Over Paradise Ridge Read online

Betty. May I come?

  PETER.

  I was extremely happy and excited over the poetical way in which Peterwas calling on my common sense to help him in his crisis, but I feltweighted down with the responsibility. Yes, I understood the greatFarrington. He felt as I did--that Peter's genius needed to see and helpold Dr. Chubb drench Buttercup with a can of condition-mixture. Now,could I supply all that, or enough of it to keep Peter from beingmurdered in his father's office? The inky bundle at my side began tolook as if it weighed a ton, but my loyalty and affection for Peter mademe know that I must put my back to the burden and raise it somehow. Ifit had been a simple burden, like three sick cows, it would have beeneasier to take upon my shoulders. Then suddenly, as I was about to be ina panic about it all, the thought of the cows reminded me of Sam, andimmediately, in my mind, I shared the weight of the manuscript with himand began to breathe easier. The way Sam and Peter love each otherinspires positive awe in my heart, though Mabel says it is provokingwhen they go off to their fraternity fishing-camp for week-ends insteadof coming to her delightful over-Sunday parties out on Long Island.Judge Vandyne feels as I do about it, and he loves Sam as much as Peterdoes, though I don't believe that he has any deeper affection for Peterthan Sam has. I've been intending to read up about David and Jonathan,but I feel sure, from dim memories, that their histories about describePeter and Sam. I couldn't for the life of me see why any woman shouldresent "a love that passes the love of" her, and I am sure she wouldn'tif one of them was a poet born to enlighten the world. Yes, I breathedeasier at the thought of Sam's affection for Peter, and went back to thecase of the giant Belgian, though I don't think the artist quiteintended him to be taken that way.

  Just as I had turned the front page I was interrupted by Clyde Tolbot,who came whistling down the street and broke out all over with smileswhen he saw me out sunning myself.

  "Gee! Betty, but it is good to see you at home!" he said.

  They wore almost the exact words Sam had used, but they soundeddifferent. The sound is about all that is different in any of the thingsmen say to girls when they like them a lot. Tolly and I are veryappreciative of each other, and always have been.

  "You are going to settle down and have a royal good time, aren't you,Betty? I learned a new foxtrot up in Louisville last week I'm dying toteach you, and now that Sue Bankhead has got a great big dance machinewe can fox almost every night. Will you come with me this evening?"

  "I wish I could, Tolly," I said, with utter sincerity, for Tolly is thevery best dancer in the Harpeth Valley, not excepting Tom Pollard overat Hillsboro. "But, Tolly, I must give up all thought of socialpleasures for a time." I spoke with a dignified reserve that fitted thespirit that I ought to have when undertaking a great responsibility,though I did want to dance. "I have some hard mental work to do."

  "Well, blast old Hayesboro for a sad hole! You are going to go in forbrain athletics, Sam Crittenden for farmer heroics, and the only moviethat has peeped into town is going to be closed because it ran a LatinQuarter film the afternoon the ladies stopped in from the UnitedCharities sewing circle, expecting a Cuban missionary thriller. I mightas well have my left foot amputated, it itches so for good dancing."Tolly was so furious that I was positively sorry for him, and to comfortand calm him I told him all about Peter's letter and the play, and theway I had to read and criticize and help. He sniffed at the idea ofPeter, but the dramatist impressed him slightly.

  "Say, that old boy is the real thing, Betty, child. He's the surewin-out on Broadway. But how long will it take you to write that playfor your mollycoddle poet? You can get through with it before theCountry Club gets going good, can't you? We've had a new floor in thedancing-pavilion built, and the directors ordered a foxy music machinelast night."

  "Oh yes, I ought to be able to tell Peter all I know in two and a halfmonths," I answered, ignoring Tolly's disrespect for my poet friend.

  "And a lot you don't know," Tolly added, with the candor of realaffection. "I wish Sam, the old calf, could be weaned from his cows andtake the position your dad is offering him at the Phosphate Works, so hewould be able to shake a foot occasionally. Can't you handle him a bit,Betty? It's as if he just came out and looked at life and then divedback in a hollow log."

