Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight

by Mathew Joseph Holt

CHAPTER I.

I thought to write a book entitled: "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow." How much is buried in the wreckage of yesterday—how uninteresting today is and how little is to be done—our burden we shift to the strong, young shoulders of tomorrow; tomorrow of the big heart, who in kindness hides our sorrows and whispers only of hope. I ended by writing,—this—which I have called "Chit-Chat," thus classifying the book, knowing that such a book if true to name will picture the age and find a publisher.

I have read in the Arabian Book of Knowledge that "thoughts are Tartars, vagabonds; imprison all thou canst not slay," and have seen fit to follow this suggestion and the advice given a Turkish author—

"That none may dub thee tactless dund'rhead,
Confine thy pen to light chit-chat,
And rattle on as might a letter!
For ninety-nine of every hundred
Hate learning and what's more than that,
The hundredth man likes berresh better."

So I present to you, gentle or gallant reader, as the case may be, and quite informally, John Cornwall.

He was born at 702 West Chestnut Street, Louisville, Kentucky, on the 12th day of May, 1872. His mother was a widow; and before the days of H. C. L, the two lived comfortably on her income of $1,800.00 a year.

His boyhood was as that of other boys of the city; an era of happiness and happiness has no history. He was considered a good boy as boys go; and good boys have few adventures.

Although John never attended Sunday School except when his mother made him—as she was a Presbyterian, he wore the honor pin for an unbroken three-year attendance.

School to him was such a delight, that in a spirit of emulative self-denial, he never started from home, a block away, until a minute before the tardy bell rang. He usually made it. If late, he slipped in, usually walking backwards, hoping either to escape observation or, if seen, to be told to retake his seat.

His vacations were spent on the river where he learned to handle a canoe and skiff; and before he was fourteen could swim and dive like a didapper. At that time his greatest ambition was to run the falls in a canoe; his next to be a steamboat captain.

He and two other boys built a camp on Six-Mile Island. There they usually spent the month of August; during the preceding vacation days working as bank runners or messenger boys to raise the money to finance the camping party.

He was entered in the graded school at seven, in high school at fifteen, at which time he put on long trousers and changed from stockings to socks. He insisted on discarding his stockings, as the boys had a way of lifting the bottoms of trousers to see if the one appearing for his first time in long trousers yet wore his stockings. He graduated from the high school at nineteen; and after two years at the local law school and in Judge Marshall's office, was given a position with the Kentucky Title Company; and for a year had been employed at abstracting in the Jefferson County Clerk's office.

One day a prosperous-looking stranger asked where certain records might be found and he graciously showed their location. The next day the stranger asked several questions as to local real estate laws, particularly as to leases, transfers and the rights of married women. He introduced himself as Mr. Rogers and asked John his name.

The following day about noon he came into the clerk's office and said; "Mr. Cornwall, I wish you would lunch with me today." Cornwall, after telephoning his mother that he would not be home, went with him.

When they were nearly through eating Mr. Rogers said:

"This morning I was at the office of Judge Barnett. He is attorney for our company, The Pittsburgh Coal & Coke Company. I asked him the same questions I did you and he gave similar answers. I have since made inquiries and believe our company can use you to look after its local law business in Bell, Harlan and Leslie counties. In these three counties we own about fifty thousand acres of coal lands and mineral leases on approximately two hundred thousand acres more. In addition we own several old surveys which I do not include in this acreage.

"We will pay you $1,800.00 a year, equip and furnish you with an office in our new building in Harlan and will make no objection to you attending to such local business as may come your way, provided it does not take you away from Harlan. What we need is a man on the ground. Think this over and let me know in the morning. I am at the Galt House, room 247. You had better call instead of telephoning. I shall be disappointed if you do not accept my offer."

"I thank you and I will take it up with mother tonight, then call at your room at 8:30 in the morning. Please excuse me now as I am due at the office."

---

Mr. Rogers and John Cornwall, several days later, arrived at Pineville on the early morning train and after lunch left on horseback, taking the Straight Creek road to Harlan.

It was not their intention to ride through that afternoon, but stop overnight at Simeon Saylor's and the following morning look over the Helton, Saylor and Brock coal properties on the south or main fork of the creek.

The road follows the creek and is canopied by sycamore, elm and birch trees or grape vines and other creepers. It is screened by thickets of pawpaw, blackberry, sumac or elderberry bushes which grow thick in the corners of the abutting worm fences.

It is not a lonely way. Every three or four hundred yards you pass a small mountain farmhouse overflowing with children, calling to mind the home of the old woman who lives in the shoe. Many squads of geese, following their corporal, march across the road towards the creek or back again to the barnyard. The thickets are alive with red birds and ground robins and an occasional squirrel, who has come down the mountain for a drink, rustles the leaves in his flight or at giddy heighth barks defiance at passing strangers.

Pine Mountain, without a break or scarce a deep cove, walls in the narrow valley on the south, while on the north smaller mountains stand at attention. The stream, with little chance to wander, bisects the valley in its unvarying course and perforce pursues its way, true to name.

They arrive at the foot of Salt Trace just as the lively tinkling of cowbells, as well as their own appetites, and the setting sun, suggests supper time; and their chafed buttocks, more used to a swivel chair than a saddle, pleaded for the comfort of an altered position.

Simeon Saylor lives several hundred yards up the creek from where the Salt Trace Trail, the bridle path to Harlan, leaves the main road. His house is the usual stopping place for travelers. He has imposed the labor of their entertainment upon his women folks, not so much for profit as to hear the news and chit-chat of the outside world.

The house is a structure of three large pens of logs with a dog trot (hallway) between. Two front the road, the third forms an ell at the rear and is flanked by a long porch. The whole is covered by a rough clapboard roof. Each pen has a sandstone chimney and each room a large, open fireplace. The ell is used as a kitchen, dining-room and storehouse combined. On the edge of the porch, almost within reach of the well sweep, a bench holds two tin wash basins; a cake of laundry soap reposes in the former coffin of a family of sardines and a roller towel, sterilized and dried by air and sunlight, hangs pendant from the eaves.

The travelers as they rode up and stiffly dismounted noted the many chickens going to roost and the three cows occupying the road in front of the house. The barn was rather an imposing structure. These signs assured eggs, milk and butter for themselves and feed and comfortable quarters for their horses.

After supper they sat out in the moonlight on a crooked, half uprooted elm overhanging the creek, until the world grew worshipfully still as it does twenty miles from a railroad; their quiet, contented thoughts undisturbed by the call of the whippoorwills in the near thickets and the hooting of a great owl far down the valley.

Then they were joined by their host, a tall, rawboned, sallow, sandy-haired man with a long, thin face on which grew a straggly beard, which had never known shears or razor. He had come out to hear more news than he had been able to learn at supper, where table manners demanded that he should eat and get through with it. At the table the men ate saying little, while the old woman and her daughters served them, and in silence.

His youngest boy, Caleb, came with him, an immodest little fellow; made so by his father, who it seemed spent most of his time boasting of the boy's accomplishments.

"Well, rested yet? Thar's a boy what's gwinter make a lawyer. He's just turned nine and you can't believe nothin' he says. He can argy any thing out'er his maw and the gals and the boys nigh bout hayr haint got no show with him; somehow he gits every thing they gits hold on. And you oughter see him shoot with a squirrel gun! Many a time he's knocked the bark out from under a squirrel and killed him without raising a hayr. Last Christmas eve I fotched a jug of moonshine from the Cliff House Still and hid it in the loft. You know that boy found out whar I hid her and when I went after hit, hit was nigh gone. He was snoozing away on the hay. When he come to, his head didn't hurt narry bit. That once I shore split his pants for him with a hame strop. He's got to leave my licker alone; that's one thing he can't put over on his paw,—no not yit. Down the crick at the mines is a dago, a fur-reen-er and his folks from Bolony. He's got a boy, Luigi Poggi, about fourteen but not as big as Caleb. That boy spends all his time with Caleb. He had jest gone home when you rid up. He talks dago to Caleb and Caleb gives him back jest plain straight Crick talk. If he's larnin as much United States as Caleb is dago, he'll make circit rider preacher in a few years. Caleb talk dago to the men."

Whereupon the boy stepped directly in front of Mr. Rogers and said; "Buona sera, Rogers avete tabacco meliore di questo?" (Good evening, Rogers, have you any tobacco better than this?—holding out a plug of long green.)

To which Mr. Rogers understanding him, replied:

"Caro ragazzo, voi mi annoiati oltre mode, buono notte." (My dear boy, you annoy me considerably, good night.)

"Ma non debbo ancora." (But I am not going yet.)

"Well you speak dago too, he's a great boy aint he, jest like his paw."

"What mought yer bissiness be, Mr. Rogers?"

"I am secretary of the Pittsburgh Coal & Coke Company."

"Yaah, that's the new crowd what's come in hayr buying out the old settlers. I hearn you bought that old Boyd Dickinson survey. Well you didn't git much. They've been trying for nigh forty year to locate the beginning corner. The first time Cal Hurst and them surveyor men came prowlin' round hayr, we got two on them. How's that trial with the Davis heirs comin' on? Old Milt Yungthank at Pineville has looked ater their bissiniss fer nigh twenty year. He had Sim and some of the boys up thayr with Winchesters about two year ago."

"Young feller, what's yer name?"

"My name is Cornwall."

"Ever been up heyr before? I was in yer town onct. I rid down to Livingston on the old gray mare, then took the train thar, toting my saddle bags on my arm. When I got off the train at the dee-pot, a nigger steps up and says ter me: 'Boss, give me yer verlisse.' He didn't get them saddle bags, you bet. I was too sharp for that. I went to a hotel somewheres. They stuck a big book under my nose and says, sign hayr. I done hearn tell of them confidence and lightnin' rod men and I signed nothin'. They sent me to a room with red carpyt on the floor and velvit cheers with flowers kinder scotched in them; and the man behind the counter gave the nigger a lamp and told him to cut off the gas. That nigger tried to take them saddle bags but I hung on, when he says, all right boss and left go. That place had a box lifter to it. After a while I got tired of settin' in that room and thought I would go out and see the town; so I locked the door and come down erbout forty steps to the front door. Then that first feller what wanted me ter sign the book says; Leave the key and saddle bags with me. I says, says I, You can have the key but no man gits holt of them saddle bags. It's a good thing I brung them erlong, fer I never did find that place ergin. I went erbout a quarter, when I met a smart feller and he says ter me; Old man, where're you gwinter show! I says right here, by gad! and I run my hand into them saddle bags and brung out my cap and ball. That feller shore broke the wind, he showed some speed. What moight yer bissiniss be?"

"This is the first time I was ever up here. I'm a lawyer."

"Yaah, one of them city lawyers; they tell me they is cute. I have had to do some lawing lately. Down the crick erbout a mile Elhannon Howard lives. Last winter I sold Elhannon a hawg on credit fer ten dollars like a dang fool and he wouldn't pay fer it, so I lawed him before Squire Ingram and got jedgment. That and the costs come ter fifteen dollars and a quarter. The Squire writ out an execution and I got the constable to levy on three hives of bees; the constable says that's all he's got what's exempt. We had a hell of a time moving them bees, then we had to move them back."

"How was that?"

"He got that lawyer from Pineville by the name of Marshall Bull-it and the squire thinks the sun rises whar that feller stands. The squire believed what that lawyer said and jedged that bees is poultry and the statute says poultry am exempt. I made up my mind that old Elhannon had to pay that jedgment so a couple of Sundays ago when they went to meetin', I slipped down to his house and took a look around, counting off what the statute said was exempt. He had jest what the law 'lowed him. He had jest one hoss, one yoke of oxen, Tom and Jerry, two cows and five sheep. One of them sheep was the finest Southdown ram you ever laid yer eye on. Monday morning before day I went out where my sheep was and there was a little crippled lamb about a day old. I picked it up and fotched it down to Elhannon's and drapped it over the fence into his little pasture, where his sheep were. Then I went down and got that constable and he come and executed on that ram. Elhannon killed and et one of his sheep, then he paid me up and took his ram back. If I had a thousand boys I wouldn't name narry dang one of them Elhannon. I got another little case what comes up next fall in the Bell Circit Court, 'taint much. I low ter pay a good young lawyer about twenty five bucks to git me off. 'Bout a month ago I shot Caleb Spencer as dead as a kit mackrel. I was going over Salt Trace to the mill on the river. When I got on top of the divide he raised up from behind a log about a hundred yards off and drew a bead on me. I saw him jest before he pulled and I dodged. The ball cut out this hole in my hat. I rid right peart, till I come to Gabe Perkins' then I hopped off my mule and, borrowing his Winchester, I come back the cut-off footpath. There set that cold-blooded bush-whacker on the same log, looking down the road the way I had kited, with his gun kinder restin' on his knees. I rested on a stump and took him square in the middle of the back. He gave a yell and jumped erbout five feet, but it was too late to jump. 'Taint nothing to it, a plain case of self-defense and 'parent necessity. But if you stay up in this country, I like yer looks and will give yer first chance on that easy money."

"I thank you for the offer. It is worth at least five hundred dollars to undertake your defense; as it is not a case of self-defense and apparent necessity, as you seem to think. Much depends upon the jury in such a case. You need a good lawyer who will be well acquainted with the panel, else you may be sent to the penitentiary."

"Son, you've got a lot to larn yit. Man alive! You folks have talked so much it's nigh erbout bed-time. Why that boy is asleep. Would you like to turn in?"

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CHAPTER II.

Cornwall Meets a Mountain Maid.

After breakfast, at which the men were first served, Mr. Rogers, Cornwall, Mr. Saylor and Caleb, mounting their horses rode over Saylor's three hundred-acre survey and examined the two coal banks on the property; which only a short distance from the house had been opened and worked about twenty feet into the mountain, for home consumption. One was thirty-eight and the other fifty-two inches; the thick vein cropped out about twenty feet above the creek level, the other was at a higher level.

After their examination they returned to the house and taking seats on the wash bench near the well, talked about every thing but the land of which Mr. Rogers and Saylor were thinking. Finally Mr. Rogers having waited some time for Mr. Saylor to begin, said:

"If our company can buy the Brock and Helton surveys, we will give you thirty thousand dollars for your three hundred acres, or twenty thousand dollars for the mineral rights with timber and right-of-way privileges necessary to mine and remove the coal and such other minerals, oils and gas as may be found on the property."

"By heck! my survey is worth three times that. When your company planks down fifty thousand in cold cash we will trade,—not before. Then I will buy one of them blue grass farms in sight of the distant blue mountains and an automobile and a pianny and give Caleb and little Susie a chance to go to the University at Lexington whar Tom Asher and that Hall boy goes. O Mandy! Mr. Rogers, hayr, just offered to gin me thirty thousand dollars for our old mountain home which we bought two year ago from old man Roberts for five thousand. I told him we would trade her off for fifty thousand; not such bad intrust for a mountain yahoo and his old woman, He! Mandy! When that trade goes through; and they are bound to take her, you can have one of them silk dresses what shows black and blue and red and green; and Mary all the books and pot flowers and pictures she wants. What do you say to that, Mary?" just as Mary stepped from the kitchen to fill the brass-hooped cedar bucket at the well.

Caleb lolled on the steps in such a way as to make it impossible for any one to descend.

"Caleb, please let me pass!"

"Oh, go round Mary, or jump down. What do yer bother a feller for?"

"Miss Mary, let me fill your bucket?"

"Thanks, Mr. Cornwall." (Caleb laughs.)

Cornwall took the bucket and twice let it down and brought it up without a quart in it, while Caleb looked on and laughed.

Finally Mary, smiling and blushing, took hold of the pole and helped to dip and draw up the bucket full to the brim. Then they laugh too; and the social ice is broken between Bear Grass and Straight Creek; between the city-bred young lawyer and Mary, the mountain girl.

Cornwall carried the bucket into the kitchen; at which Caleb, in surprise, called out: "Dad, look! That city feller is helping Mary get dinner."

After dinner, which Cornwall did not help get, rushing out of the kitchen as soon as he could let go of the bucket handle, having heard Caleb's remark; they rode over the Brock and Helton two hundred-acre surveys and called at their homes.

Mr. Rogers contracted to purchase their land at one hundred dollars an acre, the vendors executing bonds to convey, each receiving one thousand dollars on the purchase price; the balance to be paid after a survey and examination of their titles.

As they were riding home, Saylor saw a drunken man staggering down the mountain side. When he had gotten out of sight, he dismounted and began trailing him back up the mountain. Mr. Rogers called out, "The man went the other way."

"Oh, I know that! I want to find out where he came from."

Saylor returned in a few minutes, his face beaming with a ruddy, contented smile.

Then, in his usually talkative mood, he expressed his opinion of his neighbors and the transaction in reference to their land. "There are two more dang fools, who will move down in the blue grass and buy a farm and be as much at home as a hoot owl on a dead snag in the noon day sun with a flock of crows cawing at him. In about two years they will sell out to some sharper and move back to some mountain cove or crick bottom and start all over again; or when they gits their money they will hop the train cars for Kansas and settle on a government claim twenty miles from a drap of water; then mosey back here in about five years with nothing but their kids, the old woman, two bony horses, a prairie schooner and a yaller dog."

As they came in the door, Mary was just completing preparation for supper. The table was made more attractive by a red figured table cloth instead of the brown and white oil cloth one. In the center was a pot of delicate ferns. The regular fare of corn bread, hog meat, corn field beans, potatoes, sorghum and coffee, had been supplemented by some nicely browned chicken, a roll of butter, biscuits and a dish of yellow apples and red plums.

As they came to supper, a gentle rain began falling which continued long into the night.

Cornwall, standing by his chair and noticing again that places were prepared for the men only, said; "Mrs. Saylor, the rain makes it so cozy and home-like, you, Miss Mary and Susie fix places and eat with us; I am sure we will all have a better time."

Saylor stopped eating long enough to add;—"Do, it will seem like a Christmas dinner in the summertime."

While Caleb remarked;—"He's coming along right peart."

Mary, with a laugh and blush and an appreciative smile at Mr. Cornwall, added a place for her mother and Susie, while she served the supper.

Cornwall, who had paid little attention to the girl, furtively watching her, was impressed by her competence and winsomeness. She was a healthy sun-browned brunette of eighteen; had attended the Pineville graded school for three years and the summer before passed the examination and qualified as a teacher. She had been given the school at the forks of the creek and was paid a salary of thirty-five dollars a month, most of which went to pay her father's taxes and for books.

The children of her school were of divers ages and sizes. There were lank boys taller than Mary and little girls that needed to be cuddled and mothered. The native children, mostly a tow-headed lot, were easily distinguished from the children of the families at the mines, whose parents were from Naples or Palermo.

Not even the girls from Southern Italy had blacker hair or more dreamy eyes than Mary's. Hers was a seeming nature and appearance made of a composite of the girls of her school; natives of the hills and the aliens of the blue Mediterranean.

Some of the foreign boys who knew little English were carefully grounded in mathematics and certain physical sciences. Their proficiency made it a difficult task for their immature teacher. She was aware of her limitations and struggled faithfully to overcome them, spending many hours to qualify herself in mathematics and as a grammarian.

That night, as the others were grouped about the door, talking or listening to the rain, she sat near a table on which burned a small unshaded oil lamp, studying out some grievous problems to her, in the third arithmetic.

