Over Paradise Ridge Read online

forces of nature.

  "Ugh--uu--ow, Sam," I shivered; but I came up under his arm and tried topush one dripping section of old-roan hide until it joined the other,though I couldn't quite make it. Over my shoulder Sam began to sew itacross with a huge crooked needle, helping me push the edges together asbest he could. At this auspicious moment the poet appeared at the barndoor in an absolutely dazed condition.

  "Here you, Pete, too!" Sam commanded, without looking up. "Get here onthe other side and press the hide together as Betty is doing. This isan awful long cut, but I can manage it, thanks to seeing Chubb sew upBates's mule. Whoah, Jude, old girl! Hold her steady, Mammy! Now, Pete,press hard; never mind the blood!"

  At Sam's determined reiteration of the word blood, my senses reeled, andif it had been anybody but Sam sewing over my shoulder, I would havegone down in a crumpled heap. Also I was stirred by one glance atPeter's lovely long oval face with its Keats lock of jet-black hairtossed aloft, and I remained conscious from astonishment.

  This was a new Peter. His eyes burned in his face with determination. Hesquared his legs, clad in his elegant idea of farming corduroys, at theexact angle at which Sam's were set; then his long, white hands pulledthe bloody old hide together exactly in place.

  "That's it, Pete, hold it there. You slip out, Betty, and hold Judewhile Mammy gets the hot water ready to wash it when it is finished.Now, Pete, an inch farther along! Whoah, Jude!" And with his long needleSam began rapidly to draw the gaping wound together.

  "Here, Byrd, you hold Jude," I said, suddenly; and giving the halter tothe dirty fledgling, who was snubbing tears in his distress over theaccident to his old friend, I quit the scene of the operation and fledto the woods to faint down on a log and be as ill as I wanted to. It wasrather bad; and it lasted about a quarter of an hour.

  Then, with my head turned determinedly away from the barn, I soughtdistraction in an interview with my garden.

  Oh, it was rapturous! Can anything in the world be as wonderful asputting queer little brown things in the earth, where it scares you tothink of their getting all cold and wet and rotted, and then coming tosee them sprout and curl and run out of the ground? No, nothing cancompare with it unless it is seeing whole rows of them bursting out intoblooms and tassels and little pods and burrs. I felt extravagant andwanted to kiss the whole vegetable family in a way of encouragement andgreeting. And the two lilacs were both most beautifully plumed out intheir long, white blossoms to greet me. Now, weren't they the pluckyyoung things to bloom that way in a perfectly strange place? Still,everybody always did have confidence in Sam.

  But then in every joy patch some weeds are bound to shoot up overnight,and I was horrified to look down the rows of purple beet fronds and seewhat a lot of bold pepper-grass and chickweed were doing in theirtrenches. Without waiting to get my gloves from my bag in the car, Ifell to and began a determined onslaught. Furiously I charged down tworows and up a third, at whose end I sank with exhaustion.

  "Say, Betty, could a cat give kitten dinner to a poor little duck thatall the hens peck?" asked the Byrd, anxiously, as he came and squattedbeside me with two of the new kittens and the duck orphan in question inhis arms.

  "No, Byrd, I don't believe so," I answered, from instinct rather thandirect knowledge.

  "Why is they so many little ones in the world without mothers, me andthe duck and the cow that died 'fore Dr. Chubb came, her calf, and nowthat mean old dog have left her puppies to eat out of a plate?" heasked. He let the kittens slide to the ground, where they sprawled intheir blind helplessness, while he began to tenderly pry open the smallyellow ball's wide bill and insert crumbs of bread rolled into veryrealistic pills, but which the patient gobbled with evidentappreciation.

  "See, Byrd, you are just as good as a mother any day," I said, a chokein my throat as I cuddled his thin little shoulder in the hollow betweenmy arm and my breast, and bent over to watch the orphan's meal.

  "Like Sam," answered Byrd, with a queer little flash of his keen eyes upat me, and a grin that was so like Sam's that I tumbled him over ontothe grass, duck and all, and began a frolic with him which delighted hisheart and eased mine. I've loved that "little one" since the day theylet me hold him in my arms when he was only a few hours old andmotherless. Examining him from heels to head had comforted Sam in hisanguish and eased my own sympathetic sorrow. It is a tradition thatMammy Kitty rescued him just in time; but I've always felt that nothingwould have happened to him at Sam's sixteen-year-old hands if he hadbeen left for hours.

