Well, that public confession was the climax of that year of events in the Cool Spring settlement, if I except the wedding at Mr. Jesse Crow's, later in the season, when house and yard overflowed with guests, and all united in giving a kindly hand and a hearty word to the bridegroom. Bill Sanders was not present. He had gone out West to seek a new home, and let us hope that he was in time as happy as Tom Fannin and his wife, once the belle of Cool Spring settlement—Bet Crow.
SILURY.
STORY OF A MOONSHINER'S DAUGHTER.
Silury Cole threw a fresh pine-knot on the fire and stepped to the door to peer out into the night, listening intently for the first sound of her father's footsteps on the hard mountain road. For two days the revenue officers had been abroad on the mountains, and the hearts of women and children were heavy with terror and dread.
The rich pine kindled, burnt into vivid flame, throwing its light upon the girl from head to foot, on her smooth hair, black as the night, on the profile of her face, denoting unusual character for a girl of fourteen, and on her primitively fashioned gown of blue checked cotton.
The rioting flames, filling the black cavernous depths of the fireplace, lighted up the low room also, throwing grotesque shadows behind the loom and spinning-wheel, lingering round the flaxen heads of the three children asleep on the low trundle bed, glancing over the basket of corn ready to be shelled for the miller, and over the table and simple preparations for supper.
Mrs. Cole sat in the corner at one end of the flat stone hearth, smoking and silently brooding. She was a small, sickly looking woman with sunken eyes and sharp, delicate features. She leaned forward with her chin resting in one hand, staring into the fire. A stick of wood burned apart and fell softly to the coals underneath. She started and glanced at Silury.
"Is he comin', Silury?"
"Not yet, ma."
She refilled her pipe and laid a glowing coal on it, shaking her head slowly.