane, and Peter went up in the air and began to +float among the tree-tops, only being able to take in the high-lights +like the gnarled old cedars that jutted out from the lichen-covered +stone wall and hung over the moss-green snake-rail fences, or the old +oaks which were beginning to draw young, green loveliness around them, +or the feathery buckbushes and young hackberries that were harboring all +varieties of mating birds who were wooing and flirting and cheeping baby +talk in a delightfully confidential and unabashed manner. Peter had +become wildly absorbed in a brilliant scarlet cardinal that followed the +car, scolding and swearing in the most pronounced bird language, all for +no fault of ours that we could see, when we turned in the cedar-pole +gate of The Briers and began to wind our way up through the potato and +corn field on one side and the primeval forest on the other. It was +difficult to get Peter past the old thorn-tree view of the Harpeth +Valley we had come through, and he wanted to get out and stay for ever +at the milk-house; but I finally landed him in a Homeric daze up in +front of the house, which stood with its hospitable old door wide open +but deserted. + +"Sam! Byrd! Mammy!" I shouted at the top of my lungs, while Peter sat +paralyzed at the sight of Sam's farm-house. Peter had got the old +Crittenden house and all the others where he had been entertained in +his mind's eye, and that Sam's present residence was a shock to him I +could see plainly. That was the beginning. + +"Hi, Betty, come here quick--I need you!" came in Sam's most +business-like voice from the barn up on the hill, while I could hear +wild and excited cheeps from the Byrd and disturbed clucks from Mammy. + +Leaving Peter to disembark as he recovered himself, I sped around the +house and up to the barn. + +"Here, Betty, this blamed mule has kicked old Jude, and I must have +somebody to hold the edges together while I sew it up. Mammy's hands +aren't steady enough. Now press the edges together and never mind the +blood on your hands. Hold the halter, Mammy. You get that can of lime +ready to dust it, Byrd." Thus in dirty, blood-stained overalls, with his +hair on ends and an earth smudge as usual right across his face like a +Heidelberg scar, Sam was commanding his forces of nature. + +"Ugh--uu--ow, Sam," I shivered; but I came up under his arm and tried to +push one dripping section of old-roan hide until it joined the other, +though I couldn't quite make it. Over my shoulder Sam began to sew it +across with a huge crooked needle, helping me push the edges together as +best he could. At this auspicious moment the poet appeared at the barn +door in an absolutely dazed condition. + +"Here you, Pete, too!" Sam commanded, without looking up. "Get here on +the other side and press the hide together as Betty is doing. This is +an awful long cut, but I can manage it, thanks to seeing Chubb sew up +Bates's mule. Whoah, Jude, old girl! Hold her steady, Mammy! Now, Pete, +press hard; never mind the blood!" + +At Sam's determined reiteration of the word blood, my senses reeled, and +if it had been anybody but Sam sewing over my shoulder, I would have +gone down in a crumpled heap. Also I was stirred by one glance at +Peter's lovely long oval face with its Keats lock of jet-black hair +tossed aloft, and I remained conscious from astonishment. + +This was a new Peter. His eyes burned in his face with determination. He +squared his legs, clad in his elegant idea of farming corduroys, at the +exact angle at which Sam's were set; then his long, white hands pulled +the bloody old hide together exactly in place. + +"That's it, Pete, hold it there. You slip out, Betty, and hold Jude +while Mammy gets the hot water ready to wash it when it is finished. +Now, Pete, an inch farther along! Whoah, Jude!" And with his long needle +Sam began rapidly to draw the gaping wound together. + +"Here, Byrd, you hold Jude," I said, suddenly; and giving the halter to +the dirty fledgling, who was snubbing tears in his distress over the +accident to his old friend, I quit the scene of the operation and fled +to the woods to faint down on a log and be as ill as I wanted to. It was +rather bad; and it lasted about a quarter of an hour. + +Then, with my head turned determinedly away from the barn, I sought +distraction in an interview with my garden. + +Oh, it was rapturous! Can anything in the world be as wonderful as +putting queer little brown things in the earth, where it scares you to +think of their getting all cold and wet and rotted, and then coming to +see them sprout and curl and run out of the ground? No, nothing can +compare with it unless it is seeing whole rows of them bursting out into +blooms and tassels and little pods and burrs. I felt extravagant and +wanted to kiss the whole vegetable family in a way of encouragement and +greeting. And the two lilacs were both most beautifully plumed out in +their long, white blossoms to greet me. Now, weren't they the plucky +young things to bloom that way in a perfectly strange place? Still, +everybody always did have confidence in Sam. + +But then in every joy patch some weeds are bound to shoot up overnight, +and I was horrified to look down the rows of purple beet fronds and see +what a lot of bold pepper-grass and chickweed were doing in their +trenches. Without waiting to get my gloves from my bag in the car, I +fell to and began a determined onslaught. Furiously I charged down two +rows and up a third, at whose end I sank with exhaustion. + +"Say, Betty, could a cat give kitten dinner to a poor little duck that +all the hens peck?" asked the Byrd, anxiously, as he came and squatted +beside me with two of the new kittens and the duck orphan in question in +his arms. + +"No, Byrd, I don't believe so," I answered, from instinct rather than +direct knowledge. + +"Why is they so many little ones in the world without mothers, me and +the duck and the cow that died 'fore Dr. Chubb came, her calf, and now +that mean old dog have left her puppies to eat out of a plate?" he +asked. He let the kittens slide to the ground, where they sprawled in +their blind helplessness, while he began to tenderly pry open the small +yellow ball's wide bill and insert crumbs of bread rolled into very +realistic pills, but which the patient gobbled with evident +appreciation. + +"See, Byrd, you are just as good as a mother any day," I said, a choke +in my throat as I cuddled his thin little shoulder in the hollow between +my arm and my breast, and bent over to watch the orphan's meal. + +"Like Sam," answered Byrd, with a queer little flash of his keen eyes up +at me, and a grin that was so like Sam's that I tumbled him over onto +the grass, duck and all, and began a frolic with him which delighted his +heart and eased mine. I've loved that "little one" since the day they +let me hold him in my arms when he was only a few hours old and +motherless. Examining him from heels to head had comforted Sam in his +anguish and eased my own sympathetic sorrow. It is a tradition that +Mammy Kitty rescued him just in time; but I've always felt that nothing +would have happened to him at Sam's sixteen-year-old hands if he had +been left for hours. + +In the midst of our frolic Peter and Sam came on the scene, and as far +as Peter was concerned it was indeed a transformation scene. Sam was +very much washed and slick from some time at the wash-bench, and Peter +was likewise, only Peter was not the Peter whom I had brought from town +that very morning. He was attired in a pair of Sam's overalls that could +have been wrapped around him twice, and he had a bit of color in his +cheeks under his eyes, though the eyes were slightly dazed as to +expression. + +"Good work, Betty, for only two hours," said Sam, looking at the three +long ranks of slain weeds and then at his watch. "Pete and I are going +to pick peas for to-morrow's market right after dinner. Want to help?" + +I assented from pure ignorance, and we all went in to devour one of +Mammy's chicken dinners, the like of which is not cooked by another +person in the Harpeth Valley. The way Peter ate would have made the +black beauty in mother's kitchen swell with jealousy until there were +danger to her own black skin. Immediately after the gorge Sam gave me a +basket, gave Peter another, and then looked around for the Byrd, with a +smaller box; but the Byrd had flown. + +"I'll have to tan him for shirking like that," said Sam, looking off +into the bushes. "You Byrd!" But there was no response. That ought to +have roused my suspicions, but it didn't. I went on down to that +pea-patch as innocent as a newly born lamb, with Peter walking beside +me, enthusing over the landscape and swinging the light basket with +elegant nonchalance. + +"I see, Betty dear--I see that there is a great satisfaction in the +pragmatic accomplishment, and--" he was saying when we came out of the +woods onto the southern slope, where lie the long rows of peas, which +are making Sam's fortune. He got them in by working two days and all one +night in a bright spell in mid-February, and nobody for twenty miles +around has any, while he has more than he can gather to market at a top +price; that is, more than he can gather himself with Byrd's assistance, +he explained to us, as he showed us just how to snap the pod against our +thumbs. + +"I ought to put five barrels into Hayesboro every day now for a week +before anybody else gets any," he said, as he squatted at the head of a +row between Peter and me, and we all began to pull at the beautiful +gray-green vines and snap off the full, green pods. I looked across at +poor, innocent, enthusiastic Peter and saw his finish. + +About three o'clock I saw my own finish, and threw up the basket. + +"You poor, dear child!" exclaimed Peter as he came stiffly across the +row Sam had long since finished. He, Sam, was four rows ahead of us, and +a quarter of a mile away, more or less. I had collapsed, with my tired +legs stuck out in front of me and my thumb, swollen from snapping the +pods, in my mouth. "This is too hard work for you." + +"Yes, it is; but Sam won't think so," I answered, with a glance at the +strong, broad back swinging so easily down the slope. "Now, Peter, we +must go right along picking the peas. Sam must get those five barrels," +I said, as I hastily scrambled up and began to pull at the vicious vines +again. + +"Well, I certainly don't intend to stop until they are filled," answered +Peter, stiffly, in more ways than one, and without any more waste of +sympathy he turned his back and went doggedly at the vines. That was my +opportunity, and I took it. I rose, looked with fear at the two men at +work in front of me, and fled, basket and all. I stopped long enough to +empty my full basket in one of the barrels that were already in the +wagon; and as I climbed laboriously down over the wheels, with my +paralyzed legs working slowly, I caught a glimpse of a flash of blue out +in the bushes, topped by a glint of red that was too large to be that of +any bird inhabitant of The Briers. + +"Byrd," I called, softly. + +No answer. + +"Byrd, do you want to go to town with me to see Mother Hayes?" I asked +in subdued tones. That brought its response. + +There were difficulties; but we surmounted them. We were afraid to wake +Mammy at her afternoon nap for the clean clothes of civilization, so we +purloined a fairly clean blue jumper hanging on the porch, while I left +a note for Sam pinned on my old doll seed-basket hanging by his door. It +was large enough for him to see, and it read: + + I'm a good young mule, but I've broken down. Poor Peter! All that + is left of + BETTY. + + _P.S._--I've rescued the Byrd for overnight. I'll return him to + his fate to-morrow. Poor Peter! Poor Peter! + +I wish I could have seen Sam's face when he found it! The next morning +mother's black beauty found my old grass basket full of delicious little +peas on the front steps with this note in it: + + You'll be docked a quarter of a cent every hour you are off your + job. Bring that brat home and both of you get to work. + SAM. + + _P.S._--Something is sprouting in your garden that I don't + understand. + +I knew those hollyhocks would rise up some day and bear witness against +me. For the life of me I couldn't make up my mind what to say about +them, so I sent the Byrd home by Tolly, who was going to take Edith out +to see how her okra was progressing, and stayed in the safe shelter of +my home. On the Byrd's rompers I pinned this note: + + Strike, if you will, my young back, + But spare, oh spare, this little brat! + + BETTY. + +There are all kinds of poetry in the world. + +That night when I was beginning to get restless and wish I had gone out +to my fate, even if it included being throttled with a pea-vine, Tolly +and Edith came into town and stopped at my gate in such a condition that +I was positively alarmed about them. + +"Five baskets of peas!" gasped Tolly, as he fell forward limp over his +wheel. + +"My thumb! my thumb!" moaned Edith, with the afflicted member in her +mouth. + +"But, say, Betty," Tolly revived enough to say, "we are not going to +tell Sue and Billy and Julia and Pink. They are going out to-morrow to +call. Let 'em go--it's coming to 'em." + +"Oh no, I won't say a word," I agreed, with the intensest joy. "Come +over to-morrow, Edith, and let's finish _My Lady's Fan_. I'm dying to +know what happened to her at the court ball. Good night!" + +"No, you come over to my house; I'll be in bed," Edith wailed from the +middle of the road as Tolly turned and made his machine buzz for home. + +Then for five days--glorious, warm, growing, blooming days--I stayed in +town in a state of relapse from gardening of which the sorenesses in the +calves of my legs and my thumbs were the strongest symptoms, and +listened to my martyred friends' accounts of what Sam was doing to +Peter. I also had a bulletin from Peter every day by the rural-delivery +route. That is, they were in Peter's handwriting, but they read more +like government crop reports than a poet's letters to the girl to whom +he considered himself engaged. I sent them on to Judge Vandyne, and I +got a glorious written chuckle in return for them. + +Then, one morning when I had about got over the bashfulness about the +hollyhocks, and had decided to deny them absolutely and stick to it, for +a time at least, I happened to pick up Grandmother Nelson's book. It was +full time--maybe past time--for thinning out my sugar-beets and +resetting my cosmos. I fled out to the wilderness in greater speed than +I had left it, and fairly threw myself prostrate at the feet of my +neglected garden. Peter helped me, a sun-blistered, brier-scratched, +ragged Peter, whose face had lost none of its beautiful, lofty, aloof +expression, but which was rendered almost ordinary by a long scratch +across the top of its nose. The scratch was inflicted, he told me, when +he held one of the thoroughbred Plymouth Rock biddies to be greased by +Sam for lice under her wings. + +"Yes, but what about the play, Peter dear?" I asked, after we had weeded +and dug and watered and pulled up for an hour or two and had then seated +ourselves at the end of one of the long rows to rest. + +"The play--oh, Betty, it is--" And his old look of rapture shot across +his face. Then Sam yelled to him, and me, too. + +"Come on and help tie up onions," he called. "You Byrd!" + +We went and we tied up--a whole white smelly mountain of them; but I +didn't care, for Sam showed me his day-book, and in just one week his +balance had shot up like the beautiful pink pie-plant in my garden. A +great big entry was from my beets that he had thinned and sold without +waiting for me. + +"I'll give you a check when they are all sold, Betty," he said, in a +business-like way, and something in me made me glory in him and my +beets. "And isn't old Pete hitting the agricultural pace in fine style?" +he asked, as we walked out into my garden between the rows of my blush +peonies which had been grateful for the bone meal, and had bloomed, +though everybody who had given me the clumps had warned me that they +wouldn't flower until the second season. + +"But isn't he going to write, too, Sam?" I asked, a trifle uneasily. +"Now, you know, Sam, if somebody had kept Keats alive as a perfectly +good lawyer or bank clerk--or farmer--he wouldn't have been half as much +to the world as he is as a sadly dead poet. Now, would he?" + +"Well, Pete will know all about the vegetable kingdom before he makes +entry into the heavenly one, and we'll see what he reports when the time +comes. Just come over and look at the wheat in my north field." Sam +answered my anxiety so easily that I let it slip from my shoulders as I +went with him to sit on a rail fence on the edge of a gray-green ocean +of future food and be perfectly happy. "It'll fill dinner-pails and give +babies mother's milk," said Sam, as he sat beside me and smoldered out +over his crop. "The Commissioner of Agriculture was out here five times +last week, and a complete report on the whole place goes in to the Food +Commission in Washington. Pretty good for a less-than-two-year-old +farmer, eh, Bettykin?" And Sam tipped the rail enough to make me sure I +was falling before he caught me. + +I didn't answer--I just clung, but Sam understood and roughed my hair +into my misty eyes and lifted me off the fence. + +Daddy got me two copies of that Agricultural Commissioner's report, and +I sent one to Judge Vandyne and pasted the other in the front of +Grandmother Nelson's book. Little did I know that simple action of pride +in Sam would bring such results to Samuel Foster Crittenden and to +Tennessee, and even to perhaps the third and fourth generation, or +maybe-- + +Daddy says that when a man owns a bottom field, a hillside, and a creek +in the Harpeth Valley all he has to do is to go out and swing his hoe +around his head a few times and he'll have a living before he is ready +to harvest it. I don't know about that, and I do know that since I came +home in early April Sam has worked like two men, and maybe more. But his +harvests certainly amazed even the oldest inhabitants, who had sat +around at the cross-roads grocery and spat tobacco-juice at the idea of +his farming by government books, with no experience. They came to sit on +the rail fences around his fields and to spit out of the other side of +their mouths before the end of July, and I never went out to marvel, +myself, that I didn't step on that Commissioner of Agriculture, who +couldn't seem to keep away more than a few hours at a time. + +As things grew and bloomed and burst and flowered and seeded, Sam went +calmly on his way of work with the crops from dawn to dark, and Peter +did likewise. I never saw anything like his friendly pride in every +successful test of Sam's work. And his own fat was getting packed on him +at a rate that beat the record-breaking red pig down in the long, clean +pens that Sam maintained in the condition of a sanitary detention +hospital. Also Peter never mentioned the play, I never mentioned it, and +Sam appeared to have completely forgotten it. + +I didn't quite like for Sam to forget Peter's play like that, and I +liked it less when I heard Julia say that she thought it was so +fortunate that Sam had cured Peter of being a poet, so he could go into +his father's office to learn to take care of his great fortune. Peter +likes Julia so much that I think she ought to have appreciated the great +thing in him more than she did. When the copy of the _Review_, with +Peter's poem on the Ultimate, came, he read the whole poem to her while +she embroidered an initial in the corner of a handkerchief for him. The +next day she told me that she couldn't understand a word about it, and +that it made Pink mad because she wouldn't tell him what to say to Peter +about it. Pink has grown fond of Peter, but he wouldn't try to read the +poem after the third stanza. But Peter went on back to help with the rye +crop, knowing nothing of all that. + +Of course, I had all the confidence that there is in the world in Sam, +but I, about the first week in July, again began to feel responsible to +the world for Peter's play; and I might have made the awful blunder of +remonstrating with Peter or Sam or both of them if I hadn't got into so +much trouble with Edith and Tolly. + +Now, Clyde Tolbot is a very business-like young man, and he ought to be +respected and considered for it, but that is just what Edith doesn't +seem to understand how to do. She wants to go on with her head level +with the moon, and Tolly wants to get married in November, and I think +he is perfectly right. He hasn't any family, and he says Edith's +"highstrikes," as he calls her moods and tenses, and the food at the +Hayesboro Inn, are making him thin and pale, and hurting the prospects +of The Electric Light Co. + +"She acts as if she thought I was a cinnamon bear if I put my paw on her +fair hand. And she seems to think it is scandal because I wanted to buy +that old mahogany sideboard that the Vertreeses had to sell when they +inherited old Mrs. Anderson and her furniture from his mother," he +groaned, as he sat on my side porch with his head in his hands. + +"Tolly," I said, with firm conviction in my voice and manner, "you must +do something heroic to shock Edith down to earth again, or into opening +her eyes as those kittens daddy gave Byrd did on their ninth day. The +evening of Edith's eighth day has about struck." + +"It most certainly has, and about eleven-thirty at that," answered +Tolly, sitting up as if about to rush forth and do what I suggested, +though neither he nor I knew what it was. "But what is your idea of a +heroic deed that will pluck the child Edith?" he asked, just as if I +were one of the clerks out at the power-house and he was conducting a +business detail. + +"Well, let me see, Tolly," I said, slowly, while I ran over in