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 smiled gently at the fierce woman’s thanks and turned to another strap and another bundle.  Again I went dead inside, and I turned away and hid my tears in the back of the neck of the tiny Belgian in my arms.

“Just about five minutes before we put you off, Miss Hayes,” said the Commissioner as he came bustling up to me, smiling with the same energy he had used in swearing so short a time ago.

Surreptitiously wiping my eyes and swallowing the sobs in my throat, I held out the baby to its mother and began to say a halting “adieu” to all of them.

Then an uproar arose.  They had thought I was going with them, and they clung and wept and kissed my hand and begged in broken words for me not to leave them, though in their conduct there was not a trace of a lack of confidence in Sam.  Of course, nobody that knew Samuel Foster Crittenden a whole hour, even in his dress clothes in the daytime, could fail to have confidence in him for life.  But those women wanted me, too, and they wanted me badly.  I had to be torn from their arms and flung off the train.  Sam did the tearing and the flinging, and he did it tenderly.  Just before the final shove, as I clung to his arm and sobbed, the big hand went to my hair, and he said under his breath against my ear: