Over Paradise Ridge

"But look, look!" I exclaimed. I turned to Sam and drew one of his big, farm-worn hands forward and held it in mine out to the fierce woman, behind whom the others cowered. There was the broad thumb, off of which the barrel of peas had smashed the nail. There were the deep plow-callouses in the palms, and the plow-ropes' hard gall around the left wrist. The fierce woman's somber eyes lighted; for the first time she looked up past Sam's velvety white shirt-front with its pearl studs, up into the calm eyes that were smoldering their gridiron look down at her and the whimpering women and children.

"And here look encore!" I exclaimed, as I drew from my breast the large silver "peasants' locket" I had bought in Belgium, perhaps in her own village, and which I always wear with my street clothes, and had put on even in the hurry of my summons. I snapped it open and let her see what it contained. Sam saw, also! It was a picture of Sam milking old Buttercup in the shed. Just as he turned to call me to bring an extra bucket to feed the calf, I had snapped it. I don't know just why I had put it in the locket, except that it is safe to have Sam around in time of trouble.

"Eh, le bon Dieu--I see, I see!" she exclaimed, looking first at Sam and then at the locket. Then suddenly she clasped my wrist and looked at the two big, hard, live callouses in my own palm, that some kind of a queer prophetic sentiment had warned me not to let a manicure work on. Also, she saw the pea-thumb that still held a trace of the blister. Intently she looked for a few seconds, first at me and then at Sam. Then with a cry of agonized joy she fell at Sam's feet, and I drew down on my knees beside her, while the other women crowded around, kneeling, too, as their leader bowed her tear-drenched eyes in Sam's big, warm hands. One woman thrust a tiny baby into my arms as she kissed my sleeve and leaned forward to clasp Sam's knees, while the old man who had been praying all the time spread out his hands in a joyful benediction. The men's sullen faces lightened, and they bent to take up their pitiful old bundles and baskets.

For a long minute there was a sobbing silence while the Commissioner blew his nose over by the window. I clasped the little starved baby close and pressed with the other women against Sam's knees, and Sam stood calm over us all. I know, I know he was praying down away from the sea, across half the world, into his own everlasting hills, over Paradise Ridge.