tell me her version of Peter's troubles. For that onenight I sympathized fully with him. The next morning I was shown anotherside of the question. And I felt decidedly different about Mr.Farrington when he talked to me for a little while, alone before dinnerthe next day, and after Judge Vandyne had also had me in solitaryconversation.
"You see, my dear young lady," said Mr. Farrington, with that twin-starsmile in his eyes I have mentioned, "the very wonderful nature thatgrows and flowers such an exquisite young first play as this of ouryoung friend's, is the undoing of the work and the producer, unless heis a heartless old brute like the one to whom you are at presenttalking."
"Oh, I don't think you are that now, not at all. I--I think you arewonderful, and I trust you with the play even though you haven't told meanything about what you are doing to it," I exclaimed in greatconfidence and enthusiasm.
"You are a wonderful bit lass yourself, and I trust you with my poet,even if you haven't told me just what you are going to do with him," heanswered, and looked at me with the real affection, tempered withamusement, that daddy and Judge Vandyne and Dr. Chubb all use toward me.
I blushed and was just going to tell him that--well, I don't know justwhat I was going to tell him, but I am sure I'd have opened my innermostheart to him, for that is what he invites, when in came Peter and therest, and we all went in to dinner. I didn't see the great dean of theAmerican stage alone any more, but he whispered to me just as Mabel andMiss Greenough and I were leaving the room:
"Keep my poet easy, and you'll see what you see."
I am glad now when I look back on it that my presence did help Peterthrough the ordeal of that two weeks. Also Mabel and I had schemestogether to take his mind off his dying child, which was being operatedon by Farrington to make it a success. The best diversion, however, wasJudge Vandyne's. He asked me to make out a list of ten of Peter'sHayesboro friends, for whom he would send a private car over one of hisrailroads, to bring them up for the first night of the play. That was tobe the 20th of September, and even then the bills were up all over NewYork. I could see, from the way Judge Vandyne was taking it all, that heintended to make the best of having a poet for a son, and to put itthrough with his usual energetic force.
Peter was perfectly delighted at having all his Hayesboro friends come.He wrote them all letters, and Mabel wrote them notes. After that Petergot uneasy and made Judge Vandyne write to everybody, and the next dayhe insisted that I should write, too.
"Oh, I wish Sam could come, but I know he can't," I said, with a suddenhurt place just where I was about to swallow my mushroomed cutlet.
"Sam not come?" said Peter, growing white about his mouth and throwingdown his napkin.
"Oh, Peter, Sam didn't want me to say anything about it, but he doesn'tthink it is possible for him to get away and--and you know, Peter, Samhas to buy the sheep he wants to put in the woods; and I told you thatanother mule--"
"I can't, I can't stand it for Samboy not to be here," said Peter as hepushed his cutlet away from him, upset his glass, and turned over a vasethat in turn knocked down the center vase of roses, besides upsettingthe composure of the butler and one footman. I saw it was going to be aregular poetic outburst, such as Mammy would have called a tantrum inSam or me, and that Mabel was positively scared and Miss Greenough muchpained.
"Crittenden will be here," said Judge Vandyne in a perfectly calm andcertain voice. "Don't worry, son!"
I knew he meant that he would lend Sam the money, or I thought I knewthat, and I felt perfectly sure that Sam wouldn't come. Nobody knowsSamuel Foster Crittenden as I do; and the reason he is so congenial withhis mules is that he is so like them in "setness" of disposition. I justraged at him in my heart, for I knew from the way I felt myself how poorPeter wanted him; but I controlled myself and went right on talkingabout how I knew the others would come and how much they would enjoy it.
"Julia has never been to New York. Won't she be delicious?" I exclaimedas we came to her on the list. Peter had put her first.