Cornwall, noting her worried expression and how persistently she applied a slate rag, asked Susie, who sat near the table, to change places with him, and moving the chair near Mary's took the slate and by a few suggestions gave just the needed assistance; and in such a concise way that the quick though untrained mind of the girl found no further difficulties in solving the other problems of the lesson.

"Thanks, Mr. Cornwall, for helping me. At least tomorrow I will have the best of those big boys. It is surprising how easy the seemingly hard things are after you have learned to do them."

Shortly after sunrise the following morning, Mr. Rogers and Cornwall said good-bye to their host and his family and rode off down the creek.

They had gone but a short distance when they overtook Mary and Susie on their way to school. They rode slowly keeping pace with the walking girls.

"Mr. Cornwall and I feel we should make our excuses for the additional labor our visit has caused you."

"We are glad you stopped over at our home. The life is lonely at times and the face and talk of a stranger break the monotony. Besides Mr. Cornwall helped me with my studies. I hope when you pass this way you will find time to stop again."

"I doubt if I shall come, but Mr. Cornwall, who is to be our local attorney at Harlan, must return in a week or so to supervise the Brock and Helton surveys and will be making occasional trips to Pineville. After he becomes a better horseman you may see him occasionally riding on his own saddle horse, comfortably seated on a hard saddle and carrying his clothing and papers in a pair of saddle bags. Now he finds the trip tiresome, later he will find the ride exhilarating and your house a convenient resting place; am I right Cornwall?"

"I desire to express my thanks and shall be glad of any opportunity to stop and see you again."

"Here we are at the Salt Trace road; you follow it over the mountain to the river, then up the river valley to Poor Fork which you cross almost within sight of the town. Goodbye to both and good luck to Judge Cornwall; come again."

Their road after crossing the mountains was up the Cumberland Valley, hemmed in on the north by the gracefully sloping spurs of Pine Mountain and flanked on the south by the more rugged and closely encroaching Cumberland mountains.

The river gurgles and murmurs and surges along over a bottom of boulders or lies restfully placid over a bottom of sand. In these pool-like reaches many large rocks, shaken from the mountain tops in ages past, lift their gray heads high above the water and give to the scene a touch of rugged grandeur.

The water is so clear that the natives climb into the overhanging elms or sycamores, or lie peering down from a jutting rock and do their fishing with a Winchester.

About ten o'clock the travelers crossed the Poor Fork and fifteen minutes later rode into Harlan Town; and to the office of the company; a three-story red brick building fronting the court house square.

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CHAPTER III.

Cornwall Locates In Harlan.

With the exception of a few counties in western Kentucky, no official survey was ever made of the state. In the unsurveyed portion grants for land issued by the Commonwealth varied in size from a few acres to as many as two hundred thousand; and called for natural objects as beginning and boundary corners.

The result of such a lax system was that often the same boundary was covered by several grants; and the senior grant held the land.

Many grants were so indefinite of description, the beginning corner calling for certain timber or a large stone in a heavily timbered and, in sections, rocky country, as to be impossible of identification or location. Other grants were so poorly surveyed as to be void for uncertainty and yet other boundaries were claimed by squatters who held by adverse possession against any paper title.

A person owning the paper title to a thousand acre boundary traceable to the Commonwealth without break or flaw, might not be the owner in fact of a single acre of land; as the whole boundary might be covered by senior grants or the natural objects called for, impossible to find.

The only way to be assured of a good title was to make a careful abstract, following that up by an actual survey and obtaining from any person in possession a written declaration that their possession and claim was not adverse to the title and claim of your vendor.

The public records were imperfectly kept and indexed; which made Cornwall's work for the company a series of petty and tiresome annoyances.

Two weeks after his arrival the Harlan Circuit Court convened. He was immediately put into harness and called upon to assist in the trial of several important ejectment suits.

The first week of the term was taken up with criminal business. There were three murder cases, two of which were tried. The other cases were petty in nature, the defendants being charged with carrying concealed weapons, shooting on the highway and boot-legging.

During the second week he assisted in the trial of two ejectment cases, one of which was lost. The third and most important case was set for the fourteenth day of the term. It involved five hundred acres of coal land worth more than twenty-five thousand dollars; and though Judge Finch, local counsel for the company assured him it would go over, he had the company's witnesses on hand and carried to the court house the file, which included the title papers and an abstract; but he had never examined them.

When the case was called the other side announced ready and they, not being able to show cause for a continuance, were forced into trial.

While the jury was being empaneled Judge Finch leaned over and whispered:—"Go ahead and help select the jury, the panel looks pretty good. I have to leave." He picked up his hat and hastened from the court room, giving Cornwall no time to object. In about twenty minutes the jury was selected; Cornwall being assisted by one of the company's witnesses.

Then the court called upon him to state his case to the jury.

"Judge I know nothing of the case, Judge Finch was here a few minutes ago and was to try it."

"The case must go on; do the best you can. The court will take a recess of fifteen minutes to give counsel an opportunity to examine the papers and familiarize himself with the case. Mr. Sheriff, call Judge Finch."

The case proceeded in the absence of Judge Finch and the next day in the mid-afternoon was completed; the jury returning a verdict in favor of the company.

Cornwall ordered a horse and inquiring the road to Judge Finch's house, who lived on Wallins Creek, rode out to see him. There he sat on his porch, coatless, in carpet slippers, playing cinch with three farm hands.

"Hello John, have a cheer, do you play cinch?"

"No, sir."

(One of the hands) "Jedge, your corn is mighty weedy, you better let us go back to our hoeing."

"By gosh! You are working for me aint you; and if I want you to play cards instead of hoe, that's my business."

"John, how did you come out with the Asher case?"

"The jury returned a verdict for the company. Judge you certainly left me in a hole running off like you did."

"By gosh! the family was out'er meal and I just had to go to mill for a turn."

---

When one of the witnesses in the Asher case told Mr. Rogers of the desertion of Cornwall and the case by Judge Finch he said; "I suppose we must depend upon Cornwall alone or get Mr. Low or Judge Hall to help him. This company is through with Finch. I certainly would have trembled in my shoes, had I known Cornwall was handling it alone. He's a good boy. I hope the verdict won't make a fool of him. I think not, since he never mentioned Finch's desertion."

Two days later court adjourned and the following Monday the Bell Circuit Court convened. The first case of importance on the docket was that of the Commonwealth against Saylor for the murder of Caleb Spencer.

Saturday afternoon, before Mr. Rogers left for Hagan, Virginia on his way to Pittsburgh, he said:

"Mr. Cornwall, go to Pineville Monday and begin the abstracts of the Brock and Helton titles to the land the company bought on Straight Creek."

Cornwall, a poor horseman, not yet hardened to such exercise, broke the ride by traveling down the river, Sunday afternoon and over Salt Trace to the Saylor home; not wholly unmindful that Mary was a good looking girl and agreeable company.

When he rode up, the house had a deserted appearance. Mrs. Saylor and Susie were in the barn milking. All the rest of the family had gone to Pineville to be present at the trial, and Susie and her mother were leaving the next day.

He lay awake half the night thinking of Mary and his mother and listening to the penetrating tones of a hoot owl far up the mountain side. The house did not seem the same as the one at which he had stopped less than a month before. He was homesick and felt inclined to return to Louisville.

When he rode into Pineville at noon the next day he found the hotel crowded with visiting lawyers and litigants. The Commonwealth's attorney told him that the Saylor case was set for hearing the following morning and that the prosecution was ready for trial. He also learned that Saylor was treating the case as a joke and had employed Squire Putman to represent him for twenty-five dollars; which he said was a big price for the services he would or could render. "I can always depend upon the Squire to help convict his client. It is a mystery to the bar how he ever obtained license to practice law."

In the evening Cornwall visited the other hotel and a large boarding house in search of the Saylors but was unable to find any of them.

When the court house bell rang in the morning he went over, and up the stairway, into the court room, just as the judge called for motions. Introduced by the commonwealth's attorney he was sworn in as a practicing attorney of the Bell Circuit Court.

He expected to see some of the Saylor family seated beyond the railing, but again was disappointed; nor did he find them after a search through the corridors and public offices. He then went into the county clerk's office and began making an abstract of the Brock title.

At noon when he returned to the court room they were in the trial of the Saylor case. On the right sat Squire Putman and his client and behind them, Mrs. Saylor, Mary and Susie.

Saylor and his counsel had an air of easy confidence; Mrs. Saylor the set face and look of an unhappy fatalist; Mary's expression was one of worried interest and sadness; Susie suppressed an occasional sob.

To Cornwall the jury seemed a rather unsatisfactory one, they looked bored and unsympathetic. The panel was made up of business men of Pineville and Middlesboro, who resented being kept from their occupations at a busy season. They were new citizens who had moved into the mountains since the development of the coal fields and had little use or sympathy for pistol toters or feudists.

There was one exception, Elhannon Howard, Saylor's neighbor. He sat in a listless and inattentive attitude, probably thinking of his patch of hillside corn or the Southdown ram.

Summing up the situation, realizing how kindly and informally he had been received into and entertained in the Saylor home, Cornwall regretted that when refusing the fee of $25.00 he had not volunteered his services in the defense. He would have done so at the time, but supposed that Mr. Saylor would employ competent counsel to defend him.

The trial was a short one. The Commonwealth, in addition to making out its technical case, proved threats on the part of Saylor and that Saylor admitted the killing.

Saylor on the stand told the same story he had told Cornwall. The defense then introduced two witnesses, who swore that the deceased had threatened Saylor; Spencer sending word by them to Saylor that he intended to kill him; the squire attempted to show by the doctor that when Spencer was told by him that he could live but an hour or two, the dying man had said: "I am to blame for the trouble," but the court excluded the declaration from the jury.

The squire in making his argument for the defense grew quite stentorian of voice and excited in manner. He had a way of half stooping until the long coat tails of his black frock coat touched the floor, when he would suddenly spring upright and exclaim: "Now, gentlemen of the jury, wouldn't you be danged fools if putting yourselves in Saylor's place you had not done as he did."

In one of these paroxysms his coat tail flapped to one side and hung pendant on the handle of a six-shooter protruding from his hip pocket. This explained to the jury why in midsummer he wore a frock coat. They considered the pistol a silent witness and protest against Saylor's acquittal and a clarion call to do their duty in upholding law and order.

Shortly before six the jury retired. They were out fifteen minutes and brought in the following verdict: "We, the jury, agree and find the defendant guilty and fix his punishment at three years in the State penitentiary. Elhannon Howard, Foreman."

When the verdict was read, the face of the squire turned red with surprise. Saylor's face for the first time assumed a serious expression; Mrs. Saylor burst into tears; Susie cried aloud and hung to her father's arm; Mary grew as pale as death and her body shook as from intense cold.

Cornwall, who had come into the court room during the squire's argument and who, after bowing to Mary and Mrs. Saylor, had taken a seat behind them, came forward.

"Never mind, Mary, we shall find a way to get him off. Let me go with you and your mother to where you are stopping. I tried to find you last night."

The sheriff came forward and, taking Saylor by the arm, said: "Come on, Mr. Saylor."

The woman kissed the condemned man a hasty farewell. He and the sheriff went out one door toward the jail; the Saylor family and Cornwall another, walking up the street to old Pineville, to the home of Mary's aunt.

In the morning Mary and her mother came by the court house and asked Cornwall to go with them to the jail, as that afternoon they had to return home.

It was a sad group that gathered in the little jail parlor, while the jailer stood at the door.

"Well, young man, I guess you know more law than me or old Putman. I seem to be in bad because I did not take your view and advice, instead of hiring that cheap lawyer. We had only Mary's money; I did not want to sell or mortgage our home, and if I had not killed Simpson, he would have got me shore."

"You may have a chance, Mr. Saylor, with the Court of Appeals. I do not think the court should have excluded Simpson's dying declaration; it seemed relevant."

"I shorely hope so on account of the old woman and the kids. Mary will lose her school on my account; she can't keep those big boys quiet now. You look after my case for me and write Mr. Rogers that I will sell his company the home place."

"Do not sell your place to pay a fee to me. You can pay that after you are out. Mary and I will attend to the costs of the appeal, which will not be much, as the record is small."

Saylor's wife and daughter bid him a rather stoical farewell, so far as tears and talk were concerned, though their pallid faces indicated the pain of separation was heartfelt. Mountain women have not a fluent line of chit-chat, nor are they demonstrative in their griefs.

They walked with Cornwall back to the court house, where, after thanking him for what he had done and expressing a wish to see him soon, they left, returning home in the afternoon.

Cornwall sent Mr. Rogers the following telegram: "Saylor convicted, three years penitentiary. Offers Straight Creek land for thirty thousand. Hope company can afford to pay thirty-five. John Cornwall."

He received this answer: "Land worth thirty-five thousand, company will pay that amount if title and survey hold three hundred acres. H. M. Rogers."

For the next ten days Cornwall was very busy at Pineville. He found the paper titles to the Brock and Saylor surveys perfect. The Helton boundary necessitated a suit to clear the title to about one-half of the survey. He filed a motion for a new trial in the Saylor case, which the court promptly overruled; then asked and was granted an appeal to the Court of Appeals. The court stenographer made a transcript of the testimony; a bill of exceptions was filed and approved and within ten days after Saylor's trial and conviction; his appeal was formally filed at Frankfort.

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CHAPTER IV.

A Week in a Mountain Home.

There are some free-thinking souls who love nature and the primitive so well as to believe that Providence made a mistake in permitting men to pass beyond the pastoral stage.

There are many who, though they love art, literature and the other gifts and comforts of civilization, would trade all to live in a primitive mountain home; to call their time, a house of logs and a few barren fields, "my own."

They care not for the smoke of many chimneys, or the surging crowd or the ceaseless din of commercial centers. They love the view from mountain tops, where hills peep over hills and pinnacles are clothed in clouds. They love the peace and quiet of the sheltered coves; where the timber grows verdant and strong, fern-bordered fountains burst forth to life, and the squirrels and other free things dwell. They love a home site in a secluded valley near the head of a gurgling, restless, mountain river and think to live a life of peace, dividing the glories of mountain and plain. But wherever man would rest and hide his head and heart, giant care comes with a club and the huntress misfortune finds her way with a full quiver.

Mary, who had done no wrong and expected no punishment, when she returned home, found these two unbidden guests awaiting her. Her eyes were opened to see sorrow; which all the world knows.

The following morning when she walked up to the school house door the children stood in groups talking in subdued tones. The little girls for the first time since the early days of the term failed to rush forward and greet her. She rang the bell; they came in slowly and rebelliously, the big boys last of all. Several of the children, among them those of one of the trustees, were absent.

Tim Fields, a lanky, overgrown boy of sixteen, after having been reproved, continued talking to his desk-mate. When Mary told him he must behave or go home, he arose and, starting towards the door, said: "I guess I will go anyway; pap said, last night, he didn't think a convict's daughter oughter handle this here school and he was going to see the trustees and the county superintendent and git ma's sister in."

A few minutes later, Luigi Poggi, whose seat near the window overlooked the creek, saw him on the bank throwing small boulders at a flock of geese.

He raised his hand, and snapping his fingers to attract attention, asked, and was given permission, to go to the spring for a bucket of water. When out of sight of the teacher he whistled for Tim and walked on slowly down towards the spring, until he came to a dusty, bare spot in the path under a tree, where the boys played keeps.

"Tim, what did you say that to teacher for; she's good to all of us?"

"What you got to do with it, you Dago?"

"This," and he struck Tim in the face with the empty water bucket.

They fought in the sand path for about five minutes; when Luigi, throwing Tim face down, rubbed and bumped his head in the sand until Tim could scarcely breathe through his bleeding nose and his mouth choked with dust and sand.

When he said, "'nuff," Luigi let him up, and returned to the school house with a dirty, scratched face, but a full bucket of spring water.

"Luigi, what made you so long?"

"I fell down."

"Are you hurt?"

"No'm."

"Go down to the creek and wash your face."

"Yes'm."

On Friday morning not more than half of the school were present.

Saturday afternoon the county superintendent called at the Saylor home and, telling Mary that several of the trustees objected to her keeping the school, asked for her resignation, which she wrote out and handed him.

---

The days were pleasant and busy ones for Cornwall. He looked forward with pleasure, as to a vacation, when he should return to Straight Creek and make the survey of the Brock, Helton and Saylor properties, and for that purpose chose that delightful season in October; last harvest time for man and beast, when the corn is ripe and the nuts loosened by the early frost are showering upon the ground like manna for all. It is the beginning of Indian summer, when nature, festive and placid of mood, clothes the hills in shades of red and brown; and, fearful that man, who is inclined to overlook nearby joys and pleasures for more distant and less certain ones, might overlook the familiar hills, even though freshly painted, hides her far-off attractions with a hazy curtain.

As the party came down over Salt Trace into the Straight Creek valley, in full accord with the perfect day and as gay of heart as the trees were gayly colored, they met Caleb going down the creek road with the old squirrel rifle, longer of barrel than the small boy.

"Where now, hunter, just at sunset, when most hunters seek the camp?" was Cornwall's greeting.

"I'm going down to Elhannon Howard's. Ma told me he sent pap to jail. I shore will fix him if this gun don't bust."

"Wait a minute. That's a fine gun; let me have a look at it. It's mighty heavy. I'll ride down with you and carry it until we get within sight of the house. Has Elhannon any boys?"

"Yes, two."

"How old are they?"

"John is eleven; Henry is nine."

"John is a big, strong boy. I bet you are afraid of him. If you were not, it would be great fun to beat him up with your fists or kick him in the slats, or throw him in the creek and make him holler "'nuff." Why not save Elhannon for your dad when he gets out? He might not want you to do his fighting for him. Did he ask you to take a shot at old man Howard?"

"No, I ha'int thought about that."

"You didn't say you were not afraid of John Howard."

"No, I'm not. Why?"

"If you were not afraid of him, you would leave your gun at home and tomorrow beat him up at school."

"I believe I will go back home and beat him up at school tomorrow; but recess will be plenty long to wait."

"Oh, we better go on; he's older and bigger than you; you are afraid of him. You better tackle him with your gun."

"Waste powder and ball on that chump? Not me; I'm not afraid of any of them Howards. I'm hungry; supper's about ready; let's go home. I shore hope he comes to school tomorrow."

"Say, boy, are those your hogs? Why don't you feed them some corn?"

"They shore am poor. Them's old man Lewis'. He lives down the crick below here. This time last year he turned them out to eat the mast. After the mast was gone he still let them run and would go out with a basket of corn and feed them. He's dumb, he can't holler. He called them by pounding with a rock on a dead snag. Since the woodpecker's came this spring them fool hawgs have nigh 'bout run themselves to death."

"Here, boy, take your gun; there's a squirrel."

"That's right; give her here."

"He's a nice fat one."

"Yes, there's plenty of nuts now."

"I don't believe I would reload her now; there's the house."

"Mr. Cornwall, I'll loan you my gun tomorrow and you can go hunting."

"You better let me have her all the time we are surveying the land."

"All right."

Cornwall was met at the gate by Mary and her mother; they both seemed pleased to see him. Caleb took his horse to the barn and, removing the saddle, turned him loose for a roll in the dusty lot. Then he was put in a box stall and given three sheaves of oats.

"Mrs. Saylor, you see I am back and have brought three others with me. We will be here a week. I hope you will not find us too troublesome. The two chainmen will sleep in the loft on the hay, so as not to crowd you."