my mind +all the lover heroics I had ever heard of from runaway horses to the use +of a hated blond rival. "You couldn't get hurt slightly out at the +power-house, could you?" + +"And ruin my boast that I have the most perfectly organized force and +machinery in the state? Not if I know myself," answered Tolly, with +business indignation and an utter lack of lover's enthusiasm at the +prospect of getting his lady-love by a ruse. + +"Well, I don't know what you are going to do," I said, limply, as I saw +that none of the things that had ever been acted before were within +Tolly's reach. + +"I don't know, either," answered Tolly; and again his head dropped into +his hands. + +"What did she say the last time you asked her?" I questioned. I +considered it my duty to get to the bottom of the matter, as I had been +called in consultation. + +"Ask her? Thunderation! I never have asked her! I've never got that near +to her!" he exclaimed, in a perfect outburst of indignation. + +Then I laughed. I laughed so that Tolly had to pat me on the back to +make me get my breath, and a sleeping mocking-bird scolded outright from +a tree by the porch. + +"Why don't you do it by telephone?" I gasped. + +"By George! that _is_ the idea, all right, Betty!" Tolly exclaimed, with +his face positively radiant. I had flung his love troubles into a class +of affairs that he could handle. "I tell you what I am going to do. I am +going to have my wire chief cut Edith's line and make me a direct +connection with mine at about nine o'clock to-morrow morning, as that is +the time he is in less of a rush with all the other things to attend to. +Then I'll put it to her good and straight if she holds on to the +receiver and hears me out." + +"But Edith might go over to Boliver to visit May Jessamine Ray for a +week at nine o'clock to-morrow. Oh, go do it to-night, Tolly!" I +pleaded. + +"And let that doll-faced girl at Central hear me? Not much!" answered +Tolly, indignantly. + +"I didn't mean that," I answered. "Go to her armed with your love, +Tolly, and make--make her listen to you." + +"Armed with a sand-bag to slug her would be more like it, if I expected +to get anywhere with her. No, you've hit it, Betty, and I'm going on +down the street and see just where that Morris line goes into the trunk. +Hope Judson won't have to run more than a mile of wire to make that +connection." And with no more gratitude or good night than that Tolly +went down the street with his head up among his telephone wires, just as +Edith keeps hers in the clouds. I hope some day they will run into each +other so hard that they will crash out ignition sparks and take fire. + +As I said, being so interested in Edith and Tolly, and trying to get her +to postpone her visit until he could get the wires up between them both +in a material and a sentimental sense, and also wanting to let Sam and +Peter miss me sadly, I let quite a few days elapse without being in any +of the events out at The Briers. When I did go back I found that things +had happened. + +"Where's Peter?" I asked, as Sam came to unload me and a huge bag of +smoke iris that old Mrs. Johnson had given me for my garden. There was +also Byrd's basket from mother, and a pair of small alligators that +daddy had got from Florida for him, having run out of natural animal +inhabitants of the Harpeth Valley. + +"Pete's off with the bit in his mouth--haven't seen him for three days," +answered Sam as he lifted me and swung me way out into the middle of my +own clover-pink bed. It was starred with sweet, white blossoms, having +been treated according to Eph's directions and those of Grandmother +Nelson's book. + +"Peter off? Where? What's happened, Sam?" I exclaimed, with astonished +anxiety. + +"The play," answered Sam, calmly, as he lit his cob pipe and blew a +ring of smoke. "It hit him in the middle of the night before last, and +he wrote me a note. Mammy grubs him, and I haven't seen him since. I've +paid the Byrd a half interest in the next young that happens to us not +to go down the hill to the shack, and we're all just going on as usual." + +"Maybe I'd better not go, either," I said, with awe and sympathy for +Peter fairly dropping from the words as I uttered them. + +"Betty," said Sam as he looked at me through a ring of smoke that the +warm wind blew away over our heads, "you run just a little more sense to +the cubic foot of dirt than the average, it seems to me. Come on down +and watch them begin to cut wheat. It is one week ahead of time, so I +can get all the harvesters and not a grain will be lost. They say it'll +run sixty bushels to the acre. Think of that, with only a thirty-six +record to beat in the Valley. It is that Canadian cross. The +Commissioner is down there, and so is your admirer, Chubb. He wastes +many hours riding over here to see you when you are in town on frivolous +pursuits." + +"Frivolous!" I echoed as we went up the path back of the house; and on +our way over the hill I told him about Tolly and Edith. Sam laughed; he +always does when I want him to; but his eyes were grave after a second. + +"The mating season is a troublesome time, isn't it, Betty?" he asked, as +he swung me to the top rail of the fence, vaulted over it, and held up +his arms to lift me down on the other side; but I sat poised in midair +to argue his proposition. + +"It ought not to be, Sam," I said, with an experienced feeling rising in +my mind and voice at thus discussing fundamentals with a man that could +break a wheat record and be attended by the agricultural envoys of the +United States government. "People ought to sensibly pick each other from +their needs, and not act unintelligent about it." + +At which perfectly sage remark a strange thing happened to Samuel Foster +Crittenden. He laid his head down on the rail beside my knee and laughed +until he almost shook me from my perch. It made me so furious that I +slipped past him and ran on ahead. I vaulted the next fence in fine +style and landed among the Commissioner and Dr. Chubb and the +tobacco-juice neighbors, who had come to see the output of the first +book-grown acre. I did not speak again to Sam that day until he tucked +in Dr. Chubb beside me for a spin over to Spring Hill, leaving the +doctor's old roan for a week's complimentary grazing on Sam's east +meadow of thick blue-grass, grown through a rock-lime dressing that all +the neighbors had assured him would kill the land outright. + +"Wheez-chekk! nice young buck for a husband," wheezed the Butterball as +I shot down the hill from under Sam's big hand reached out for my hair. + +"Sam?" I gasped. + +"Women critters always back and shy, but they git the wedding-bit from a +steady hand--and like it," he chuckled, still further. I felt as if I +ought not to let Sam rest under such a suspicion, and that I ought to +tell him about Peter. But just then he launched forth on a case of a +spavined horse he had beyond the cross-roads, which he wanted me to take +him to see, and I didn't do it. + +I don't much like to think about the long, hot July weeks that followed. +The whole of Harpeth Valley sweltered, and everybody did likewise. That +is, I suppose Peter did, for not one glimpse did I or anybody else get +of him. Sam says Mammy set his meals down in the doorway of the shack +with one of her soft, soothing, "Dah, dah, chile," which was answered +with a growl from Peter. That ended the events of his life at The +Briers. + +Sam worked early and late, and got tanned to the most awful deep +mahogany. All of him held out pretty well but his heels, which he came +in three times to have me fix for him; and once mother and I had to +dress a blister on his back that he got from wearing a torn shirt in the +potato-field. + +I was wild with anxiety about Peter and the play and the poor little +heroine; I didn't know whether she was being murdered or separated for +life from the hero. Still, it was good to have Sam to myself for long, +quiet, hot evenings out on the front porch under the brooding doves in +the eaves above us. Sam never talks much but he listens to me, and +sometimes he tells me things from way down inside himself. And little by +little I began to understand all about the things he had been too busy +doing to tell me about. + +"You see, it is this way, Bettykin," he said, one evening when the young +moon was attempting to silver the dark all around us as we sat on the +front steps, with mother away rounding off the second pair of socks for +Peter. "There wasn't one cent of money for me to take Byrd and Mammy and +make a start in New York. Even with the best sort of a backing, it is +always a ten-year pull for a youngster before he counts in the world. I +could have sold The Briers, but I couldn't make up my mind to do it, and +then while I hesitated I--I"--he paused a minute and steadied his voice, +while I took his hand and held on to it tight--"I got a call--a land +call that I had to answer. God just picked me up and planted me here on +my bit of land, and I've got to root and grow or--or dishonor Him." + +"Oh, Sam, you have, you have honored Him," I said as I crept closer to +his arm. + +"I've been all uprooted and pruned, Betty, and I've lost--lost--you +know! But for Him I must go on just the same and bear fruit." At the +pain in Sam's low voice something in me throbbed. + +"Lost? Oh, Sam, what?" I exclaimed, as I hugged his arm against my +breast. "What's happened to you, Sam? Tell--" + +But just here we were interrupted by a clatter and a clash of hoofs, a +wild shout in Peter's voice, and a cheer in the fledgling's high treble. +The biggest mule lurched up to the gate, and two figures took a flying +leap from his back to the pavement. With a rush they swept up the path +and brought up panting at the bottom of our steps. + +"Peter!" I gasped, descending to be sure that neither of them was bodily +broken or demented. + +"It's across! it's across!" shouted Peter as he reached out his arms and +grabbed me in a wild embrace. + +"What?" Sam and I both demanded, though, of course, in a way we knew. + +"The play!" exclaimed Peter, putting his head down on my shoulder and +fairly sobbing out his relief. "Farrington is going to begin rehearsals +from the first two acts I've sent him, and I am to go right on to New +York with the third that I finished an hour before the wire came over +from the cross-roads station. You'll go with me, won't you, Betty? I +can't go without you and Sam." And as he hugged me close Peter reached +out and grasped Sam's big hand that rested on his arm. + +"Of course Betty will go, and I'll come as soon as I get the whole crop +in," answered Sam in his deep, kind, strong voice that steadied all our +nerves. "I knew you'd make it, Pete. I never doubted that all you needed +was a bit of brawn to punch from." + +"Peter--Sam!" I gasped, trying to get my balance as I felt as if I were +being hurried through space without even being told where to. "I don't +know. I--" + +"I can't do without