Over Paradise Ridge

ped Henry James to construct it, though they had forgotten to ask Mark Twain to dinner and had never heard of John Burroughs. I felt when I got through the first act as if I had been living for a

gion. Could I do it single-handed even for a person I cared as much for as I did for Peter? I decided that I could not, and that the only way I could prove my loyalty and affection f

nd put me out of his life for ever I had not seen hi

a good fox or tango and you had bet

s full of a beautiful affection Peter didn't seem to see, and ready to pour it forth to the hero before he started out on a long life mission. Maybe it was sorrowing with her at being thus s

nded, as he seated himself on the front steps with a determination whic

t to get the man with the dinner-pail who is eating hunk sandwiches at lunch-time on the pavement in front of any construction job in New York to tell him what he did and said to his girl at the firemen's ball the night before, and then translate it int

, with dignity, though I felt exactly the same way about it and hadn

if I had put him in his place in regard to his criticism of

ed down to do my worst or best by Peter, with my Grandmother Nelson's garden-book locked up in the p

ound-cake, sweetened and beautifully frosted. "Has he consented to let the hero kiss the poor thing's hand before he goes to fight the case of the miners?" Julia whispered, wa

nge how even great responsibilities melt away before dance music like icicles on the southern side of the house. It was in a perfectly melted condition that I at last dropped from Tolly's grasp into a pair of new arms which cradled me against a broad breast with such gentleness that I might have thought i

tional indignation that h

him while we slid and skidded and slid again. "I don't forgive you; I never shall," I said, haughtily, as I drew away from him

red me first past Edith and Tolly and then across right in front of Pink Herriford, who weighs all of two hundred,

cows or anybody else?" I demand

or

anything died

a double cross and then took a chance with Pink and Jul

h through the window and

e reach up for it. "Besides, it has been two whole weeks since I've-had you," he added, and again his strong arms cradled as well as guided. Getting back into some people's atmosphere is like recovering the use of a lung a person had temporarily lost;

ter on my left heel in these dancing-shoes just to break the news

tender Sam's feet were, for I had doctored them since infancy. I used to pay tribute in the form of apples and tea-cakes for the p

ingly. "I've got a brand-new mule and I nearly plowed him and myself to d

lder so that the bit of woods in his buttonhole graze

rly potatoes on the

d w

a crop of-hollyhocks, if

id you p

all over t

he

door-step, if you must have it. Great sakes! do you think t

Sam liked, but I think all apologies ought to be met enthusiast

to his sufferings which I had forgotten in my joy at having h

er it so it won't break or swell. You

the thought is good, Betty," he answered, as he stood on his lef

d," I said, with energy; and I led him, faintly remonstrati

hundred-and-fifty round on. Mother is so used to Sam that she forgets that he is not her fifth or sixth son, and she treats him accordingly. After she had given us all the surgical

ater and then in cold, sitting on the floor with a bath-towel in my lap to get at

red the last flash of heat from the

water out of a pitcher on the blister and l

at all around the blister in the gentlest and most considerate manner possible.

as he drew on his silk sock with its huge hole over as neat a bandage as i

if he were saying something to tease me. "And now as a reward for your kindness I am going to knock

, Sam," I answered, as I leaned against one of the pillars

t for me; that is, at the present speaking, with nothing

ha

answer

. It takes alarm to test the depths of one's affection for a friend. I found mine for Peter deeper than I

t and he'll be here to demonstrate it to you just as soo

ers? Peter?

ays out to friends," answered Sam. And I felt his arm stiffe

And Sam's stiff arm limbered again and made a moti

at is what he asked for in his letter to me. I don't know what

busy gardening, how can we help him live it also? Peter does require so much affe

now that for several years his poems have really got across in great style with the writing world, and I'm proud of him and-I-I-well, I love him. Suppose, just suppose, dear, that Keats had had a great hulking farmer like me to stand by. Don't you think that maybe the world would have had some grown-man stuff from him that would have counted? I always have thought of that when I looked at ol

can have half of all of it. You know I love him dearly. I'll work all day with h

Betty, you know my blisters are kind of-kind of old friends to you; Pete's might not have so many-many landmarks for you to work by," he ad