"We are glad to have you; come right in."

"Miss Mary, you must treat us like home folks; no extra work now or we will move down to old man Howard's. Your school and those big boys are enough of a worry."

"I have more time. They have another teacher at the school, Mrs. Field's sister. They removed me because of father's conviction."

"Who?"

"The county superintendent and the trustees."

"When we buy your father's land, why don't you go east to school?"

"I have been thinking of that. What school would you suggest?"

"Go to one of the best—Wellesley."

The next morning at sun-up the party started surveying the Saylor property. This they completed in two days; the boundary held three hundred and five acres.

Cornwall insisted on carrying Caleb's rifle; but the only squirrels they got were those killed by Henry Saylor. He was sixteen; a good axeman, and employed to blaze the lines and locate the corners.

Saturday morning they started on the Brock boundary; but quit work about four o'clock in the afternoon and had a most refreshing swim in a deep pool of the creek before supper.

Sunday afternoon the family went down to the school house, "to meeting." It was the first time Mary had been in the building or seen many of her acquaintances since the school had been taken from her.

When she walked in accompanied by Cornwall and Duffield, the surveyor, her face shone with happiness. Cornwall had dispelled the cloud of misfortune that had overshadowed it by the assurance that her father would be given a new trial and acquitted. Since her active, ambitious mind was building glorious castles of hope on the prospects of refinement and education, she found much joy and comfort in the company of the young lawyer; more than she admitted even to herself; and the young surveyor and his assistants were a source of amusement and entertainment.

She was so occupied with and hedged about by the two "furreeners" that young Doctor Foley, who had come to church with the hope of taking her home in his new buggy, had but time to greet her and pass on.

Several of the girls, who had rejoiced at her humiliation were disappointed when they saw how happy she seemed, saying: "She's a cool one; she don't care if her pap is in jail, now that she is bent on catching that city lawyer."

The preacher, a circuit rider, who during each month tried to preach not less than once at more than a dozen small log churches and school houses, many miles apart, was a godly man who traveled over the hills on an old gray mare, carrying most of his earthly possessions in his saddle-bags. His hair was thin and his frame almost a shadow. His deep-set eyes and strong face had an expression of righteousness and peace. Years before he had loved a young woman, but knew that he could not continue preaching in his district and support a wife. One day he came to her home and in tears, holding her hands, made and told her his choice.

Since then, with quivering voice but calm face, he had married her to a friend, and baptized her two children and had buried her husband. He loved her still, but his earthly treasurers were as meager as when she had wedded another.

The crowd was too great for the little school house, so they came out and sat upon the green under two great twin oaks, while God's ambassador, standing upon a rude bench nailed between the trunks, gave to them his message of simple words in the voice and tone of friend and neighbor.

Since early morning he had preached two sermons, christened a half dozen infants, baptized three confessors, visited a bed-ridden man and a feeble, old, blind woman, and given burial service to one of his congregation. Far in the night, when the day's work was done and he slept, his were dreams of peace. Two angels with forward pendant wings formed a mercy seat above his bed and on it sat One a thousand times brighter than the sun, who in a voice that might be heard through space, though softer than the music of riffled waters, spoke to him.

"Well done, good and faithful servant, continue in the labor of the Lord."

"But, Lord, I am lonely and weak and homeless and would rest."

"Weary not in well-doing. My grace is sufficient for thee; My strength is made perfect in weakness—you have a home not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."

---

On Tuesday the surveying party began work on the Helton property. This was so distant from Saylor's that they thought of moving headquarters to Asher Brock's at the head of the creek valley; but as a couple of days would complete the work they concluded to remain where they were, riding forth in the morning and back in the evening.

Mary fixed a lunch, which was placed in a grain sack and tied behind Cornwall's saddle. Near noon they stopped to rest and eat under some elms in the upper creek valley, when Cornwall discovered that the lunch was gone, the sack having been pulled off while he was riding through the dense underbrush.

Their appetites were whetted by the smell of frying ham, wind-wafted down the creek from Asher Brock's. They rode to the house and asked to share the meal. The maintainer is like the Arab; he never refuses to entertain a guest.

The old man sat at the end of the table, with Duffield on his right and his daughter, a girl about seventeen, and barefooted, next beyond. The family circle was large and, with the four guests, the table was crowded.

In the midst of the meal they were startled by the girl who, crying "Ouch!" jumped up from the table.

Her father, looking at Duffield with murder in his eye, said: "What's the matter, Cinthy?"

"The cat scratched my foot."

The old man looked under the table for confirmation; and there sat the old, black cat, looking as innocent as a Madonna. And the family resumed the meal.

That afternoon, as they were running one of the lines, Cornwall said to Duffield: "That cat saved your life."

"Heck! That cat scared me to death."

"Oh, I'm on to you; I have heard of your tricks when you were surveying in Clay and Leslie."

"You mean that time over on Red Bird; that is the greatest fishing stream in Kentucky, and most appropriately named, as each papaw bush and hazel and blackberry thicket is the home of a family of red birds.

"From Big to Bear Creek it is a succession of riffles and smooth pools. These pools are the favored haunts and playgrounds of bass, perch and soft-shell turtles. A single drag with a minnow seine in one of the feeding brooks will give you an ample supply of bait. When carefully keeping behind the overhanging shore brush and exercising caution not to knock brush or clod into the stream, an hour's mediocre effort is rewarded by a dozen bass of uniform size, weighing about a pound each. Should you make an unusual noise, break a twig or cause the sandy bank to cave and ripple the water, you must pass on to the next pool and use more caution.

"We were stopping at old man White's. The house had three rooms in the front. It was in the spring, and at night we sat in the big middle room around the open fireplace and joined in the family conversation. This was the bedroom of the old folks. Their grown daughter, who attended school, sat by the table worrying over her lessons in compound interest, the practical application of which in after years would be as needful as a mariner's compass to steer her father's log canoe, tied to the root of a sycamore. I went over and helped her a bit and she became quite cordial in manner.

"When I handed back her slate, I wrote upon it: 'By moonlight, when all is still, I will play Romeo under your window.' I saw that she read it when, with a half-blush, half-smile, she applied the rag with vigor to her slate. I knew she understood. All the girls in this broad land, though they may not know the sum of seven times eight, are familiar with the story of Romeo and Juliet and the balcony scene in ancient Verona.

"Coleman Reid was with me. You know he is always butting in when there is a girl around. He came over and began drawing cartoons on the slate and, satisfied with prospective arrangements, I gave him my seat, taking his by the fire.

"In a short while the girl and her sister went to their room on the right end of the house and Reid and I to ours on the left.

"Reid wore his hair long and roached back; mine I have always worn short. We undressed and went to bed, both pretending to be sleepy.

"After an hour I got up, dressed, and started out, when my friend, who had been playing possum all the time, said: 'Where are you going?'

"'I'm not sleepy; I think I will take a little walk.'

"'Don't you want your hat?'

"'No.'

"And so I walked around to the north end of the house, where our host's daughter sat at the open window.

"I said something about it being a pleasant night, to which she replied:

"'Ayr you the long-haired or the short-haired one?'

"'The short-haired one.'

"'Bend over so I can feel and see.'

"So I bent over, happy to have my clipped locks caressed by her capable hands, when she gave me a crack with a rolling pin or some other delicate instrument. And, without a word, half staggering, I walked out from the shadow of the house into the moonlight and sat down on the stile blocks until I could distinguish the real from the artificial stars. Then I went in and to bed.

"Reid was half-dressed when I came in and, about the time I climbed into bed, he went out the door for a walk, blaming me for waking him up.

"In a little while he came back, looking the worse for wear. A few drops of blood discolored his cheek near the ear. He never told me what happened. I only know that after that night he was not so restless and took no moonlight strolls.

"The next night I helped the girl again with her compound interest, but Reid talked to the old man about running logs down the river on the June tide."

Thursday morning, Cornwall and his party, having completed the surveys, returned to Harlan.

A week later Mrs. Saylor met him by appointment in Pineville. They went to the jail with a notary, when she and her husband executed a deed to the Pittsburgh Coal & Coke Company for the Straight Creek place, and were given a check for the purchase price, thirty-five thousand dollars.

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CHAPTER V.

The Saylors Move to the Bluegrass.

In November the Court of Appeals reversed the case of Saylor against the Commonwealth and remanded it for retrial. Saylor gave bail in the sum of three thousand dollars and was discharged from custody.

He passed the first two or three days of his freedom at the old place on Straight Creek; then he and his wife took the train at Pineville for Richmond and spent more than a week driving through the country examining farms on the market in Garrard, Madison and Clark counties. They finally purchased one in Madison County, between Silver Creek and Paint Lick.

Then they returned home and, after preparations were completed for their departure, loaded their household goods into a two-horse wagon and drove through, nearly a hundred miles, to the new home. The women folks rode in the wagon. The old man and the boys preceded them on horseback, driving their small bunch of cattle and sheep.

Before the move, Cornwall received a letter from Mary asking that he write Wellesley, making inquiries as to the cost of the course and the preparation necessary to matriculate. This he did and forwarded the reply to her on Straight Creek. A few days later he received a short note of thanks for that and the many other services he had rendered them. She also asked that he come and see them before their removal and gave the new home address.

He intended riding over to Straight Creek before they moved, but court was in session and he was very busy. When he did make the trip, he found the house deserted.

He saw no member of the family until the February term of the Bell Circuit Court, which Saylor and his wife attended for his retrial.

He received a Christmas card from Mary, mailed at Wellesley, and wrote her a note of thanks for the remembrance, of congratulation at the realization of her desire, and a wish that the New Year might prove one of happiness and further realization.

Old man Saylor, dispensing with the services of Squire Putman, insisted that Cornwall try his case alone and fix his own fee; but not being acquainted in the county, he asked Judge Hurst to help, particularly in selecting the jury, and paid him $150.00 of the $500.00 fee charged Saylor for services in the Court of Appeals and the retrial of his case.

All new residents of the county on the panel, if not excused for cause, were peremptorily challenged. The case was tried by a native jury that had respect for Saylor's plea of self-defense and apparent necessity and who understood what Simpson's threat meant. They were out about twenty minutes and returned a verdict of "not guilty."

Cornwall, knowing with what anxiety Mary would await news of the trial, telegraphed her: "All court matters concluded and to your entire satisfaction"; so wording it that she might not be embarrassed.

Saylor and his wife after the trial exhibited no haste to return to the Bluegrass or to re-establish social relations with their new neighbors. They spent several days visiting up the creek and in old Pineville.

One night they called at Cornwall's hotel. Little was said about the trial, though Mrs. Saylor shed a few tears and called Cornwall a good boy. As usual, the old man did most of the talking.

"Well, young man, how are you coming on up to Harlan Town. I shore do miss old Pine Mountain and the rocks and trees; the jingle of the bells as the cows at evening hasten homeward from the timbered hills; the big, open fireplace with its light and glow of burning oak and chestnut where we huddled in happy talk and kinship; the darkness of the night where even the moon came slowly over the mountain and peeped timidly through the trees; the stillness of the night when all in the house might hear Susie whispering her prayers and the whippoorwills calling in the thickets.

"The first thing in the morning I used ter go by the friendly, old well and drink a gourdful of the soft, cool water, then feed Tom and Jerry and bring in an armload of wood. As I came in the door the frosty air was sweet with the smell of home-cured bacon which the old woman was fixing fer breakfast and when I sat down there it was jest right, a streak of lean and of fat showing in thin layers. And the big pones of cornbread hot from the Dutch oven; of meal fresh from the old water mill and sweet to the taste; a big dish of fried apples, a jug of sorghum and a glass of milk. It was a nice place to live. I would not care to pass the old house now. The door might be shut, the fireplace cold; I would find no welcoming face."

"Mr. Saylor, what about the new home?"

"Oh, it does pretty good; the cattle are picking up, but Tray sits in the open o' nights and howls at the moon. We have three hundred acres, mostly pasture, with a few oak, walnut and wild cherry trees and a muddy pond or two and a thimble spring. There's one little thicket in a draw big enough to hide a cotton tail. The world is too big down there and I can see too far all ways at once; too many homes and men and too few hills and trees. The house is of brick with a porch and big pillars three feet through that reach to the roof. We sleep upstairs; there are ten rooms; but there is no place to sit and toast your shins. Can't see a fire in the house and it is as hot and stuffy as hell; got one of them hot-air things down in the cellar; she shore eats up the coal. There are no whippoorwills and no hoot owls, but lots of crows and jay birds and meadow larks. I like to hear that little, yaller-chested feller whistle from the pasture gatepost. Far off to the south, when the air is keen and the sun shines bright, you can see the blue mountains. The window of the barn loft looks that way. When I ain't feeling right peart, I go out to the barn and climb up to the loft. I used to keep a joint of stove pipe up there. When I held that tight to my face I could look through and see nothing but them hills. Last month down at Richmond town I bought me a spy glass. It's a good one and she brings them close.

"One day a young feller who lives on yan side of Silver Creek rid up in a side bar buggy. I thought he was kinder expecting to git acquainted with Mary. He tied at the gate and come in. I met him in the front yard where we keep the calves and let the sheep run. He walked up and shook hands and says: 'I'm Bradley Clay.' I says: 'Dang it, I can't help it.' He kinder stiffened his back, then he laffed and says: 'Mr. Saylor, there is a stock sale down at Paint Lick Saturday; come down; you might get some good cattle and sheep cheap for your fine pasture lands.' I says: 'All right, young feller, I'll be thar. Will you come in the house and have a cheer?' He says, 'No,' and rides off. I went over and bought some right good stock pretty cheap.

"The men were right friendly, specially Jack Gallagher, the auctioneer, and we passed a few jokes. There was a whole bunch of wimen folks there, but I didn't meet none of them and they don't seem to visit round much, at least they don't come much to our house. I sometimes think the old woman is most as lonesome as I be.

"Caleb went over to the Paint Lick school house after Christmas; kept it up three days and had a fight every day, then he had the mumps. That boy is young yet, jest ten, so we let him quit the school, 'cause the teacher called him a mountain wildcat. He traded a feller out of a fox hound; now he and his houn' dog hunt rabbits and 'possums nigh 'bout all day long.

"Mary went east to school about Thanksgiving. It cost me nine hundred dollars, but she's a good girl and helped you git me off. She writes her mother nearly every day. I do hope you git down to see us soon. They tell me there are some nice-looking gals 'round our settlement. You can have the big boy's buggy which he bought ter take Clay's terbaccy tenant's darter buggy riding. Do you dance? So do I, but not their kind down there. They hug each other tight and slip erlong, while we shuffle our feet and swing.

"Before I go back I am going up to Berry Howard's and try to buy a hundred-weight of home-cured bacon. Well, old woman, I think you and this here young lawyer have talked erbout enough. Let's go on up to Aunt Mandy's and go to bed. Come down soon; good luck and, as Caleb learned from that Dago, 'boney sarah.'"

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CHAPTER VI.

Cornwall Buys a Home.

About eight months after Cornwall settled in Harlan, an old brick house fronting the principal residence street, with a large yard of forest trees and behind it a garden extending back to the river, about three acres, was offered for sale. Cornwall, who was present as a spectator, became suddenly and irresistibly possessed with a desire to purchase it, and did so for fifty-eight hundred dollars, paying one-third of the purchase price down, which was all the money he had, borrowing the remainder from the local bank.

After a careful examination of the house and grounds, which he had not done in advance of the purchase, he became convinced he had made a bargain and was confirmed in that idea when, two months later, Mr. Neal, the owner of some coal properties on Clover Fork, who had brought his family from Louisville to Harlan, offered seventy-five hundred dollars for it.

This offer he declined, because he had already written his mother of the purchase, telling her the place was to be their home, and how well satisfied he was with his work, and of the prospect for better things the little mountain city offered. She had answered that it was her intention to visit him as soon as the railroad was completed, when, if he was as well satisfied and she found the place one-half as nice as he declared it to be, she would remain and they would try to make the old place a comfortable home.

He answered at once that: "Several Louisville and Lexington families have recently moved here, quite nice people, and you will find sufficient social entertainment for one of your quiet disposition. When we can afford to repair and remodel the house and furnish it, using your handsome, old furniture, we will be very comfortable. Personally, I can conceive of no more satisfactory arrangement. The railroad from Pineville will be completed in less than a month, which will give connection by rail with Louisville. Then you can ship our household effects through and find the trip a reasonably comfortable one."

Upon the completion of the railroad the little mountain city assumed quite a metropolitan air. Many strangers came to town. This made business; and Cornwall had as much to do as he could comfortably handle and retain his position with the company.

While at breakfast on the 6th of July, he was handed a telegram announcing his mother's arrival on the morning train. The hotel was crowded, but he procured a comfortable room and made arrangements to meet her with a carriage. Then he went to the office and worked until it was time to drive to the station.

As he came out upon the platform the train pulled in; and his mother, whom he had not seen for a year, waved to him from the rear platform. He caught her in his arms and lifted her down, while she shed a few happy tears and responded to his caresses. Then taking her hand baggage in one hand and her arm with the other, he started towards the carriage.

"One moment, John; I beg your pardon, Dorothy. This is my son, John Cornwall; and John, this is Miss Dorothy Durrett, a niece of Mrs. Neal's. She is making her a visit and expects to remain during the summer. We came all the way together. I met her just after the train left the Louisville station; we had opposite berths last night and breakfast in Pineville at the same table, so we are fairly well acquainted."

"Miss Durrett I know your uncle very well and have met your aunt. I do not see either of them here."

"I should have telegraphed, but am careless about such matters."

"I have a carriage at the door and lots of room; mother and I will be glad to drive you to your uncle's."

"I have found your mother such agreeable company, I would like to continue the journey with her, even to uncle's door."

The three walked to the street together, entered the carriage and drove first to the Neal residence, where they left Miss Durrett, then to the hotel.

Mrs. Cornwall liked the town. Its location on the river bank and the sloping foothills of Pine Mountain, the murmur of the river, and the quiet, practical lives of her neighbors, all fit into her idea of a place to live. The yard and garden of the place her son had purchased she found charming and in sweet concord with the river and the hills. She was not a critical woman, but all she could say in favor of the house was; "It is substantial and seemingly built to withstand the incursions of time." Though it had been built before the Civil War, the foundation of stone, the wails of red brick and the roof of steel gray slate, were as sound as when first constructed. The arched front door, bordered with a transom and small panes of glass, was the one artistic thing; and she declared must not be altered. But the small iron porch, little longer than the width of the doorway, must be supplanted by a broad veranda, the roof of which should be supported by massive colonial pillars, in keeping with the grounds, and curative of the barrenness of the house.

The interior, she said, was a desecration of architecture as an ornamental science, a waste of room and a destruction of grace and beauty. Though John would not concede the waste of room, since every thing was built on a right angle plan and nothing appropriated room but the partition walls and a narrow stairway. The interior looked as though it were fashioned by artisans who were zealous disciples of a carpenter's square and who carried it about for insistent and perpetual use. She pointed out where many new windows must be cut or old ones enlarged and considerably modified in form.

"John, you and I must save our money for the next year, then we will have an architect give our modifications the sanction of his approval. We must not be too precipitate with alterations; living in the old house as it is a year, will settle just what we desire. In the meantime we can find plenty to do in the yard and garden.

"I have four thousand dollars in bank which I have been saving for you. We will use it to pay off the balance of the purchase price and to supplement my furniture, which is not more than half enough for the house.