you, Betty," Peter said again, as he held me close +and Sam withdrew from us for the distance of about two steps. + +"Betty is the real thing, Pete, and she'll stand by when you need her. +She always does," Sam said, in a quiet voice that sank down into the +depths of my soul and made a cold spot. + +"I--I--don't know. I--" I was just reiterating when daddy and Julia, +with a plate of something, came through the gate and up the walk. They +had to be told, and they had to congratulate, and then mother came out +to see what it was all about. They were all happy and gloriously +excited, and I was dead--dead. + +Then Sam took Peter home because he had to pack and get into town for +the morning train. I begged for the fledgling to be left with me, and +Sam consented without even mentioning the string-beans to be picked or +the weeds in the parsnips. He said good night to everybody before he did +to me, and then started to go with just the farewell word, hesitated a +second, and came back and roughed my hair down over my eyes with the +greatest roughness he had ever employed in that action. It would have +broken my heart if he hadn't. + +"Betty," said the Byrd, as he crouched at my side with his thin, +scantily clad little body hovered against my skirts, "you ain't going to +no New York with Pete and leave me and Sam and all the poor little ones, +is you?" + +"Oh, Byrd, I'm afraid I'll have to!" I sobbed, cuddling him close. + +"Well, then, damn Pete!" he exploded. + + + + +IV + +THE BOOK OF LOVE + + +Most men are only a fraction of the greatness that the world adds them +up to be, but Farrington is a whole man and then a fraction over. I +enjoy talking to him just as much as I do to Sam or anybody else who is +doing interesting things in a perfectly simple way. When we talked about +Peter and the play he reminded me in lots of ways of old Dr. Chubb when +he gets on the subject of spavined horses or sick cows; of course I +don't mean any disrespect to Peter in that comparison. I told Mr. +Farrington the same thing, and he didn't laugh at all; his eyes shone +out from under his bushy white eyebrows like two wise old stars, and he +said he saw exactly what I meant, and that he hoped to meet Dr. Chubb +some day. And I continued to feel enthusiasm for him even after half an +hour's talk on the subject of his treatment of Peter, which Peter had +led me to believe was atrocious. + +"Dear, dearest Betty," said Peter, as he met me at the train on the +first day of September, "how wonderful to have you come just when I need +you most! I am in the depths of despair." And he looked it. + +"Oh, Peter, is it about the play?" I gasped as I fairly hung on to his +arm while he was languidly giving my traveling-bag to a footman. Peter +looked like a literary version of what Sam called "the last of +pea-time," which is a very vivid expression to a person who has just +seen her poor peas drop away in the August garden. "What has happened?" + +"I care nothing more about the play, Betty. It is stolen from me," +answered Peter, gloomily, as he led me through the Pennsylvania Station +and up the steps toward the limousine, where I knew Mabel would be +waiting to eat me up and be in turn devoured. + +"Why, Peter, what can you mean?" I gasped. + +"I'll tell you all about it when I get you to myself. Don't mention it +to Mabel--she doesn't understand," he answered from behind his teeth as +he put me into the car and into Mabel's arms, and also into Miss +Greenough's. + +But for all my joy at seeing both those dear friends again I couldn't +help being depressed by every glance at Peter, sitting opposite me, +looking white and glum. + +"Don't notice him--he's more impossible than ever," said Mabel, once, +when Peter leaned out to be reproachful to the chauffeur for doing his +duty and keeping us waiting for the traffic signal. "I'll tell you all +when I get you alone." + +Judge Vandyne met us at the lodge gate of the great Vandyne home out on +the Island. He, too, treated Peter like a sick baby. I never was so +puzzled; and dinner would have seemed long but for the fact that they +all wanted to hear so much about Sam and The Briers and the whole +Harpeth Valley. I never more enjoyed telling anything, and even Peter's +gloom lightened when I told him about the fat little duck the Byrd had +insisted on sending him--alive in a box. Daddy was secretly expressing +it to me, on the sleeping-car porter's kindly advice, when he saw it in +my baggage. + +"Well, well," said Judge Vandyne, as he came into the drawing-room with +us after dinner, "young Crittenden is really getting to goal on that +farm question. I'm glad you sent me that report--it set some big things +in motion. I'll tell you about it when I get you alone," he added, under +his breath. And that was another time that made me feel as if I were a +baby that ought to be sliced up to be divided. As it was, Peter got me +first, and I don't blame him for being in agony. That is, I didn't blame +Peter, but neither do I blame Farrington, now that I have talked to him. +This was Peter's tale of woe: + +"Stolen, it is absolutely stolen from me, Betty, and I am helpless to +protect the child of my brain," he began. The judge and Mabel had at +last left us alone, probably because they hesitated to have Peter commit +patricide and fratricide, if those are the right terms for sister and +father murder. + +"How, Peter?" I asked, taking his hand with deep sympathy. + +"Betty, since the first three rehearsals I am not allowed even in the +theater, and Farrington is a brute. I do not know what he is doing to my +play, but I do know that he was at work on a horrible laugh in the first +part of the first act that I did not intend at all. The leading woman +is coarse, with no soul, and the star is a great hulking ass. I am wild +and nobody sympathizes with me. Father has talked to Farrington, and +that is why he wired to you. Oh, I know he wired or you wouldn't have +come up to this inferno at this time of the year. That is one kindness +he did me--it _is_ a comfort to me--oh, Betty." And Peter put his head +down on my arm that was next him and sobbed, as the Byrd does when +anything happens to one of his "little ones." + +I didn't blame Peter at all, for that play was his "little one" and his +first. I just took it out in hating and vilifying Farrington, until I +got Peter much comforted, even interested in hearing about the splendid +price Sam had got for the north-field rye. Then it was time for us to go +to bed, and I suppose it was best that it was too late for Mabel to come +into my room to tell me her version of Peter's troubles. For that one +night I sympathized fully with him. The next morning I was shown another +side of the question. And I felt decidedly different about Mr. +Farrington when he talked to me for a little while, alone before dinner +the next day, and after Judge Vandyne had also had me in solitary +conversation. + +"You see, my dear young lady," said Mr. Farrington, with that twin-star +smile in his eyes I have mentioned, "the very wonderful nature that +grows and flowers such an exquisite young first play as this of our +young friend's, is the undoing of the work and the producer, unless he +is a heartless old brute like the one to whom you are at present +talking." + +"Oh, I don't think you are that now, not at all. I--I think you are +wonderful, and I trust you with the play even though you haven't told me +anything about what you are doing to it," I exclaimed in great +confidence and enthusiasm. + +"You are a wonderful bit lass yourself, and I trust you with my poet, +even if you haven't told me just what you are going to do with him," he +answered, and looked at me with the real affection, tempered with +amusement, that daddy and Judge Vandyne and Dr. Chubb all use toward me. + +I blushed and was just going to tell him that--well, I don't know just +what I was going to tell him, but I am sure I'd have opened my innermost +heart to him, for that is what he invites, when in came Peter and the +rest, and we all went in to dinner. I didn't see the great dean of the +American stage alone any more, but he whispered to me just as Mabel and +Miss Greenough and I were leaving the room: + +"Keep my poet easy, and you'll see what you see." + +I am glad now when I look back on it that my presence did help Peter +through the ordeal of that two weeks. Also Mabel and I had schemes +together to take his mind off his dying child, which was being operated +on by Farrington to make it a success. The best diversion, however, was +Judge Vandyne's. He asked me to make out a list of ten of Peter's +Hayesboro friends, for whom he would send a private car over one of his +railroads, to bring them up for the first night of the play. That was to +be the 20th of September, and even then the bills were up all over New +York. I could see, from the way Judge Vandyne was taking it all, that he +intended to make the best of having a poet for a son, and to put it +through with his usual energetic force. + +Peter was perfectly delighted at having all his Hayesboro friends come. +He wrote them all letters, and Mabel wrote them notes. After that Peter +got uneasy and made Judge Vandyne write to everybody, and the next day +he insisted that I should write, too. + +"Oh, I wish Sam could come, but I know he can't," I said, with a sudden +hurt place just where I was about to swallow my mushroomed cutlet. + +"Sam not come?" said Peter, growing white about his mouth and throwing +down his napkin. + +"Oh, Peter, Sam didn't want me to say anything about it, but he doesn't +think it is possible for him to get away and--and you know, Peter, Sam +has to buy the sheep he wants to put in the woods; and I told you that +another mule--" + +"I can't, I can't stand it for Samboy not to be here," said Peter as he +pushed his cutlet away from him, upset his glass, and turned over a vase +that in turn knocked down the center vase of roses, besides upsetting +the composure of the butler and one footman. I saw it was going to be a +regular poetic outburst, such as Mammy would have called a tantrum in +Sam or me, and that Mabel was positively scared and Miss Greenough much +pained. + +"Crittenden will be here," said Judge Vandyne in a perfectly calm and +certain voice. "Don't worry, son!" + +I knew he meant that he would lend Sam the money, or I thought I knew +that, and I felt perfectly sure that Sam wouldn't come. Nobody knows +Samuel Foster Crittenden as I do; and the reason he is so congenial with +his mules is that he is so like them in "setness" of disposition. I just +raged at him in my heart, for I knew from the way I felt myself how poor +Peter wanted him; but I controlled myself and went right on talking +about how I knew the others would come and how much they would enjoy it. + +"Julia has never been to New York. Won't she be delicious?" I exclaimed +as we came to her on the list. Peter had put her first. + +"Delicious is the right word," said Peter, and