Over Paradise Ridge
Page 11
answered, as hereached out and roughed my hair over my eyes with the long hickoryswitch with which he had been merely threatening the mule all day. "Goon, read me the judge's document on the subject of Peter while we waitfor Mammy's dinner cluck."
As he had asked me to do, I read it all, slowly, while my heart, thathad been climbing like a squirrel to the tops of the trees, began toburrow down in the reverse manner of a chipmunk. I could see Sam'sspirits 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 buildsome sort of a poet's corner to put him in, so he can come on down fromPhiladelphia from the opening of the spring Academy. He will have burnedhimself out by then, and he'll be so weak we can feed him out of abottle."
"And it's his play, too, Sam," I answered, despondently. "He's beginningon the third act, and just reading it all and suggesting in spots ismaking me thin. It is all the terrible heroic struggle of the poor heronow and he doesn't seem to let the heroine help him a bit. Oh, Sam, ifPeter were to fail with this play after Farrington has encouraged him Idon'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 sodid Mabel," and my lips quivered so I had to turn against the harnesshanging on the wall against which I drooped.
"Keats or Peter?" asked Sam as he pressed his whip across my shouldersin 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 lateto 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 beforesundown, and stake out the poet's corner, too. I didn't have the moneyto hire the plowing done, but I am almost through for the present; and Ican 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 fromthe house to the barn.
"He's talking about a duckling, but let's hope Peter can be mentioned inthe same terms in the near future," said Sam, as he drove the fleet Byrdand 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 plotunder the south window, which spread out in the sun like a great blacklake, smooth from his repeated plowing and harrowing, "that is therichest bit of land at The Briers or in Benton County. It will bringsome posies for you, Bettykin."
"I'm not going to plant just flowers in it, Sam," I answered in a tonethat admitted of no discussion, "Do you remember the part ofgrandmother's book that told what she made off of the southern half-acreof hers the year everything failed? I've got it right here, and I'mgoing to follow it," and as I spoke I hugged the ancestral garden to mybreast with one arm, while I held the old grass basket I had made forSam 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 onand sow the posies."
"There's not plenty of onion and beet and lettuce and okra and tomatoand celery land right at the well, Sam, that Byrd and I can carry waterfrom," I answered, positively. "Is this land mine or yours?"
"Yours."
"Wait. I forgot!" I exclaimed in sudden, embarrassed consternation. "Areyou renting this land to me, Sam?"
"Renting it to you, Betty?" For a second Sam's eyes blazed in a way Ihadn't seen since the time I didn't want to take all of the one fish wecaught after a hot day's fishing out at Little Harpeth at our tenth andfourteenth years. Then, suddenly, a queer expression came up and drownedthe anger in his eyes and twitched at the comers of his mouth until Irecognized it as humor.
"I believe it would be better for us both to crop it on shares, as youare going to put in foodstuffs, too. I am cropping on onions with oldCharlie Wade, down the road, and with sugar-beets with Hen Bates. Inthis case it would be about fair for you to furnish the seeds and I theland, all labor that each of us puts in to be charged against the grossreceipts. I'll just enter you in my time-book now. Let's see--it isone-fifteen," and as he spoke Sam took out, first his watch, and then amuddy little book that had time-tables and all sorts of almanac thingsin it.
For a second I was as mad as I was when he handed me the two-inch fishand ordered me to take it in for the cook to have for my supper; but ina second I saw just what he had done to me and I didn't dareremonstrate.
"How much do I get an hour?" I asked, with the greatest dignity, as Ithrew the seed-basket and my hat on the ground and picked up my rustyold hoe, ready for business.
"I charge myself at twelve and a half cents. Are you worth about--aboutfifteen?" he asked in a business-like tone of voice, but I saw a twitchat 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 penciland put the book back in his pocket. "Now, where do you want me to heavein the lilacs so as to get the two corners of the garden to guide therows by? Shall they run north and south or east and west? It reallydoesn't make much difference."
"East and west, then," I answered, calmly, though my hand clenched overthe hollyhock seeds which I had put in an envelope in the pocket of mycorduroy skirt. It was cruelly thoughtless of him--this selection of thelilacs for the corner-stones of the garden after making me so happy, nota month ago, with that lovely sentiment about wanting to plant thehollyhock seeds first in memory of the dolls of our youth. "Peter willenjoy looking down the rows from the living-room window better thanacross them," I added, quickly, for fear he would humiliate me byremembering that he had forgotten the hollyhock seeds he had stolen forme.
"Say where and I'll dig for you," he said; but I saw a glint ofsomething fairly shoot from his eyes.
"Here," I said, and stood at a nice right angle from the corner of thehouse and the old cedar-tree he had said he could nail the wires to tosave a post, when he had to put up a fence.
He came over promptly with the spade and poised it to dig into theground--and my heart.
Then he hesitated, and looked at me quickly for a second. Then he threwdown the spade and said, quietly:
"I'll go get that rotted stump dirt before I break ground for thelilacs, and you can think about things while you wait." With that helifted the wheelbarrow and trundled out of the situation, leaving me inthe depths of a hurt uncertainty.
But if Samuel Foster Crittenden thought I was as stupid as that, he hada chance to learn better--at least I thought I would give him one. I'mnot sure yet that I did.
As soon as he was out of sight I flew to the end of the garden, where Ithought the row of hollyhocks would make a lovely background for all thelong lines of vegetables and flowers running into it, sighted with myeye, ran a trench with the rusty old hoe, flung in my seeds, and coveredit up in less time than it takes to tell it. When Sam came back I hadspaded out at least two and a half shovelfuls of dirt, that I foundsurprisingly heavy, from the hole for the first lilac. I saw him startand 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 surreptitiousgardening.
"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'sspade from my hand and began to make the dirt fly out of the hole. Iwonder what I'll say when those hollyhocks come up.
And then we all worked. It astonished me to find what one man, onewoman, and one small boy can do to a plot of earth in three hours, witha string, sharpened sticks, seed, hoes, spades, rakes, and radianthappiness. At four o'clock we all three sank down in a heap at the endof the last row of green peas in delicious exhaustion.
"Nice little seed, I'll dig you up to-morrow to see how you feel," saidthe Byrd as he patted in a stray pea he had found with the beets. "Ican'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 anddipped away. And then followed a lecture on floriculture, agriculture,and horticulture that I immensely enjoyed.
"Yes," assented the fledgling, with the greatest intellectualenthusiasm, "baby beets folds up jest that way," and he illustratedafter Sam, with his grubby little paddies, "same as chickens in eggsand--"
"Come on, Betty, let's go select the spot for the cedar-log temple forPeter's muses," Sam interrupted as he made a