"How happy we shall be planning and changing the house and grounds to suit our mutual fancy. It will be the second time for me. When your father was thirty we had saved three thousand dollars, just enough to buy a little home. Then we changed our plan and built one fresh and new. He died before the newness wore away and the place really looked like home. I believe your plan the better one; to buy an old home with a large front yard of great forest trees and a garden back of the kitchen, a house of substantial wall and foundation and living in it, as fancy dictates or need requires or purse affords, make your alterations; then the place grows from strangeness to sympathy and takes on individuality.

"These old cherry and pear trees we will make room for in our plans. But you must cut out the dead tops and spray the trees. We want even these old trees to look comfortable and happy. Oh, they are sickle pears and nearly ripe. Just such ones as grew on father's place near Middletown; and I, a girl in sun bonnet and gingham apron, climbed the trees or picked them from a ladder. I must have a sun bonnet again and some gingham aprons. When you come home in the evening I will stand erect or walk with a sprightly step as a young girl and the sun bonnet will hide my gray hair and pale face and you will say; 'I wonder who that slender country girl is out under the trees? I suppose mother has gone to the house for something.' When I turn round you will say; 'Why, it is little mother; the mountain air and sunshine and the garden are doing wonders for her.' John you are a good boy and you are helping too.

"Look, John, there's a whole row of snowball and lilac bushes, and here are some early yellow roses, and over there a border of golden glow and a bed of lilies of the valley, and yet further on some hardy lilies and peonies, and beyond the walk a strawberry bed and sage, and gooseberries and red raspberries and an arbor of grape vines and a rustic bench.

"We are at home, John. The garden makes me young again and I see your father's face in your own. It is as though God had given me the two in the one body. John, brush off the bench and let us sit here and watch the shadows lengthen and fade and the coming darkness add zest and brilliance to the full moon. Then we'll go to the house hand in hand and you can help with the supper. You are not too hungry to wait a bit, John?"

"No, mother."

They sat for some time in silence as the twilight deepened.

"Mrs. Neal and her niece, Dorothy Durrett, called today. You must take me over some evening to see them. I must not forget that you are a man and that some time you will be looking for a wife. You must go out occasionally, else you will appear awkward in the presence of young ladies or be considered a crank."

"I like to go, mother, but I have not much time since I've been up here. Everything was new and I had to work hard and, even with that, have got many a knock I might have dodged; and lost once or twice because of inexperience. Experience in the practice is the best professor in law, but rather hard on the client. * * * I met one nice girl. Though her family were homely mountain people, she was making the best of her opportunities. Last winter she took a preliminary course at Wellesley and this fall enters the college as a freshman. I believe you would like Mary; I did, anyway. This is Thursday; suppose we go over to the Neals' Sunday afternoon or Monday evening."

"I will go with you Sunday afternoon at four o'clock."

---

The Neal home was within easy walking distance of the Cornwall place. John and his mother made their visit as planned. Their reception was cordial; Dorothy showed that she was glad of the diversion.

She was quite popular with the boys of her set at home; and it was an unusual experience when she was not called upon to entertain one or more young men Sunday afternoon and evening.

She and Cornwall sat upon the porch, joining in the general conversation. After a time Dorothy suggested that he carry the chairs out in the side yard, where they sat under the shade of two wide spreading elms.

They talked of several recently published romances; of mutual friends in Louisville; of their amusements, coming out parties; engagements and of the marriage of two of their friends, which had proven a disappointment to each party.

"Well, Miss Durrett, what about the mountains; do you like them?"

"They are all right for the summer if you could have a big house party, bringing your friends with you. I must confess that I have done little but read the week I have been here."

"Oh, make new friends; adapt yourself to your environment; I can do so with the men. There are some fine young fellows here; though they are usually at work, except when they are hunting, or swimming or fishing. I believe girls are scarce; at least I know very few. I will bring Duffield and Reid around from our office and ask young Cornett to come with us. How will it do for Wednesday evening. If you feel unequal to entertaining the four, your aunt might ask a couple of girls in. We'll be very glad to go for them and take them home again. Give me their names and I will arrange with the boys."

"How very kind; you are just the sort of friend one needs. Let's go at once and speak to Mrs Neal."

"Aunt, Mr. Cornwall and I are planning a little party for Wednesday evening. He is to be responsible for the young men and you are to ask three of the girls who have called;—and serve some light refreshments, else Mr. Cornwall will have to take us to the drug store. Does Wednesday evening suit you?"

"Yes, indeed; what girls would you suggest Mr. Cornwall?"

"They've hardly been in my line since I have been up here. I only know one or two. It's nice to come not knowing who you will meet;—besides I am not as deeply interested as the other three men. I shall speak for Miss Durrett in advance and have the pick of all possible prospects."

They returned to their seats under the elms and completed their plans; Mrs. Neal having announced that she would ask Bessie Hall, Mary Norwood and Helen Creech.

Dorothy said; "The young men suggested shall go for them while you come ahead and make yourself generally useful. This is the penalty for being so presumptuous as to demand me as a partner before I have seen the other gentlemen."

---

Mrs. Neal and Dorothy were both experienced entertainers and the little party was a complete success.

From Wednesday evening the Neal home became the center of gaiety for more than a dozen young persons. At night when Dorothy was at home each window seat and rustic bench was the stage of a scene from the first act of a seemingly serious love affair, had not the actors changed partners and rehearsed the same scenes.

By day there were picnics to the mountain tops, fishing and bathing parties, horseback rides up Clover Fork and down the river and at night card parties, informal dances, hay rides and suppers.

Cornwall, who for more than a year had been very studious and unduly sedate, went everywhere; making repeated apologies to his mother for leaving her so much alone all the while declaring that he thought a thousand times more of her than any girl in the world.

She and Mrs. Neal became great friends. Mr. Neal said, when his wife was not at home he knew she was over at the Cornwalls', and John, who heard the remark, replied; "I am always coming over to your house hunting mother," at which the young crowd on the porch roared with laughter.

Dorothy was the most popular of the girls and in her bird-like way a beautiful little creature. A blonde of the purest type, of petite and perfect form, weighing about a hundred pounds.

Every boy that came to the house, at one time or another, gave her a great bouquet of roses or mountain laurel or a box of chocolates. Among themselves, they called her Dolly Dimples Durrett. All the household and the girls called her Dolly; even Cornwall unconsciously called her Dolly several times; once in Mrs. Neal's presence. After he left the house Mrs. Neal asked Dorothy when he began doing that. "Oh! He did it unconsciously; he is around and hears it so much; I am expecting every day to call him John and probably have. It doesn't mean anything. I'm almost sorry to say."

She seemed not to care in the least who of the boys was her cavalier, making it a point rather to keep the whole company entertained and in the best of spirits though Cornwall was most with her and they were such good friends as to feel privileged not to weary each other with forced conversation, taking time to think a little.

She was as vivacious and light of heart as a feathery summer cloud; and, I was about to say, reminding one of a butterfly; but there was nothing of the sedate, slow, hovery movement of that beautiful insect. Her's was an extremely animated, aggressive daintiness. She always seemed to be hovering near or peeping into a bunch of flowers or carefully selecting a piece of candy for her dainty little mouth.

Her costumes were filmy creations of silk or other soft fluffy stuffs that gave forth the iridescence and sheen of a perfect opal; a coal of unquenchable, oscillating ruby fire in the heart of a milky diamond. She was a gorgeous little humming bird. So John described her to his mother and she knew he had not found the girl he wished for his wife.

One Sunday Dorothy and Mr. and Mrs Neal came from church to dine with them.

After dinner, while the others sat in the cool, darkened library, Dorothy and John wandered about the yard and garden.

They passed a bed of flowers in full bloom, over which darted and poised a pair of humming birds. The flowers were not attractive to the eye or of pleasant odor; but the long corollas held a pungent, honeyed sweetness that attracted the birds and many insects. Its technical name was Agave Americana. The seed had been brought from Mexico by the former owner of the place who, after making a great fortune in mining, had first settled in Harlan, but moved away, as the place offered very limited opportunities for spending his income.

When Dorothy passed the flower bed she gathered a handful and held them to her face with evident relish as they walked through the garden and found seats on the bench under the arbor.

They had been seated a few minutes when a messenger came from the public telephone office calling for John to answer a call from Pittsburgh. Knowing it was urgent, he excused himself, asking Dorothy to wait in the arbor, expecting to be gone five minutes. He was delayed at least twenty. When he returned she was peacefully sleeping on the bench. To awaken her he held the bunch of flowers to her face.

She smiled, sat up and stretching out her arms moved them up and down more rapidly than he thought humanly possible; the vibration or arc described, being one eighth of a complete circle. She bent forward, placing her lips above first one corolla then another. Her actions were unmistakable imitations of a humming bird. During the whole time she kept up an incessant humming or a chirpy little chatter, when John, almost in tears, taking her by the arm, awoke her.

"Oh! Oh! While you were away I slept and had the funniest dream. Come with me to the hammock under the oaks in the yard and I will tell it. Tell me the name of those strangely familiar flowers? Why they are the very ones I saw in my dream!"

THE DREAM.

"I sat on a bare twig, far from the ground, feeling safer at that giddy height than nearer earth, preening pinions, polishing beak and uttering the while a plaintive little chatter.

"There was a whirry buzz from above, a breeze of swift motion, a tremor of my perch, and beside me sat a gorgeous little knight, dressed even more brilliantly than I.

"His general body armor was of shining golden green, duller and giving gradual place to an opaque black underneath. He wore a crown of metallic violet and gorget of emerald green; his tail feathers were a brassy sheeny green and upon his breast and near his eyes were a few feathers of snowy white, as though he had been caught for a second in a snow storm.

"As he moved in the sunlight those colors shifted and changed until, if I had not been restrained by modesty, in ecstasy I must have cried;—'What a gorgeous being you are!' and he, doubtless reading my thoughts and more than pleased that I liked his appearance, moved yet closer and whispered words of love to me.

"From our perch we looked out upon the land, the foothill country. It was loved and kissed by the sun. The scent of fragrant blossoms filled the air and the fields were dotted with vari-colored flowers. Far above to the north was a mountain range, the highest peaks of which were covered with snow, and far below to the south was a lazy tropic river hemmed to the water's edge by forests of dense shade. There we never ventured though sometimes when the sun was hottest we flew to the very edge of the snow fields and sipped the most delicious nectar from the white wax-like flowers that grew on their moist border.

"It was a life of freedom and movement. Not a moment of inactive discontent; to dart with the speed of an arrow but pursue as variant a course as fancy dictated; from twig top to field, feeding upon honeyed nectar and small insects which also loved the flowers and fed upon their sweets. Not perching in sluggish dumbness at the place of feeding but hovering in a fragrant flowery world over the red or white or blue corolla cloth of an ever changing dinner service, leading all the while a life of intense movement, to pass as a bar of light, to stop and rest and as suddenly depart.

"There is a flash of green, red and purplish light, as the iridescence of the purest gem. Was it the airplane of a fairy passing by that gave forth all those gorgeous hues, or had an angel in passing from heaven to earth dropped a jewel from his crown? I saw no wings in motion, but I have grown to know and love the sound I heard; 'tis Sir Knight returning from one of his excursions.

"He alights, and preening his feathers a second, the while humming a little love ditty comes very close and whispers; 'Love, will you be mine?' And the answer is so low that nothing but a humming bird may hear.

"So we leave the twig and skimming over field and rill come into a land of flowers; and many of them are such flowers as I had just gathered.

"No longer alone, we mingle with the bees and butterflies and many insects and others of our kind, all intent upon a breakfast of honey dew freshly garnered and served each morning; and such a service! The very air is alive with the gathering; our ears are deafened by the whistling sounds of flight, from a plaintiff treble to a resonant bass, mingled with cries of joy and greeting and quarrelsome chatter. It is the chit-chat of the insect world.

"My mate on vibrant invisible wing is immovably suspended in a near vertical position over a large bell white corolla, while I feast from a platter with a scarlet border and a golden center.

"Ye men who would learn to fly, take the humming bird for instructor; and be taught that the most powerful flight is not given to breadth of wing but to swiftness of motion or vibration; and in watching Sir Knight poised above a flower you may solve the mystery of a suspended flight.

"Finally we fix upon the place to build the nest, on a limb overhanging the eddying pool of a mountain torrent, just above the foam and spray of a waterfall.

"Equally careful search is made for material. The foundation is made of moss plastered into a mass and saddled on a limb. Then it is lined with white vegetable lint or down.

"I now lead a more sedate life as becomes one assuming the responsibilities of rearing a family; and, a believer in a small and well-groomed family, lay but two snow-white eggs.

"While I am busy on the nest, Sir Knight pugnaciously guards bride and home and, having much leisure, becomes an exterior decorator of the nest, dressing it in a becoming coat of gray lichens.

"A small hawk lights in the treetop; he is scarcely settled before our guard makes swift and vicious charge at his head and eyes with needle-like beak. The hawk in trepidation soars away, pursued for many a yard, too slow to strike back effectively.

"When the little fellows are old enough to make trips alone to the flowery feeding grounds I fly to the edge of the forest and there, tempted to feed from the cone-shaped flowers of a pendant vine, become enmeshed in the web of a great tropical spider.

"The spider stealthily approaches, watching a chance to spring when I have grown even more helpless from futile struggle. There is a whir of wing, a dart of rainbow light, a hole torn in the net. The spider is tossed from his footing and falls wounded to earth. There is another welcome whir of wings and I, torn loose, half flutter, half fly to a nearby limb. Sir Knight has rescued his lady love!

"It was then I awoke and found you standing beside me with those flowers in your hand."

---

John did not think it necessary to tell the girl what she had done before he aroused her. This knowledge, with the dream, was to him an uncanny thing. The girl's experience he felt was in some weird way a call from a misty and long-forgotten past. The dream but emphasized comparisons he himself had made. He had even told his mother the girl reminded him of a humming bird. This conception, with the dream, blotted out all thought of the consummation of a slowly growing love. Though he tried to conceal this feeling, the girl in a subtle way perceived it. They returned to the library, and the Neals shortly after returned home.

That night the girl was depressed and could not sleep. She found herself repeating: "Oh, why did I tell John that dream! He did not like it; I wonder why."

The long-distance call was a request from Mr. Rogers to come to Pittsburgh. He left the next morning on the early train, without seeing Dorothy, and was detained ten days. When he returned she had gone home. He wrote an almost formal letter explaining his sudden departure and expressing regret that upon his return he had not found her in Harlan. She answered, acknowledging the receipt of his letter and expressing the hope that when he came to Louisville he would call upon her.

As a business proposition, the trip to Pittsburgh had been a complete success. The company had contracted to purchase some valuable mining property in West Virginia and had sent for John to make a careful re-examination of the title and check up the abstract furnished by the vendor. This work required more than a week and when completed the company found it so satisfactory they paid him a bonus of $250.00 above his expenses and salary and informed him of a raise of his salary on the first of the month, when his first year would be completed, to two thousand dollars. This, with his practice, assured an income of four thousand dollars a year.

---

CHAPTER VII.

Mary and John Progress.

The experiences of Mary on her trip East to Wellesley and the first few months of college life were such as to try her courage and earnestness of purpose. Her traveling experience, until the family moved to Madison County, had been limited to trips to Pineville, Middlesboro and Harlan. Since moving, she had been to Richmond, Winchester and Lexington.

A week or so before she went East, she and her mother had gone to Lexington to purchase her clothing. Her father had given her one hundred and fifty dollars for the purpose, to which she had added fifty dollars of her own money.

Before she bought anything she insisted on sitting an hour in the hotel parlor and then walking about the street for the purpose of noting the costumes of girls her own age. She had gone to church at Paint Lick and, sitting near the pew of the Clays, had seen Bradley Clay and his sister, Rosamond, come in. Watching the girl, she had thought what a becoming costume she wore. It was a dark blue dress, very simply, though carefully, made. With this limited experience, when she began purchasing, going to a neatly dressed clerk and asking that she show her some costumes, and such as she herself fancied; her purchases, when completed and fitted, were appropriate and becoming and almost transformed the girl.

When the time came to leave home, her resolution was near the breaking point. She feared her father might be convicted, though she had faith in Mr. Cornwall, which had been strengthened by his predicted reversal of her father's case. She had never been separated any length of time from her mother, except when at school in Pineville. Then she had lived with her mother's sister, her aunt Mandy, and went home every Saturday. Now, for many months, she would be away from all kindred and acquaintances, depending for sympathy and companionship on yet unmade friends.

Her father said: "Don't go, little girl, if you don't feel like it," while she cried in his arms.

"Father, I shall go; be good to mother, and when Mr. Cornwall gets you off never touch a gun."

"Alright, Mary."

Her mother accompanied her to Winchester and there, with face stained by tears and the coal dust of the local train, bade her good-bye. Mary bought her ticket by way of New York, on the C. & O. At the advice of the agent, who was a kindly man and had grown daughters of his own, she purchased a Pullman ticket and was told when she arrived in New York to go straight to the traveler's aid matron in the station.

When the train pulled up, her cheap, little trunk was put in the baggage car and she, with a paper shoe box of lunch under her arm and a cheap handbag in the other hand, boarded the train and took a seat in the day coach, where she would have remained, except that the agent, seeing her talking through the window with her mother, pointed her out to the conductor as a Pullman passenger. After the train started, the conductor piloted her to her section and, as he went out, whispered to the car conductor to shoo off the drummers.

In New York the station matron put her aboard her train and sent a telegram to the college, asking that some one meet her, which Mary signed and paid for.

She was unable to qualify for the freshman course, but was permitted to enter on probation. Her natural ability and application were such that in a few months she had qualified herself to continue in the class and at the end of the spring term was ranked among the most proficient of the freshmen.

Upon her arrival she had been given a room with a little snob, the only child of a newly rich couple who lived in a suburb of Boston. Her roommate did everything she could to make Mary as miserable as possible. She made fun of her clothes, ridiculed her local idioms and expressions and laughed at her inexperience. She would not study and tried to keep Mary from doing so. She rolled on Mary's bed, keeping her own tidy; appropriated three-fourths of the closet and most of the drawers of the dresser and washstand, leaving for Mary the bottom drawer of each and closet hooks in the dark corner. She reported to the matron that Mary was not neat and quarrelled all the time. But the matron, wise to the girls of her day and generation, had her suspicions, and by a careful and unsuspected surveillance soon became cognizant of true conditions.

Mary was changed to share the room of a girl from Austin, Miss Litton, whose disposition was more like her own. From then on conditions became comfortable.

After Dorothy returned home, Cornwall's friends said he was hard hit, because he turned his back on social diversions. He merely reverted to his habits preceding her visit. For a while he was invited everywhere, but declined; finally they discontinued sending invitations and left him to his hermithood.

His sole recreation was the improvement of the old place, at which he spent all the time not given up to his law business. That grew steadily, so that in 1900, six years after he had established himself in Harlan, he had an income in excess of $5,000.00. This, with his mother's annuity of $1,800.00, gave them more than three thousand dollars a year in excess of their actual needs.

The leisure of the fall and winter of 1895 was spent in cleaning up, trimming the trees, transplanting shrubs and vines, including border beds of hydrangeas which were planted around the walls of the house and out-buildings. When spring came and the garden had been plowed, rolled and planted, the grounds were in perfect condition.

