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; a.s.suring and rea.s.suring; nursing babies by camp-fires, and feeding little mouths out of the huge chicken-dumpling pots that Mammy, with Dr. Chubb"s a.s.sistance, 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 mult.i.tude 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 ap.r.o.n 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s and cheeks close, but I do know that some of the time Sam was praying, and I prayed, too. That is, I thanked G.o.d 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