d dances, and then I'll be out early in the morning to help plan

ered as we went down the steps out on to the spr

and butter and peach preserv

r. I paid no attention at all to Billy Robertson when he said his foot was blistered, too; but I told them how beautiful Peter was, and how distinguished, and all about the poor young Keats that most of

body laughed, not even Julia, and she is almost too tall and big to dance with anybody but Pink. She and Edith and Sue and I forgot to save him the dances we had promis

g clouds in which I had no confidence, and succeeded in convincing mother that it would be a beautiful day for me to go out to see Sam and Byrd and Mammy. She sent Byrd half a jelly-cake and a bag of bananas, and I got a jar of jam for

t was many hours older. With a stoical reserve he loaded in the two young lilacs that were in the exact state of sappiness Grandmother Nelson had recommen

d leave ole mistis's gyarden tools out

n's?" I exclaimed, with such radiance that

throwed away on playing gyarden o

e in my voice, "they'll be-be sacred

ords to push along your high-haided ways," he answered me while he

tendencies. And while I waited I looked over my letters. The volume from Peter I put aside to enjoy in a leisure hour, as I felt sure that I knew what was in it; but I opened another thin one that looked as if it might be from him, if he had written it in an unpoetic mood. It was from Judge Vandyne, and I then understood Peter's

d on the complex pro

who doesn't go at t

d a few horny spots on

description of Sam's h

e me feel twenty-five

shall. Ease him alon

en are you coming Nort

ged ad

VANDYN

tter say that Dr. H

-one sixteen.

turdy-oak fathers can have ferny-mimosa sons. Mothers can stand producing poets, but it is hard on fathers.

r with crystal water gems. Winter is staid and dignified and grand with its stark trees and mantle of brown earth, and summer is glowing and glorious; but very young spring is so sappy and curly and yellow and green and lavender that you take it to heart and let it nestle there to suck i

he black dirt as high as Sam's knees as he plunged along at the plow-handles. I stopped the car at the cedar-pole gate of Eden and stood up and shouted at the top of my lungs, but Sam plowed on heroically, with never a glance in my direction, and I just stood and looked at him and the mule. Seeing a man plow cuts right down to the bottom of a woman's nature, because I suppose it looks so-so fundamental. At least that is about the way I felt though it was much more so until I remembered the blistered heel and shouted again, this time in alarm. At my cry of distress Sam suddenly looked up and jerked the mule

o take my hand in his, which was brown with mud, and ended by rubbing his cheek in my

heel plowing like that,

ight. I have cold-bucketed myself every morning, standing on one leg with it up on the wash-bench so as not to

red, with positive heroism. I wanted to get out and go and be introduced to the mu

bout three more rounds and then I'll come and help you. Say, Bettykin, what do you think of that for good land?" And as he loo

RED IN MINIATURES

th a queer dirt enthusiasm rising in me that

a streak of the mud delicacy across them at right angles. "But go on up and tell Mammy to put your name in her dinner-pot and

gray old tree with crimson thorns, of the valley with Old Harpeth looming opposite. Further on a rocky old road leads down around a clump of age-distorted cedar-trees to the moss-greened stone spring-house, from which the

and his red mop stood on ends all over his head, while his frec

re it got borned, but I said ladies first, and I calls it Betty. You can let it lick your fingers if Sam milks on 'em first. And Dominick have hatched 'fore the white hen-eleven, and

he collie puppies best, but the Byrd was crazy about the little fawn calf which old Buttercup is so proud of that she switches her tail in the greatest complacency. He was just showing me how to tempt her litt

said, as he led the mule into his stall and poured down his oats out

e from Judge Vandyne that I have. Here it is-read it," an

id, as he took the cob pipe out of his pocket and prepared to ligh

him with a satisfiedly critical eye. "You only look and

r over my eyes with the long hickory switch with which he had been merely threatening the mule all day

en climbing like a squirrel to the tops of the trees, began to burrow down i

I've just got to build some sort of a poet's corner to put him in, so he can come on down from Philadelphia from the open