The yard and garden, so artistically laid off and perfectly kept, emphasized the unattractive appearance of the bare, red-brick house until John and his mother felt forced to alter its rectangular barrenness. Since paying for the house they had saved something over $2,000.00 for that purpose and felt justified in commencing its alteration.

Duffield, the company engineer, was possessed of considerable artistic taste and an amateur architect. It so happened a friend of his from Pittsburgh, an architect, whose specialty was suburban homes, was spending his summer vacation camping and fishing on the Poor Fork. Duffield, who was with him, finally prevailed upon John to join the party. He rode up to the camp on Friday afternoon and remained until the following Monday.

The visiting architect, the afternoon of his arrival in Harlan, passed the Cornwall home with Duffield. He commented upon the artistic arrangement of the grounds; the contrast between them and the house; and the opportunity the house offered for easy and artistic improvement.

John, not knowing the visitor was an architect, or that he had even seen his home, but seeking Duffield's approval of the contemplated modifications, disclosed his plans and asked for suggestions.

The architect, recalling the house, began making suggestions, in the main approving John's plans. After they had discussed them for some time, the visitor stated that when the fishing camp broke up he would take a look and help out a bit. It was then John learned that Mr. Bradford was an architect and regarded as an authority on suburban homes.

"Unless you stay up here and fish a few days with us, Bradford and I will not help you change the sober face and severe interior of your old, red-brick house. A home should suggest the character of its occupant, and your character is growing more in concord with your house each day; your affinitive expressions in a year or two will be perfect."

"I must go to town Monday morning; it is county court day, but will return Wednesday evening and remain until I have persuaded Mr. Bradford to make his home with me while I pump him dry of plans for the improvement of the old house."

And so Cornwall had the cheerful and gratuitous assistance of an architect in remodeling his home, who otherwise would have charged more than he contemplated spending for improvement. When they returned to town the three, with Mrs. Cornwall, spent several pleasant evenings discussing and drawing up plans for remodeling it, Mr. Bradford and Duffield becoming almost as interested as John and his mother.

When the time came for Mr. Bradford to return home, John and his mother exacted a promise from him to return the following summer and pass his vacation as their guest.

By the first of November the improvements were completed at a cost of $3,300.00, making the total cost of the place nearly $10,000.00. It was conceded to be the most attractive and modern home in the county, though not the most expensive. Mr. Neal liked it so well that he offered John $15,000.00, which was declined.

The little mountain city in growth kept pace with John's improved conditions. There were many new brick business buildings. The character and appearance of the stores were modified from a general to a specialized stock. When you bought a saw you might have to go round the corner to buy a sack of flour or a pair of shoes. The names of the old merchants, such as Nolen and Ward and Middleton, disappeared and the new signs and advertisements read: "Shoes greatly reduced because of our fire last week; going at half price. Leo Cohen." "We cut everything half in two to make room for our new stock. Herman Mann." "Linens at less than cost. Jacob Straus."

A new bank and trust company were opened and the old bank, The Harlan National, doubled its capital stock. The ice and lighting plants were enlarged, and the city bought a site up the river, built a dam, installed pumping engines and constructed water mains into the city. An opera house was built, which, though its walls never re-echoed to the high soprano notes of a prima donna; had trembled to their foundations at the invectives of E. T. Franks; had shed sections of blistered plaster at the sad wailings of Gus Wilson, and had been moved by the matchless eloquence of A. O. Stanley when telling the tale of his setter dog.

The company's demands upon Cornwall's time had grown so that he asked for and received an increase of salary of $50.00 per month to be used in the employment of a stenographer. The young woman in the main office who had formerly done his work was now scarcely able to answer the company mail.

It being impossible to procure a competent unemployed local stenographer, he inserted an advertisement in a Louisville paper. The answers he received were varied and in some instances amusing. One or two sent their pictures. Several desired in advance to know the age of their prospective employer and whether he was blonde or brunette. One even asked that he send his picture, as she did not care to travel two hundred miles from home to face a fright.

He finally employed a little Jewess, whose reply dwelt particularly on the question of compensation; demanded Saturday afternoon off; and if the place did not prove satisfactory, even after several months' trial, that her return expenses to Louisville were to be paid. Her name was Rachael Rothchilds. She stated she was a sister of Mrs. Mann, whose husband had bought out the Middleton general store. She remained with him seven years until she married, and he never once regretted the selection.

When she came into the office the following Monday, Duffield was present; they were going over a survey together. After taking a good look at her he said: "Well, she'll not waste much time in flirtations. This office will give her the go-by." She weighed about ninety pounds, was twenty years old and had a sallow, scabby complexion. She evidently thought that her face called for an apology, and stated that she had just recovered from a spell of sickness, and her father thought the mountain air might do her good.

Her hair, however, was of remarkably fine texture and color, of a light chestnut, giving forth flashes of gold. She was of slight though good figure, was quick in catching a suggestion and endowed with considerable business sagacity.

As her father had expected, the mountain air did her good. Within three months her complexion cleared up and she took on several pounds in weight; color came into her lips and a snappy expression into her formerly dull eyes. Duffield, who had been so severe in his criticism of her appearance, began to take notice and to extend invitations to go driving, or to lunch, or for a walk, but she invariably answered that she could only go out with Jewish boys.

She must have been with Cornwall a year before he realized how she had improved in appearance. When sitting one day where the light and angle brought out the perfect profile of her features and the golden sheen of her hair, he first became aware that she was a beautiful woman, with as clear-cut and classic a face as the best cameo might exhibit.

She was so smilingly cheerful and sweet-tempered that the boys of the office gave her the name of "Cricket," and so competent that suggestions and directions were superfluous in the performance of her efficient work.

Slowly there crept into Cornwall's heart a tender feeling for the girl and when, several months later, Leo Cohen, the shoe merchant, began calling upon her and playing the devoted, and he saw how she responded to his attentions, even when walking with him, taking side steps to look up into his face with eyes of love and happiness, Cornwall suffered many jealous pangs.

In a way that women have, not known to men, she found out that Cornwall was a devoted and consistent admirer. While she was fond of him in a companionable way, the shoe merchant was too strongly entrenched in her heart to leave the least room for another.

The houses of Kentucky mountaineers are usually built upon a water course. Every native family living on Cumberland River, or its forks or tributaries, had a flock of geese which are kept to supply feathers for their feather beds. The geese are rarely eaten. It is bad enough to be plucked twice a year; the sensation is not pleasant and nights in the mountains are cool.

Even sadder days were in store for the geese after the establishment of the Jewish colony in Harlan; the average life of a goose is fifty years and this for the Harlan County flock was considerably reduced. The colony found no trouble in purchasing plucked geese at bargain prices for food and grease.

Leo began his regular Sunday call on Rachael Rothchilds at 11 a. m. and continued it without break or intermission until 11 o'clock every Sunday night.

Rachael, during each of three winters, expended a month's salary buying geese to feed Leo and he grew fat and slick, the sly, old fox, on hot-baked goose for dinner and cold roast goose for supper. Every time he sneezed she pressed upon him the gift of a jar of goose grease with which to anoint his chest, and he blackened and sold it to his customers for shoe oil.

Leo was slow and careful in making proposals and suggesting a wedding day. For three long, suspensive years he called from two to three times weekly upon the girl and each Sunday feasted upon the fat of Gooseland, which is at the headwaters of the Cumberland River—all the while making the girl believe that she was to be his wife, though she was made to understand that the date was far ahead in the dim vistal future when his financial position justified marrying one who bore the name of that celebrated family of bankers. The day of the girl's contemplated happiness might have been moved forward with satisfactory celerity had not Leo inquired of his friend Simon, of Louisville, as to old man Rothchild's bank account, and learned that he had nothing that sounded like real money but his name, whereas to Leo a rich Jewess by any other name would have seemed sweeter.

After the courtship had continued three years, the shoe merchant in preparing for a fire sale left too many tracks in the snow. The fire marshal reported that the fire was caused by an Israelite in the basement and Leo, after many worries and the loss of his insurance, sought other goose pastures.

In the early summer Cornwall wrote Howard Bradford, reminding him of his promise to spend his summer vacation with them, and received an answer saying he looked forward with pleasure to the time of keeping it, which would be about the 20th of July.

The first week in July, John, passing the Neal home, was surprised to see Dorothy Durrett standing on the porch. She had arrived the day before. He was glad to learn that she expected to spend the summer with her aunt. They had a pleasant chat, for the most part, about their parties of the summer of two years before. Dorothy was now nearly twenty-one and in appearance even more attractive than when he had first known her. He told her of Howard Bradford's contemplated visit, and they began formulating plans for the summer.

"You have not seen our house since it was remodeled according to Mr. Bradford's suggestion, nor have you seen my mother; come with me now. I am thinking of giving a dance in honor of our guest. Three rooms of the lower floor are so arranged that they can be made into one, giving us plenty of room to dance. Will you please help me out?"

"Certainly I will, John. You used to say we were meant to help each other. Let me get a hat and tell Aunt Anna where I am going."

"How the place is improved! The grounds were always delightful; now the whole is toned and in concord; a very delightful picture. There is your mother at the door waiting for her John. The woman who takes you off her hands gets an armload of responsibility. A man always compares his wife with his mother and you, John, will expect your wife to love and mother you as she has done."

"Oh, Dorothy! I am glad to see you! I did not know you in the start, or John, either. I do not see so well and I did not expect to see John with a woman. When did you come? You are even more attractive than when you were here two years ago. John has acted like an old man since then. I wish some nice girl would marry him."

"Oh, John and I understand each other; we could be the best of friends, but never lovers. I will have to find him a good wife, else in his inexperience, with his head buried in a book, he may make a mistake. I know the very girl—Rosamond Clay, of Madison County; she visited me last winter. I shall have my aunt ask her to visit us while I am with her. Then I shall assign John to her and depend on Mr. Bradford or Mr. Duffield to entertain me. Watch what a match-maker I am, Mrs. Cornwall. Let us go through the house and then into the garden. My aunt insisted that I hurry back. What a delightful place for your dance! We can decorate with hydrangeas and golden glow. John, the garden looks just the same as it did that Sunday afternoon two years ago when we sat on this same bench under the arbor of ripening grapes and I told you my dream of the humming birds. For a while I regretted having done so, knowing that you saw too deeply into my heart and was not wholly satisfied with the vision. What you saw was, in a way, the soul of Dorothy. Now I am glad I told it. We would never have been real happy, John, though we were beginning to think so. I hope before I marry the one I love will tell me even his dreams; they sometimes lift the curtain to the inner self. I must go now."

"Mother, I am walking home with Dorothy and shall come right back."

"Don't say that, John; no sentiment; that day is gone, perhaps for our mutual happiness. You are my friend, John Cornwall, and always will be. Come over tomorrow evening and tell me about yourself and your friends. When Mr. Bradford comes I imagine I will like him. Good-night, John."

The following evening John called on Dorothy. He found Duffield and Helen Creech there. Duffield, rising when he came in, resumed his seat beside Dorothy, while he sat on the opposite side of the porch talking with Miss Creech. He remained an hour, walking home with her. As they were leaving, Dorothy said: "Aunt Anna wrote to Miss Clay today. Good-night, Mr. Cornwall. Come again whenever you can, Helen."

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CHAPTER VIII.

Dorothy and Bradford—Rosamond and Cornwall.

Howard Bradford arrived on the 21st of July. As he and Cornwall drove through the gateway, he had an excellent view of the Cornwall home. He declared the house charming as modified and complimented John on his efforts as a landscape gardener.

They spent the afternoon loafing around home, except an hour when John went to the office, while Bradford slept, fanned by a breeze that blew down the river and sang in softest murmurs through the windows of his corner room.

When Cornwall returned, Duffield came with him and remained for dinner and until a late hour. Bradford, when he learned that they each owned a saddle horse and that those for hire were saddle-galled and the free-goers nearly ridden to death, handed $250.00 to Duffield, who had said that he knew of a horse for sale at that price and worth the money, saying: "Though I shall be here but two weeks, the horse can be sent to Pittsburgh, or sold again if I do not like him."

They had intended camping on Poor Fork at the camp site of the preceding summer; but as each would have his own horse, and the fishing was better just at that time five miles from town than near the head of the river, they concluded to remain at home, spending the mornings fishing and the afternoons boating, swimming or mountain-climbing. At least this was the agreed programme until Duffield should complete surveying the Lockard grant in Leslie County, when his vacation commenced.

The next morning Cornwall sent Dorothy a note, telling her of his guest's arrival and asking permission to bring him around that evening. She answered: "You are to come at six and dine with us, remaining for the evening. I have a surprise for you, John. It is unnecessary to answer unless you find my invitation impossible. Dorothy."

At six o'clock the young men, looking fresh and comfortable in their white flannels walked over to the Neal home. Mrs. Neal and Dorothy were sitting on the porch and after greetings all found seats. Rosamond Clay, Dorothy's guest, came out and joined them.

She was a tall, athletic, strikingly handsome brunette, just eighteen and, as the boys subsequently found out, a better shot, swimmer and mountain-climber than either of them. In disposition and appearance she seemed the very antithesis of Dorothy, though Dorothy enjoyed an open-air life, and her wiry, little body was capable of withstanding great physical strain.

"Mr. Bradford, this is Miss Clay, and, John, this is Rosamond. She had just gotten in when I received your note and is the surprise I mentioned. She is to remain a month and I am counting on you helping to entertain her."

"May my surprises always be as agreeable. With Miss Clay's permission I shall do all in my power to make her visit a pleasant one. If she is fond of out-door sports, riding, fishing, boating and mountain-climbing, which we have a right to assume since she has come to the mountains, we can promise her a good time."

"That is just what I adore. I have brought my own saddle, fishing tackle and swimming suit. I wanted to bring a canoe, but Bradford said I could easily procure a dug out and refused to express anything but the paddles. I even thought of sending my horse, but father said that would scare Mrs. Neal to death, as she was expecting a visitor and had not offered to adopt me. I understand you have a fine saddle mare; I shall ride her and you can get a mule."

"You have mentioned just the things she loves. She constantly wants to be doing something or going somewhere. She rides, drives, swims, shoots, climbs cliffs and trees and is a good, all-round sportsman. I'm not sure, but I think she keeps several fox hounds. Her brother, Bradley, says they belong to him to save her reputation. As soon as she wrote she would visit me, I ordered some hob-nailed shoes and a bathing-suit from Louisville and sent to the drug store for a bottle of iodine, some surgeon's tape and several sheets of adhesive plaster. If you gentlemen can work in a dance in the evening after each mountain climb, her happiness is assured. Here comes father. Mr. Bradford, you are to sit beside me at dinner and you, John, with Rosamond."

After dinner Duffield and Miss Creech and Mr. Cornett and Miss Hall came in; and the time until eleven o'clock was spent in chit-chat on the porch or, when Mrs. Neal could be prevailed upon to play the piano, in dancing in the drawing-room.

Before the party broke up Bradford and Cornwall made an engagement to take Dorothy and Rosamond up the river fishing at 6:30 the next morning.

As the boys went home they stopped by the livery stable to hire three saddle horses. Finding this impossible, they engaged a light jersey wagon, which Cornwall and the girls were to use, while Bradford was to ride Cornwall's horse.

They had an early breakfast and left on time. When near the ford of Poor Fork, Bradley discovered that he had left his tackle at the stable. He rode back for it while the others, crossing the river, drove up the fork.

When they came to the creek, where it was planned they should seine their minnows, they waited some time for Bradford; then Cornwall tried to seine, but the stream was too deep and the seine too large for individual effort.

This Rosamond, the young and enticing Diana of the party, noticed and, gathering up the cotton lap-robe, a coffee sack and some twine, which she found in the box under the wagon seat, retired to a clump of elder bushes and in a few minutes came forth draped in the lap-robe and moccasined with coffee sacking.

Cornwall was a slave to her most fantastic command from the moment she stepped forth from her screen of elder bushes, topped with their white, pancake flowers, and, taking hold of one end of the seine, jerked and floundered him around while he attempted to retain possession of the other, dragging him barefoot over sharp pebbles and, when on a smooth ledge of rock, sat him down in water to his shoulders. He rejoiced at Bradford's absence and that no other man had seen her loveliness, half-hidden, half-revealed.

They soon had a bucket of minnows and as they drove up the river were overtaken by Bradford, who, mistaking the road, had ridden quite a distance down the main stream.

Miss Clay, Dorothy and Bradford had no trouble in landing a nice catch, but Cornwall's eyes were never on his float, which the fish converted into a submarine when baited and after the minnow had been stolen reposedly floated upon the surface, the resting-place of a big, lace-winged snake doctor.

"Mr. Cornwall, why don't you rebait your hook and try to catch something? What was the good of my going to all that trouble in helping you seine if you will not use the minnows? You look everywhere, except at your float; first at me, then over the treetops as though you wished I were at home or in Heaven."

"That's right, I look first at you. The minnows have helped you land the fish. I feel like a crappie on a dusty turnpike. You have caught more than one variety today! Let's go home. And I am not going to drive those sleepy, old plow horses unless you sit on the front seat." And so they rode home together.

The next afternoon they planned to climb the mountain, but when Bradford and Cornwall came to the house, he said to Rosamond: "Let us drive up the river to Helen Creech's; Bradford and Dorothy can find something else to do," to which she assented.

Driving slowly along the narrow, shaded road that bordered the river bank, he held her hand and called her "dear," and told her the love story that Kentucky boys tell the girls with whom they go; and she parried and checked him as she had several times before been called upon to do with other boys.

Thus each day, either paddling on the river or riding horseback, or fishing, or bathing, or mountain-climbing, the four were together or paired off; he with Rosamond and Bradford with Dorothy; and each repeatedly declared that they had never before had so glorious a holiday.

Cornwall, at the end of two weeks, made up his mind to propose; and Rosamond, expecting it, had decided she would accept—if he would consent to defer the marriage a couple of years.

Strange that Cornwall and Bradford should each have decided to propose at the same time and place; that is, the night of his dance and on the bench in the garden. Bradford, because he expected to leave the following Monday, his stay already having consumed more than the intended two weeks; Cornwall, thinking that he would first like to show Rosamond through his home.

While they were decorating the house, in which Mrs. Neal, Dorothy and Rosamond assisted Mrs. Cornwall, he showed her over the house and grounds and, pointing out the bench in the arbor, said: "Tonight, Rosamond, at eleven I shall bring you out here and ask you something. Watch the time and save that dance for me. If you do not, I may take it for your answer."

When the hour came he claimed the dance. After dancing a minute or two, they passed into the dining-room and out the side door into the moonlit garden.

As they drew near the arbor they heard Bradley say: "This was my dream, Dorothy." Cornwall, thinking of Dorothy's dream of two years before, and remembering what she had recently said to him about dreams, was slightly startled. He let go Rosamond's arm and unconsciously turned towards the house. Rosamond, surprised and conscious of some subtle change in his mood, suggested that they return to the ballroom.

Bradford, without giving Dorothy time for thought, brought her into the garden and told his dream of the night before.

"Last night I came directly home after I left you and went to my room. Feeling I could not sleep, I sat in the window, looking out upon the moonlit mountain side and the silent river, the moon seeming to make a path of silver on the water to the base of the little trail up the mountain where yesterday I told you that our friendship, at least to me, grew stronger with each succeeding day. Then I said the simple prayer my mother had taught me when a little boy and went to bed and to sleep.