he then launched forth in +a description of Julia that I would hardly have recognized, though I had +been born across the street from her and have loved her devotedly from +our second years. It is such a joy to have two people whom you love +appreciative of each other, and I knew that Julia fully reciprocated +Peter's interested friendship for her. She had wept on my shoulder at +parting from Peter, and had written him long and encouraging letters for +me while I was going up to Nashville to have my clothes made for the +trip to New York and trying to get a little time in my garden out at The +Briers. I have to stop; I never let myself think of that parting with +Sam and The Briers. Some things are too deep for words. Then to continue +about Julia, I wrote her how to have her dresses made, but told her to +get only one little traveling-hat and leave the rest to Mabel and me and +Fifth Avenue. I also advised Edith and Sue to do likewise, but I knew +Miss Editha would have Miss Sally Pride make her a new bonnet on the +frame of the old one, and Peter said she would not be the "wraith of an +old rose" in anything else. + +It was glorious that Tolly and Pink could both come, though Billy +Robertson was not sure. I did so hope that Clyde would get a real chance +to open Edith's kitten eyes for her through some heroic accident of +travel, and I was glad that Colonel Menefee was coming, because he would +engage Miss Editha's attention away from Tolly's attentions to Edith and +give them a chance to come forward out of their backwardness. The +telephone scheme had failed, Tolly told me, because the wire chief had +made a mistake and still left them connected at Central. "Central" is +the little Pride girl, the milliner's youngest niece, and very pretty. +Just as he was ready to begin firmly with Edith she sweetly said: + +"Now your connection is good, Mr. Tolbot." + +When I left home poor Tolly was really becoming embittered against the +world and was absorbing himself in putting up a new telephone line over +to Spring Hill. I told Peter how he ought to appreciate Tolly for +leaving business in that state to come up for the first night of the +play; and Peter said: + +"Dear old chap; we must find the shibboleth that will unleash the hooded +falcon of his soul." Isn't Peter wonderful? + +If all the invited guests in Hayesboro were busy getting ready to do +justice to the first night of "The Emergence," we were in the same +state. Judge Vandyne was planning to give a dinner that night to his +most distinguished lawyer friends in honor of Farrington, and daddy had +promised to try to come. Of course, Peter was going to have a dinner of +his own, to which he was inviting a lot of delightful friends to meet +his Hayesboro friends, and they were having both dinners at the Ritz, so +Peter could go in and make a speech to Judge Vandyne's party. Most of +the friends had not come back from the lakes and the shore and their +country homes, but were running into town for that one evening. It was +all the most delicious excitement, but--oh, a place way down deep in me +behind my excited breathing was so sore about Sam! I couldn't even think +about his not being there, but I went on and danced and had a good time +in sheer desperation. Sam had to plow and hoe and reap and sow for food, +while we ate and drank it and made merry! + +Then the first night came, and everybody was there looking in high +feather, and some of them wearing very low dress. Judge Vandyne had +taken all the boxes in the theater, and they were every one full to +overflowing with loving excitement about Peter. I was in the second box +on the right-hand side of the stage at the front, and Peter sat in the +shadow back of me. Julia and one of Peter's classmates were just behind +us. As the curtain went up Peter took a hard hold on my hand under my +white chiffon scarf, and I heard him mutter under his breath: + +"Oh, Samboy!" + +I am not going to try to describe that play of Peter's. The newspapers +used all the adjectives and things there are in the English language to +express enthusiasm with, and I haven't got any left. I will simply tell +about it. + +When Peter had gone out and buried himself in the shack on the hillside +of The Briers, that looked out over the Harpeth Valley, he had +unconsciously buried that frozen hero in "The Emergence" and had gone to +work and resurrected him in a kind of Samuel Foster Crittenden. Instead +of being a complicated, heroic, erratic genius he was just a big, +simple, strong young man who was doing his part in the corner of the +world's vineyard where he had been sent to work. To help him Peter had +written in a wonderful girl with a great deal of brains for one so +young. Just the sort of woman that men like Sam and the hero deserve to +have. She was so lovely that I caught my breath and--and suffered. But +what made everybody in that theater laugh themselves happy was the +essence of Hayesboro that Peter had distilled and poured into his +characters. Everybody was so mixed up with everybody else that nobody +could feel sensitive or fail to enjoy every character. I couldn't tell +whether I was the girl that practised tango steps all the time, even +when the minister (who had manners like those of Colonel Menefee and the +Mayor of Hayesboro) came to supper, or the girl that always had a plate +of hickory-nut candy in her hand and kept saying sharp things while +giving everybody something sweet to take away the taste. Julia said she +was that girl, but Peter indignantly denied anybody's being anybody, and +then we all kept still. Just then the curtain went down on the second +act, with the whole house in an uproar; and there was a call for Peter +and Farrington. + +Peter went and left me sitting there in the shadow alone, while he +stepped out on the stage all by himself--the stage of his life. And, oh, +I was so glad to be in the shadow all by myself, for I had been as happy +as I could and it was beginning to wear off. I wanted Sam--I wanted him +even if the wonderful woman in the play was going to have him in real +life, too, as I knew would have to happen some day. Also Sam deserved to +be there that night if anybody did, and he was way down in the Harpeth +Valley working, working, working, it seemed to me, that all the rest of +the world might play. I wanted him! I felt as if I couldn't stand it +when Peter stepped forward, looking like the most beautiful Keats the +world had ever known, and the whole house gasped at his beauty and kept +still to hear what a man that looked like that would have to say. I +stifled a sob and looked around to see if I could flee somewhere, when +suddenly my groping hand was taken in two big, warm, horny ones, and +Sam's deep voice said in the same old fish-hook tone: + +"Steady, Bettykin, and watch old Pete take his first hurdle." + +I took one look at a great big glorious Sam in all sorts of fine linen +that was purple in the mist of my eyes, and then I was perfectly quiet, +with no fish-hook at all in my arm or in my life. I heard every word of +Peter's speech, and laughed and almost cried over the one Farrington +made about the young American drama, with his arm across Peter's +shoulder. I forgot all about Sam because he was there, and just reveled +in being happier than I had been since I had adopted Peter and the play, +now that it was successfully out of our systems. + +And it _was_ successfully out. Nobody who heard the thunder after the +last act could have doubted that. The _New Times_ the next day said it +was "The burgeoning of the American poetic drama," and another paper +said, "Bubbles fresh from the fount of American youth." We got the +papers and read them coming home from Peter's supper-party over at the +Astor, which his New York friends gave because they wanted to see more +of his Hayesboro friends. Everybody was there and the success of the +evening came when Pink Herriford told his mule story. Peter made him do +it, and everybody adored it. And just as they were all laughing and +exclaiming at the droll way in which he characterized those resurgent +mules, I looked down the table and happened to see that Clyde Tolbot was +holding Editha Morris Carruthers's hand in a way that anybody who +understood these matters knew from the position of their shoulders that +such was the case. + +"A taxicab lost us on Broadway at ten dollars per second, and I made +connection with her wires before found," he whispered to me, as we all +rose to go, just as the night was also taking its departure from New +York. New York in the daytime is like a huge football game in which a +million or two players all fall on the ball of life at the same time and +kick and squirm and fight over it; but at night it is a dragon with +billions of flaming eyes that only blink out when it is time to crawl +away from the rising sun and get in a hole until the dark comes again. +It is the most wonderful city in the world to stay in until you are +ready to go home. + +Sam hadn't been at Peter's supper-party, and neither had Judge Vandyne, +but I didn't worry about that. I never worry about Sam. I just like to +know he is somewhere near and then forget him--if I am allowed, which I +am not if Sam can think up some important work for me to do. At six +o'clock in the morning I laid down the papers with Peter's triumph in +them and rolled into bed, dead with sleep; and before seven Sam had sent +me a note that forced me to open my eyes and stagger up and on. It said: + + DEAR BETTY,--Get a maid at the hotel to come with you to the + following address. I need you badly. A reliable taxi is waiting. + SAM. + +Horrible thoughts of somebody's having kidnapped Sam flashed across my +brain as I threw on my clothes. How had he happened to come to New York, +anyway, and then disappear right after the play? What kind of trouble +could he be in, and how could I help? I looked in my purse and found +only ten dollars, but I felt the roll that I always carry in my stocking +and it still felt a respectable size. I never count money when I am +spending it, because you don't enjoy it so much; and I had been away +from home three weeks. Still, if I had to bribe or buy Sam out of +anything, I could get more some place. I must hurry to do as he told me, +and then he would direct me how to rescue him. + +In less time than it would take most girls, as soggy with sleep as I +was, to get dressed and down to a taxi, I was on my way to Sam. I forgot +to get the maid to go with me; and, anyway, what was the use, with a +nice young white man like that taxi-car driver? He said, looking at me +so pleasantly that I was sure he didn't really mean anything, "It's +early, isn't it, miss?" + +I was so hustled and so dazed, and had such trouble in making the little +new kind of hook-buttons on my gloves stay fastened, that before I knew +it we drew up at a queer kind of old warehouse down in a part of New +York where I had never been, with a line of the ocean or the bay