oor hero now and he doesn't seem to let the heroine help him a bit. Oh, Sam, if Peter were to fail with this play after Farrington has encouraged him I don't know what might happen! I'm sorry you ever ment

whip across my shoulders in comforting little

" I sn

Let's go get some good grub from Mammy so we can plant the garden before sundown, and stake out the poet's corner, too. I didn't have the mon

me on while the 'taters stands up stiff," announced th

in the same terms in the near future," said Sam, as he drove the fleet

ead out in the sun like a great black lake, smooth from his repeated plowing and harrowing, "that is t

what she made off of the southern half-acre of hers the year everything failed? I've got it right here, and I'm going to follow it," and as I spoke I hugged th

land all over the place, Betty

to and celery land right at the well, Sam, that Byrd and I can carr

ou

dden, embarrassed consternation. "A

the one fish we caught after a hot day's fishing out at Little Harpeth at our tenth and fourteenth years. Then, suddenly, a qu

with Hen Bates. In this case it would be about fair for you to furnish the seeds and I the land, all labor that each of us puts in to be charged against the gross receipts. I'll just enter

nd ordered me to take it in for the cook to have for my supper; but in a

dignity, as I threw the seed-basket and my hat on the gr

bout fifteen?" he asked in a business-like tone of voice, but I sa

a quarter for the presen

et. "Now, where do you want me to heave in the lilacs so as to get the two corners of the garden to gui

the lilacs for the corner-stones of the garden after making me so happy, not a month ago, with that lovely sentiment about wanting to plant the hollyhock seeds first in memory of the dolls of our youth. "Peter w

he said; but I saw a glint of so

er of the house and the old cedar-tree he had said he could n

e spade and poised it to dig

quickly for a second. Then he thre

u can think about things while you wait." With that he lifted the wheelbarrow an

as that, he had a chance to learn better-at least I th

eye, ran a trench with the rusty old hoe, flung in my seeds, and covered it up in less time than it takes to tell it. When Sam came back I had spaded out at least two and a half shovelfuls of dirt, that I found su

then down over my eyes, and took Grandmother Nelson's spade from my hand and began to m

f earth in three hours, with a string, sharpened sticks, seed, hoes, spades, rakes, and radiant happiness. At

," said the Byrd as he patted in a stray pea he had found with t

ed and dipped away. And then followed a lecture on floricul

iasm, "baby beets folds up jest that way," and he illustrated after

mple for Peter's muses," Sam interrupted as he made a lightnin

at the tea-table in the Astor when I had assumed the responsibility of him. But at that moment when Sam held back a tangle of blackberry-bushes and low-sweeping dogwood boughs, and we stepped out on a

elief, "let's plant Peter here. He-h

and as he spoke Sam looked across the valley into the blaze of the sun that was beginning to go down behind Paradise Ridge, with that earth-smolder I was beginning to recognize. I knew that David and Moses and Christ had all looked down across new life from a hillsi

st time stained with earth labor, on the blue sleeve of his overal

ll," he answered. "And now you hustle home to Mother Hayes or

, Sam. I feel

ake the mud-scow back to Eph. Present my c

want to and he continues to deserve it. It is so much better for a woman to worship a man than love him; it puts a strong barrier between them to keep him from hurting her, which lovin

up. Still, it's no use to cover up your head from trouble; it's right here by the bed the minute you peep over the top of the sheet. I woke up, feeling that the whole world must be camping on the top of my crocheted lace counterpane; but soon I realized that it was only Peter's play. Peter is stuck in the mud at the be

weeks. He has to build the house in between the plowing and milking an

t a farmer in the Harpeth Valley has done better in less than two years, and I would leave Peter

cademy. He's the youngest that ever has been; but I'll write a

s arrival as ten days later. Then real work b

. The first thing he had to have was shelter, and we ought to all help Sam as much as we could to provide it for him. He was willing to stay with us for a few days, on mother's invitation, which I ha

nthusiasm, "we must just all turn in and help Sam. I neve

irs," said Edith, with no less enthusiasm than Julia

f furniture. Sam paid a big note in the bank for the cows and mule

rittenden house had the loveliest in

anything but Mammy and Byrd and the other stock, and places for

him anything, would he?"

