all carried the bucket into the kitchen; at which Caleb, in
surprise, called out: "Dad, look! That city feller is helping Mary get
dinner."

After dinner, which Cornwall did not help get, rushing out of the
kitchen as soon as he could let go of the bucket handle, having heard
Caleb's remark; they rode over the Brock and Helton two hundred-acre
surveys and called at their homes.

Mr. Rogers contracted to purchase their land at one hundred dollars an
acre, the vendors executing bonds to convey, each receiving one thousand
dollars on the purchase price; the balance to be paid after a survey and
examination of their titles.

As they were riding home, Saylor saw a drunken man staggering down the
mountain side. When he had gotten out of sight, he dismounted and began
trailing him back up the mountain. Mr. Rogers called out, "The man went
the other way."

"Oh, I know that! I want to find out where he came from."

Saylor returned in a few minutes, his face beaming with a ruddy,
contented smile.

Then, in his usually talkative mood, he expressed his opinion of his
neighbors and the transaction in reference to their land. "There are two
more dang fools, who will move down in the blue grass and buy a farm and
be as much at home as a hoot owl on a dead snag in the noon day sun with
a flock of crows cawing at him. In about two years they will sell out to
some sharper and move back to some mountain cove or crick bottom and
start all over again; or when they gits their money they will hop the
train cars for Kansas and settle on a government claim twenty miles from
a drap of water; then mosey back here in about five years with nothing
but their kids, the old woman, two bony horses, a prairie schooner and a
yaller dog."

As they came in the door, Mary was just completing preparation for
supper. The table was made more attractive by a red figured table cloth
instead of the brown and white oil cloth one. In the center was a pot of
delicate ferns. The regular fare of corn bread, hog meat, corn field
beans, potatoes, sorghum and coffee, had been supplemented by some
nicely browned chicken, a roll of butter, biscuits and a dish of yellow
apples and red plums.

As they came to supper, a gentle rain began falling which continued long
into the night.

Cornwall, standing by his chair and noticing again that places were
prepared for the men only, said; "Mrs. Saylor, the rain makes it so cozy
and home-like, you, Miss Mary and Susie fix