' bresh
arbors.--Sah?

"Yaas, sah, livin' on game an' fish.--Sah?

"Yaas, sah.

"But they espress they doubts that the Gove'ment ain't goin' to give 'em
no fahms, an' they like to comprise with you, Gen'l, ef you please, sah,
to git holt o' some fahms o' they own, you know; sawt o' payin' faw'm
bes' way they kin; yass, sah. As you say in yo' letteh, betteh give 'm
lan's than keep 'em vagabones; yass, sir. Betteh no terms than none at
all; yass, sah." And so on.

From this colloquy resulted the Negro farm-village of Leggettstown. In
1866-68 it grew up on the old Halliday place, which had reverted to the
General by mortgage. Neatest among its whitewashed cabins, greenest with
gourd-vines, and always the nearest paid for, was that of the Reverend
Leviticus Wisdom, his wife, Virginia, and her step-daughter, Johanna.

In the fall of 1869 General Halliday came back to Suez to live. His
wife, a son, and daughter had died, two daughters had married and gone
to the Northwest, others were here and there. A daughter of sixteen was
with him--they two alone. The ebb-tide of the war values had left him
among the shoals; his black curls were full of frost, his bank box was
stuffed with plantation mortgages, his notes were protested. He had come
to operate, from Suez as a base, several estates surrendered to him by
debtors and entrusted to his management by his creditors. This he wished
to do on what seemed to him an original plan, of which Leggettstown was
only a clumsy sketch, a plan based on his belief in the profound
economic value of--"villages of small freeholding farmers, my dear sir!"

"It's the natural crystal of free conditions!" John heard him say in the
post-office corner of Weed & Usher's drug-store.

Empty words to John. He noted only the noble air of the speaker and his
hearers. Every man of the group had been a soldier. The General showed
much more polish than the others, but they all had the strong graces of
horsemen and masters, and many a subtle sign of civilization and cult
heated and hammered through centuries of search for good government and
honorable fortune. John stopped and gazed.

"Come on, son," said Judge March almost sharply. John began to back
away. "There!" exclaimed the father as his son sat down suddenly in a
box of sawdust and cigar stumps. He led him away to clean him off,
adding, "You hadn't ought to stare at people as you walk away fum them,
my son."

With rare exceptions, the General's