  In the midst of our frolic Peter and Sam came on the scene, and as faras Peter was concerned it was indeed a transformation scene. Sam wasvery much washed and slick from some time at the wash-bench, and Peterwas likewise, only Peter was not the Peter whom I had brought from townthat very morning. He was attired in a pair of Sam's overalls that couldhave been wrapped around him twice, and he had a bit of color in hischeeks under his eyes, though the eyes were slightly dazed as toexpression.

  "Good work, Betty, for only two hours," said Sam, looking at the threelong ranks of slain weeds and then at his watch. "Pete and I are goingto pick peas for to-morrow's market right after dinner. Want to help?"

  I assented from pure ignorance, and we all went in to devour one ofMammy's chicken dinners, the like of which is not cooked by anotherperson in the Harpeth Valley. The way Peter ate would have made theblack beauty in mother's kitchen swell with jealousy until there weredanger to her own black skin. Immediately after the gorge Sam gave me abasket, gave Peter another, and then looked around for the Byrd, with asmaller box; but the Byrd had flown.

  "I'll have to tan him for shirking like that," said Sam, looking offinto the bushes. "You Byrd!" But there was no response. That ought tohave roused my suspicions, but it didn't. I went on down to thatpea-patch as innocent as a newly born lamb, with Peter walking besideme, enthusing over the landscape and swinging the light basket withelegant nonchalance.

  "I see, Betty dear--I see that there is a great satisfaction in thepragmatic accomplishment, and--" he was saying when we came out of thewoods onto the southern slope, where lie the long rows of peas, whichare making Sam's fortune. He got them in by working two days and all onenight in a bright spell in mid-February, and nobody for twenty milesaround has any, while he has more than he can gather to market at a topprice; that is, more than he can gather himself with Byrd's assistance,he explained to us, as he showed us just how to snap the pod against ourthumbs.

  "I ought to put five barrels into Hayesboro every day now for a weekbefore anybody else gets any," he said, as he squatted at the head of arow between Peter and me, and we all began to pull at the beautifulgray-green vines and snap off the full, green pods. I looked across atpoor, innocent, enthusiastic Peter and saw his finish.

  About three o'clock I saw my own finish, and threw up the basket.

  "You poor, dear child!" exclaimed Peter as he came stiffly across therow Sam had long since finished. He, Sam, was four rows ahead of us, anda quarter of a mile away, more or less. I had collapsed, with my tiredlegs stuck out in front of me and my thumb, swollen from snapping thepods, in my mouth. "This is too hard work for you."

  "Yes, it is; but Sam won't think so," I answered, with a glance at thestrong, broad back swinging so easily down the slope. "Now, Peter, wemust go right along picking the peas. Sam must get those five barrels,"I said, as I hastily scrambled up and began to pull at the vicious vinesagain.

  "Well, I certainly don't intend to stop until they are filled," answeredPeter, stiffly, in more ways than one, and without any more waste ofsympathy he turned his back and went doggedly at the vines. That was myopportunity, and I took it. I rose, looked with fear at the two men atwork in front of me, and fled, basket and all. I stopped long enough toempty my full basket in one of the barrels that were already in thewagon; and as I climbed laboriously down over the wheels, with myparalyzed legs working slowly, I caught a glimpse of a flash of blue outin the bushes, topped by a glint of red that was too large to be that ofany bird inhabitant o
f The Briers.

  "Byrd," I called, softly.

  No answer.

  "Byrd, do you want to go to town with me to see Mother Hayes?" I askedin subdued tones. That brought its response.

  There were difficulties; but we surmounted them. We were afraid to wakeMammy at her afternoon nap for the clean clothes of civilization, so wepurloined a fairly clean blue jumper hanging on the porch, while I lefta note for Sam pinned on my old doll seed-basket hanging by his door. Itwas large enough for him to see, and it read:

  I'm a good young mule, but I've broken down. Poor Peter! All that is left of BETTY.

  _P.S._--I've rescued