think it is scandal because I wanted to buythat old mahogany sideboard that the Vertreeses had to sell when theyinherited old Mrs. Anderson and her furniture from his mother," hegroaned, as he sat on my side porch with his head in his hands.
"Tolly," I said, with firm conviction in my voice and manner, "you mustdo something heroic to shock Edith down to earth again, or into openingher eyes as those kittens daddy gave Byrd did on their ninth day. Theevening of Edith's eighth day has about struck."
"It most certainly has, and about eleven-thirty at that," answeredTolly, sitting up as if about to rush forth and do what I suggested,though neither he nor I knew what it was. "But what is your idea of aheroic deed that will pluck the child Edith?" he asked, just as if Iwere one of the clerks out at the power-house and he was conducting abusiness detail.
"Well, let me see, Tolly," I said, slowly, while I ran over in my mindall the lover heroics I had ever heard of from runaway horses to the useof a hated blond rival. "You couldn't get hurt slightly out at thepower-house, could you?"
"And ruin my boast that I have the most perfectly organized force andmachinery in the state? Not if I know myself," answered Tolly, withbusiness indignation and an utter lack of lover's enthusiasm at theprospect of getting his lady-love by a ruse.
"Well, I don't know what you are going to do," I said, limply, as I sawthat none of the things that had ever been acted before were withinTolly's reach.
"I don't know, either," answered Tolly; and again his head dropped intohis hands.
"What did she say the last time you asked her?" I questioned. Iconsidered it my duty to get to the bottom of the matter, as I had beencalled in consultation.
"Ask her? Thunderation! I never have asked her! I've never got that nearto her!" he exclaimed, in a perfect outburst of indignation.
Then I laughed. I laughed so that Tolly had to pat me on the back tomake me get my breath, and a sleeping mocking-bird scolded outright froma tree by the porch.
"Why don't you do it by telephone?" I gasped.
"By George! that _is_ the idea, all right, Betty!" Tolly exclaimed, withhis face positively radiant. I had flung his love troubles into a classof affairs that he could handle. "I tell you what I am going to do. I amgoing to have my wire chief cut Edith's line and make me a directconnection with mine at about nine o'clock to-morrow morning, as that isthe time he is in less of a rush with all the other things to attend to.Then I'll put it to her good and straight if she holds on to thereceiver and hears me out."
"But Edith might go over to Boliver to visit May Jessamine Ray for aweek at nine o'clock to-morrow. Oh, go do it to-night, Tolly!" Ipleaded.
"And let that doll-faced girl at Central hear me? Not much!" answeredTolly, indignantly.
"I didn't mean that," I answered. "Go to her armed with your love,Tolly, and make--make her listen to you."
"Armed with a sand-bag to slug her would be more like it, if I expectedto get anywhere with her. No, you've hit it, Betty, and I'm going ondown the street and see just where that Morris line goes into the trunk.Hope Judson won't have to run more than a mile of wire to make thatconnection." And with no more gratitude or good night than that Tollywent down the street with his head up among his telephone wires, just asEdith keeps hers in the clouds. I hope some day they will run into eachother so hard that they will crash out ignition sparks and take fire.
As I said, being so interested in Edith and Tolly, and trying to get herto postpone her visit until he could get the wires up between them bothin a material and a sentimental sense, and also wanting to let Sam andPeter miss me sadly, I let quite a few days elapse without being in anyof the events out at The Briers. When I did go back I found that thingshad happened.
"Where's Peter?" I asked, as Sam came to unload me and a huge bag ofsmoke iris that old Mrs. Johnson had given me for my garden. There wasalso Byrd's basket from mother, and a pair of small alligators thatdaddy had got from Florida for him, having run out of natural animalinhabitants of the Harpeth Valley.
"Pete's off with the bit in his mouth--haven't seen him for three days,"answered Sam as he lifted me and swung me way out into the middle of myown clover-pink bed. It was starred with sweet, white blossoms, havingbeen treated according to Eph's directions and those of GrandmotherNelson's book.
