t the little fawn calf
which old Buttercup is so proud of that she switches her tail in the
greatest complacency. He was just showing me how to tempt her little
white nose with a wisp of hay that she was learning to eat, and I was
luxuriating with one new-born wriggler in my arms and two yellow-down
puff-balls in my hand, when Sam and the mule came up from the field.

"My, it's great to have a nice family party like this to plow for!" he
said, as he led the mule into his stall and poured down his oats out of
a bucket the Byrd ran to bring him. "Any news from Petie, Bettykin?"

"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 Ke