he had begged me to climb to for a view of Harpeth Valley which he
thought might turn my attention from him. "Have you mislaid your
beautiful ambitions anywhere?"

"I must have planted them along with my corn crop, I reckon," he
answered, quietly, as he steadied his shoulder against an old oak-tree
that grew close to the fence and then steadied my shoulder against his.

"It is just for a little while, to get evidence about mud and animals
and things like that, isn't it?" I asked, with great and undue
eagerness, while an early blue jay flitted across from tree-top to
tree-top in so happy a spirit that I sympathized with the admiring lady
twit that came from a bush near the wall. "You are going back out into
the world where I left you, aren't you?"

"No," answered Sam, in an even tone of voice that quieted me completely;
it was the same he had used when he made me stand still the time his
fishhook caught in my arm at about our respective sixth and tenth years.
"No, I'm going to be just a farmer. It's this way, Betty. That valley
you are looking down into has the strength to feed hundreds of thousands
of hungry men, women, and children when they come down to us over
Paradise Ridge from the crowded old world; but men have to make her
give it up and be ready for them. At first I wasn't sure I could, but
now I'm going to put enough heart and brain and muscle into my couple of
hundred acres to dig out my share of food, and that of the other folks a
great strapping thing like I am ought to help to feed. I'll plow your
name deep into the potato-field, dear," he ended, with a laugh, as he
let go my hand, which he had almost dislocated while his eyes smoldered
out over the Harpeth Valley, lying below us like an earthen cup full of
green richness, on whose surface floated a cream of mist.