Peter as he reached out his arms and
grabbed me in a wild embrace.

"What?" Sam and I both demanded, though, of course, in a way we knew.

"The play!" exclaimed Peter, putting his head down on my shoulder and
fairly sobbing out his relief. "Farrington is going to begin rehearsals
from the first two acts I've sent him, and I am to go right on to New
York with the third that I finished an hour before the wire came over
from the cross-roads station. You'll go with me, won't you, Betty? I
can't go without you and Sam." And as he hugged me close Peter reached
out and grasped Sam's big hand that rested on his arm.

"Of course Betty will go, and I'll come as soon as I get the whole crop
in," answered Sam in his deep, kind, strong voice that steadied all our
nerves. "I knew you'd make it, Pete. I never doubted that all you needed
was a bit of brawn to punch from."

"Peter--Sam!" I gasped, trying to get my balance as I felt as if I were
being hurried through space without even being told where to. "I don't
know. I--"

"I can't do without you, Betty," Peter said again, as he held me close
and Sam withdrew from us for the distance of about two steps.

"Betty is the real thing, Pete, and she'll stand by when you need her.
She always does," Sam said, in a quiet voice that sank down into the
depths of my soul and made a cold spot.

"I--I--don't know. I--" I was just reiterating when daddy and Julia,
with a plate of something, came through the gate and up the walk. They
had to be told, and they had to congratulate, and then mother came out
to see what it was all about. They were all happy and gloriously
excited, and I was dead--dead.

Then Sam took Peter home because he had to pack and get into town for
the morning train. I begged for the fledgling to be left with me, and
Sam consented without even mentioning the string-beans to be picked or
the weeds in the parsnips. He said good night to everybody before he did
to me, and then started to go with just the farewell word, hesitated a
second, and came back and roughed my hair down over my eyes with the
greatest roughness he had ever employed in that action. It would have
broken my heart if he hadn't.

"Betty," said the Byrd, as he crouched at my side with his thin,
scantily clad little body hovered against my skirts, "you ain't going to
no New York with Pete and leave me and Sam and all the poor little ones,
is you?"

"Oh, Byrd, I'm afraid I'll have to!" I sobbed, cuddling