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.