"All right," said Sam, in the nice way he has of acquiescing in all my
serious moods until they pass. "I'll be through after about three more
rounds and then I'll come and help you. Say, Bettykin, what do you think
of that for good land?" And as he looked back at the great square of
black earth he had upturned, Sam's eyes flecked with the blue sky and
snapped with enthusiasm.

[Illustration: THE BYRD WAS ATTIRED IN MINIATURES OF SAM'S OVERALLS]

"It looks good enough to eat," I answered, with a queer dirt enthusiasm
rising in me that I had never even heard of one's having before.

"Yes, and you will eat it in about four months' time in the form of
roasting ears," answered Sam, smacking his lips, which had a streak of
the mud delicacy across them at right angles. "But go on up and tell
Mammy to put your name in her dinner-pot and buy the Byrd to get you
anything you need or want to the half of our kingdom. I'll be there in
ten shakes of the mule's tail."

The road that leads from the cedar-pole gate through Sam's wilderness up
to the farm-house curves in and out and around the hill past as many
lovely spots as my enthusiasm could endure. Halfway up, there is a
glimpse past a gray old tree with crimson thorns, of the valley with Old
Harpeth looming opposite. Further on a rocky old road leads down around
a clump of age-distorted cedar-trees to the moss-greened stone
spring-house, from which the water gurgles and pours past Sam's huge
earthern crocks of milk. Over it all broods the low white house on the
plateau, from under whose wings I found one small blue chicken running
and cheeping wildly for a ride up the hill.