or the +river or the harbor, I couldn't tell which, just beyond. Then I was +scared, for instead of Sam being in danger, I felt that maybe I was +being kidnapped. I hesitated at the curbing as I got out of the taxi. + +"Through that warehouse and to your left you'll find the gentleman. Good +morning, miss," said the nice taxi-man as he touched his cap and drove +off and left me to my fate. If I had had only my own fate to consider I +would have taken to my good strong legs and fled, but Sam was also +concerned. At the thought of his needing me my courage came back, and I +went on into the long shed where queer dirty boxes and bales and barrels +and things were piled. At last I came to a turn and stepped into a low +room that was almost at the water's edge. It was still very early +morning, and a mist from the sea made things dim, but in a crowd of +queer people and bundles and voices I saw Sam standing and looking +perfectly helpless, while that Commissioner of Agriculture stood over by +the window, evidently perfectly furious and growling out expletives to +the saddest crowd of pitiful people I had ever seen. + +Sam was in his dress-suit with his overcoat off and his hair in a mop; +and in a faltering jumble of several languages he was trying to tell +something to a gaunt, fierce woman in a wide ragged skirt, a shapeless, +torn man's coat, with a faded woolen scarf over her head. In her arms +she had a baby, and a woman with a baby in her arms knelt beside her; +while a dozen other women with children, ragged, pale, frightened little +children in their arms, and at their skirts, hung in a sullen group +back of her. A crowd of dejected, hungry, gaunt men stood to one side, +and one very old man had his old woolen cap off his white head, which I +could see was bowed in prayer. In a moment I knew from their Flemish +patois, which I had heard so often out in the fields of beautiful +Belgium during that happy month just before the war, that they were +refugees, and my heart went out in a rush to them as I went in a rush to +Sam and grasped his arm. + +"Oh, what is it, Sam, and what do they want?" I asked. + +"They are emigrants from Belgium. The Commissioner has had me appointed +to settle them in the Harpeth Valley on lands near my own, for which he +has options. I came on in response to his telegram to meet them +to-morrow, but they were landed here on the dock at one o'clock in the +night, because of a fire on the steamer. I came right down from the +theater, but they are frightened and the women have lost all confidence +in everything. They don't seem to want to go with me to the car that we +have ready to take them to Tennessee. I can't understand them, nor they +me, and I sent for you. You're a woman, Betty. See what you can do to +comfort and hearten them and make them ready to go with me when the +train leaves in less than two hours." + +Oh, I know I am young and have been sheltered, and don't know what it is +to be shot at and killed, and have my children torn from my arms and to +be hungry and cold. But women do understand other suffering women, and +when I stretched out my hands to the fierce woman with her starving +child at her breast, I knew what to falter out in a mixture of her own +patois and mine. + +"_Il est bon_--a good, good man. _Alle avec_--go with him," I pleaded. + +"But it is a fine gentleman! No, we come to a master, to work that we do +not starve. A landowner," she said, and regarded Sam in his purple and +fine broadcloth with fierce and desperate distrust that the other women +also expressed with hissing breaths which brought surly growls of +suspicious acquiescence from the men. + +"But look, look!" I exclaimed. I turned to Sam and drew one of his big, +farm-worn hands forward and held it in mine out to the fierce woman, +behind whom the others cowered. There was the broad thumb, off of which +the barrel of peas had smashed the nail. There were the deep +plow-callouses in the palms, and the plow-ropes' hard gall around the +left wrist. The fierce woman's somber eyes lighted; for the first time +she looked up past Sam's velvety white shirt-front with its pearl studs, +up into the calm eyes that were smoldering their gridiron look down at +her and the whimpering women and children. + +"And here look _encore_!" I exclaimed, as I drew from my breast the +large silver "peasants' locket" I had bought in Belgium, perhaps in her +own village, and which I always wear with my street clothes, and had put +on even in the hurry of my summons. I snapped it open and let her see +what it contained. Sam saw, also! It was a picture of Sam milking old +Buttercup in the shed. Just as he turned to call me to bring an extra +bucket to feed the calf, I had snapped it. I don't know just why I had +put it in the locket, except that it is safe to have Sam around in time +of trouble. + +"_Eh, le bon Dieu_--I see, I see!" she exclaimed, looking first at Sam +and then at the locket. Then suddenly she clasped my wrist and looked at +the two big, hard, live callouses in my own palm, that some kind of a +queer prophetic sentiment had warned me not to let a manicure work on. +Also, she saw the pea-thumb that still held a trace of the blister. +Intently she looked for a few seconds, first at me and then at Sam. Then +with a cry of agonized joy she fell at Sam's feet, and I drew down on my +knees beside her, while the other women crowded around, kneeling, too, +as their leader bowed her tear-drenched eyes in Sam's big, warm hands. +One woman thrust a tiny baby into my arms as she kissed my sleeve and +leaned forward to clasp Sam's knees, while the old man who had been +praying all the time spread out his hands in a joyful benediction. The +men's sullen faces lightened, and they bent to take up their pitiful old +bundles and baskets. + +For a long minute there was a sobbing silence while the Commissioner +blew his nose over by the window. I clasped the little starved baby +close and pressed with the other women against Sam's knees, and Sam +stood calm over us all. I know, I _know_ he was praying down away from +the sea, across half the world, into his own everlasting hills, over +Paradise Ridge. + +"Good, Bettykin!" he said as he bent and raised me and the fierce woman +to our feet. The others began to bustle and hustle the children, and +men, brushing tears from faces that had begun to smile uncertainly, as +if they had never smiled before. A big tear fell off Sam's own cheek as +he roughed my hair with his chin under the edge of my perky little hat, +and took the woman's baby from my arms, as well as her bag and bundle, +to carry them to the car. He led the way, and we all trailed after him. + +It was a strenuous hour that we spent getting them all settled in the +emigrant-car the Commissioner and Judge Vandyne had ready to take them +right on from the ship to Tennessee. In the midst of packing away boxes +and bundles and seating and quieting babies and women, Sam told me in +snatches the reason of it all. One of the great Belgian landowners had +written to Judge Vandyne, who was his friend, to find some suitable +place to colonize twenty of his peasant families in America. The letter +had come at about the time my copy of the government's report on Sam's +farming had reached him. He hadn't said anything to Sam about it, but +had got hold of the Commissioner and secured options on four hundred +acres back of Sam's farm in the wilderness of the Harpeth Valley. He had +fixed it all up before he offered Sam the commission of settling and +farming these people on shares for ten years. It was a little fortune +poured into Sam's hands, but he didn't seem to think about that at all. +His mind was entirely occupied by the hungry, big-eyed babies and their +sadly smiling, clinging mothers. He had a whole bunch of ripe bananas, +with other fruit and food in proportion, packed in the train for the +long trip to Tennessee. + +"Why didn't you write me all about it, Sam?" I asked as I patted a +sleeping infant over my shoulder while the mother jolted a big-eyed twin +of the same variety. Sam was undoing a strap from a large bundle for the +fierce woman, whose eyes now followed him like those of a great, +faithful dog--or my eyes. + +"It was all settled less than a week ago, Bettykin, and I--I wanted to +surprise you and Pete at 'The Emergence' first night. This ship wasn't +due until to-morrow, and I was to have had a frolic. I asked the judge +not to tell you. I wanted to break it to you myself. And I did with a +brickbat, didn't I--at daylight to boot?" + +"Where are you going to--to house them all, Sam?" I asked, anxiously, +thinking of the little house with the Byrd and Mammy and all the baskets +and seed and things, especially the one iron pot that only held chicken +enough for them and-- + +"Got a tent village out of the colonel's Menefee Rifles' tents over by +the spring. It will be fine for them until I can divide out the land and +set each man to log-rolling his shack. Dad Hayes is finishing the camp +for me, and Chubb is helping to make things all shipshape, also buying +a fine mule for each family. Oh, they'll have a great welcome, or would +have if only you were there." Sam didn't look at me, but smiled gently +at the fierce woman's thanks and turned to another strap and another +bundle. Again I went dead inside, and I turned away and hid my tears in +the back of the neck of the tiny Belgian in my arms. + +"Just about five minutes before we put you off, Miss Hayes," said the +Commissioner as he came bustling up to me, smiling with the same energy +he had used in swearing so short a time ago. + +Surreptitiously wiping my eyes and swallowing the sobs in my throat, I +held out the baby to its mother and began to say a halting "adieu" to +all of them. + +Then an uproar arose. They had thought I was going with them, and they +clung and wept and kissed my hand and begged in broken words for me not +to leave them, though in their conduct there was not a trace of a lack +of confidence in Sam. Of course, nobody that knew Samuel Foster +Crittenden a whole hour, even in his dress clothes in the daytime, could +fail to have confidence in him for life. But those women wanted me, too, +and they wanted me badly. I had to be torn from their arms and flung off +the train. Sam did the tearing and the flinging, and he did it tenderly. +Just before the final shove, as I clung to his arm and sobbed, the big +hand went to my hair, and he said under his breath against my ear: + +"God bless and keep you, darling--and Pete!" Then he swung up on the +last step of the train and left me--shoved off into a hard, cold world +full of luncheons and sight-seeing and dinner-parties and plays and +dances and suppers and lights and music and flowers and like miseries. +At the agony of the thought I staggered into the huge waiting-room at +the station and sank on one of the benches and closed my eyes to keep +the tears from dripping. + +At first I just sat dumb and suffering--reviewing