"I dreamed that mother let go of my hand and I went forth alone, a little boy in knee trousers, walking along a narrow path that followed down the bank of a tiny rivulet. As I walked along I grew older, my clothing changed to suit my age, the path began to broaden and the stream to deepen, and I passed along through the school days and other experiences of my boyhood, still following the broadening path and deepening stream and passing one by one the experiences I have known. The start was at sunrise and the day perhaps a third gone when, I, a grown man, came out into a valley and to a river over which was a fragile bridge. I saw that thousands of trails like my own converged at its approach and spread out fan-like from the other end. As I stood and looked, the trails around faded out, except the one down which I had come and another. A short way above the bridge a stream like the one I had followed flowed into the river and along its bank was a path much like the one I had followed. As I looked a young woman came round the turn and saw the river and the bridge and that I stood waiting at its approach. She hesitated for a moment and then came slowly on. When she drew near I saw it was you and, going up, took your hand and together, hand in hand, we crossed the bridge. Looking ahead, I saw that the many trails at the farther end had disappeared except the small one up the mountainside; this we took.

"The trail gradually broadened into a bright, smooth way and the ascent, though unbroken, was not difficult. All the time I held you by the hand. One day your step grew slower and, looking for the cause, I noticed that, though I still held your left hand, a small boy walked on the right and held the other. I felt some small, warm thing take hold of my left hand with a tender, warm pressure and, looking down to see the cause, saw it was another Dorothy, a miniature of your own sweet self; and would have taken her up on my arm, but you, wiser than I in such things, said: 'She must walk the trail—all you can do is to go more slowly and lead her by the hand.' After a time I noticed that these two found no trouble in keeping up with us and, before we reached the top, they occasionally restrained themselves to keep pace with us. When at the top, the boy, unknowingly, let go your hand. He followed a trail to the right along the comb of the ridge, which you and I could not follow, though we tried. The girl with a cry of joy released my hand and took that of a young man who seemed waiting for her, and they journeyed on to the left. I, taking both your hands in mine because our idle hands seemed lonely, looked into your face, as I had not done since first we met by the river. Your face had grown more thoughtful and more calm, more patient and more kind; the lovelight in your eyes spoke of the soul. Your hair, though white, was more beautiful than when pure gold. I knew your unspoken thoughts; and, with the lingering kiss of yesterday and a smile for the morrow, we turned our faces and journeyed downward into the vale of years. Dorothy, shall we make the dream come true or must I go back to the bridge and hunt another trail?"

"If you are quite sure you wish it above all else the world can give, we will live the dream."

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Cornwall spent the entire day after the dance at his office. He found a note from Mary in his mail. She was at her home in Madison County. He wondered how she might look after three years at Wellesley. She mentioned that one of her neighbors was visiting in Harlan, Miss Clay, whose brother, Bradley Clay, had called the evening before, and stated his sister had written she was having a perfectly glorious time.

The thought occurred to him that if Mary were near enough, he would go to her. Rosamond I love when near her; I think of Mary every day—yet I have not seen her for three long years.

When Bradford, entering the room and all smiles, said: "Come, let's go to the Neals,'" he answered: "No, I think I shall rest tonight; I am moody and prefer solitude."

"Well, I'll go for Duffield. Pleasant dreams, John, as happy as mine shall be; so long!"

John went into the library and read the first few pages of Machiavelli's "History of Florence," about a king of the Zepidi and his daughter, Rosamond, and he slept, and as he slept he dreamed.

It seemed to him that his Rosamond, perhaps ten year older, came into the room. She was clothed in vivid draperies and wore a circlet of old gold upon her brow, heavy bracelets upon her upper arm and a chain-like girdle of gold around her waist, from which hung a jeweled dagger.

As he looked she spoke:

"I rarely see father, except in armor. Day after day mother and her maids work at bandages and wound dressings. The halls of the castle are littered with arms and the courtyard and plain surrounding the walls is the assembly ground of armed horsemen preparing to go and returning from distant camps. It has been thus since Narses drove our kinsmen home to Pannonia, after several years' quiet occupancy of northern Italy.

"Now, Alboin, King of Lombardy, instigated by Narses and aided by the Avars, following after our expelled kinsmen, has invaded our country even to the plains of the Danube. We can see from the castle walls not only our own, but his invading host as they make preparation for final battle to determine the sovereignty of Pannonia.

"With such a drama pending, I am not content to be a bandage and salve-maker in the women's quarter. Who would, if brought up to ride and fence and wrestle with brothers and cousins, when they had all gone to war? I desired to go, but was not permitted. Now with Maria, my maid, I have found a good observation point in the tower and watch the opposing forces maneuvering for position in advance of hostilities.

"Maria, I make out father's standard on the hillside near the grove; and just across the small stream, not more than five hundred yards away, that of Alboin, King of Lombardy. See! they charge each other; you may hear the din and shouting even at this distance.

"Maria asks: 'Mistress Rosamond, no matter what happens, will you care for and keep me with you?'

"Do not be afraid; father will win. Our men heretofore have fought under other leaders not so brave, while he massed this force for the supreme struggle. * * * They seem to have fought for hours, neither side gives an inch. * * * See! the stream which runs through the field of battle and flows by the castle is red with blood. * * * I fear 'tis a sad day for Pannonia. Oh! our army gives on the north wing, * * * but father holds firm in his position * * * Oh! the north wing has broken and flees toward the castle! All seems lost! Father will be surrounded! See how our men and the enemy are intermingled in their flight. They will reach the castle gates together; it will be impossible to let them in. Maria, run to the gatemen and tell them to close the gates and let no one in till father comes. That cowardly mass if they entered, would be no protection but surrender the castle. But wait; we will go together to the gates.

"Gatemen! Friend and foe come together. Raise the draw! Close the gates! Let the first to flee be the first to die, and at the castle gates! Let them make an unwilling stand in defense of their own lives and so defend the gates! They tell me a coward fights hard when cornered. Dare disobey at your peril! It is the command of your king.

"The princess is right; to let this fleeing mob enter is but to surrender the castle. Raise the draw! Drop the portcullis!

"In a few minutes there was a struggling mass in front of the gates. Our men, finding them closed and no way to escape their assailants, fought with the desperation of cornered beasts.

"The standard of Pannonia still floated where first the conflict began, showing that my father, the king, made desperate resistance against overwhelming odds. * * * But even as I looked I saw it swept down under a driving charge and knew he was of the dead and the battle lost.

"In a short while the fighting ceased around the gates. Alboin, King of Lombardy, riding up. I ordered the bridge lowered and the gates raised, when he rode unopposed into the court yard.

"Those were fierce, wild days. A feast in celebration of the victory and of Alboin's coronation as King of Pannonia was held in the castle and a week later I was forcibly made wife of the victorious king. I was told my father's skull had been shaped into a drinking cup and used by Alboin at the feast of victory.

"He was comely and commanding; demanding and receiving homage and instant obedience from all. In time I might have loved him, except for the drinking cup.

"So Alboin reigned King of Pannonia and I his queen for more than two years.

"Then Narses, who commanded the forces of Justinian in all Italy until the Emperor's death, was deposed by his son and successor, Justin, who, at the instance of his Queen, had Longinus appointed in Narses' place. In revenge he invited my husband to invade Italy.

"Alboin consented; and was so successful in the undertaking as to gain possession of all Italy from the northern boundary to the Tiber. He established his capital at Pavia and his household and court were moved from Pannonia to that city.

"A great feast was held at Verona to celebrate his victories and the establishment of the new kingdom. I sat across the table from him. The ferocious and heartless man ordered the drinking cup made from the skull of my father and filling it with red wine to the brim, passed it to me, saying: 'It is but fitting in celebration of our great victories that you should drink with your father.' I tossed the contents into his face, threw the cup from the window into the Adige and fled from the banquet hall.

"From that night my sole purpose in life was to avenge the insult. I determined that he should die by my procurement or at my hand.

"The maid, Maria, who in devotion would have given her life for mine, had a lover, Helmichis, shield-bearer of Alboin. I plotted with her that he should become the instrument of my vengeance and so had her bring him to my chamber. There I soon discovered he was not sufficiently in love with the maid to assume any risk on her account or at her solicitation.

"Willing to take any risk or make any promise to accomplish the assassination, I finally agreed to marry him, if he would kill my husband. This he did.

"The Lombards were so exasperated over their King's death we dared not remain in Pavia or even in Lombardy; but, seizing the royal treasure and leaving Maria behind, we fled to Ravenna, where Longinus, Narses' successor, had his capitol. There we were royally entertained and most kindly treated.

"It was not long before Helmichis grew disgustingly wearisome to me. He quarreled much about the possession and division of the royal treasure, which was very great, but never once did he see within the chests. He was anything but a model husband, delighting in low company, flirting with every maid and peasant girl and by nature fiercer and much less refined than Alboin, whom I had found endurable, except when drunk.

"Longinus, on the other hand, was a refined and courtly man, having been brought up in the palace of Justinian. I admired him much. He was wise, brave, ambitious and most prepossessing in appearance. He had told me several times that had I come to his court a widow, his disappointment would have been great had I not remained as his Queen.

"About this time the Emperor Justin died and was succeeded by Tiberius. He was so occupied by his wars with the Parthians as to neglect his Italian possessions, leaving them masterless or to be ruled by Longinus as the real, though not the nominal, King.

"I had become the confidential adviser of Longinus; and in discussing matters of state and the condition of the empire, we concluded it was a most opportune time to take possession of northern Italy to the Tiber; and were convinced that by pooling our resources this could be accomplished, were it not for Helmichis. The first step in the consummation of our plan was to be rid of him.

"Each day he took a hot bath. He always came forth thirsty and demanded that I prepare a cool, acid drink and hand him. Longinus, knowing this, gave me a strong poison to put in his drink, and when next I mixed and served it I used the poison.

"Helmichis drank more than half when, noticing the flavor, his suspicion was aroused, and, knowing that he knew, I smiled. He snatched up his short sword, caught me by the hair and, handing me the goblet, shouted: 'Drink or lose your head.'

"Preferring to die from the poison than be a disfigured, headless corpse, I drank what remained, and died within five minutes of my despised husband."

John awoke with a start, considerably disquieted by his dream.

The next evening, with Bradford, he called at the Neals'. Dorothy met them at the door and they found seats. Rosamond, tall, graceful and queenly, came into the room. To John it seemed a shadow followed after her; the wraith of the widow of Alboin, co-conspirator with Helmichis and Longinus.

It was impossible to live down this unpleasant impression for a day or two. While doing so, Rosamond took offense at his coolness and announced her intention of returning home the following Monday. Dorothy expressed disappointment at this and Saturday afternoon stated that she, too, would leave on Monday. Bradford left on the same train. The three traveled together as far as Stanford, where Rosamond left them; then Bradford and Dorothy rode on to Louisville.

There Dorothy was met by her mother. Mr. Bradford was introduced and drove with them to the Durrett home. He remained in Louisville several days and called at the Durrett home every afternoon, remaining for dinner and until a late hour.

The morning of his departure, glancing through the personals—a suspicious act, as it was rather unusual for him—he read of his departure after a brief visit, and at the head of the column that Mr. and Mrs. Harrison Durrett announced the engagement of their daughter, Dorothy, to Mr. Howard Bradford, of Pittsburgh.

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CHAPTER IX.

The Saylor Family.

While Cornwall prospered financially and established an enviable reputation as a lawyer, fortune did not overlook the Saylor family.

Old man Saylor and his wife were thrifty souls. Though their farm, with its fine colonial dwelling, was one of the best in their end of the county, they had never been given the opportunity to entertain extensively or had occasion to maintain a stylish and expensive establishment.

Mary's four years at Wellesley had cost about four thousand five hundred dollars. This outlay old man Saylor would never have consented to, looking upon it as an absolute waste of good money, except that he gave Mary as much credit for his acquittal of the Spencer killing as he did John. He had the money to spare, having each year cleared more than that sum on his tobacco and speculations in the mule market.

He was a great judge of mules. Bradley Clay said when a mule colt was foaled Saylor could look at it and tell within five pounds of its weight as a four-year-old.

Caleb had been sent to Lexington to school. He remained during the fall term and until after the spring races. Then he returned home, having been expelled because every day he had attended the races and bet on the horses. It was even said that he had procured a jockey to throw a stake race. He announced that he had finally quit school, which he argued was a waste of time, as he intended to practice law and enter politics.

He was the owner of a fine saddle mare and a gelding that could trot a mile on the smooth turnpike to a light side-bar buggy in 2:45. Either riding the one or driving the other he attended all the farm auctions; nor did he ever miss a county court day or jury trial at either Richmond or Lancaster. At these trials he first sat back of the railing; then, making friends with the sheriff, the clerk and the younger lawyers, he sat within the reservation for members of the bar. The sheriff and clerk had each offered to appoint him a deputy, but these honors he declined with thanks. When he was twenty-one he was more than six feet tall, weighed a hundred and seventy and, as the sheriff said, was the hustlingest politician in the county. He had been voting for several years.

Though his folks were Republicans, and had been since the Civil War, he deemed it a political mistake to vote that ticket in a Democratic county. At an early age he began voting and working in the Democratic primaries and soon acquired considerable influence with farm laborers and tenant-farmers, the men who usually do the voting in country primaries.

One summer morning (he was not yet twenty-four) he told his father he was going to put one over on old man Chenault and beat him for the Legislature. Colonel Chenault was a native of the county; he had been a lieutenant in the Confederate army, was a rich farmer and, it was generally supposed, would have no opposition for re-election.

Caleb began riding over the county, telling the tenant-farmers and laborers that they should send from a farming community a representative who was a laboring man like themselves, instead of a land-grabbing "Colonel," a man who thought himself better than anybody else. "Has Colonel Chenault or his wife or his daughters ever been in your house? You see them often at the house on the hill. Did he ever speak to or shake hands with you? Yes, when he was a candidate for the Legislature; then he wipes his hand on the seat of his pants."

"That's right; I never thought about that; but who'll we run?"

"You run."

"Oh, I ain't got no education much; I've got to harvest this crop."

"Well, we'll find somebody, even if I have to run to beat the damn aristocrat. You keep still about it, but be sure and come to the convention at the court house next Saturday at two o'clock."

"Oh, I'll do that; so long."

---

Colonel Chenault, with about twenty of his friends, all of whom were good judges of horses, whiskey and tobacco, and who could tell a pair of deuces from a full hand, came rather late to the convention, not having the least intimation of opposition.

They were surprised to find the court room filled with farmers and men of the hills, from the eastern side of the county. This gathering the Colonel appropriated as evidence of his popularity and as a spontaneous endorsement for his renomination. Obsessed with this thought, he strutted up the aisle like a pouter pigeon.

The temporary chairman of the meeting, Chesley Chilton, who expected to be nominated for sheriff the following year, and who saw that a surprise was about to be sprung on the Colonel, called Caleb to one side and asked the cause of the gathering.

"Oh, you stand by us and we'll help you out next year. I know what you want. Chenault is a dead one and don't know it. We are after his scalp. Here he comes with his collection of fossils; time's up; call the convention to order."

Caleb moved that the temporary be made the permanent chairman; this was done without opposition. Then a secretary and three tellers were chosen—all friends of Caleb's. One of Colonel Chenault's friends complained that all this was a waste of time, as the Colonel had no opposition.

Then the chairman called for nominations and Colonel Chenault was pompously nominated by Colonel Shackelford, who closed his remarks by moving that nominations close and the Colonel be unanimously declared the nominee.

At this suggestion there was a stentorian clamour of noes. In the midst of the uproar Webster James, a candidate for county attorney, who had the promise of Caleb's support and an understanding with him, rose and was recognized by the chairman.

"Mr. Chairman: I have always felt that office should come unsought; should seek the man. I know not how many appreciate the special fitness of the young man whose name I am about to present to the democracy of this county, suggesting his nomination from this the Seventy-second Legislative District. I know he will be surprised when he hears his name, but this great gathering is in his honor and he must regard the call as one to duty and service, which, though it comes unsought, can not be disregarded. The office seeks the man and it is tendered by his fellow-citizens. I have the honor to nominate Hon. Caleb Saylor, of the Paint Lick precinct."

At the mention of Saylor's name and the resounding cheers which greeted it, Colonel Chenault nearly collapsed with surprise and indignation.

He turned to Colonel Shackelford, saying: "I am beaten and by that mountain upstart. I would not let him in my front door."

The chairman directed that those favoring Colonel Chenault should gather on the right side of the center aisle, while those favoring Hon. Caleb Saylor should gather on the left, so they might be counted without confusion by the tellers.

This was quickly done. Though it was midsummer, the Chenault men gathered about the court-house stove.

In ten minutes the vote was counted and reported by the tellers. The secretary announced the vote:

Colonel Hamilton Chenault	23
Hon. Caleb Saylor	217

Whereupon the Colonel marched out, followed by a mere squad, and, there being no other business, the convention adjourned.

At the following November election Caleb Saylor beat his Republican opponent by more than three hundred majority.

On the first day of January, several days before the Legislature was to convene, he came to Frankfort, desiring to be on hand for all party caucuses. He soon became a familiar figure around the hotel lobby and the corridors of the Capitol.

He made it a point to meet all State officials and every prominent politician, Democrat or Republican, who visited the Capitol. When the lower house was not in session and the Court of Appeals was, he attended its sessions and sat within the space reserved for attorneys. He and Judge Singer, whose judicial ear was attuned to the hum of the gubernatorial bee, became great friends. As a member of the Judiciary Committee he supported a pending bill allowing to each judge of the court a stenographer, and helped through the committee other bills that Judge Singer and the several members of the court favored.

Having procured the necessary certificate of good character, he made application for admission to the bar and was given an examination by Judges Grinder, Singer and Dobson.

Among certain questions propounded by the court and all of which he answered—he always had an answer ready—were the following:

"Mr. Saylor, define the difference between real and personal property."

"If I had a hundred dollars in my pocket, that would be real property; if I had your note for a hundred, that would be personal property."

"When, in a criminal trial, is the defendant declared to have been placed in jeopardy?"

"When he acts like a jeopard."

"Do you deem yourself qualified to render valuable and efficient assistance to a client or to appear as amicus curiae?"

"Yes, sir; especially in the trial of a jury case; but he's had more experience that I have; he's now assistant city attorney of Louisville."

"Where do you get that idea?"

"Judge Dobson, that is what this court says in the case of Ewald Iron Company against The Commonwealth, 140 Ky. 692: 'Clayton B. Blakey and Amicus Curiae, attorneys for the City of Louisville.'"

"What law books have you read?"

"I have read Bryce's American Commonwealth, Cooley's Constitutional Limitations and a work on Constables. I have been too busy getting practical ideas about courts and juries to read much law; with me the main thing is to know the judge and the jury."

His examiners issued a license. Judge Dobson at first demurred, but finally consented when his colleagues explained what efficient service Saylor had rendered as a member of the Judiciary Committee, saying: "I ought not to do it, but his neighbors will soon find out what he knows and leave him alone; he will not have opportunity for much harm."

After the adjournment of the Legislature Caleb moved to Richmond and formed a partnership with Webster Jones, who was a graduate of an eastern law school. Jones prepared their pleadings and attended to all equity practice, while Caleb solicited business and tried their jury cases. The firm obtained its share of the business and Caleb met with more than average success in the handling of his jury cases.

