tion for a friend. I found mine for Peter deeper than I knew.
If anything had happened, Sam would know it first. "Don't be cruel to
me, Sam." And I shook his arm.

"Forgive me, Betty," said Sam, quickly. "Pete's all right and he'll be
here to demonstrate it to you just as soon as I can get a stall built
for him out at The Briers."

"At The Briers? Peter?" I gasped.

"Even at that humble abode, Betty, whose latch-string is always out to
friends," answered Sam. And I felt his arm stiffen under my fingers in a
way for which I could see no reason.

"Just as I was going to begin my garden," I wailed. And Sam's stiff arm
limbered again and made a motion toward my hair that I dodged. "What
does he want?"

"Direct life. I can give it to him," answered Sam. "At least that is
what he asked for in his letter to me. I don't know what he will request
in the one I wager you get by the morning mail."

"Why, I had been writing him all that he needed of that, and we are
going to be so busy gardening, how can we help him live it also? Peter
does require so much affectionate attention." I positively wailed this
to Sam, in the most ungenerous spirit.

"Betty dear," said Sam, gently, as he puffed at a little brier which he
had substituted for the adorable cob on account of the formality of
Sue's dance, which we could hear going on comfortably without us, beyond
the privet hedge whose buds were just beginning to give forth a
delicious tang, "Peter is a great, queer kind of sensitive plant that it
may be we will have to help cultivate. You know that for several years
his poems have really got across in great style with the writing world,
and I'm proud of him and--I--I--well, I love him. Suppose, just suppose,
dear, that Keats had had a great hulking farmer like me to stand by.
Don't you think that maybe the world would have had some grown-man stuff
from him that would have counted? I always have thought of that when I
looked at old Pete and promised myself to back him up with my brawn and
nerve when he needed it. Why, in the '13 game it was Pete's flaming face
up on the corner of the stadium that put the ginger in me to carry
across as I did. Yes, I am going to put Pete's hand to my plow and his
legs under old Buttercup at milking-time if it kills us both, if that is
what he needs or you have made him think he needs."

"Oh, Sam, I'm ashamed! I'm ashamed of not wanting precious Peter in my
garden. He can have half of all of it. You kn