“I’ve got a letter from Peter that I haven’t read, but one from Judge Vandyne that I have.  Here it is—­read it,” and I held the letter open for Sam to read over my shoulder.

“Read it to me, Betty; I’m too dirty to come that near you,” he said, as he took the cob pipe out of his pocket and prepared to light up while the Byrd scampered to the house to hurry Mammy’s dinner.

“You’re not exactly dirty, Sam,” I answered, surveying him with a satisfiedly critical eye.  “You only look and smell like the earth and the sky and the barn and—­and—­”

“Just call it cosmic, Betty, and let it go at that,” he answered, as he reached out and roughed my hair over my eyes with the long hickory switch with which he had been merely threatening the mule all day.  “Go on, read me the judge’s document on the subject of Peter while we wait for Mammy’s dinner cluck.”

As he had asked me to do, I read it all, slowly, while my heart, that had been climbing like a squirrel to the tops of the trees, began to burrow down in the reverse manner of a chipmunk.  I could see Sam’s spirits doing likewise.

“The judge gets under Pete’s skin and peels the fat off him,” said Sam, slowly, with sadness in his deep, strong voice.  “I’ve just got to build some sort of a poet’s corner to put him in, so he can come on down from Philadelphia from the opening of the spring Academy.  He will have burned himself out by then, and he’ll be so weak we can feed him out of a bottle.”

“And it’s his play, too, Sam,” I answered, despondently.  “He’s beginning on the third act, and just reading it all and suggesting in spots is making me thin.  It is all the terrible heroic struggle of the poor hero now and he doesn’t seem to let the heroine help him a bit.  Oh, Sam, if Peter were to fail with this play after Farrington has encouraged him I don’t know what might happen!  I’m sorry you ever mentioned Keats to me.  I dream about him at night.  I adored him when I was at The Manor, and so did Mabel,” and my lips quivered so I had to turn against the harness hanging on the wall against which I drooped.

“Keats or Peter?” asked Sam as he pressed his whip across my shoulders in comforting little licks because his hand was too muddy to pat me.

“Both,” I sniffed.

“Don’t,” said Sam, with cheering command in his voice.  “We are too late to help Keats, and plenty early to pull Pete out of his divine fire.  Let’s go get some good grub from Mammy so we can plant the garden before sundown, and stake out the poet’s corner, too.  I didn’t have the money to hire the plowing done, but I am almost through for the present; and I can whirl in now and get in shape for Petie’s rescue in no time.”

“It’s popped its skin with stuffing, and Mammy says come on while the ’taters stands up stiff,” announced the Byrd, half-way up the path from the house to the barn.

“He’s talking about a duckling, but let’s hope Peter can be mentioned in the same terms in the near future,” said Sam, as he drove the fleet Byrd and me before him with the switch, in a scamper to Mammy and food.