Over Paradise Ridge
Page 23
nail. There were the deepplow-callouses in the palms, and the plow-ropes' hard gall around theleft wrist. The fierce woman's somber eyes lighted; for the first timeshe looked up past Sam's velvety white shirt-front with its pearl studs,up into the calm eyes that were smoldering their gridiron look down ather and the whimpering women and children.
"And here look _encore_!" I exclaimed, as I drew from my breast thelarge silver "peasants' locket" I had bought in Belgium, perhaps in herown village, and which I always wear with my street clothes, and had puton even in the hurry of my summons. I snapped it open and let her seewhat it contained. Sam saw, also! It was a picture of Sam milking oldButtercup in the shed. Just as he turned to call me to bring an extrabucket to feed the calf, I had snapped it. I don't know just why I hadput it in the locket, except that it is safe to have Sam around in timeof trouble.
"_Eh, le bon Dieu_--I see, I see!" she exclaimed, looking first at Samand then at the locket. Then suddenly she clasped my wrist and looked atthe two big, hard, live callouses in my own palm, that some kind of aqueer prophetic sentiment had warned me not to let a manicure work on.Also, she saw the pea-thumb that still held a trace of the blister.Intently she looked for a few seconds, first at me and then at Sam. Thenwith a cry of agonized joy she fell at Sam's feet, and I drew down on myknees beside her, while the other women crowded around, kneeling, too,as their leader bowed her tear-drenched eyes in Sam's big, warm hands.One woman thrust a tiny baby into my arms as she kissed my sleeve andleaned forward to clasp Sam's knees, while the old man who had beenpraying all the time spread out his hands in a joyful benediction. Themen's sullen faces lightened, and they bent to take up their pitiful oldbundles and baskets.
For a long minute there was a sobbing silence while the Commissionerblew his nose over by the window. I clasped the little starved babyclose and pressed with the other women against Sam's knees, and Samstood calm over us all. I know, I _know_ he was praying down away fromthe sea, across half the world, into his own everlasting hills, overParadise Ridge.
"Good, Bettykin!" he said as he bent and raised me and the fierce womanto our feet. The others began to bustle and hustle the children, andmen, brushing tears from faces that had begun to smile uncertainly, asif they had never smiled before. A big tear fell off Sam's own cheek ashe roughed my hair with his chin under the edge of my perky little hat,and took the woman's baby from my arms, as well as her bag and bundle,to carry them to the car. He led the way, and we all trailed after him.
It was a strenuous hour that we spent getting them all settled in theemigrant-car the Commissioner and Judge Vandyne had ready to take themright on from the ship to Tennessee. In the midst of packing away boxesand bundles and seating and quieting babies and women, Sam told me insnatches the reason of it all. One of the great Belgian landowners hadwritten to Judge Vandyne, who was his friend, to find some suitableplace to colonize twenty of his peasant families in America. The letterhad come at about the time my copy of the government's report on Sam'sfarming had reached him. He hadn't said anything to Sam about it, buthad got hold of the Commissioner and secured options on four hundredacres back of Sam's farm in the wilderness of the Harpeth Valley. He hadfixed it all up before he offered Sam the commission of settling andfarming these people on shares for ten years. It was a little fortunepoured into Sam's hands, but he didn't seem to think about that at all.His mind was entirely occupied by the hungry, big-eyed babies and theirsadly smiling, clinging mothers. He had a whole bunch of ripe bananas,with other fruit and food in proportion, packed in the train for thelong trip to Tennessee.
"Why didn't you write me all about it, Sam?" I asked as I patted asleeping infant over my shoulder while the mother jolted a big-eyed twinof the same variety. Sam was undoing a strap from a large bundle for thefierce woman, whose eyes now followed him like those of a great,faithful dog--or my eyes.
"It was all settled less than a week ago, Bettykin, and I--I wanted tosurprise you and Pete at 'The Emergence' first night. This ship wasn'tdue until to-morrow, and I was to have had a frolic. I asked the judgenot to tell you. I wanted to break it to you myself. And I did with abrickbat, didn't I--at daylight to boot?"
