Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight Part 6

"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 h.e.l.l; got one of them hot-air things down in the cellar; she sh.o.r.e 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 gla.s.s. 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 Sat.u.r.day; 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 pa.s.sed 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.'"

CHAPTER VI.

CORNWALL BUYS A HOME.

About eight months after Cornwall settled in Harlan, an old brick house fronting the princ.i.p.al 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 a.s.sumed 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 gla.s.s, 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 ma.s.sive 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 part.i.tion 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 ap.r.o.n, climbed the trees or picked them from a ladder. I must have a sun bonnet again and some gingham ap.r.o.ns. 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 s...o...b..ll 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 G.o.d 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 amus.e.m.e.nts, 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."