"Delicious is the right word," said Peter, and he then launched forth ina description of Julia that I would hardly have recognized, though I hadbeen born across the street from her and have loved her devotedly fromour second years. It is such a joy to have two people whom you loveappreciative of each other, and I knew that Julia fully reciprocatedPeter's interested friendship for her. She had wept on my shoulder atparting from Peter, and had written him long and encouraging letters forme while I was going up to Nashville to have my clothes made for thetrip to New York and trying to get a little time in my garden out at TheBriers. I have to stop; I never let myself think of that parting withSam and The Briers. Some things are too deep for words. Then to continueabout Julia, I wrote her how to have her dresses made, but told her toget only one little traveling-hat and leave the rest to Mabel and me andFifth Avenue. I also advised Edith and Sue to do likewise, but I knewMiss Editha would have Miss Sally Pride make her a new bonnet on theframe of the old one, and Peter said she would not be the "wraith of anold rose" in anything else.
It was glorious that Tolly and Pink could both come, though BillyRobertson was not sure. I did so hope that Clyde would get a real chanceto open Edith's kitten eyes for her through some heroic accident oftravel, and I was glad that Colonel Menefee was coming, because he wouldengage Miss Editha's attention away from Tolly's attentions to Edith andgive them a chance to come forward out of their backwardness. Thetelephone scheme had failed, Tolly told me, because the wire chief hadmade a mistake and still left them connected at Central. "Central" isthe little Pride girl, the milliner's youngest niece, and very pretty.Just as he was ready to begin firmly with Edith she sweetly said:
"Now your connection is good, Mr. Tolbot."
When I left home poor Tolly was really becoming embittered against theworld and was absorbing himself in putting up a new telephone line overto Spring Hill. I told Peter how he ought to appreciate Tolly forleaving business in that state to come up for the first night of theplay; and Peter said:
"Dear old chap; we must find the shibboleth that will unleash the hoodedfalcon of his soul." Isn't Peter wonderful?
If all the invited guests in Hayesboro were busy getting ready to dojustice to the first night of "The Emergence," we were in the samestate. Judge Vandyne was planning to give a dinner that night to hismost distinguished lawyer friends in honor of Farrington, and daddy hadpromised to try to come. Of course, Peter was going to have a dinner ofhis own, to which he was inviting a lot of delightful friends to meethis Hayesboro friends, and they were having both dinners at the Ritz, soPeter could go in and make a speech to Judge Vandyne's party. Most ofthe friends had not come back from the lakes and the shore and theircountry homes, but were running into town for that one evening. It wasall the most delicious excitement, but--oh, a place way down deep in mebehind my excited breathing was so sore about Sam! I couldn't even thinkabout his not being there, but I went on and danced and had a good timein sheer desperation. Sam had to plow and hoe and reap and sow for food,while we ate and drank it and made merry!
Then the first night came, and everybody was there looking in highfeather, and some of them wearing very low dress. Judge Vandyne hadtaken all the boxes in the theater, and they were every one full tooverflowing with loving excitement about Peter. I was in the second boxon the right-hand side of the stage at the front, and Peter sat in theshadow back of me. Julia and one of Peter's classmates were just behindus. As the curtain went up Peter took a hard hold on my hand under mywhite chiffon scarf, and I heard him mutter under his breath:
"Oh, Samboy!"
I am not going to try to describe that play of Peter's. The newspapersused all the adjectives and things there are in the English language toexpress enthusiasm with, and I haven't got any left. I will simply tellabout it.
When Peter had gone out and buried himself in the shack on the hillsideof The Briers, that looked out over the Harpeth Valley, he hadunconsciously buried that frozen hero in "The Emergence" and had gone towork and resurrected
him in a kind of Samuel Foster Crittenden. Insteadof being a complicated, heroic, erratic genius he was just a big,simple, strong young man who was doing his part in the corner of theworld's vineyard where he had been sent to work. To help him Peter hadwritten in a wonderful girl with a great deal of brains for one soyoung. Just the sort of woman that men like Sam and the hero deserve tohave. She was so lovely that I caught my breath and--and suffered. Butwhat made everybody in that theater laugh themselves happy was theessence of Hayesboro that Peter had distilled and poured into hischaracters. Everybody was so mixed up with everybody else that nobodycould feel sensitive or fail to enjoy every character. I couldn't tellwhether I was the girl that practised tango