all the wonderful and +exciting and magnificent things I had been planning to do for and with +Peter and all the rest of my dear friends who were then in New York +having the times of their aristocratically rustic lives. I reminded +myself of the shopping excursion Mabel and I were going to make with +Edith and Julia on that very day. The responsibility of Julia's hats was +certainly mine, for I had told her to wait to get them in New York, and +she would surely need them immediately in the round of gaieties that had +been planned for them all. Then, who could help being delighted at the +thought of seeing Miss Editha and the colonel introduced to one of the +follies at the Whiter Garden? I knew that I would be needed greatly +then, and had rather dreaded it; though from Miss Editha's pink cheeks +at the supper-party the night before, as she sipped her champagne I had +rather hoped that she was making up her mind to a time of it. And then +the joy of watching united Tolly and Edith! And Peter, how he would need +me to help him to be responsible for all the wonderful things that were +going to happen to him right along, now that he was the success of the +hour. Even the papers had begun to speculate that first morning on his +"next play." + +"I'm weaving the laurel wreath rapidly now to bind your tresses, am I +not, dear, dearest Betty?" he had whispered, as he told me good night at +the hotel only a few short hours ago. Yes, I was needed in life, even if +not down in a brier-patch in the Harpeth Valley, Tennessee, and I must +bear my honors and responsibilities with as beautiful a spirit as Sam +bore his burden of Belgians. I would have all I could do out in the +world, and he would have his life full in the wilderness; but we would +be a thousand miles apart. + +And just here a very strange thing happened. From the weak, cowering, +sobbing girl on the bench arose a very determined, red-cheeked, +executive young woman who walked over to the nearest ticket-office and +demanded of the brisk young clerk what time the different trains left +for Tennessee. She found that by going at ten o'clock direct through +Cincinnati she could reach Hayesboro two hours ahead of that Belgian +emigrant-train that was to go around through Atlanta. Then she went into +the dressing-room and got her wad of money out of her stocking, bought a +ticket and a Pullman berth, six magazines, some oranges, and a little +traveling powder-puff for the end of her red nose, and seated herself in +the train before she woke up and found she was I. + +Then I took a hand and sent Peter a telegram from Philadelphia, though +to this day I can't remember what it said; and I settled down to the day +and night and part of another day's journey with peace in my heart and +the courage to take whatever was coming to me from Sam. + +When you are doing a thing you know is wholly wrong it is best to make +up your mind beforehand just what kind of a right action you are going +to claim it to be. It only took me until Pittsburg to have my course +with Sam mapped out. I was just going to ask him fairly what right he +had to go to farming with a lot of strange and untried Belgians and +refuse to take me in, when I had proved myself a good and faithful +comrade and worker for him ever since I could stand on my feet. + +"I just want him to answer me that," I said to myself, and went to bed +in the berth at six-thirty and didn't wake up any more until I was at +Louisville at eleven. I had been in New York two weeks, and I needed +sleep. The interval between that time and three o'clock, which was the +hour that I stood before mother and her latest rose-crocheted mat, I +spent in strengthening and fortifying my position. + +"Why, Betty!" said mother, keeping the place open in the magazine she +was crocheting from, but kissing me so tenderly that I knew she +suspected something had happened to me. + +"I came home because I had to, and I'll tell you about it just as soon +as I come back from out at Sam's, where I have to go as fast as I can on +business," I said, as I hurried out to Eph for Redwheels and up to my +room for my corduroys and middy blouse. I knew Sam would get his new +family off at the station at the cross-roads. I wanted to be at The +Briers all established and at work when he got there. I have heard lots +of times that possession is nine points of the law, and I was determined +to possess all nine. + +In less time than it takes to tell it Redwheels and I were spinning away +out Providence Road. I had gone out on that road in early April in +search of Sam, when I thought nothing could equal the young loveliness +of the valley; I had driven Peter out when it was in its May flowering, +and back and forth I had gone through all its midsummering, but it had +never looked to me as it did when I came down into it from a far +country, in the ripeness of its mid-September. All the leaves were still +on the trees and many of them still rich green, but there was frost in +the air, and along the edges of the early sweet-gum and sugar-maple +branches there were crimson and bronze trimmings. Most of the gorgeous, +molten-gold grain was in stacks in the fields, and everywhere for miles +and miles were stretched the wigwams of the shocked corn, seeming to +offer homes for as many homeless as could come and ask shelter. +Goldenrod stood up stiff and glorious in all the fence corners, while +gnarled vines, fairly dragged down with wild grapes, festooned +themselves from tree to tree, some of which were already heavily loaded +with their own big, round, blackening walnuts. + +Along the road there was a procession of foodstuffs going to town in +heavy old farm wagons with their overalled drivers. Wheat in bales and +wheat in sacks was piled on wagon after wagon, and I counted eleven +teams hauling in loads of shucked ears of corn that looked almost two +feet long. Oh, I was glad to think that those people who had fled from a +famine-stricken land would meet that procession as soon as they got off +the train, and my eyes misted so, as I thought of the joy that must well +up in their hearts, that I came very near running over an old pig mother +who was waddling across the road in the lead of nine of the fattest +little black-and-white sucklings I have ever seen, each one with his +tail curled at exactly the same angle. Giving her a wide run I swung off +into Brier Lane. The old cardinal that had been so cross to me all +summer, when poor Redwheels's puff had disturbed his family, was +trillingly glad to see me, and flew almost across my shoulder as he +darted and whirled his welcome. And what should I meet in the middle of +the lane, evidently off playing hooky where she should not have been, +but Mrs. Buttercup and my young spotted namesake! I immediately climbed +out of the car and greeted them both so affectionately that, with my +arms around Mrs. Buttercup's neck, I persuaded her to go back the way +she had come, while I drove along behind her at a suitable snail's pace. +I had to stop every once in a while, when she turned around, to assure +her that I knew it was best for her to go home with her full udder, as +Sam would soon be there to be welcomed and with company to be fed. + +After I had turned her into the south meadow gate, opposite the +cedar-pole entrance to The Briers, I went up the hill at a lightning +pace because the nearer I got to the fledgling and my garden the more +anxious I was for a reunion with them both. I met the garden first, as I +rounded up in front of the old hovering, red-roofed house that looked +more like home to me than any building I had ever seen in my short and +eventful life. + +There is no love in the world that reciprocates like that of a garden. +If you work and love and plan for it, promptly it turns around and over +and gives back a hundredfold more than you put into it. All summer long +we had been digging out of, picking from, and cutting off of that little +plot of ground, and there it was reaching out with more to return to me. +Long rows of white and purple cosmos danced and fluttered round-eyed +blossoms in welcome, while some bronze xenias fairly bobbed over and +kissed my rough garden boots. Miss Editha's cock's-combs strutted in a +gorgeous row down the east walk, and what could have been a greater +surprise than that handed me by a row of jolly round squash, though I +had been sure we had picked the last languishing fluted fruit from the +vine the last week of August? But there lay long green vines completely +resuscitated by the September rains; and nestled among their draperies +of huge leaves were squash and squash, also big yellow blossoms and +small green-yellow buds, I was so perfectly delighted at the recovery of +my friends that I reached down and patted one of their head branches +with its green tendril curls. There were a lot of gorgeous nasturtiums +under the window of the living-room; but, of course, nobody expects more +of nasturtiums than for them to be faithful unto death by frost. +However, I did pick off a red one and proceed to chew it up with the +deepest appreciation of its peppery flavor. And as I chewed with +smarting tongue I cast my eyes along a row of beans that was fairly +loaded with snaps, which made my thumb smart in anticipation of their +gathering, until my gaze was suddenly arrested by something that sent me +flying down the walk to the south end of the garden. + +Now, a few weeks after I had hastily planted those hollyhock seeds Sam +and I had sentimentalized over, I had found in Grandmother Nelson's book +that hollyhocks never bloom their first season, but have to root and +grow about twenty-four months before they blossom; and, somehow, that +depressed me because everything in the world seemed slow at that time. +How did I know where I would be after all that time, or that I would +ever see them bloom, though they were making great leafy heads which +both Sam and I strenuously ignored, while every time I went to dig +around their roots somebody had done it before me! There they were, +perfectly huge with their great fluted leaves, and right at the end of +the row an extra-large plant had sent up a tall, green spike on the end +of which a great, pink doll-blossom was shaking out her rosy skirts in +the afternoon sun. I stood for a minute looking at her in utter rapture. +Then I reached out my arms and gathered her in and put a kiss right in +the center of her sweet heart. After that I fled to the barn in search +of the fledgling. + +I found him sheltering in his small jacket five little late chicks that +would insist in running out from under the old hen, who was busily +engaged hatching out their small brothers and sisters. He was afraid +they would get fatally chilled. + +"I needed you bad, Betty, if any more of these little ones was to act +crazy like this," he said as I cautiously embraced him and his downy +babies. "Put these three in your jacket so I can catch the next one that +comes out. Old