His vanity was tremendous. No one had ever succeeded in satisfying its voracious appetite; it would swallow anything and hungrily plead for more. His father, having started early and knowing what pleased his boy, was his most satisfactory feeder. It was Caleb's practice to drive out to the farm on Saturday afternoon and remain until Monday morning, boasting of his successes in business and politics and listening with satisfaction to his father's unstinted praise.

One Sunday afternoon, about a year after he began practicing law, his father being ill and there being no one about the house who cared to spend the afternoon talking with him about what he had done; he decided to drive over to Colonel Hamilton Clay's and call upon his daughter Rosamond.

He had tried it once or twice before. She had sent word she was not at home, then made it a point as he drove away to show herself at a door or window, so he might know that another call was not expected. But this species of reception did not deter Caleb or penetrate the armor of his conceit. It was impossible for him to believe that Miss Clay, or any other woman, might not find his attentions desirable.

As he drove up before the old Clay homestead, which had been the birthplace of a General, a Governor and an Ambassador, Rosamond, reading near an upper window, saw Mose, the stable man, take his horse. She thought: "Here comes that conceited boor, Caleb Saylor, to see me again; I shall send word I am not at home; * * * but it is dreadfully dull this afternoon, no one else seems to be coming, this book is the worst ever, he might prove entertaining; I'm twenty-nine and can't be so particular; I'll go down and see how the clown talks."

"Well, Mr. Saylor, it has been quite a time since you called. Take this seat," and Rosamond sat down on the other end of a large hair-cloth sofa, where her Aunt Margaret had sat and entertained her Sunday afternoon visitors more than thirty years before.

She was the same queenly, thrilling Rosamond that John Cornwall, ten years before, had loved for a few days. Her beauty was certainly none the less; her maturer form, more charming, was becomingly exhibited in a closely fitting dark blue gown.

After a few commonplace remarks, Caleb Saylor made himself the sole topic of his own conversation. This was the subject nearest his heart and one upon which he elaborated with minuteness and eloquence. As she looked at and listened to him the thought at first unwelcome, entered her mind that here was a man she might have, and without effort, for a husband. And as she listened to his tale of "I done this" and "I done that" and "I will do this and that" she thought how she, a woman of tact and judgment and refinement, might take into her hands this thing and, in a sense, make it plastic clay, and use its elements of life, and power, and energy, and unscrupulousness, and nerve, and egotism, and mountain courage, and almost make a man like her great grandfather.

The experiment was a fitting opportunity for an ambitious and courageous woman who, though she might not find full measure of happiness and love which only comes with respect, yet would meet with adventure, would dare fate and hazard chance with fickle fortune. The prospect to her mind was more pleasing than to be the wife of a gentleman farmer and grow fat and matronly—the other chance just then offered.

For the first time she appraised his virtues and was pleased with his appearance. She wondered if he had sense enough to keep still when silence was golden, and could be taught at opportune times to shift the shower of his eloquent eulogy of himself to an ambitious friend.

Caleb and Rosamond passed two hours of the afternoon together in the parlor of the old mansion undisturbed in their communion by the portraits of her patrician ancestors; the living members of her family walked softly, even when they passed the closed door. When she received they dared not intrude, though they had never felt more curious or been more surprised than at this protracted visit.

As Caleb rose to leave, he took her hand and said: "I have shorely enjoyed my call and am coming again next Sunday afternoon."

"Do, Mr. Saylor! I shall keep the date for you. It is not becoming in neighbors to be so unsociable or see so little of each other," and slowly, after a lingering pressure, she withdrew her hand.

The next Sunday afternoon Caleb called again. He came at two and when he left the spring sun had kissed the fields goodnight. To Rosamond's great surprise, he proposed.

"We are scarcely acquainted, Mr. Saylor. Though we have been neighbors for years, you have denied me the pleasure of your visits. You know a girl can not call upon a man. How do you know that you love me as you should? I have never thought about you as a husband, though I find your company most agreeable. You must give me another week before you press for an answer."

"I will press you now and let you say 'yes' again next week."

And they laughed and the bride-to-be blushed, and with downcast, dreamy eyes, slowly yielding to the increasing pressure of his strong, young arm, unexpectedly found her head nestling in contentment and happiness upon his broad shoulder.

That night she disturbed the peace and quiet of the family circle by announcing that she was to be a June bride and Mr. Saylor was to be the groom.

Her mother rose and kissed her and in tears resumed her seat without speaking. Her father grew red of face and swore that the upstart should never again put foot upon the place, at which she informed him that his remarks were uncalled for and his energy wasted. Her brother told her she was lowering herself and disgracing the family name, but, he supposed, taking advantage of what she must consider a last opportunity. To which she replied: "I did not expect such remarks from you, Bradley, as three years ago you asked Mary Saylor to be Mrs. Bradley Clay, an honor she declined with thanks." Nothing more was said in opposition to the marriage.

During April and May, Rosamond and her mother were busy preparing for the wedding, which occurred on the 5th of June and was attended by the aristocracy of four counties. There were a few guests from even a greater distance. Judge Singer and his wife were present, as was a former Governor; Dorothy and her husband came on from Pittsburgh, Mrs. Neal from Harlan, and Mary from Wellesley; but John Cornwall was not invited.

Two years after his marriage Caleb was made a member of the Democratic State Central Committee and a member of the Campaign Committee from his district in a close race for Governor. Taking the advice of his wife, which was becoming a habit, he made a liberal contribution, sending it directly to the candidate, and rendered very efficient and valuable service. He made two very good speeches, which were written by his wife, who also drilled him in preparation for their delivery. She long since had spread the information throughout the State that his mountain idioms and ungrammatical lapses were affectations to catch the uneducated voter.

The Governor, shortly after qualification, appointed Saylor as a Colonel on his staff, and he and his wife were entertained at the mansion. His wife was named as among those to receive at a reception given by the Governor to the newly inducted State officials and the General Assembly.

About this time a very wealthy man who owned a farm near Lexington died. The State became involved in litigation, seeking to recover inheritance and ad valorem taxes from his estate, claiming he had died a resident of Kentucky. Similar litigation was pending in the State of New York.

Upon the recommendation of the Attorney General that special counsel was needed, the Governor appointed Colonel Caleb Saylor and ex-Chief Justice Dobson to represent the State. Without a great deal of trouble they collected eight hundred thousand dollars and were paid a fee of fifty thousand dollars for their services, thirty-five thousand of which by contract went to Colonel Saylor as senior counsel.

He and his wife had spent a pleasant week in New York while he made his investigation and compromised the State's claim. The day before they returned home they visited Tiffany's. Mrs. Saylor's love and respect for her husband were in no sense lessened when he invested three thousand dollars in two rings, which, though they were flawless gems, could scarcely be said to adorn his wife's tapering fingers and patrician hands.

His friends noticed that now, instead of singing his own praises, he could never say too much in laudation of his wife; and she clung to his arm and whispered sweet speeches into his ear as a bride of eighteen might do.

It was noticeable that the Colonel had grown to be adept at showering compliments upon his superiors and always had pretty speeches for their wives. On county court day he went out to the cattle market and shook hands all round with the farmers.

---

In the spring of 1899, about seven years before Colonel Saylor's marriage, Cornwall received an invitation to the commencement exercises of Wellesley and noticed that Mary was named as salutatorian of her class.

He sent her a set of "The American Poets," gilt-edged in white leather bindings, and received a note of thanks and an invitation to visit the Saylor home any time he found it convenient during the summer.

Mary came home the first of June and for a while enjoyed undisturbed the quiet of the old farmhouse. The neighbors, including Bradley and Rosamond Clay, were just beginning to call upon her and ask her to their entertainments when she received and accepted an offer as assistant teacher of mathematics at Wellesley. The first of September she returned to the college, stopping for several days in Washington and New York. The following summer she spent traveling with several girl graduates and the teacher of French in England, France and Italy. She sent Cornwall a remarkably fine photograph of herself taken at Rome.

This he framed and kept upon his dresser. His mother, seeing and admiring the picture, asked;—"Who is the young lady, John?"

"I do not know, but as soon as I can discover her name and domicile, I propose to propose."

"It certainly is time; you are nearly thirty. I hope to see you married before I go, John."

"Mother, I know no argument against that ancient and hallowed institution, and would not advise a friend against taking such a step, even at the present and ever-increasing high cost of living. I do not use such language. Since I first put on long trousers I have hunted high and low for a wife, and with a persistence equalling that of a young penniless widow, but without success. Just when it seems that within a few days I shall be the happy recipient of the congratulations of my friends who in their hearts feel certain I am about to fall victim to the wiles of a designing female person, cruel fate steps in and with peremptory halting gesture and commanding voice has always said;—thus far, but no father. You will doubtless live to see me at fifty struggle through a dance with the daughter of my old sweetheart while the son of another breaks us; and I, broken of wind and mopping my bald head, shall retire to a corner and rest while conversing with the hostess' grandmother. Seriously, mother, I intend to marry just as soon as a girl as good and sweet as you are will have me. I am beginning to think it will be Mary, or my stenographer. I have not seen Mary for more than five years; it is nearly a year since I heard from her. In some ways the photograph of that beautiful, fashionably-gowned girl reminds me of her. Do you suppose that's Mary? But she surely is not in Rome!—How do you like this, mother?" And John, whanging an accompaniment on the piano, sang this Arabian song:

"The Mother.

"My daughter, 'tis time that thou wert wed;
Ten summers already are over thy head;
I must find you a husband, if under the sun,
The conscript catcher has left us one.

"The Daughter.

"Dear mother, ONE husband will never do:
I have so much love that I must have two;
And I'll find for each, as you shall see,
More love than both can bring to me.

"One husband shall carry a lance so bright;
He shall roam the desert for spoil at night;
And when morning shines on the tall palm tree,
He shall find sweet welcome home with me.

"The other a sailor bold shall be:
He shall fish all day in the deep blue sea;
And when evening brings his hour of rest,
He shall find repose on this faithful breast.

"The Mother.

"There's no chance my child, of a double match,
For men are scarce and hard to catch;
So I fear you must make one husband do,
And try to love him as well as two.

"Goodbye, I must go to the office; kiss me, mother!"

---

"Well, good morning, Miss Rachael, junior partner; how is the firm business coming on? What must we take up first? You have been with me more than five years and it's always a smile and a pleasant word. You are twenty-five and not married. Some one of your race and faith is very slow finding out what a fine wife you would make. My mother was after me today, saying; 'John, you must get married; you are nearly thirty;' and I said; 'mother, if I do, I guess it will be Mary, or Rachael.' You don't know Mary, and I doubt if I would if I met her; I have not seen her for five years."

"Mr. Cornwall, there's lots of mail to answer and in an hour you are to take depositions in the Asher case."

"Rachael you are too practical. Why don't you let me love you. I am convinced that with just a little encouragement I would propose. It's time we both were married. We have never had a quarrel in all these years. I am worth twenty-five thousand and have a good business. You can have everything you want. Why not, Rachael?"

"That's just why I am practical; to keep my head and my place; I like the work.—Yes, you can hold my hand if you wish and kiss me just once. But if you ever try it again, I must return to Louisville. Were you of my race and faith, you would not have to ask me twice. I hope when I do marry the man will be much like you; but he must be a Jew. We are a scattered people, without flag or country; yet a proud nation, seeking no alliances with other people. Your religion, founded on my faith, holds mine in both reverence and abhorrence. We have different sacred and fast days. I must eat other foods. We follow different customs in rearing our children. If I should marry you I must become a stranger to my own people and will be despised by yours. I will bring neither riches nor position and, like Ruth of old, must turn my back upon my own people. Thy people are not my people. For this time I will call you John, and again say it cannot be. I am crying; Oh! please! please let's work!"

---

CHAPTER X.

Mary and John Are Married.

About two weeks after Caleb Saylor and Rosamond were married, John Cornwall left Harlan on a business trip for Boston and Pittsburgh. As he had never gone east over the C. & O., he concluded to travel that route, boarding the train at Winchester.

His intention was to travel direct to Boston, where he was to make settlement with the executors of the estate of Giusto Poggi, who had died some months before, a resident of that city. He had left $20,000.00 to Cornwall's client, Luigi Poggi, a miner living on Straight Creek near the old Saylor home.

After this settlement was made it was his intention to return home by way of Pittsburgh, stopping there to attend a stockholders' meeting of the Pittsburgh Coal & Coke Company, of which corporation he had been a director for more than three years.

As he took his seat in number 9 he saw that quite an attractive-looking young woman occupied the opposite section. Her face seemed quite familiar, in that she might have sat for the photograph which occupied so conspicuous a place on his bedroom dresser. He watched her, hoping that she might glance up from the book which claimed her whole attention.

On the front seat of her section, from beneath a summer wrap thrown over the back, the end of a small leather handbag protruded and on it he read; "M. E. S. Wellesley, Mass."

He felt a thrill of surprise and pleasure. Taking a second and very careful look at the lady, he was convinced that he had found the original of the photograph and discovered the identity of the attractive stranger, though it was more than twelve years since he had last seen her.

How Mary had changed! Her beauty was none the less than when he had first seen her, a rosy-cheeked mountain girl, who looked at every strange thing in wide-eyed, timid wonder; who blushed when she was spoken to; and finally, when her timidity wore away, talked with him in her crude mountain idioms and localisms. He felt sure that when this cultured creature, who radiated poise and refinement, should feel inclined to speak after a most formal introduction, her voice would be soft and low, her words precise and her accent give certain identity of Bostonian culture and residence.

So the mountain lawyer, too snubbed by even this thought to rise and speak, sat in confusion across the aisle and made timid inventory of the charm and grace of his traveling companion.

She looked up from her book at a screw head in the panel about two feet above John's head, with a fixed thoughtful glance that saw nothing else; and John blushed. Her dreamy brown eyes spoke of a shackled or slumbering soul, voluntarily enduring the isolation of cultured spinsterhood, in search for the higher life. He felt the cold, bony hand of death reach out and crush his dream of love. After another hour of observation, the sun came through the window and shed its bright warm rays upon her hair and he revived a bit when he discovered there the warmth and color and glow of the southland. She put down her book and walked down the aisle; then he saw that her figure, though tall and slender, possessed a freedom of movement, healthy vigor and curves that told of a clean and vigorous life from early girlhood. When she returned to her seat he studied her face with care and knew it as the one he had seen in his dreams for years and each time had yearned to kiss.

At one of the stops a knight of the road, whose business was selling women's ready-to-wear garments, came into the car and walked down the aisle past several vacant sections to number 10, where, pausing, he said complacently;

"Miss, may I occupy the forward seat of your compartment, until the conductor assigns me one?"

"Certainly, the space is unoccupied."

"You probably find it tiresome traveling alone?"

"I usually find it more comfortable without company."

"Are you traveling far?"

This question the lady seemed not to hear, but rang the bell for the porter.

"Porter, please tell the conductor I wish to speak to him."

"Conductor, this gentleman has expressed a wish to be assigned a seat; he probably desires one in another section."

"There's plenty of room; I told him as he came in to occupy number 4. 'Porter, put this gentleman's baggage in number 4.' This is number 10; yours is the third section forward."

Another half hour passed. John opening his handbag, took out some papers; then, reversing the end, moved it so the bag protruded slightly from under the arm-rest into the aisle. He took the forward seat and read a while; then, resting his head against the window frame, pretended to sleep.

The young lady finished her book. She looked out her window until the view was blotted out by the nearness of the hillside; then indolently turned and glanced out the opposite window at the swiftly running little river and a narrow valley hemmed about by timbered hills. Then her glance rested for a moment on the protruding handbag, and she read; "John Cornwall, Harlan, Ky."

There was an exclamation of surprise; a slight blush of anticipation; a look of joy; and she glanced up into the face of the sleeper, whose dreams were evidently pleasant as he slightly smiled. She saw a man past thirty, of strong and thoughtful face, whose hair was slightly thinning over the temples. The dozen years since she last had seen him added much to an expressive face; his shoulders had broadened and he weighed perhaps a pound or more for each year;—but it was the same John, her John,—and she sat and looked into his face and two tears stole down her cheeks. He stirred, and she turned her face towards her window.

The twilight shadows deepened into night. A waiter came through calling; "Last call for supper." She arose and walking down the aisle towards the diner, heard her neighbor move and come following after. When she reached the vestibule she dropped her handkerchief and as she stooped, he picked it up. Then the little comedy of surprise and recognition was acted;—"Oh, John!" "Oh, Mary!"

As they passed into the diner a wise old waiter, who knew he made no mistake when he spoke of a handsome woman to a man as his wife, though she might not be, said; "Will this table suit your wife, Sar?" Then John found that Mary could blush like the mountain girl of old.

They ate slowly, talking of the many things that had happened since last they parted on Straight Creek at the foot of the Salt Trace trail, and until the waiter told them; "Boss, this car is drapped at the next station and they's blowin' fer her now." Then John paid the check and gave him a dollar. As the waiter closed the door after them he said to another; "There goes a sure nuff Southern gentleman."

They took seats in Mary's section and continued their talk several hours; about the marriage of Caleb and Rosamond; Mary's school days; her trip abroad and her experiences of five years as a teacher; and John of his business, of his mother, of Bradford and Dorothy and Rosamond; he even told how near he came to proposing to Rosamond.

"That explains why you were not invited to the wedding. I quarreled with Caleb and Rosamond when I learned you had not been. Caleb said he supposed you were; while Rosamond made the excuse that she intended to but overlooked you in the rush. She calls her husband John Calhoun and Caleb has promised to change the sign on his office door and to order new business stationery, which is to be embossed with the name, John Calhoun Saylor."

The conductor passing through the car glanced at them several times as did the drummer who occupied the seat forward. They met in the smoking compartment and the drummer handed the conductor a cigar.

"Well, Mr. Drummer, she seems to like the other fellow; at least she hasn't sent for me. He must have nerve to tackle her after he saw her squelch you. But you can never tell what a woman is going to do."

"If you had kept off a bit I would be sitting right there now instead of that young fellow. They seem to chatter away like old friends."

The next morning John and Mary ate breakfast together in Washington and that afternoon journeyed on to New York. When they went into the diner for supper and the waiter referred to Mary as John's wife, she did not blush, but touched his arm and looked at him with a smile of confidence and love. As he returned the glance a close observer would have said; "They are newly married."

The next morning Mrs. Cornwall received a telegram: "Have followed your advice. Married Mary last night. Her picture is on my dresser. You can wire us at The McAlpin. John."

Mary and John also telegraphed her mother announcing the marriage and stating that they would stop over ten days on their way home to Harlan.

---

John accompanied Mary to Wellesley, where she finally succeeded in explaining why it was necessary that she should be permitted to resign as teacher of mathematics.

The girls at first sight of John were quite hysterical, exclaiming: "What a handsome man Miss Saylor's brother is!" When they learned his identity and that he came to take her away, he was condemned as a horrid old baldheaded man. This opinion was mildly modified at the farewell dinner the school gave to Miss Saylor, where John at his best gave the young ladies an informal talk on,—"School Days, School Teachers and Matrimony." More than half of the girls were so impressed by the sense and sentiment of his talk that for a day or two they thought seriously of becoming teachers and waiting until they were thirty, when they would marry a nice-looking and prosperous young lawyer like Miss Saylor's John.

John rushed through his business engagement in Boston; then they went down to Atlantic City for several days.

