' When I tuck him up, he grabbed me round
the neck and dug his little face into mine. Then he looked around at all
the folks, and sort o' shivered, and put his face back in my neck--still ez
a little possum when you've killed the old ones an' split up the tree an'
drug out the nest."
Both faces were wet with tears now. Pap went on: "I had the papers made
right out--I knowed you'd say yes, Cornely. He's Samuel Ephraim Overholt.
A-comin' home, the little weenty chap looks up at me suddent an' axes, 'Is
they a mammy to we-all's house whar we goin' now?' Lord! Lord!" Pap shook
his head gently, as signifying the utter inadequacy of mere words.
Little Sammy grew and thrived in the Overholt home. The tiny rootlets of
his avid, unconscious baby life he thrust out in all directions through
that kind soil, sucking, sucking, grasping, laying hold, drawing to him and
his great little needs sustenance material and spiritual. More keen and
capable to penetrate were those thready little fibres than the irresistible
water-seeking tap-root of the cottonwood or the mesquite of the plains;
more powerful to clasp and to hold than the cablelike roots of the
rock-embracing cedar.
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