"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.