The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today

d of large blocks, called the "stile," in fr

bout the landscape to indicate it-but it did: a mountain that stretched abroad over whole counties, and rose very gradually. The dist

stepped in and out over their bodies. Rubbish was scattered about the grassless yard; a bench stood near the door with a tin wash basin on it and a pail of water and a gourd; a cat had be

mong the tall pine trees and among the corn-fields in such a way that a man might stand in the midst o

ens always must have titles of some sort, and so the usual courtesy had been extended to Hawkins. The mail was monthly, and sometimes amounted to as much as three

r of flowers, the murmur of bees was in the air, there was everywhere that suggestion of repose that summer wood

que than otherwise, for they were made of tolerably fanciful patterns of calico-a fashion which prevails thereto this day among those of the community who have tastes above the common level and are able to afford style. Every individual arrived with his hands in his pockets; a hand came out occasionally for a purpose, but it always went back again after service; and if it was the head that was served, just the cant that the dilapidated straw hat got by being uplifted and rooted under, was retained until the next call altered the inclination; many hats were pr

gan to show itself, and one after another they climbed up and occupied the top rail of the fence, hump-shouldered

s 'bout the jedge,

oreckly, and some thinks 'e hain't. Russ Mosely he tote ole H

and I hain't got no place for to put 'em. If the jedge is a gwyne to hol

dead that had lit on a weed seven feet away. One after another the several chewers expressed a c

own 'bout the Forks?"

ouri-lots uv 'ems talkin' that-away down thar, Ole Higgins say. Cain't make a livin' here no mo', sich times as these. Si Higgins he's ben over to Kaintuck n' married a high-toned gal thar, outen the fust families, an' he's come back to the Forks with j

s plas

gwyne to hang out in no sich a dern hole like a hog. Says it's mud, or some sich k

was a dog-fight over in the neighborhood of the blacksmith shop, and the visitors slid off their

etter. Then he sighed, and sat long

ell, well, well, every

st he

yard, everything around me, in fact, shows' that I am becoming

nt into the kitchen. His wife was there, constructing some dried apple pies; a slovenly urchin of ten was dreaming over a rude weather-vane of his own contriving; his small sister, close upon four years of age, was sopping corn-bread in some gravy left in the bottom of a frying-pan and

ait. I am going to Missouri. I won't stay in this dead country and decay with it. I've had it on my mind sometime. I'm

nd the children can't be any worse off in

and his face lighted. "Do you see these papers? Well, they are evidence that I have taken up Seventy-five Thousand Acres of Land in this

dness sa

en these animals here how to discern the gold mine that's glaring under their noses. Now all that is necessary to hold this land and keep it in the family is to pay the trifling taxes on it yearly-five or ten dollars-the whole tract would not sell for over a third of a cent an

f course you did. You've heard these cattle here scoff at them and call them lies and humbugs,-but they're not lies and humbugs, they're a reality and they're going to be a more wonderful thing some day t

ey burn? Coal!" [He bent over and whispered again:] "There's world-worlds of it on this land! You know that black stuff that crops out of the bank of the branch?-well, that's it. You've taken it for rocks; so has every body here; and they've built little dams and such things with it. One man was going to build a chimney out of it. Nancy I expect I turned as white as a sheet! Why, it might have caught fire and told everything. I showed him it was too crumbly. Then he was going to build it of copper ore-splendid yellow forty-per-cent. ore! There's fortunes upon fortunes of copper ore on our land! It scared me to death, the idea of this fool starting a smelting furnace in his house without knowing it, and getting his dull eyes opened. And then he was going to build it of iron ore! There's mountains of iron ore here, Nancy-whole mountains of it. I wouldn't take any chances

of your place, here, among these groping dumb creatures. We will find a higher place, where you can walk with your own kind, and be understood when you speak-not stared at as if you were talk

cy. Far from it. I have a letter from Beriah Sellers-just

through her mind. Saying nothing aloud, she sat with her hands in her lap; now and then she clasped them, then unclasped them, then tapped the ends of the fingers toget

s his head full of a new notion, he can out-talk a machine. He'll make anybody believe in that notion that'll listen to him ten minutes-why I do believe he would make a deaf and dumb man believe in it and get beside himself, if you only set him where he could see his eyes tally and watch his hands explain. What a head he has got! When he got up that idea there in Virginia of buying up whole loads of negroes in Delaware and Virginia and Tennessee, very quiet, having papers drawn to have them delivered at a place in Alabama and take them and pay for them, away yonder at a certain time, and then in the meantime get a law made stopping everybody from selling negroes to the south after a certain day-it was somehow that w

world; and how him and Si did sit up nights working at it with the curtains down and me watching to see if any neighbors were about. The man did honestly believe there was a fortune in that black gummy oil that stews out of the bank Si says is coal; and he refined it himself till it was like water

had any trouble in his life-didn't know it if he had. It's always sunrise with that man, and fine and blazing, at that-never gets noon, though-leaves off and rises again. Nobody can help liking the creature, he means so well-but I

he

patience with such tedious people.

ret it. It's the grandest country-the loveliest land-the purest atmosphere-I can't describe it; no pen can do it justice. And it's filling up, every day-people coming from everywhere. I've got the biggest scheme on earth-and I'll

y, Nancy, jest the sa

the old sound about his voice yet.

rse, and, chances haven't been kind to us, I'll admit-but what

me low and

eath away, the Hawkinses hurried through with their arrangements in four short months