Dommie is 'most through, and then she can take them all." +His faith in old Dommie, who to my certain knowledge had hatched two +other families since spring, was not misplaced. In less than a half-hour +all egg debris of the family advent had been removed and the babies put +to bed under her breast and subjected to a sharp peck of her controlling +bill. + +By this time the sun had begun to drop down over toward Old Harpeth, and +a lovely purple was stealing all over the place which mingled with a +great veil of blue smoke from over by the spring, where, I felt sure, +Dr. Chubb had lighted twenty new altar fires for the welcome of the +home-comers. I wanted to go and see the camp, but someway I felt that it +was time to go to the gate to meet Sam and his great big children, so +down the Byrd and I went. + +When we got to the gate they were not in sight, and we started up Brier +Lane to meet them. In my heart there was not the least particle of doubt +that they would all be glad to see me, but I never expected it to happen +as it did. Just as we came to the bend in Brier Lane that skirts around +the first hill I heard beautiful voices raised in a weird joy-chant, and +in a moment they all came into view, all walking and singing, with their +things piled high on the wagons that followed them. In the midst of the +tumbling, frolicking children, the chattering, pointing, exclaiming +women, and the eagerly questioning men strode Sam with a small girl +pickaback across his broad shoulders and the old praying-man walking by +his side in deep conversation. I stood still to wait and let them all +see me. The result was glorious. I had never known anything like it +before. The women all laughed and cried in their excitable foreign way, +and the men's faces showed great white teeth in radiant smiles. They +kissed my hands and even the sleeves of my dress, and some of the +children danced around and around in a very ecstasy of welcome, for I +felt sure that to them I was the keeper of mammoth banana-bags. And I +laughed and sniffed and patted and hugged the women in return, and +nodded and called broken Belgian-English greeting to the men--to all but +Sam. Sam stood perfectly still in the middle of the lane in the exact +place that he had been when he caught sight of me coming out of the +sunset toward him. He let the child slip from his shoulders and never +took his eyes off me during the five minutes of the reunion rejoicings. +And I never looked at or spoke to Sam, but walked on back to The Briers +ahead of him, with the women chattering and gesticulating around me. + +When we came to the gate I waited for Sam to come forward to open it. I +wanted him to lead his flock into their promised land and--and I wanted +to follow at his heels with them. + +Around up the hill he led us, down the old road, past the big rock +spring-house with its nine crocks of milk that I could see the women +eagerly point out to one another, and into the little town of tents, at +whose entrance stood daddy and Dr. Chubb, with their sleeves rolled up +and energetic welcome in their eyes. + +Then for an hour there was sorting of bundles and bedding; locating and +housing; assuring and reassuring; nursing babies by camp-fires, and +feeding little mouths out of the huge chicken-dumpling pots that Mammy, +with Dr. Chubb's assistance, had been brewing since morning. A big heap +of coals was shoveled off a perfect mound of corn-pones; and there was +plenty for all and some left over. I think I never saw anything so happy +as the fledgling as he squatted on the ground and fed two toddlers from +a bowl of corn-bread and gravy, strictly turnabout, the odd one to his +own mouth. + +Then, as the twilight came down softly like a beautiful benediction, we +left them all, strangers in a strange land, fed, housed, and comforted. + +We went up to the old white, hovering house, and while Mammy and I +planned and in a measure mixed breakfast for the multitude down the +hill, daddy and Dr. Chubb went with Sam, who had slipped on his +overalls, to look at the new mules tied out behind the barn to long +temporary stable poles. The Byrd I could not get from the company down +by the spring. Later Mammy had to go down and extract him, fast asleep, +from the midst of the largest Belgian family, where he was watched over +tenderly by the fierce-eyed woman and the mother of the twins. + +I had wiped the meal off my hands and taken off Mammy's apron when Sam +came to the door and called me; and I felt very much as I used to when +at school I went in to get my examination marks, as I followed him down +to Peter's shack on the hillside. I wasn't one bit afraid of Samuel +Foster Crittenden, I told myself, while I walked along behind him as he +held the coral-strung buck-bushes out of my path; but my knees did +tremble, and my teeth chattered so that I felt sure he would hear them. + +For a long moment Sam stood in front of the shack and looked out over to +Paradise Ridge. I knew that now was the time for me to marshal up my +defense and demand to be put on the same footing in life with those +peasant women sleeping below us beside the covered camp-fires. + +"What right has any man to say that a woman shall not plow and sow and +reap and dig if she wants to, and especially if it is so much in her +blood that she can't keep away from it?" I was just getting ready to +demand. Then suddenly Sam sobbed, choked, sobbed again, and reached out +his arms to fold me in against the sobs so closely that I could feel +them rising out of his very heart. + +"Betty, Betty," he fairly groaned, with his face pressed close to mine. +A tear wet my cheek, larger and warmer than the ones which were +beginning to drip from my own eyes. + +"I can't help it, Sam," I sobbed. "I will be just as good as any of the +other women; but I want a--a mule and twenty acres here with you. I +don't feel safe anywhere else. I might starve, away from you." + +And then, very quietly, very surely, I found out what it was I had been +hungry for and thirsty for, what it was I had been used to having fed me +ever since I could remember--it was Sam's love. He held me close, then +closer for a long second--and then he pressed his lips on mine until I +knew what it was to feel--fed. + +"My woman," he said, when at last I turned my face away for breath and +to get room to raise my arms around his neck and hold on tight until I +could get used to being certain that he was there. + +"I tried to let you give me away, Sam, but I couldn't," I said, with a +dive into the breast of his overalls, which had that glorious barn and +field--was it cosmic he told me to call it?--smell. + +"When I've loved you a little longer I'm going to shake the life out of +you for this mix-up," said Sam, hollowing his long arms and breast still +deeper to fold me fast. + +"I--I held Peter's hand all during that long play-making, and I can't +stand it any longer," I said, squirming still closer and hiding my +abashed eyes under his chin. + +"Just hold my heart awhile now," Sam answered, as he sank down on the +door-sill of the shack and cradled me close and warm, safe from the +little chill breeze that blew up from the valley. + +I don't know how long we sat there with arms and breasts and cheeks +close, but I do know that some of the time Sam was praying, and I +prayed, too. That is, I thanked God for Sam in behalf of myself and the +helpless people in the camp below us and the rest of the world, even if +they don't know about him yet. Amen. + +Of course, it is easy enough, if you have a little money in your +stocking, to cut any kind of hard knot and go off on a railroad train, +leaving the ravelings behind you. But I believe that sooner or later +people always have to tie up all the strings of all the knots they +ruthlessly cut. Sam made me do it the very next day, after a long talk +out on the front porch under the honeysuckle that was still blowing a +few late flowers. + +First he made me tell mother. She said: + +"Why, of course, Betty dear, I always expected you to marry Sam, and I +am so glad that you are so like my mother and will be a good farmer's +wife. Did I give you that gardening-book of hers that I found? It might +be a help to you both." + +Did she give me that gardening-book which had made all the mischief? I +felt Sam laugh, for I was hanging on to his arm just as I always did +when he took me in to tell mother on myself. I was glad that she +finished the eighth row of the mat and began on the ninth at that exact +moment, so we could go on back to the honeysuckles and the young moon. + +Then Sam made me tell daddy. Daddy said: + +"Now I suppose I will be allowed to purchase a mule and cow or an +electric reaper for that farm when I think it necessary?" And as he +spoke he looked Sam straight in the face, with belligerency making the +corners of his white mustache stand straight up. + +"Make it a big steam-silo, first, Dad Hayes," answered Sam, laughing and +red up to the edges of his hair--and daddy got an arm around us both for +a good hug. + +But the letter to Peter was another thing, and I didn't wait for Sam to +tell me to write it. I smudged and snubbed and scratched over it all day +and flung myself weeping into Sam's arms that night with it in my hand. + +"Why, I wrote to Peter that night--the night I--took you over, Bettykin. +And here's the answer that came an hour ago by wire. Take your hair out +of my eyes and let me read it to you." + +I snuggled two inches lower against Sam, and this is what he read: + + My life for your life, yours for mine, and joy to us both. + PETE. + +I got a letter from Peter the next day, and it said such wonderful +things about Sam that I pasted it in Grandmother Nelson's book with the +Commissioner's report. I had to cut out a whole page about Julia's +beauty and the way New York was crazy about her. Peter is the most +wonderful man in the world in some ways, and I believe that, as he +deserves all kinds of happiness, he'll get it; maybe a nice, big, pink +happiness in a blue chiffon and gold dress that will rock his nerves +through a long career of play-writing. I told Sam my hopes. + +He ruffled my hair with his big hand, and my lips with his, as he +smoldered out toward Old Harpeth. In his eyes was the gridiron land look +that started the flow of sap along the twigs of my heart just a few +months ago. Then he said: + +"A man must plow his field of life deep, Betty, but if a woman didn't +trudge 'longside with her hoe and seed-basket, what would the harvest +be?" + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Over Paradise Ridge, by Maria Thompson Daviess + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OVER PARADISE RIDGE *** + +***** This file should be named 15243.txt or 15243.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/2/4/15243/ + +Produced by David Garcia, Edna Badalian and the PG Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. 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