silver the dark all around us as we sat on thefront steps, with mother away rounding off the second pair of socks forPeter. "There wasn't one cent of money for me to take Byrd and Mammy andmake a start in New York. Even with the best sort of a backing, it isalways a ten-year pull for a youngster before he counts in the world. Icould have sold The Briers, but I couldn't make up my mind to do it, andthen while I hesitated I--I"--he paused a minute and steadied his voice,while I took his hand and held on to it tight--"I got a call--a landcall that I had to answer. God just picked me up and planted me here onmy bit of land, and I've got to root and grow or--or dishonor Him."
"Oh, Sam, you have, you have honored Him," I said as I crept closer tohis arm.
"I've been all uprooted and pruned, Betty, and I've lost--lost--youknow! But for Him I must go on just the same and bear fruit." At thepain in Sam's low voice something in me throbbed.
"Lost? Oh, Sam, what?" I exclaimed, as I hugged his arm against mybreast. "What's happened to you, Sam? Tell--"
But just here we were interrupted by a clatter and a clash of hoofs, awild shout in Peter's voice, and a cheer in the fledgling's high treble.The biggest mule lurched up to the gate, and two figures took a flyingleap from his back to the pavement. With a rush they swept up the pathand brought up panting at the bottom of our steps.
"Peter!" I gasped, descending to be sure that neither of them was bodilybroken or demented.
"It's across! it's across!" shouted Peter as he reached out his arms andgrabbed me in a wild embrace.
"What?" Sam and I both demanded, though, of course, in a way we knew.
"The play!" exclaimed Peter, putting his head down on my shoulder andfairly sobbing out his relief. "Farrington is going to begin rehearsalsfrom the first two acts I've sent him, and I am to go right on to NewYork with the third that I finished an hour before the wire came overfrom the cross-roads station. You'll go with me, won't you, Betty? Ican't go without you and Sam." And as he hugged me close Peter reachedout and grasped Sam's big hand that rested on his arm.
"Of course Betty will go, and I'll come as soon as I get the whole cropin," answered Sam in his deep, kind, strong voice that steadied all ournerves. "I knew you'd make it, Pete. I never doubted that all you neededwas a bit of brawn to punch from."
"Peter--Sam!" I gasped, trying to get my balance as I felt as if I werebeing hurried through space without even being told where to. "I don'tknow. I--"
"I can't do without you, Betty," Peter said again, as he held me closeand Sam withdrew from us for the distance of about two steps.
"Betty is the real thing, Pete, and she'll stand by when you need her.She always does," Sam said, in a quiet voice that sank down into thedepths of my soul and made a cold spot.
"I--I--don't know. I--" I was just reiterating when daddy and Julia,with a plate of something, came through the gate and up the walk. Theyhad to be told, and they had to congratulate, and then mother came outto see what it was all about. They were all happy and gloriouslyexcited, and I was dead--dead.
Then Sam took Peter home because he had to pack and get into town forthe morning train. I begged for the fledgling to be left with me, andSam consented without even mentioning the string-beans to be picked orthe weeds in the parsnips. He said good night to everybody before he didto me, and then started to go with just the farewell word, hesitated asecond, and came back and roughed my hair down over my eyes with thegreatest roughness he had ever employed in that action. It would havebroken my heart if he hadn't.
"Betty," said the Byrd, as he crouched at my side with his thin,scantily clad little body hovered against my skirts, "you ain't going tono New York with Pete and leave me and Sam and all the poor little ones,is you?"
"Oh, Byrd, I'm afraid I'll have to!" I sobbed, cuddling him close.
"Well, then, damn Pete!" he exploded.
IV
THE BOOK OF LOVE
Most men are only a fraction of the greatness that the world adds themup to be, but Farrington is a whole man and then a fraction over. Ienjoy talking to him just as much as I do to Sam or anybody else who isdoing interesting things in a perfectly simple way. When we talked aboutPeter and the play he reminded me in lots of ways of old Dr. Chubb whenhe gets on the subject of spavined horses or sick cows; of course Idon't mean any disrespect to Peter in that comparison. I told Mr.Farrington the same thing, and he didn't laugh at all; his eyes shoneout from under his bushy white eyebrows like two wise old stars, and hesaid he saw exactly what I meant, and that he hoped to meet Dr. Chubbsome day. And I continued to feel enthusiasm for him even after half anhour's talk on the subject of his treatment of Peter, which Peter hadled me to believe was atrocious.
