Over Paradise Ridge

t as much as I do to Sam or anybody else who is doing interesting things in a perfectly simple way. When we talked about Peter and the play he reminded me in lots

stars, and he said he saw exactly what I meant, and that he hoped to meet Dr. Chubb some day. And I continued to feel enthusiasm

e first day of September, "how wonderful to have you come just whe

ng-bag to a footman. Peter looked like a literary version of what Sam called "the last of pea-time," which is a ver

gloomily, as he led me through the Pennsylvania Station and up the steps toward the

hat can you me

Mabel-she doesn't understand," he answered from behind his teeth as he p

again I couldn't help being depressed by every glance

er leaned out to be reproachful to the chauffeur for doing his duty and keepi

the fact that they all wanted to hear so much about Sam and The Briers and the whole Harpeth Valley. I never more enjoyed telling anything, and even Peter's gloom lightened when I told him

big things in motion. I'll tell you about it when I get you alone," he added, under his breath. And that was another time that made me feel as if I were a baby that ought to be sliced up to be divide

n," he began. The judge and Mabel had at last left us alone, probably because they hesitated to ha

ed, taking his hand

not intend at all. The leading woman is coarse, with no soul, and the star is a great hulking ass. I am wild and nobody sympathizes with me. Father has talked to Farrington, and that is why he wired to you. Oh, I know he wired or you wouldn't have c

north-field rye. Then it was time for us to go to bed, and I suppose it was best that it was too late for Mabel to come into my room to tell me her version of Peter's troubles. For that one night I sympathized fully with him. The next mor

wonderful nature that grows and flowers such an exquisite young first play as this of our young friend's, is the und

, and I trust you with the play even though you haven't told me anything abo

d me just what you are going to do with him," he answered, and looked at me with the real aff

innermost heart to him, for that is what he invites, when in came Peter and the rest, and we all went in to dinner. I didn't see the

sy, and you'll s

The best diversion, however, was Judge Vandyne's. He asked me to make out a list of ten of Peter's Hayesboro friends, for whom he would send a private car over one of his railroads, to bring them up for the first night of the play. That was to be

m all letters, and Mabel wrote them notes. After that Peter got uneasy and made Judg

t," I said, with a sudden hurt place just wher

rowing white about his mouth

nk it is possible for him to get away and-and you know, Peter, Sam has to b

that in turn knocked down the center vase of roses, besides upsetting the composure of the butler and one footman. I saw it was going to be a reg

dge Vandyne in a perfectly calm an

I do; and the reason he is so congenial with his mules is that he is so like them in "setness" of disposition. I just raged at him in my heart, for I knew from the w

he be delicious?" I exclaimed as we came t

her. She had wept on my shoulder at parting from Peter, and had written him long and encouraging letters for me while I was going up to Nashville to have my clothes made for the trip to New York and trying to get a little time in my garden out at The Briers. I have to stop; I never let myself think of that parting with Sam and The Briers. Some things are too deep for words. Then to con

at Colonel Menefee was coming, because he would engage Miss Editha's attention away from Tolly's attentions to Edith and give them a chance to come forward out of their backwardness. The telephone scheme had failed, Tolly told me, b

ection is good

elf in putting up a new telephone line over to Spring Hill. I told Peter how he ought to appreciate

oleth that will unleash the hooded fal

r of his own, to which he was inviting a lot of delightful friends to meet his Hayesboro friends, and they were having both dinners at the Ritz, so Peter could go in and make a speech to Judge Vandyne's party. Most of the friends had not come back from the lakes and the shore and their country homes, but were running into town for that one ev

e every one full to overflowing with loving excitement about Peter. I was in the second box on the right-hand side of the stage at the front, and Peter sat in the shadow back of me. J

Sam

d all the adjectives and things there are in the English language to expre

h a great deal of brains for one so young. Just the sort of woman that men like Sam and the hero deserve to have. She was so lovely that I caught my breath and-and suffered. But what made everybody in that theater laugh themselves happy was the essence of Hayesboro that Peter had distilled and poured into his characters. Everybody was so mixed up with everybody else that nobody could feel sensitive or fail to enjoy every character. I couldn't tell whether I was the girl that practised tango steps all the time, e

real life, too, as I knew would have to happen some day. Also Sam deserved to be there that night if anybody did, and he was way down in the Harpeth Valley working, working, working, it seemed to me, that all the rest of the world might play. I wanted him! I felt as if I couldn't stand it when Peter stepped forward, looking like the most beauti

nd watch old Pete ta

in my life. I heard every word of Peter's speech, and laughed and almost cried over the one Farrington made about the young American drama, with his arm across Peter's shoulder. I

rom Peter's supper-party over at the Astor, which his New York friends gave because they wanted to see more of his Hayesboro friends. Everybody was there and the success of the evening came when Pink Herriford told his mule story. Peter made him do it, and everybody adored it. And just as they were all lau

