Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight. Mathew Joseph Holt

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СКАЧАТЬ sera, Rogers avete tabacco meliore di questo?" (Good evening, Rogers, have you any tobacco better than this?—holding out a plug of long green.)

      To which Mr. Rogers understanding him, replied:

      "Caro ragazzo, voi mi annoiati oltre mode, buono notte." (My dear boy, you annoy me considerably, good night.)

      "Ma non debbo ancora." (But I am not going yet.)

      "Well you speak dago too, he's a great boy aint he, jest like his paw."

      "What mought yer bissiness be, Mr. Rogers?"

      "I am secretary of the Pittsburgh Coal & Coke Company."

      "Yaah, that's the new crowd what's come in hayr buying out the old settlers. I hearn you bought that old Boyd Dickinson survey. Well you didn't git much. They've been trying for nigh forty year to locate the beginning corner. The first time Cal Hurst and them surveyor men came prowlin' round hayr, we got two on them. How's that trial with the Davis heirs comin' on? Old Milt Yungthank at Pineville has looked ater their bissiniss fer nigh twenty year. He had Sim and some of the boys up thayr with Winchesters about two year ago."

      "Young feller, what's yer name?"

      "My name is Cornwall."

      "Ever been up heyr before? I was in yer town onct. I rid down to Livingston on the old gray mare, then took the train thar, toting my saddle bags on my arm. When I got off the train at the dee-pot, a nigger steps up and says ter me: 'Boss, give me yer verlisse.' He didn't get them saddle bags, you bet. I was too sharp for that. I went to a hotel somewheres. They stuck a big book under my nose and says, sign hayr. I done hearn tell of them confidence and lightnin' rod men and I signed nothin'. They sent me to a room with red carpyt on the floor and velvit cheers with flowers kinder scotched in them; and the man behind the counter gave the nigger a lamp and told him to cut off the gas. That nigger tried to take them saddle bags but I hung on, when he says, all right boss and left go. That place had a box lifter to it. After a while I got tired of settin' in that room and thought I would go out and see the town; so I locked the door and come down erbout forty steps to the front door. Then that first feller what wanted me ter sign the book says; Leave the key and saddle bags with me. I says, says I, You can have the key but no man gits holt of them saddle bags. It's a good thing I brung them erlong, fer I never did find that place ergin. I went erbout a quarter, when I met a smart feller and he says ter me; Old man, where're you gwinter show! I says right here, by gad! and I run my hand into them saddle bags and brung out my cap and ball. That feller shore broke the wind, he showed some speed. What moight yer bissiniss be?"

      "This is the first time I was ever up here. I'm a lawyer."

      "Yaah, one of them city lawyers; they tell me they is cute. I have had to do some lawing lately. Down the crick erbout a mile Elhannon Howard lives. Last winter I sold Elhannon a hawg on credit fer ten dollars like a dang fool and he wouldn't pay fer it, so I lawed him before Squire Ingram and got jedgment. That and the costs come ter fifteen dollars and a quarter. The Squire writ out an execution and I got the constable to levy on three hives of bees; the constable says that's all he's got what's exempt. We had a hell of a time moving them bees, then we had to move them back."

      "How was that?"

      "He got that lawyer from Pineville by the name of Marshall Bull-it and the squire thinks the sun rises whar that feller stands. The squire believed what that lawyer said and jedged that bees is poultry and the statute says poultry am exempt. I made up my mind that old Elhannon had to pay that jedgment so a couple of Sundays ago when they went to meetin', I slipped down to his house and took a look around, counting off what the statute said was exempt. He had jest what the law 'lowed him. He had jest one hoss, one yoke of oxen, Tom and Jerry, two cows and five sheep. One of them sheep was the finest Southdown ram you ever laid yer eye on. Monday morning before day I went out where my sheep was and there was a little crippled lamb about a day old. I picked it up and fotched it down to Elhannon's and drapped it over the fence into his little pasture, where his sheep were. Then I went down and got that constable and he come and executed on that ram. Elhannon killed and et one of his sheep, then he paid me up and took his ram back. If I had a thousand boys I wouldn't name narry dang one of them Elhannon. I got another little case what comes up next fall in the Bell Circit Court, 'taint much. I low ter pay a good young lawyer about twenty five bucks to git me off. 'Bout a month ago I shot Caleb Spencer as dead as a kit mackrel. I was going over Salt Trace to the mill on the river. When I got on top of the divide he raised up from behind a log about a hundred yards off and drew a bead on me. I saw him jest before he pulled and I dodged. The ball cut out this hole in my hat. I rid right peart, till I come to Gabe Perkins' then I hopped off my mule and, borrowing his Winchester, I come back the cut-off footpath. There set that cold-blooded bush-whacker on the same log, looking down the road the way I had kited, with his gun kinder restin' on his knees. I rested on a stump and took him square in the middle of the back. He gave a yell and jumped erbout five feet, but it was too late to jump. 'Taint nothing to it, a plain case of self-defense and 'parent necessity. But if you stay up in this country, I like yer looks and will give yer first chance on that easy money."

      "I thank you for the offer. It is worth at least five hundred dollars to undertake your defense; as it is not a case of self-defense and apparent necessity, as you seem to think. Much depends upon the jury in such a case. You need a good lawyer who will be well acquainted with the panel, else you may be sent to the penitentiary."

      "Son, you've got a lot to larn yit. Man alive! You folks have talked so much it's nigh erbout bed-time. Why that boy is asleep. Would you like to turn in?"

CHAPTER II.

      Cornwall Meets a Mountain Maid.

       Table of Contents

      After breakfast, at which the men were first served, Mr. Rogers, Cornwall, Mr. Saylor and Caleb, mounting their horses rode over Saylor's three hundred-acre survey and examined the two coal banks on the property; which only a short distance from the house had been opened and worked about twenty feet into the mountain, for home consumption. One was thirty-eight and the other fifty-two inches; the thick vein cropped out about twenty feet above the creek level, the other was at a higher level.

      After their examination they returned to the house and taking seats on the wash bench near the well, talked about every thing but the land of which Mr. Rogers and Saylor were thinking. Finally Mr. Rogers having waited some time for Mr. Saylor to begin, said:

      "If our company can buy the Brock and Helton surveys, we will give you thirty thousand dollars for your three hundred acres, or twenty thousand dollars for the mineral rights with timber and right-of-way privileges necessary to mine and remove the coal and such other minerals, oils and gas as may be found on the property."

      "By heck! my survey is worth three times that. When your company planks down fifty thousand in cold cash we will trade,—not before. Then I will buy one of them blue grass farms in sight of the distant blue mountains and an automobile and a pianny and give Caleb and little Susie a chance to go to the University at Lexington whar Tom Asher and that Hall boy goes. O Mandy! Mr. Rogers, hayr, just offered to gin me thirty thousand dollars for our old mountain home which we bought two year ago from old man Roberts for five thousand. I told him we would trade her off for fifty thousand; not such bad intrust for a mountain yahoo and his old woman, He! Mandy! When that trade goes through; and they are bound to take her, you can have one of them silk dresses what shows black and blue and red and green; and Mary all the books and pot flowers and pictures she wants. What do you say to that, Mary?" just as Mary stepped from the kitchen to fill the СКАЧАТЬ