Over Paradise Ridge Read online

he stood on his left foot for asecond and then lifted it as if he were a huge crane.

  "Come, now, so I can get the cream before mother goes to bed," I said,with energy; and I led him, faintly remonstrating, through the Bankheadback gate that opens opposite ours.

  Mother was glad to see Sam, heel and all, and sympathetically suppliedthe cream and handkerchief and a needle and thread without laying downthe mat she was putting in a difficult hundred-and-fifty round on.Mother is so used to Sam that she forgets that he is not her fifth orsixth son, and she treats him accordingly. After she had given us allthe surgical necessities she retired into the living-room by the lamp toput her mind entirely on the mat, in perfect confidence that I could dothe right thing by my wounded neighbor. And I did.

  First, as I had always done, I bathed Sam's great big pink-and-whitefoot in hot water and then in cold, sitting on the floor with abath-towel in my lap to get at it while Sam wriggled and squirmed atboth hot and cold just as he had always done.

  "Go on, boil me," he said, as I poured the last flash of heat from thetea-kettle on the floor beside me.

  "Now a frost," he groaned, as I dashed ice-water out of a pitcher on theblister and lifted the foot into my lap on the bath-towel.

  "If you touch the bottom of my foot I'll yell 'murder,'" he said as Ibegan to pat all around the blister in the gentlest and most consideratemanner possible. I knew he meant what he said, so I was careful as Iwound and clipped and sewed.

  "I never fixed as nice a one as that for you before," I said, withpride, as he drew on his silk sock with its huge hole over as neat abandage as it was possible for human hands to accomplish. "I love to tieyou up, Sam."

  "Thank you, and I return the compliment," answered Sam, both smoulderingand smiling down at me as if he were saying something to tease me. "Andnow as a reward for your kindness I am going to knock you down with somenews." And as he spoke we went on out to the porch, Sam walking like anew man.

  "Oh, the 'worse' thing! I had forgotten about that. Tell me, Sam," Ianswered, as I leaned against one of the pillars of the porch and heseated himself on the railing beside me.

  "Well," said Sam, slowly, "this is not worse for you, just for me; thatis, at the present speaking, with nothing but the hay-loft handy. Idon't know just how I'll manage."

  "What?"

  "Pete," answered Sam.

  "What about Peter? Oh, Sam, Peter isn't ill, is he?" And I reached outand clutched Sam's arm frantically. It takes alarm to test the depths ofone's affection for a friend. I found mine for Peter deeper than I knew.If anything had happened, Sam would know it first. "Don't be cruel tome, Sam." And I shook his arm.

  "Forgive me, Betty," said Sam, quickly. "Pete's all right and he'll behere to demonstrate it to you just as soon as I can get a stall builtfor him out at The Briers."

  "At The Briers? Peter?" I gasped.

  "Even at that humble abode, Betty, whose latch-string is always out tofriends," answered Sam. And I felt his arm stiffen under my fingers in away for which I could see no reason.

  "Just as I was going to begin my garden," I wailed. And Sam's stiff armlimbered again and made a motion toward my hair that I dodged. "Whatdoes he want?"

  "Direct life. I can give it to him," answered Sam. "At least that iswhat he asked for in his letter to me. I don't know what he will requestin the one I wager you get by the morning mail."

  "Why, I had been writing him all that he needed of that, and we aregoing to be so busy gardening, how can we help him live it also? Peterdoes require so much affectionate attention." I positively wailed thisto Sam, in the most ungenerous spirit.

  "Betty dear," said Sam, gently, as he puffed at a little brier which hehad substituted for the adorable cob on account of the formality ofSue's dance, which we could hear going on comfortably without us, beyondthe privet hedge whose buds were just beginning to give forth adelicious tang, "Peter is a great, queer kind of sensitive plant that itmay be we will have to help cultivate. You know that for several yearshis poems have really got across in great style with the writing world,and I'm proud of him and--I--I--well, I love him. Suppose, just suppose,dear, that Keats had had a great hulking farmer like me to stand by.Don't you think that maybe the world would have had some grown-man stufffrom him that would have counted? I always have thought of that when Ilooked at old Pete and promised myself to back him up with my brawn andnerve when he needed it. Why, in the '13 game it was Pete's flaming faceup on the corner of the stadium that put the ginger in me to carryacross as I did. Yes, I am going to put Pete's hand to my plow and hislegs under old Buttercup at milking-time if it kills us both, if that iswhat he needs or you have made him think he needs."