New York in the daytime is like a huge football game in which a million or two players all fall on the ball of life at the same time and kick and squirm and fight over it; but at night it is a dragon with billions o

ear and then forget him-if I am allowed, which I am not if Sam can think up some important work for me to do. At six o'clock in the morning I laid down the papers wi

aid at the hotel to

need you badly. A rel

A

in, and how could I help? I looked in my purse and found only ten dollars, but I felt the roll that I always carry in my stocking and it still felt a respectable size. I never count money when I am spending it, because you don

to Sam. I forgot to get the maid to go with me; and, anyway, what was the use, with a nice young white man like that taxi-c

queer kind of old warehouse down in a part of New York where I had never been, with a line of the ocean or the bay or the river or the harbor, I couldn't tell whi

he thought of his needing me my courage came back, and I went on into the long shed where queer dirty boxes and bales and barrels and things were piled. At last I came to a turn and stepped into a low room that was almost at the water's edge. It was still very early morning, and a mist from the se

th a baby in her arms knelt beside her; while a dozen other women with children, ragged, pale, frightened little children in their arms, and at their skirts, hung in a sullen group back of her. A crowd of dejected, hungry, gaunt men stood to one side, and one very old man had his old woolen cap off his white he

am, and what do th

n the dock at one o'clock in the night, because of a fire on the steamer. I came right down from the theater, but they are frightened and the women have lost all confidence in everything. They don't seem to want to go with me to the car that we h

n from my arms and to be hungry and cold. But women do understand other suffering women, and when I stretched out my hands

ood man. Alle avec-go

d, and regarded Sam in his purple and fine broadcloth with fierce and desperate distrust that the other wo

off of which the barrel of peas had smashed the nail. There were the deep plow-callouses in the palms, and the plow-ropes' hard gall around the left wrist. The fierce woman's somber eyes lighted; for

lothes, and had put on even in the hurry of my summons. I snapped it open and let her see what it contained. Sam saw, also! It was a picture of Sam milking old Buttercup in the shed. Just as

t still held a trace of the blister. Intently she looked for a few seconds, first at me and then at Sam. Then with a cry of agonized joy she fell at Sam's feet, and I drew down on my knees beside her, while the other women crowded around, kneeling, too, as their leader bowed her tear-drenched eyes in Sam's big,

ttle starved baby close and pressed with the other women against Sam's knees, and Sam stood calm over us all. I know, I

faces that had begun to smile uncertainly, as if they had never smiled before. A big tear fell off Sam's own cheek as he roughed my hair with his chin under the edge

some suitable place to colonize twenty of his peasant families in America. The letter had come at about the time my copy of the government's report on Sam's farming had reached him. He hadn't said anything to Sam about it, but had got hold of the Commissioner and secured options on four hundred acres back of Sam's farm in the wilderness of the Harpeth Valley. He had fixed it all up before he offered Sam

while the mother jolted a big-eyed twin of the same variety. Sam was undoing a strap from a large bu

ce' first night. This ship wasn't due until to-morrow, and I was to have had a frolic. I asked the judge no

of the little house with the Byrd and Mammy and all the baskets and seed and t

he camp for me, and Chubb is helping to make things all shipshape, also buying a fine mule for each family. Oh, they'll have a great welcome, or would have if only you were there." Sam didn't look at me, but

aid the Commissioner as he came bustling up to me, smiling wit

obs in my throat, I held out the baby to its mother

Of course, nobody that knew Samuel Foster Crittenden a whole hour, even in his dress clothes in the daytime, could fail to have confidence in him for life. But those women wanted me, too, and they wanted me badly. I had to be torn fro

uncheons and sight-seeing and dinner-parties and plays and dances and suppers and lights and music and flowers and like miseries. At the agony of t

mine, for I had told her to wait to get them in New York, and she would surely need them immediately in the round of gaieties that had been planned for them all. Then, who could help being delighted at the thought of seeing Miss Editha and the colonel introduced to one of the follies at the Whiter Garden? I knew that I would be needed greatly then, and had rather dreaded it; though from Miss Editha's pink cheeks at the suppe

s ago. Yes, I was needed in life, even if not down in a brier-patch in the Harpeth Valley, Tennessee, and I must bear my honors and responsibilities with as beautiful a spiri

he different trains left for Tennessee. She found that by going at ten o'clock direct through Cincinnati she could reach Hayesboro two hours ahead of that Belgian emigrant-train that was to go around through Atlanta. Then she went into the dressing-r

remember what it said; and I settled down to the day and night and part of another day's

