in winged lyric quality as any lines in the English language
could be"--the Byrd, whom Sam had groomed carefully and brought in from
the brier-patch for the occasion, rose, and, with his freckles black
with the intensity of his comprehension of the poem, spread his little
arms and said:

"I fly! I fly!"

"I fly! I fly, too!" A little chubkin in a blue muslin dress just
behind him jumped to her feet and echoed him before they could be
repressed.

"That was the most perfect tribute I shall ever receive," Peter said,
that night out on the porch, after Sam had gone home, carrying the
exhausted Byrd, who even in sleep held in one hand the handle of a full
basket he had begged from mother, and in the other tightly grasped a
sack in which were two "little ones" daddy had got for him. These
treasures happened to be young rabbits, and Sam said he would charge
daddy with the damages.

"Good old Sam," said Peter, as we stood at the gate by the old lilac,
who was beginning to beplume himself more richly than any of his
compatriots in Hayesboro--in honor of Peter, I felt sure--and watched
Sam and the Byrd jog away in the wagon down Providence Road. "He'll make
his mark on his generation yet, Betty. This is just a temporary eclipse
of the effulgence of a young planet that will shine with the warm light
of humanity when the time comes. There is no man like him. O Samboy!"

"Oh, I love you, Peter, for feeling that way," I exclaimed, heartily, as
I grasped his arm with enthusiasm. "You are so wonderful, Peter."

"Dear, dearest Betty," said Peter, as he put his arm through mine, and
we both began to swing back and forth on the gate. "It is so marvelous
to have a woman respond to your every mood as you do to mine. It is like
having in one's possession an angel incarnate in her own harp."

"Oh, Peter you _are_ wonderful!" I again exclaimed, because I felt that
way and had no other feeling to draw another remark from. It is so
satisfactory to love a man with no variations. I cannot see why girls
like to tremble and blush and chill and glow and get angry and repentant
about the men they love, as Edith does about Clyde Tolbot. I wish I
could make them all understand the great calmness of true love like mine
for Peter.

The five days that Peter stayed with mother, Hayesboro did many other
things to him. The mayor got up a barbecue in his honor, and they had
nine political speeches and two roast pigs and a lamb. Peter came home
pale,