"Where are you going to--to house them all, Sam?" I asked, anxiously,thinking of the little house with the Byrd and Mammy and all the basketsand seed and things, especially the one iron pot that only held chickenenough for them and--
"Got a tent village out of the colonel's Menefee Rifles' tents over bythe spring. It will be fine for them until I can divide out the land andset each man to log-rolling his shack. Dad Hayes is finishing the campfor me, and Chubb is helping to make things all shipshape, also buyinga fine mule for each family. Oh, they'll have a great welcome, or wouldhave if only you were there." Sam didn't look at me, but smiled gentlyat the fierce woman's thanks and turned to another strap and anotherbundle. Again I went dead inside, and I turned away and hid my tears inthe back of the neck of the tiny Belgian in my arms.
"Just about five minutes before we put you off, Miss Hayes," said theCommissioner as he came bustling up to me, smiling with the same energyhe had used in swearing so short a time ago.
Surreptitiously wiping my eyes and swallowing the sobs in my throat, Iheld out the baby to its mother and began to say a halting "adieu" toall of them.
Then an uproar arose. They had thought I was going with them, and theyclung and wept and kissed my hand and begged in broken words for me notto leave them, though in their conduct there was not a trace of a lackof confidence in Sam. Of course, nobody that knew Samuel FosterCrittenden a whole hour, even in his dress clothes in the daytime, couldfail to have confidence in him for life. But those women wanted me, too,and they wanted me badly. I had to be torn from their arms and flung offthe train. Sam did the tearing and the flinging, and he did it tenderly.Just before the final shove, as I clung to his arm and sobbed, the bighand went to my hair, and he said under his breath against my ear:
"God bless and keep you, darling--and Pete!" Then he swung up on thelast step of the train and left me--shoved off into a hard, cold worldfull of luncheons and sight-seeing and dinner-parties and plays anddances and suppers and lights and music and flowers and like miseries.At the agony of the thought I staggered into the huge waiting-room atthe station and sank on one of the benches and closed my eyes to keepthe tears from dripping.
At first I just sat dumb and suffering--reviewing all the wonderful andexciting and magnificent things I had been planning to do for and withPeter and all the rest of my dear friends who were then in New Yorkhaving the times of their aristocratically rustic lives. I remindedmyself of the shopping excursion Mabel and I were going to make withEdith and Julia on that very day. The responsibility of Julia's hats wascertainly mine, for I had told her to wait to get them in New York, andshe would surely need them immediately in the round of gaieties that hadbeen planned for them all. Then, who could help being delighted at thethought of seeing Miss Editha and the colonel introduced to one of thefollies at the Whiter Garden? I knew that I would be needed greatlythen, and had rather dreaded it; though from Miss Editha's pink cheeksat the supper-party the night before, as she sipped her champagne I hadrather hoped that she was making up her mind to a time of it. And thenthe joy of watching united Tolly and Edith! And Peter, how he would needme to help him to be responsible for all the wonderful things that weregoing to happen to him right along, now that he was the success of thehour. Even the papers had begun to speculate that first morning on his"next play."
"I'm weaving the laurel wreath rapidly now to bind your tresses, am Inot, dear, dearest Betty?" he had whispered, as he told me good night atthe hotel only a few short hours ago. Yes, I was needed in life, even ifnot down in a brier-patch in the Harpeth Valley, Tennessee, and I mustbear my honors and responsibilities with as beautiful a spirit as Sambore his burden of Belgians. I would have all I could do out in theworld, and he would have his life full in the wilderness; but we wouldbe a thousand miles apart.
And just here a very strange thing happened. From the weak
, cowering,sobbing girl on the bench arose a very determined, red-cheeked,executive young woman who walked over to the nearest ticket-office anddemanded of the brisk young clerk what time the different trains leftfor Tennessee. She found that by going at ten o'clock direct throughCincinnati she could reach Hayesboro two hours ahead of that Belgianemigrant-train that was to go around through Atlanta. Then she went intothe dressing-room and got her wad of money out of her stocking, bought aticket and a Pullman berth, six magazines, some oranges, and a littletraveling powder-puff for the end of her red nose, and seated herself inthe train before she woke up and found she was I.
Then I took a hand and sent Peter a telegram from Philadelphia, thoughto this day I can't remember what