  "I--I don't know," I answered, doubtfully. A pang shot through me at thethought of any one extracting Sam from that wonderful retreat in thewoods, but then also this news of the honors that were coming to Petermade me long to have Samuel Foster Crittenden come forth and take hisplace in the world beside his friends. Sam, I felt sure, was made toshine, not to have his light hid under a farm basket. Why, even Tolly,there beside me on the steps, was the head of the new Electric LightCompany that Hayesboro has had a little over a year. He did it allhimself, though he had failed to pass his college examinations when hewent up for them with Sam.

  "I'm proud of the way you've been doing things, Tolly," I added, warmly,putting my thoughts of Sam away where I keep them when I'm not usingthem.

  "Oh, I'm just an old money-grubber and nobody's genius child, but I'llrustle the gold boys to get up to New York to see your play, Betty, andsend you a wagon-load of florist's spinnach on the first night,"answered Tolly, beaming at my words of praise.

  "Oh, Tolly, please don't think I'm going to write a play," I answered,quickly. "I'm--well, I'm just going to tell Peter a whole lot of usefulthings I find out about life. You see, Tolly, Peter's father has so manymillions of dollars that it has been almost impossible for Peter toclimb over them into real life as we have. I have to do it for him.Please pity Peter, Tolly, and tell me what you think would be nice inhis play if you find anything."

  "Well--er--well, I have right in stock at present a little love-interesttale I could unfold to you, Betty, about--Help! There comes the gentlechild Edith up the street now. I must go. I am too coarse-grained forassociation with her." And before I could stop him he was gone throughthe house and out the back way. That is the way it always is with Tollyand Edith, either they are inseparable or entirely separate. They can'tseem to be coexistent citizens, and they have been fighting this waysince they both had on rompers. I wondered what Tolly had been doingnow.

  "Clyde Tolbot needn't have gone just because I came. I can endure himwhen I have other people to help me," said Edith, as she kissed me andsat down sadly. She is always sad when Tolly has been sinful.

  "What has Tolly been doing now?" I asked her, as I put that fascinatingBelgian face down on the floor and ruthlessly sat upon him, for the stepwas getting cold, though the sun was delicious and had drawn out a niceold bumblebee from his winter quarters to scout about the buddinghoneysuckle over our heads.

  "I am so hurt that I wouldn't tell anybody about it but you, dear, butlast night as he walked home with me, after we had been dancing down atSue's to the new phonograph, he--he put his arm almost around me and Ithink--I think he was going to kiss me if I hadn't prevented him--thatis, he did kiss my hair--I think." Edith is the pale-nun type, and Iwish she could have seen how lovely she was with the blush that even thefailure of Tolly to kiss her brought up under her deep-blue eyes. Edithdidn't get any farther north to school than Louisville, and her maidenaunt, Miss Editha Shelby Morris Carruthers, brought her up perfectlybeautifully. I didn't know how to comfort her because I had been twoyears at the Manor on the Hudson and then a year in Europe, and, thoughnobody ever has directly kissed me, a girl's hand and hair don't seem tocount out in the world.

  To take Edith's mind off Tolly's perfidy I told her about the play, andshe was as impressed as anybody could wish her to be, and promised tostand by me and make people understand why I couldn't dance and picniclike other people because of this great work I had to do for a dearfriend. I told her not to tell anybody but Sue, and she went homecompletely comforted by her friendly interest in Peter and me. In fact,she really adored the idea of helping me help Peter, and seemed toforget her anger at Tolly with a beautiful spirit.

  About that time Eph solemnly called me in to lunch. Eph is a nice,jolly old ne
gro until he gets a white linen jacket and apron on, andthen he turns into a black mummy. I think it is because I used to wantto talk to him at the table when I still sat in a high chair. I don'tbelieve he has any confidence in my discretion even now, and that is whyhe seats me with such a grand and forbidding display of ceremony.

  "Betty dear," said mother, after Eph had served her chicken soup andpassed her the beaten biscuits, "I found an old note-book of my mother'sthat has all the wonderful things she did to the negroes and other livestock on her farm out in Harpeth Valley. You know she ran the wholethousand acres herself after father's death in her