settled in the
emigrant-car the Commissioner and Judge Vandyne had ready to take them
right on from the ship to Tennessee. In the midst of packing away boxes
and bundles and seating and quieting babies and women, Sam told me in
snatches the reason of it all. One of the great Belgian landowners had
written to Judge Vandyne, who was his friend, to find some suitable
place to colonize twenty of his peasant families in America. The letter
had come at about the time my copy of the government's report on Sam's
farming had reached him. He hadn't said anything to Sam about it, but
had got hold of the Commissioner and secured options on four hundred
acres back of Sam's farm in the wilderness of the Harpeth Valley. He had
fixed it all up before he offered Sam the commission of settling and
farming these people on shares for ten years. It was a little fortune
poured into Sam's hands, but he didn't seem to think about that at all.
His mind was entirely occupied by the hungry, big-eyed babies and their
sadly smiling, clinging mothers. He had a whole bunch of ripe bananas,
with other fruit and food in proportion, packed in the train for the
long trip to Tennessee.

"Why didn't you write me all about it, Sam?" I asked as I patted a
sleeping infant over my shoulder while the mother jolted a big-eyed twin
of the same variety. Sam was undoing a strap from a large bundle for the
fierce woman, whose eyes now followed him like those of a great,
faithful dog--or my eyes.

"It was all settled less than a week ago, Bettykin, and I--I wanted to
surprise you and Pete at 'The Emergence' first night. This ship wasn't
due until to-morrow, and I was to have had a frolic. I asked the judge
not to tell you. I wanted to break it to you myself. And I did with a
brickbat, didn't I--at daylight to boot?"

"Where are you going to--to house them all, Sam?" I asked, anxiously,
thinking of the little house with the Byrd and Mammy and all the baskets
and seed and things, especially the one iron pot that only held chicken
enough for them and--

"Got a tent village out of the colonel's Menefee Rifles' tents over by
the spring. It will be fine for them until I can divide out the land and
set each man to log-rolling his shack. Dad Hayes is finishing the camp
for me, and Chubb is helping to make things all shipshape, also buying
a fine mule for each family. Oh, they'll have a great welcome, or would
have if only you were there." Sam didn't look at me, but smile