Over Paradise Ridge
Page 16
explained to Byrd and me all about how you cut out each little eyewith some potato around it for moisture and nourishment while it takesroot in the earth, and the Byrd had been especially interested in allthe potato-peels ever since. He had almost worn the life out of Mammybegging her not to cut through any of the "little ones" with her knifeuntil she had taken to boiling them whole. And as I sat and picturedthem all sitting on the back porch with the big lamp lighted, justcutting away, maybe Byrd still up for the emergency, the whole danceseemed to put on a mask of grinning foolishness and resolve itself, withits jiggy music, into a large bunch of nothing, with me included. I wasin a bad way for the best dancer in Hayesboro, not to sound likeboastful Billy.
"Well, hello! Can this be Betty the wall-flower?" called a voice fromover the fence. It was so out of sight that it might have come from thehollow log out on Old Harpeth if it hadn't been so near. "Won't anybodydance 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 upin 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 usualrough 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 Ibrought a load of new peas and ten dozen eggs at the same time, so Icouldn't dress for the dance, or have time to dance if I did. Sixseventy-five a barrel, and five barrels; how's that for wealth,Bettykin?" As he spoke Sam reached down in his overalls pocket, broughtup a big fistful of all kinds of money, and poured it into my tunic ofembroidered mull that I held up for it.
"It is the most beautiful money I ever saw," I said, and I had toswallow hard to keep out of my voice the sentiment I knew Sam would notlike. 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," hesaid, and of course it couldn't have been emotion that cut his voice offso indistinctly.
"Come on, then, and let me dance for it," I answered. Then myself andmoney and mull dress,--that came all the way from New York with athree-figured bill--I threw into the blue-jeans arms. And out on thesmooth, hard turnpike Sam and I had one glorious fox-trot with only thesurprised mule looking on.
"Bring Pete out at about eleven. Your first pea is due to pod aboutnoon. No, I must go now or never," said Sam as he shook me off when Iclung and begged for another dance. He climbed up in the wagon. "Goodnight," he called.
For a long time I stood and watched him standing bolt upright in thewagon and clattering away with his great ugly old mule in a lurchingtrot; then I went in to the dance. I didn't tell anybody that Sam hadbeen there, because they would all have been disappointed. The way Sam'shome town loves him and disapproves of his farming is pathetic. Fivemiles 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 mearound while he told me how proud he was of my beauty and the lovely andworthy friends I possessed. He mentioned Julia and Pink and the mules indetail. I think Peter Vandyne has the most grateful, appreciative,sympathetic nature I ever encountered, and I told him so as we walkedhome across the lawn while the stars were beginning to grow pale andflicker with no more night to burn.
"My heart is full, full, dear, dearest Betty, with you and--and thework. The vision becomes clearer," Peter said, with his great dark eyeslooking up at the retreating stars. And as we walked up the steps hetold me another struggle he had thought up for the hero to have with hisconscience about the poor little waiting heroine. The mule story hadn'tdone 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 offriends or first or--Good night!" I muttered, as I closed my eyes on myfavorite glimpse of Old Harpeth.
The next morning at about nine-thirty occurred Peter Vandyne'sintroduction into real life. He took it gallantly with his head up andswimming for shore.
The day was one of young May's maiden efforts offered with a soft smileof tender sunshine and in a flutter of bird wing and apple-blow. Ofcourse, Sam had told me not to bring Peter out to The Briers until abouteleven o'clock, because he wanted to do some farm housekeeping, as Iafterward found out. But half past nine was the very limit of myendurance, and I sat and fidgeted with the wheel while mother and Ephpacked us up with the inevitable basket for Byrd plus the alsoinevitable "little ones" that daddy somehow managed to find for him.These young were three small kittens, attended in their blindness by ablack-and-white-spotted mother cat, all safely laced into a large basketand by that time resigned to their fate. I didn't mean to bedisrespectful to dear Peter in my thoughts, but somehow they reminded meof him as he was led to farm life; and I laughed outright as Eph gavePeter a parting pat and Redwheels and me a shove, while mother calledafter us not to forget the sarsaparilla.
As long as I live I shall remember that journey along old ProvidenceRoad with a lovely nature like Peter's. He glowed with his inward flamethere at my side, until I felt that it would be bad for him. Peter hasseen all kinds of wonderful scenery all his life; but of course, thereis none in the world anything like the Harpeth Valley. All the other inthe world is either grand or placid or swept and garnished and tended orbrilliant or moist, but this valley under Paradise Ridge is different.Peter expressed it so that my throat tightened and I had to holdsteadier 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 andtheir homes, Betty," he said, huskily. "Look at that white-haired oldgrand dame in her frilled frock with the string of chickens followingher and the two kiddies bringing up the rear. And look at that oldred-gray brick house. England has nothing finer."
"That is old Mrs. Georgetta Johnson," I answered, as I waved my hand andgot a stately wave in return. "She is the fifth generation to live inthat house, and the two kiddies are the eighth. Her mother danced withLafayette, and she is over eighty-five. I'll take you to see her someday."
"Betty," said Peter, with positive awe, "I have never seen such homesand furniture and people as I have found here. What is it that makes itso--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 finemilk-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 weturned off into Brier Lane, and Peter went up in the air and began tofloat among the tree-tops, only being able to take in the high-lightslike the gnarled old cedars that jutted out from the lichen-coveredstone wall and hung over the moss-green snake-rail fences, or the oldoaks which were beginning to draw young, green loveliness around them,or the feathery buckbushes and young hackberries that were harboring allvarieties of mating birds who were wooing and flirting and cheeping babytalk in a delightfully confidential and unabashed manner. Peter hadbecome wildly absorbed in a brilliant scarlet cardinal that followed thecar, scolding and swearing in the most pronounced bird language, all forno fault of ours that we could see, when we turned in the cedar-polegate of The Briers and began to wind our way up through the potato andcorn field on one side and the primeval forest on the other. It wasdifficult to get Peter past the old thorn-tree view of the HarpethValley we had come through, and he wanted to get out and stay for everat the milk-house; but I finally landed him in a Homeric daze up infront of the house, which stood with its hospitable old door wide openbut deserted.
"Sam! Byrd! Mammy!" I shouted at the top of my lungs, while Peter satparalyzed at the sight of Sam's farm-house. Peter had got the oldCrittenden house and all the others where he had been entertained inhis mind's eye, and that Sam's present residence was a shock to him Icould see plainly. That was the beginning.
"Hi, Betty, come here quick--I need you!" came in Sam's mostbusiness-li
ke voice from the barn up on the hill, while I could hearwild and excited cheeps from the Byrd and disturbed clucks from Mammy.
Leaving Peter to disembark as he recovered himself, I sped around thehouse and up to the barn.
"Here, Betty, this blamed mule has kicked old Jude, and I must havesomebody to hold the edges together while I sew it up. Mammy's handsaren't steady enough. Now press the edges together and never mind theblood on your hands. Hold the halter, Mammy. You get that can of limeready to dust it, Byrd." Thus in dirty, blood-stained overalls, with hishair on ends and an earth smudge as usual right across his face like aHeidelberg scar, Sam was commanding his