III
THE BOOK OF LAUGHTER
Hayesboro took Peter into its heart of hearts and then sighed for moreto give him. This town is like the old man's horse whose natural gait isrunning away when it is not asleep. Peter woke it up and it took the bitin its mouth and bolted with him, while Peter clung to the saddle andhad the time of his young poetic life.
Mother accepted Peter with her usual placidity. She took him into herroom and I suppose she examined him physically, for I saw her give him adose of sarsaparilla tea every morning he was with us. I bought her fivespools of the finest silk thread, ranging in shade from gray tolavender, to begin on a crocheted tie and pair of socks for him. Daddywas as good as gold to him and fell immediately into Judge Vandyne'sattitude toward him. I knew he would. Eph maintained the dignity of thehaphazard family at meal-times, and waited on Peter worshipfully at allothers. The black beauty in the kitchen was heard to remark to thehouse-girl:
"I hope that white man's skin will stretch, for I shore am going tostuff it. He am a insult to any respectable skillet or pot." She did,and at times I trembled for the poet.
He read to Miss Henrietta Spain's school the poem on "Space" which the_Literary Opinion_ had copied; and he was the greatest possible success.Most of it I feel sure the school didn't understand. But just as hefinished the last two lines--those lines the magazine had called "asperfect in winged lyric quality as any lines in the English languagecould be"--the Byrd, whom Sam had groomed carefully and brought in fromthe brier-patch for the occasion, rose, and, with his freckles blackwith the intensity of his comprehension of the poem, spread his littlearms and said:
"I fly! I fly!"
"I fly! I fly, too!" A little chubkin in a blue muslin dress justbehind him jumped to her feet and echoed him before they could berepressed.
"That was the most perfect tribute I shall ever receive," Peter said,that night out on the porch, after Sam had gone home, carrying theexhausted Byrd, who even in sleep held in one hand the handle of a fullbasket he had begged from mother, and in the other tightly grasped asack in which were two "little ones" daddy had got for him. Thesetreasures happened to be young rabbits, and Sam said he would chargedaddy with the damages.
"Good old Sam," said Peter, as we stood at the gate by the old lilac,who was beginning to beplume himself more richly than any of hiscompatriots in Hayesboro--in honor of Peter, I felt sure--and watchedSam and the Byrd jog away in the wagon down Providence Road. "He'll makehis mark on his generation yet, Betty. This is just a temporary eclipseof the effulgence of a young planet that will shine with the warm lightof humanity when the time comes. There is no man like him. O Samboy!"
"Oh, I love you, Peter, for feeling that way," I exclaimed, heartily, asI grasped his arm with enthusiasm. "You are so wonderful, Peter."
"Dear, dearest Betty," said Peter, as he put his arm through mine, andwe both began to swing back and forth on the gate. "It is so marvelousto have a woman respond to your every mood as you do to mine. It is likehaving in one's possession an angel incarnate in her own harp."
"Oh, Peter you _are_ wonderful!" I again exclaimed, because I felt thatway and had no other feeling to draw another remark from. It is sosatisfactory to love a man with no variations. I cannot see why girlslike to tremble and blush and chill and glow and get angry and repentantabout the men they love, as Edith does about Clyde Tolbot. I wish Icould make them all understand the great calmness of true love like minefor Peter.
The five days that Peter stayed with mother, Hayesboro did many otherthings to him. The mayor got up a barbecue in his honor, and they hadnine political speeches and two roast pigs and a lamb. Peter came homepale, but we decided before we went to bed to let the hero of "TheEmergence" get beaten up a little in the strike before he made his greatspeech to the capitalist. I felt so happy for the play.
But the next day Peter took tea alone with Miss Editha MorrisCarruthers, and he was so charmed with her that he almost decided to letthe whole play end in separation.
"But it is so lonely for a woman to be a heroine of a separation,Peter," I pleaded with him as we sauntered up and down the long porch.