"Dear, dearest Betty," said Peter, as he met me at the train on thefirst day of September, "how wonderful to have you come just when I needyou most! I am in the depths of despair." And he looked it.
"Oh, Peter, is it about the play?" I gasped as I fairly hung on to hisarm while he was languidly giving my traveling-bag to a footman. Peterlooked like a literary version of what Sam called "the last ofpea-time," which is a very vivid expression to a person who has justseen her poor peas drop away in the August garden. "What has happened?"
"I care nothing more about the play, Betty. It is stolen from me,"answered Peter, gloomily, as he led me through the Pennsylvania Stationand up the steps toward the limousine, where I knew Mabel would bewaiting to eat me up and be in turn devoured.
"Why, Peter, what can you mean?" I gasped.
"I'll tell you all about it when I get you to myself. Don't mention itto Mabel--she doesn't understand," he answered from behind his teeth ashe put me into the car and into Mabel's arms, and also into MissGreenough's.
But for all my joy at seeing both those dear friends again I couldn'thelp being depressed by every glance at Peter, sitting opposite me,looking white and glum.
"Don't notice him--he's more impossible than ever," said Mabel, once,when Peter leaned out to be reproachful to the chauffeur for doing hisduty and keeping us waiting for the traffic signal. "I'll tell you allwhen I get you alone."
Judge Vandyne met us at the lodge gate of the great Vandyne home out onthe Island. He, too, treated Peter like a sick baby. I never was sopuzzled; and dinner would have seemed long but for the fact that theyall wanted to hear so much about Sam and The Briers and the wholeHarpeth Valley. I never more enjoyed telling anything, and even Peter'sgloom lightened when I told him about the fat little duck the Byrd hadinsisted on sending him--alive in a box. Daddy was secretly expressingit to me, on the sleeping-car porter's kindly advice, when he saw it inmy baggage.
"Well, well," said Judge Vandyne, as he came into the drawing-room withus after dinner, "young Crittenden is really getting to goal on thatfarm question. I'm glad you sent me that report--it set some big thingsin motion. I'll tell you about it when I get you alone," he added, underhis breath. And that was another time that made me feel as if I were ababy that ought to be sliced up to be divided. As it was, Peter got mefirst, and I don't blame him for being in agony. That is, I didn't blamePeter, but neither do I blame Farrington, now that I have talked to him.This was Peter's tale of woe:
"Stolen, it is absolutely stolen from me, Betty, and I am helpless toprotect the child of my brain," he began. The judge and Mabel had atlast left us alone, probably because they hesitated to have Peter commitpatricide and fratricide, if those are the right terms for sister andfather murder.
"How, Peter?" I asked, taking his hand with deep sympathy.
"Betty, since the first three rehearsals I am not allowed even in thetheater, and Farrington is a brute. I do not know what he is doing to myplay, but I do know that he was at work on a horrible laugh in the firstpart of the first act that I did not intend at all. The leading womanis coarse, with no soul, and the star is a great hulking ass. I am wildand nobody sympathizes with me. Father has talked to Farrington, andthat is why he wired to you. Oh, I know he wired or you wouldn't havecome up to this inferno at this time of the year. That is one kindnesshe did me--it
_is_ a comfort to me--oh, Betty." And Peter put his headdown on my arm that was next him and sobbed, as the Byrd does whenanything happens to one of his "little ones."
I didn't blame Peter at all, for that play was his "little one" and hisfirst. I just took it out in hating and vilifying Farrington, until Igot Peter much comforted, even interested in hearing about the splendidprice Sam had got for the north-field rye. Then it was time for us to goto bed, and I suppose it was best that it was too late for Mabel to comeinto my room to