  "Oh, Sam, I'm ashamed! I'm ashamed of not wanting precious Peter in mygarden. He can have half of all of it. You know I love him dearly. I'llwork all day with him and attend to all his blisters and get everybodyto give him work and help him."

  "Well, I don't believe I'd do all that to him, Betty," answered Sam,with a laugh. Then his eyes glinted past mine for a second. "And say,Betty, you know my blisters are kind of--kind of old friends to you;Pete's might not have so many--many landmarks for you to work by," headded, as he knocked the ashes carefully out of the brier and picked uphis hat. "Let's go for one fox, and then I'll trot on out to my patch."

  "I'll get Tolly to run you out in Redwheels while I do my promiseddances, and then I'll be out early in the morning to help plan aboutPeter. And--and, Sam, do you want to--to give me that garden?"

  "Everything that is is yours, Bettykin," he answered as we went down thesteps out on to the springy greening grass and across to the back gate.

  Some friends taste like bread and butter and peach preserves. Sam doesand he's a peach.

  When I got back to the Bankheads' everybody was wondering where we hadbeen, and as Sam and Tolly got right off in the car without answeringany questions, I was left to explain about Sam's foot and Peter. I paidno attention at all to Billy Robertson when he said his foot wasblistered, too; but I told them how beautiful Peter was, and howdistinguished, and all about the poor young Keats that most of themhadn't grieved over since their Junior years at school, telling it allin such an eloquent way that Julia's great blue eyes filled with tears,and I saw I could depend on her to be nice to our friend.

  "I knew most poets were kind of calves, but I didn't know they had tomilk their poetry out of a genuine cow," said Pink, with a vulgarattempt to be funny, at which nobody laughed, not even Julia, and she isalmost too tall and big to dance with anybody but Pink. She and Edithand Sue and I forgot to save him the dances we had promised him; and hehad to dance with other girls he didn't like so much, until we all wenthome in time to meet the sun coming down over Paradise Ridge with hisdinner-pail.

  Then for five days it rained--heavy, determined, soggy drops; but thenext morning introduced one of those wily, flirtatious days that comealong about the last week in April in Tennessee. I awoke to the sound ofsobbing wind and weeping clouds in which I had no confidence, andsucceeded in convincing mother that it would be a beautiful day for meto go out to see Sam and Byrd and Mammy. She sent Byrd half a jelly-cakeand a bag of bananas, and I got a jar of jam for him when I went down inthe cellar to exhume Grandmother Nelson's garden-book. A bottle went toMammy, which I suspect of being a kind of liniment that mother had tolearn to make on account of the number of the boys and their bruises.

  Eph was a tragedy over my taking out Redwheels, and I am glad thatneither he nor I could prevision the plight the shiny new runabout wouldbe in before it was many hours older. With a stoical reserve he loadedin the two young lilacs that were in the exact state of sappinessGrandmother Nelson had recommended for transplanting, but his calmnessnearly gave way when I had him put in a dandy old rake and spade and hoethat I had found in my raid on the cellar.

  "Please ma'am, Miss Betty, don't go and leave ole mistis's gyarden toolsout in no rain," he entreated, plaintively.

  "Oh, Eph, are they really Grandmother Nelson's?" I exclaimed, with suchradiance
that it reflected from Eph's polished black face.

  "Yes'm, and they is too good to be throwed away on playing gyarden orsich," he answered, with feeling.

  "Eph," I answered, with almost a choke in my voice, "they'll be--besacred to me. Oh, thank you for telling me."

  "Go on, child! you shore is ole mistis herself, with your pretty wordsto push along your high-haided ways," he answered me while he gaveRedwheels an affectionate shove as I started down the street.

  I didn't spend much time down-town, but I