bed, that had always been in the Crittenden nursery, was pushed back
under the low side. It had a shelf or two with a curtain of dark chintz
under which farm clothes hung, a gun in the corner, a jolly little wood
stove, and close beside Sam's bed was the young Byrd's cot with its
little pillow my mother had made for him before he was ushered into the
world on the day his mother left it. I could almost see the big rough
hand go out to comfort the little fledgling in the dark. I choked still
further, and turned hurriedly out on to the low, wide old porch that ran
all the way across the back of the house and which apparently was
bath-room, refrigerator, seed-rack as to its beams, and the general
depositing-place of the farm; but not before I had remarked, hanging by
his door, a grass basket I had woven for Sam to bring locust pods to the
hollyhock family. Then I fled, only stopping to squeeze Mammy over her
dish-pan and get my hat off the cedar pegs that stuck out of the side of
the old chimney to serve just such a purpose.

I found Dr. Chubb and the Byrd, who was now attired in overalls of the
exact shade and cut of Sam's, standing by Redwheels with their mouths
and eyes wide open in rapture.

"Well, 'fore I die I've saw a horse with steel innards and rid it,"
remarked the old doctor. "Machines is jest the common sense of God
Almighty made up by men, 'ste'd er animals made up by His-self. But I
must git on, missie, or some critter over at Spring Hill will have a
conniption and die in it fer lack of a drench or a dose."

I left Sam and the Byrd standing in the sunshine at the gate of cedar
poles that Sam had set up at the entrance of his wilderness, and I
don't believe I would have had the strength of character to go until I
had been introduced to every stick and stone on the farm if I hadn't