He had written Bradford and Mr. Rogers telling of his marriage. They had each telegraphed congratulations and insisted that John wire the time of their arrival in Pittsburgh. This he did.

They were met at the station by Bradford and Dorothy and Mr. Rogers and his wife. Both families insisted that they should be their guests while in the city. A compromise was effected by going home with Bradford and Dorothy and accepting an invitation to be the guests of honor Thursday evening at the Rogers home, where they were to remain for the night after a reception and dinner, leaving the next day for Kentucky over the Pennsylvania.

Saturday noon they arrived at Paint Lick and were met at the station by Mr. and Mrs. Saylor, Sr. in the family carriage drawn by two sleek black mules; and Mr. and Mrs. Saylor, Jr. in their new Pierce Arrow.

Rosamond had consented to come over, having forgiven John, because she thought he had in a spirit of disappointment at her marriage, rushed to Wellesley and married Mary.

The more than a dozen years that had gone by since John had seen Mr. and Mrs. Saylor had been kind to them. Mr. Saylor had the look and ways of a prosperous farmer. He had grown stout and seemed to enjoy the good things of life. His was a jovial, easy-going disposition. He considered that fortune had been kind, now that Mary was married to Mr. Cornwall and Caleb, his boy, was a big man and married to one of the Clays. He owned a farm of more than four hundred acres and each year had saved some money, so that now he was considered one of the rich farmers of the county.

He stood in dread and fear of only one person in the world and that was Caleb's wife. The lady, disputing the family record which he had made when she was a little tot, rechristened his Caleb, John Calhoun Saylor, and he dared not protest. It was several months before his hard head adjusted itself to the new name. He reached perfection by gradation; from Caleb to John Caleb and finally mastered John Calhoun.

Upon receipt of the telegram from New York, opening the big family Bible to make an entry of Mary's marriage in the family record, he was surprised to find that the entry of birth of Caleb Saylor made by him in 1885 had been changed by Mrs. Saylor, Jr., to John Calhoun Saylor, 1883 which only left his son about two years his wife's junior. Subsequently he discovered that his son and Rosamond were each born in 1883 when he examined a carefully mutilated record in the Clay Bible.

John liked Mrs. Saylor. She was a most unselfish soul, giving every thought of mind and every movement of her body to service for her husband and children.

She was a slender, large-framed woman, with snow-white hair and a wrinkled, tired, though kindly face. The face was a happier one than when he first knew her;—then it seemed all joy had departed from it. She never whimpered or found fault or raised her voice in anger. She was a woman of few words and few tears. Her hands, while not those of a lady, were those of a capable, hard-working mother and had a touch of gentle softness for the cheek of those she loved. Only when Mary and Susie were both home did she find time to rest.

Caleb was even more an egotist than when a boy. When he did not talk about himself his other subject of discussion was the charms of his wife, yet John, and others thrown with him, discovered he was not a fool. Under the tutelage of his wife he was gradually acquiring another faculty or subject of conversation, and that was the power unstintedly to praise any vain person who might prove of service to him. He had improved in speech and knowledge, but by contact. He scarcely ever looked into a book, except to memorize a passage. He always carried a pocket dictionary and when an unfamiliar word was used in his presence, surreptitiously consulted it and, familiarizing himself with the meaning of the word, used it the first time occasion offered. If he once heard a thing he seemed never to forget it, nor a man's name or face. If his wife wrote out a speech and read it to him a couple of times it was his for delivery in practically her words. He struck John as a man devoid of conscience, yet, at first blush, of pleasant manner and appearance.

To John it seemed the years had made Rosamond nearer the Rosamond of his dream than the youthful Rosamond who had wandered over the hills with him and to whom he had made love. The thought occurred that Caleb must prove a strong and zealous contender for this world's honors to satisfy his wife's ambition, else he might lose his handsome wife to a greater champion. He spoke of this impression to Mary and she shared his view, though Rosamond was in no sense flirtatious.

"Mary, I love all your family, except John Calhoun."

"Well, John, you married me, not the family, though I would have been unhappy had you not liked mother, father and Susie."

"You must make your mother visit us as soon as we are settled. I believe she really needs the rest. I know that she and mother will be great friends and I know your father would like to put in a month hunting up old friends and knocking about the hills; he must come, too."

They remained at the Saylor homestead for three days. The night before they left for home, they were entertained by Mrs. John Calhoun Saylor, who was really proud of these two members of her husband's family and desired to exhibit them to the friends and relatives of the Clays.

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As the train drew near Harlan, winding in and out along the river and the foothills of Pine Mountain, Mary nestled close to John and, dreamily watching the big mountain, whose shadow was reflected in the deep pools of the river, said:

"I no longer call to you through space, John, wondering if you hear. Now we travel side by side our narrow, little way of life and read its meaning in each other's eyes. We will soon be home, John; and I for one am glad we are to live in the mountains. I love them more than plain, or rolling pasture, or woodland, or the sea. One of my favorite poems is:

"'Thou art a mountain stately and serene,
Rising majestic o'er each earthly thing,
And I a lake that 'round thy feet do cling,
Kissing thy garment's hem, unknown, unseen.
I tremble when the tempests darkly screen
Thy face from mine. I smile when sunbeams fling
Their bright arms 'round thee. When the blue heavens lean
Upon thy breast, I thrill with bliss, O king!
Thou canst not stoop—we are too far apart;
I may not climb to reach thy mighty heart;
Low at thy feet I am content to be.
But wouldst thou know how great thou art,
Bend thy proud head, my mountain love, and see
How all thy glories shine again in me.'"

"Will your mother be glad to see me, John? Will she fear I shall steal too much of her boy's love?"

"Mary, mother is a little, old woman with a wonderfully big, young heart and a grand soul filled with tenderness and grace and love. There's not a joy in all the world she would not share with you. When she shares your sorrows, night changes quickly to the dusk of morning and as the day comes they flit away like shadows on the dewy grass. When she sees you she will kiss you and cry a bit and call you 'John's wife' for a day and then it will be 'Mary dear.' Were you a stranger, whose name had never been mentioned, she would take you in, first for my sake, then love you for your own. One day I said: 'Mother, your aim in life seems to be to live for and wait on me.' 'No, John, my aim in life is to live like Him!' She has kept some of earth's clay out of my soul."

As the train pulled into the station, Mary surreptitiously powdered her nose. Mrs. Cornwall, Mrs. Neal, Duffield and several other friends were there to meet them.

Mrs. Cornwall seemed not to see John. As she took Mary in her arms she called her "John's wife"; they cried a wee bit and as she let her go, John heard her say "Mary dear"; and he knew his mother's heart approved of his wife. Then he kissed his mother and they greeted his other friends.

Mrs. Neal was greatly surprised at Mary's appearance. "Mrs. Cornwall, you really mean to tell me that she was born on Straight Creek?"

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CHAPTER XI.

Home Life.

Mrs. Cornwall, upon the receipt of the telegram notifying her of John's marriage, went to his room and taking Mary's photograph, carried it to the window and in the strong light of the June day studied the face.

Even under her critical analysis, that of a mother-in-law whose love was centered in her son and who believed that he was entitled to the world's best, the picture met her approbation.

She held it in her arms, as one who loved might have held the original; and after a few tears of mingled sadness and joy—sadness for what had gone from her life and joy for what she thought had come into her son's—and after a prayer that God would bless the union of her son and this woman, making their life long and true and completing their happiness by giving them sweet children to make the union one of body and soul, she carried it down to her parlor and placed it on the center table beside that of her son's, wreathing and clustering them round with deep-red, velvety roses from the garden, and each day until they came gathered fresh ones, replacing those that withered. She telegraphed her blessing and love to them both and wrote Mary a long letter, telling her how happy she should be to welcome her home as John's wife and her daughter.

Though Mary several times had asked, John had told her very little about their home. She knew from descriptions Rosamond and Dorothy had given her that it was an attractive place. When they drove into the yard and up to the porch with its colonial pillars and the old-fashioned, arched doorway, he could see that she was artistically satisfied.

Then as they passed through the portal into the hall and the double parlors, she gave voice to her appreciation.

"Mrs. Cornwall, you have made the house indeed a home. No wonder John was so near remaining a bachelor. You made him entirely too comfortable; he will expect too much. John, see how your mother has bordered our photographs with roses."

"I hope you and John will be pleased with your rooms. If they are not just what you wish, satisfy yourselves; the house is large enough. Mary, you know the house is yours. I have been after John for ten years to marry and give me a chance to shift the responsibility of housekeeper to younger shoulders."

"You know they say comparisons are odious. I am sure if you were to force me to assume instant charge, John would never believe I could make a good housekeeper. Were the house inartistic or disordered, I might be tempted to do so, but everything is so harmonious, so comfortable, so home-like, that I must serve a long apprenticeship before you should force the responsibility upon me. You know I have been a teacher; I must be gradually taught housekeeping, and in the meantime am to be your daughter as John is your boy."

"Mother, when did you have all this done?"

"The day after I received your telegram I sent to Louisville and had Mr. Strassel come up; he, Mrs. Neal and I redecorated and refurnished these rooms for Mary."

"You have been very thoughtful. John, your mother has not given up her rooms for us, has she? If so, we must refuse to take them."

"No, one of them was mine; the other was a spare bedroom."

"Please come to this window. What a happy view, the garden, the river, the valley, the fields of grain and the distant, blue mountains! John, I love your mother and my home most as much as I do you!"

The neighbors and friends of the Cornwalls were very kind to Mary. She grew to be very fond of Mrs. Neal and Mrs. Duffield. Duffield, several years before, had married Helen Creech.

Mary was just beginning to feel thoroughly at home, and under Mrs. Cornwall's tutelage and diplomacy unconsciously assuming charge as mistress of the house, which was not so hard, as she had an efficient maid and had always helped her mother, when Dorothy and Bradford came on from Pittsburgh. Ever since their marriage they had spent the month of August with Mrs. Neal.

After their arrival they, with John and Mary, began wandering about the hills and playing the part of lovers as they had done years before, though the Bradfords were somewhat hampered in their rambles by a little son whom they had christened John Durrett Bradford.

Rosamond, who knew that the Bradfords were visiting Mrs. Neal, telegraphed Mary that she and her husband were coming to make her a visit, leaving home on the 12th of August; they would remain ten days. She answered, expressing her pleasure, and asked that they bring her mother with them.

While it was a matter of no importance to John Calhoun and, therefore, he made no objection, his wife refused to bring her, saying: "We will not mention that we intend going to her. She can go after we return. I am going on a pleasure trip; not to look after an old woman."

When they arrived, Mary was greatly disappointed that her mother had not come. When told by Rosamond that they had not asked her mother because she did not look well and the trip might prove too trying, she was worried about her mother's health and immediately wrote her sister.

In answer, her sister said: "Mother was very much disappointed when she learned John and Rosamond had gone to visit you, as had she known, she would have come with them. She is perfectly well and it is quite evident to me that they did not want her with them. You need not be surprised at anything that pair do."

John Calhoun did not care to wander about the hills or picnic along the river bank with his wife, saying: "I had enough of climbing hills and basket meetings when a boy." His wife accompanied Mary and John on their rambles, while he loafed around the hotel and the court house, making friends and acquaintances, or rode over to the mines, cultivating the miners and discussing politics with them.

He had acquired the knack under his wife's tutelage of beginning an argument with a man and gradually coming around to his antagonist's way of thinking; complimenting his opponent upon his way of making a difficult question clear. He would tell him: "Now I understand it for the first time. I was wrong, you are right." Thereupon he and his opponent usually began a sort of Alphonse and Gaston species of concessions which ended in Saylor convincing the man to his way of thinking. His wife said it was the Clay way of persuasion.

Several days after Rosamond and her husband arrived, John's mother had a slight illness which kept Mary at home. Rosamond insisted on continuing the rambles which had been planned, and her husband refusing to accompany her, John was forced to do so.

Thus, in a way, the relations of more than a half-dozen years before were re-established. When they were with Dorothy and Bradford she insisted on going where they with their little, two-year-old boy could not go, and in this way managed that she and John were much together.

When they passed some place she remembered from her former rambles of the years before, she had a way of recalling it and saying: "It was here, John, we sat on the rock and you brought me water from the spring in a cup of leaves; let's do it again for old-time's sake. It was here, John, we seined the minnows; it was here you taught me the jack-knife dive; it was here you picked me up, oh, so tenderly! and with so much anxious solicitude, I have half a mind to fall again" until John grew timid, and the next time begged Mary to come with them, and when she said it was impossible, sought to keep with the other members of the party, but Rosamond was the better manager and their solitary rambles continued.

A day or two before she was to return home, as they sat resting on a moss-grown rock in a secluded cove far up the mountainside, she placed her hand over John's and said:

"Tell me, John, what you were going to ask the night of the dance so many years ago, when you brought me out to the arbor and we found Dorothy and Howard Bradford there?"

"I thought I loved you and was going to ask you to be my wife."

"Why didn't you, John—do; didn't you love me?"

"I had a horrid dream about you and before I recovered from it you became offended and returned home. I never saw you afterwards until Mary and I were married."

"So you let a dream shatter my dreams of love and happiness."

"You should not say that, Rosamond. You are married and to a man of your own choosing and I to the wife of my choice."

"Mine was a marriage of convenience; I did it believing that I could manage my husband and, with even the crude material at hand, make a man. I am regretting it even now after less than four months. He either has less sense than I thought or is harder to manage. I do not even respect him and if you were still single and wished it, I could get a divorce. Why did you not follow me home, John? That's what I expected you to do."

"Don't; such talk is not right and you must not say such things to me. Even though I loved you once, I now love only one woman in the world and that is Mary. Were we both single, I could not marry you unless Mary was married to some other man. There is no use talking about such things; they are a forgotten past. I shall not go out with you again; I dare not; you are a fascinating woman and the old love might return."

"You coward!"

John rose from his seat and, deathly pale, walked ahead of Rosamond down the mountainside and she, pale and trembling with anger, followed after. Neither spoke until they joined Dorothy and Bradford under some old elms near the river.

From that day until the Saylors left for home John was too busy at the office for any more rambles. Rosamond was ill-tempered and spent most of her time in her room. When her door was opened the quiet of the house was occasionally disturbed by loud-voiced wrangling with her husband; though in the presence of strangers she always greeted him in a gently modulated voice and with a smile.

The following spring the Pittsburgh Coal & Coke Company sold out to a Detroit manufacturer of automobiles and John was instrumental in closing the deal. As fee and profit on the sale of his stock in the company he realized a little more than twenty-three thousand dollars.

He was retained by the new company as their local counsel at a salary of three thousand dollars and from his other business realized an income of four thousand dollars more. This seemed to be about the limit of earning capacity in the little, mountain city, though he and his wife never thought of moving. They were both satisfied and loved the mountains and their neighbors. Their mother was content where her children, John and Mary, were.

In the fall of 1911 he was the Democratic elector from the Eleventh Congressional District and made a few speeches which attracted some little attention. The following summer he was offered and declined the Assistant United States District Attorneyship for the Eastern Kentucky District.

On the 12th day of May, 1910, his thirty-eighth birthday, his wife presented him with a son. After a discussion lasting several days, in which he and Mary had less to say than his mother or Mrs. Neal or Mrs. Simeon Saylor, who was visiting her daughter, the boy was christened John Saylor Cornwall; and to avoid confusion in an otherwise quiet and well-regulated household, was called Saylor.

His father called him "Sailor Boy" and wanted to take him down to the river to sail toy boats before he cut his stomach teeth but the boy's grandmothers would not permit it.

The two grandmothers were constantly quarrelling as to who should hold John Saylor Cornwall, while the baby was either crying to go to his father or squirming to get down and crawl on the floor.

His grandfather, who was now Colonel Simeon Saylor (i. e., by courtesy, since he was quite an extensive land-owner), began to think that John Saylor Cornwall in the years to come might grow to be almost as great as his Uncle John Calhoun, who was now Congressman from the Eighth District.

He began telling the boy how great he was going to be until his mother put a stop to it by threatening to send him home before the boy's second birthday, the celebration of which event the grandfather and two grandmothers looked forward to with excited expectancy, as he was the only grandchild in either family.

On his second birthday he was showered with presents. Everybody remembered him, except his Aunt Rosamond. She left the Cornwall family alone after her visit in August, following the marriage of John and Mary.

She was now in Washington with her husband; or, as some of her friends put it, she was in Washington, accompanied by her husband.

As a politician, he was not in her class. She some time since had ceased in her attempts to gratify ambition by reflective honors from her husband and had marched forth under the leadership of Mrs. Catt as a most trusted lieutenant. She was head of the Woman's Suffrage Organization of Kentucky; was in great demand as a public speaker and heralded by an extensive following as the probable successor of Mrs. Catt in the fight for the emancipation of women.

Her husband, in spite of his distinguished air and faculty as a personal press agent, was slowly losing his identity. He was not infrequently referred to, particularly in Washington, as the husband of Mrs. Rosamond Clay Saylor.

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On the way home from his visit. Grandpa Saylor stopped off at Pineville and spent a day or two on the head of Straight Creek with his former neighbors.

The old home place was occupied by Jim Helton, who, when he sold his land to the coal company, moved into the Saylor house. He spent a day with the Heltons; he even visited the old cliff-house still and at twilight started down the creek for Pineville. In the valley it was very dark, as the moon had not yet risen above the mountain.

When opposite Elhannon Howard's, the horse he was riding stumbled over something in the middle of the road and horse and rider were hurled over the bank into the creek. Elhannon, hearing the noise made by the horse floundering around in the water and old man Saylor swearing, came out bearing a flaming pine knot, and the two old enemies faced each other.

Saylor's horse had stumbled over one of Elhannon's cows asleep in the road and the frightened cow, struggling to her feet, had thrown horse and rider over the bank. The rider was unhurt, but the horse's right foreleg was broken.

"Damn you, Elhannon, why don't you and your wife sleep out in the middle of the road, too. You will certainly pay for that horse and my wetting. I am too old to fight you, but I will law you in Squire Ingram's court."

"All right, Sim Saylor; I'll be thar."

"And if I lose thar, I'll take it to the Circuit Court."

"All right, Sim Saylor, I'll be thar."

"And if I lose in the Circuit Court, I'll take it to the Court of Appeals."

"All right, Sim Saylor; I'll be thar."

"And if I lose in the Court of Appeals, I'll take it to hell, the next place."

"All right, Sim Saylor, I won't be thar, but my lawyer will. Keep on your shirt, Sim, and come into the house. The old woman can make you comfortable for the night."

They went to the house and Mr. Saylor took off his wet clothes and went to bed. When he awoke the next morning they hung on a chair, dry and nicely cleaned; there was even a fashionable crease down the trouser legs. Elhannon's dude son had pressed them for him.

As he and Elhannon sat at breakfast they talked about the bees and the old Southdown ram which several years before had been gathered to his fathers, leaving several noble scions behind.

When breakfast was over Elhannon's boy, the dude, drove up in front of the house in a buckboard, and Saylor climbed in beside him. As the boy started off Elhannon called: "Look here, dood, don't drive that horse over any cows in the road."

Old man Saylor laughed and called back: "You and I are too old to law; you settle with old man Samuels for his horse and we'll call it square. You and the old woman come down to the fair and stop with us."

"All right, Sim Saylor; I'll be thar; so long and good luck."

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