"The play is my life--next to you," Sam Wright's Sam was saying to
his father's tenant. He had left The Top before the two visitors
arrived, and as Dr. Lavendar had foreseen, had gone straight to the
Stuffed Animal House....
Helena was in a low chair, with David nestling sleepily in her arms;
Sam, looking up at her like a young St. John, half sat, half knelt, on
the step at her feet. The day had been hot, and evening had brought no
coolness; under the sentinel locusts on either side of the porch steps
the night was velvet black; but out over the garden there were stars.
A faint stirring of the air tilted the open bowls of the evening-
primroses, spilling a heavy sweetness into the shadows. The house
behind them was dark, for it was too hot for lamps. It was very still
and peaceful and commonplace--a woman, a dozing child, and the soft
night. Young Sam, so sensitive to moods, had fallen at once into the
peace and was content to sit silently at Helena's feet.... Then David
broke in upon the tranquillity by remarking, with a sigh, that he must
go to bed.
"I heard the clock strike," he said sadly.
"I think you are a very good little boy," Helena declared with
admiration.
"Dr. Lavendar said I must," David explained crossly. "You're
misbehavious if you don't do what Dr. Lavendar says. Mrs. Richie, is
heaven up in the sky?"
"Why, I suppose so," she said hesitating.
"What do they stand on?" David inquired. "There isn't any floor," he
insisted doggedly, for she laughed under her breath.
Helena looked over at Sam, who was not in the least amused. Then she
kissed the top of David's head. "I wish I could make his hair curl,"
she said. "I knew a little boy once--" she stopped and sighed.
She took the sleepy child up-stairs herself. Not for many guests would
she have lost the half-hour of putting him to bed. When she came back
her mind was full of him: "He hates to go to bed early," she told Sam,
"but he always walks off at eight, without a word from me, because he
promised Dr. Lavendar he would. I think it is wonderful."
Sam was not interested, "And he is so funny! He says such unexpected things. He told me
yesterday that Sarah 'slept out loud';--Sarah's room is next to his."
"What did he mean?" Sam said, with the curious literalness of the
poetic temperament, entirely devoid of humor. But he did not wait for
an answer; he locked his hands about his knee, and leaning his head
back, looked up through the leaves at the stars. "How sweet the locust
blossoms are!" he said. One of the yellow-white flakes fell and
touched his cheek.