tter than that

nd of museum of affection of Peter's room and take all the lovely things we can borrow from people to put in the shack to help inspire him. Mother will let me start with Grand

lost in deep reflection. "It is real Chippendale, Aunt Amanda says, and I'll send t

feed. Of course, the baby didn't need the sausage any more than Peter really needed all the things everybody wanted to send out to make the cabin comfortable for him. Fortunately, Sam kept his head, as the minister did when he sold the sausage and bought groceries for the whole family; he selected only five pieces out of the list of sixty that we gave him, and it took me a day and a half to go around and keep people from getting hurt because he didn't call in his wagon for the things they ha

de like mine, in a hurry, and with hoes and seed-baskets, or that Pink or Tolly drove out in their cars; but he finally entered everybody in the time-book at two and a half cents an hour, gave each a plot of ground that wouldn't do for anything else, and started them off, while he kept on at real work. I'm glad to have every healthy assurance of being in the world when Sam comes to the harvesting of his friendly crops. It will be a great occasion. If Edith's five rows of okra do not net or gross-I forget which is the right term for it-I know she will wilt away, and I dread Sue if her fifty tomato-plants go down before the humble cutworm. Sue won't be humble. Miss Editha came out with us one afternoon and sowed a row of ladies'-slippers and princess-feathers, and it was funny to see old Dr. Chubb, who had driven the ten miles just

he Briers nicely finished up, and daddy and the mayor and Colonel M

the rocks and ends of the logs and discussed how to begin before Sam got ready to tell us the right way. The colonel and Miss Editha were standing a little to one side, and I

added, as Tolly and Pink and Billy Robertson stripped off their coats and

ut that was now dethroned and shorn of its branching power with which to wrestle with the wind. Pink and Billy got holds in between. "Up-

d spat on his hands to show his readiness for more logs; and we all clapped, while Edith p

mine and smoldered there. I know he was praying for

-up, boys

of reality. And men must plow and plant and reap and hew and lift for their vision-bringers, and women must do it also. It is only right. I am willing. Where w

is end for a right angle-drop, a

s crew heaved and raised and dropped and rolled, until all four of the low walls were fitted into the notch

lonel," said daddy, as he walked around to the back of the cabin and then again to the front. As he spoke he laid his

daddy nine little curly-tailed pigs taking their evening repast at the maternal fount, which they were sh

his tools and pick up the fragrant

he sat down on a log right where I was crouching, fill

u out of our garret I am going to breathe so deep that maybe I'll-I'll break my belt," I answered, a

d lighted it. "Pete's great enough to fill both for any woman." And Sam's face took on that devout young prophet-look it always doe

," I snapped, as I upset part of the basket of

, and Peter doesn't know, I am certain that I can't see why Samuel Foster Crittenden should be so sure of it; and he and I parted anything but friends, a fact over which I could feel daddy chuckle as he sat wedged beside me in the car, though he didn't dare smile. I would wager my first

blue. I'd let you kiss me anywhere I'm clean enough, if you bring me just one pigeon that wi

he gate, while for a second I snuggled the fledgling, whom I always hated to le

ted to. I'm glad Samuel Foster Crittenden will never know just exactly what I was cross about, as I wasn't sure myself. It is s

d nobody else in the world does. What could love be but giving and cherishing the beloved? By the test of how I longed to do all that to Peter I found out how I loved him. That was the reason I openly admitted, but I am afraid that I was afraid of Sam if I should fail his young David-Keats in any way. He had already warned me what I must be to him, and I felt as I did about that heifer I let get by me the first day I went to dig Sam out of the hollow tree to which he has now had to build a new crotch in order to take in Peter. This time I would head off his calf for him, though I didn't mean to call Peter that, even in the heat of debate with myself. Oh, I could t

am only three times, and those when there were many others with us. I

crowd. When they rested on me they lit with what I thought was perfect joy until I saw them find Sam a few seconds later. That was the real thing, and I never loved Peter better than when I saw him hold Sam's hand in his while he was greeting me in a su