Humoring the sick woman, she contented herself with showing the many articles about the house which she herself had made with her own hands—counterpanes and quilts, cloth woven on her own hand-loom. There were a few things which she declared must have come “acrosst the mountings”; that is to say, they must have been brought in by her ancestors in the first migration over the Appalachians. A book or two—strangely enough, an old Latin grammar—remained of these belongings.
“I kain’t read in none of ‘em,” admitted Granny Williams. “Some of my folks mought have been able to onct, but none of us kin read or write.
“Do ye reckon, Ma’am,” she added, “that when the railroad comes we’ll be able to buy calico an’ jeans in the stores? Hit’s powerful slow weavin’ cloth, though I will say it wears longer’n anything what ye kin buy.... How old was ye when ye first begun to spin, Ma’am?”
“I never did,” said Marcia Haddon. “I can’t even knit.”
“Well, ‘pears like ye must be powerful triflin’,” said Granny Williams candidly, plying her own needles with renewed zeal at the moment.
Marcia Haddon looked at her suddenly. “I believe you’re right, Granny!” said she.
“That new railroad,” resumed the old lady, presently, “hit’s a-goin’ to change a power of things in these valleys. I always said that if it actual come in here, I was a-goin’ to take one ride on it if it kilt me. Plenty of our folks is a-skeered to go on the railroad keers. Now, thar was Preacher Bonnell—he went Outside, an’ he taken a ride on them railroad keers, an’ it liken to been the eend on him. He tolt us all about it when he come back.
“Preacher Bonnell was a-ridin’ along in the keers with his haid outen the winder, an’ he seen a place bigger’n a house, a regular black hole in the side of the hill, an’ the engyne an’ all them keers a-headin’ right straight fer it. He knowed in a minute the Devil had a holt of the engyne, an’ that this here was the Bottomless Pit whar he was a-goin’ to take all them people. Preacher Bonnell, he up an’ give one whoop, an’ off he jumped. He rolled down on the bank more’n fifty feet, an’ when he come to be looked up, an’ thar wasn’t nary sign of the engyne or them keers! They had went right inter the Pit, like he had knowed they would. Preacher Bonnell, he said it war a leadin’ to him nuvver to go on no more railroad keers. He says something about that every sermon he preaches nowadays. He warns us all agin them keers. I don’t see how ye ever had the heart, Ma’am, to ride on them things, weak an’ triflin’ as ye seem mostly. Fact is, what made ye come in here anyways, Ma’am?”
“It was my husband—you know he was one of the officers of the Company that owns so much land around here. I had met Mr. Joslin before. He went to New York with us two years ago.”