"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.'"
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."