"Under such stress souls grow, Betty," he answered, gloomily. "Togetherlovers feed on the material; apart, on the immaterial. Can we say whichis best for the final emergence of the superman and--" Just here Juliacame across the street and into our front gate, looking like a ripepeach, in a pink muslin gown, with a huge plate of hickory-nutbutter-candy in her hand, and we all three proceeded to materialnourishment. I left them for a few minutes while I went up to my roomand took out Grandmother Nelson's book. I wanted to be sure that not asingle thing would bloom before I got back to The Briers. Peter hadinsisted that he should not go forth into the wilderness until he coulddo it dramatically to stay, so I hadn't been out for five days or moreand I was wild--simply mad. To have a garden and be separated from it atsprouting and blooming time is worse than any soul separation that everhappened to any woman. Of that I feel sure.
Sue Bankhead was as nice and lovely to Peter as could be, and even BillyRobertson's contentment with himself was slightly ruffled with the wayshe took him out horseback with her every morning, but her crowningattention was a dance for him. Sue has the loveliest dances in Hayesborobecause of her own charm and the fact that the double parlors in the oldBankhead house are sixty-two feet long and forty-six feet wide. Thegirls were as lovely as a bunch of spring blossoms, and Julia lookedlike the most gorgeous, pink, fragrant, drooping cabbage-rose as Peterdanced with her again and again. I was so glad, because he is as tall asshe is, and she is such a good dancer that it must have been as soothingto his tired nerves as a nice wide rocking-chair with billows of bluemull cushions. It was easy to see what she thought of him from the wayshe looked at him, and poor Pink took me out in the moonlight and sworeat me in polite language.
"Why don't you feed your sick poet your own self, Betty, and not let himloose to eat up my girl?" he stormed.
"Oh, Pink, how can you be so ungenerous, when you know how wonderful heis and how wonderful his play will be if you and everybody are kind andgood to him while he is writing it," I chided him.
"Well, he had better not put Julia into it without me," he answered,somewhat mollified at my reproof.
"He won't, I know he won't," I hastened to assure him. "Especially ifyou are nice to him, as you promised. You know, Pink, you are an awfullyinteresting man in some ways, and I know it is going to do Peter a lotof good to be friends with you; you are so--so substantial."
"That's it; slap my fat! Everybody does," he answered, gloomily.
"It was the mules I was talking about, not you, Pink," I answered,hurriedly, for I know how sensitive he is.
"Well, call me a mule then," he again said, with the deepest depression.
"Now don't be stupid, Pink, and--"
"I am stupid, too!"
"Pink Herriford, will you please tell my friend, Peter Vandyne, aboutyour heroism in stopping the stampede of those thousand mules you wereshipping to France in time to save the lives of all of them and aboutten men? I seem to have to speak to you in words of two syllablesto-night." I could feel my cheeks burn with temper as I spoke and Pinkcame immediately out of his grouch and into his own happy personality.
"Holy smoke! Betty, but that was some stunt! First I saw a big red mulelift his hind legs in ugly temper, and let fly right and left just as--"
"Oh, wait Pink, let me get Peter!" I exclaimed, as I heard the dancethat Pink and I had been arguing out, instead of sitting or dancing out,stop to get breath.
Pink was a wonder as he stood in the center of everybody that I hadgathered around him to hear in particular what they had all been talkingabout in general. We were all spellbound, for it was a really excitingand tremendous recital, and even Julia came out of her daze over Peterto listen with rapt attention, though I imagine she had heard it before.
"Immense!" exclaimed Peter, with his pale, thin face in a perfect flameof excitement just as Pink threw his own body rig
ht in front of thelargest mule and turned his neck and--
"What?" said Pink, as he glared at Peter suspiciously.
"Perfectly great," said Peter, laying his arm on Pink's. "And I don'tsee--"
Just here I slipped out onto the porch and sat down on the steps in thestarlight to get my breath while the tale of heroism went on from thereassured hero.
And as I stood on the front steps, just out of the noise of "Too MuchMustard" that had again begun its syncopated wail in the house, I beganto worry about all my flower children in the country. Sam had not beenin for three days, and he had sent word by one of his neighbors that hecouldn't get to the dance because he had to cup up potatoes to plant. Hehad