"Peter off? Where? What's happened, Sam?" I exclaimed, with astonishedanxiety.
"The play," answered Sam, calmly, as he lit his cob pipe and blew aring of smoke. "It hit him in the middle of the night before last, andhe wrote me a note. Mammy grubs him, and I haven't seen him since. I'vepaid the Byrd a half interest in the next young that happens to us notto go down the hill to the shack, and we're all just going on as usual."
"Maybe I'd better not go, either," I said, with awe and sympathy forPeter fairly dropping from the words as I uttered them.
"Betty," said Sam as he looked at me through a ring of smoke that thewarm wind blew away over our heads, "you run just a little more sense tothe cubic foot of dirt than the average, it seems to me. Come on downand watch them begin to cut wheat. It is one week ahead of time, so Ican get all the harvesters and not a grain will be lost. They say it'llrun sixty bushels to the acre. Think of that, with only a thirty-sixrecord to beat in the Valley. It is that Canadian cross. TheCommissioner is down there, and so is your admirer, Chubb. He wastesmany hours riding over here to see you when you are in town on frivolouspursuits."
"Frivolous!" I echoed as we went up the path back of the house; and onour way over the hill I told him about Tolly and Edith. Sam laughed; healways does when I want him to; but his eyes were grave after a second.
"The mating season is a troublesome time, isn't it, Betty?" he asked, ashe swung me to the top rail of the fence, vaulted over it, and held uphis arms to lift me down on the other side; but I sat poised in midairto argue his proposition.
"It ought not to be, Sam," I said, with an experienced feeling rising inmy mind and voice at thus discussing fundamentals with a man that couldbreak a wheat record and be attended by the agricultural envoys of theUnited States government. "People ought to sensibly pick each other fromtheir needs, and not act unintelligent about it."
At which perfectly sage remark a strange thing happened to Samuel FosterCrittenden. He laid his head down on the rail beside my knee and laugheduntil he almost shook me from my perch. It made me so furious that Islipped past him and ran on ahead. I vaulted the next fence in finestyle and landed among the Commissioner and Dr. Chubb and thetobacco-juice neighbors, who had come to see the output of the firstbook-grown acre. I did not speak again to Sam that day until he tuckedin Dr. Chubb beside me for a spin over to Spring Hill, leaving thedoctor's old roan for a week's complimentary grazing on Sam's eastmeadow of thick blue-grass, grown through a rock-lime dressing that allthe neighbors had assured him would kill the land outright.
"Wheez-chekk! nice young buck for a husband," wheezed the Butterball asI shot down the hill from under Sam's big hand reached out for my hair.
"Sam?" I gasped.
"Women critters always back and shy, but they git the wedding-bit from asteady hand--and like it," he chuckled, still further. I felt as if Iought not to let Sam rest under such a suspicion, and that I ought totell him about Peter. But just then he launched forth on a case of aspavined horse he had beyond the cross-roads, which he wanted me to takehim to see, and I didn't do it.
I don't much like to think about the long, hot July weeks that followed.The whole of Harpeth Valley sweltered, and everybody did likewise. Thatis, I suppose Peter did, for not one glimpse did I or anybody else getof him. Sam says Mammy set his meals down in the doorway of the shackwith one of her soft, soothing, "Dah, dah, chile," which was answeredwith a growl from Peter. That ended the events of his life at TheBriers.
Sam worked early and late, and got tanned to the most awful deepmahogany. All of him held out pretty well but his heels, which he camein three times to have me fix for him; and once mother and I had todress a blister on his back that he got from wearing a torn shirt in thepot
ato-field.
I was wild with anxiety about Peter and the play and the poor littleheroine; I didn't know whether she was being murdered or separated forlife from the hero. Still, it was good to have Sam to myself for long,quiet, hot evenings out on the front porch under the brooding doves inthe eaves above us. Sam never talks much but he listens to me, andsometimes he tells me things from way down inside himself. And little bylittle I began to understand all about the things he had been too busydoing to tell me about.
"You see, it is this way, Bettykin," he said, one evening when the youngmoon was attempting to
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