. It only took me until Pittsburg to have my course with Sam mapped out. I was just going to ask him fairly what right he had to go to farming with a lot of st

was at Louisville at eleven. I had been in New York two weeks, and I needed sleep. The interval between that time and three o'clock,

magazine she was crocheting from, but kissing me so tende

ied out to Eph for Redwheels and up to my room for my corduroys and middy blouse. I knew Sam would get his new family off at the station at the cross-roads. I wanted to be

n I came down into it from a far country, in the ripeness of its mid-September. All the leaves were still on the trees and many of them still rich green, but there was frost in the air, and along the edges of the early sweet-gum and sugar-maple branches there were crimson and bronze trimmings. Most of the gorgeous, molten-gold grain was in stacks in the fields, and everywhere for mil

running over an old pig mother who was waddling across the road in the lead of nine of the fattest little black-and-white sucklings I have ever seen, each one with his tail curled at exactly the same angle. Giving her a wide run I swung off into Brier Lane. The old cardinal that had been so cross to me all summer, when poor Redwheels's puff had disturbed his family, was trillingly glad to see me, and flew almost across my shoulder as he darted and whirled his welcome. And what should I meet in the middle of the lane, evidently off

se the nearer I got to the fledgling and my garden the more anxious I was for a reunion with them both. I met the garden first, as I rounded up

row down the east walk, and what could have been a greater surprise than that handed me by a row of jolly round squash, though I had been sure we had picked the last languishing fluted fruit from the vine the last week of August? But there lay long green vines completely resuscitated by the September rains; and nestled among their draperies of huge leaves were squash and squash, also big yellow blossoms and small green-yellow buds, I was so perfectly delighted at the recovery of my friends that I reached down and patted one of their head branches with its green tendril cur

did I know where I would be after all that time, or that I would ever see them bloom, though they were making great leafy heads which both Sam and I strenuously ignored, while every time I went to dig around their roots somebody had done it before me! There they were, perfectly huge with their great fluted leaves, and right at the end of the row an extra

nsist in running out from under the old hen, who was busily engaged hatching ou

h the next one that comes out. Old Dommie is 'most through, and then she can take them all." His faith in old Dommie, who to my certain knowledge had hatched two other families since spring, w

eil of blue smoke from over by the spring, where, I felt sure, Dr. Chubb had lighted twenty new altar fires for the welcome of the home-comers. I wan

the eagerly questioning men strode Sam with a small girl pickaback across his broad shoulders and the old praying-man walking by his side in deep conversation. I stood still to wait and let them all see me. The result was glorious. I had never known anything like it before. The women all laughed and cried in their excitable foreign way, and the men's faces showed great white teeth in radiant smiles. They kissed my hands and even the sleeves of my dress, and some of the children danced around and around in a very ecstasy of welcome, for I felt sure that to them I was the keeper o

to open it. I wanted him to lead his flock into their prom

ilk that I could see the women eagerly point out to one another, and into the little town of tents, at wh

g pots that Mammy, with Dr. Chubb's assistance, 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 ov

eautiful benediction, we left them all, strange

ad 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 Mam

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 walk

knew that now was the time for me to marshal up my defense and demand to be put on the sa

much in her blood that she can't keep away from it?" I was just getting ready to demand. Then suddenly Sam sobbed, choked, sobbe

close to mine. A tear wet my cheek, larger and warmer tha

the other women; but I want a-a mule and twenty acres here with yo

it was I had been used to having fed me ever since I could remember-it was Sam's love. He held me close

th and to get room to raise my arms around his neck and hold on

with a dive into the breast of his overalls, which had that gl

the life out of you for this mix-up," said Sam, hollowin

g, and I can't stand it any longer," I said, squirming

on the door-sill of the shack and cradled me close and warm,

e time Sam was praying, and I prayed, too. That is, I thanked God for Sam in behalf of myself and the he

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

me tell moth

lad that you are so like my mother and will be a good farmer's wife. Did I giv

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 o

me tell dadd

r that farm when I think it necessary?" And as he spoke he looked Sam straight in th

ed Sam, laughing and red up to the edges of his hair

tell me to write it. I smudged and snubbed and scratched over it all day

Bettykin. And here's the answer that came an hour ago by wi

lower against Sam, and

fe, yours for mine,

E

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

ut toward Old Harpeth. In his eyes was the gridiron land look that started th

but if a woman didn't trudge 'longside with her

E