"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 gra.s.s 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 G.o.d 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. b.u.t.tercup. 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 ill.u.s.tration 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 ma.n.u.script 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 b.u.t.tercup 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 ma.n.u.script 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 pa.s.ses 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 pa.s.s 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 n.o.body"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 coa.r.s.e-grained for a.s.sociation 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 b.u.mblebee 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 n.o.body 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 ap.r.o.n 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 pa.s.sed 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 ma.n.u.script in on top of it.
No ma.s.s-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.