LITMIR.BIZ

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I am done with that, forever and forever—"

      "Why no! You can't mean to say—"

      "My father, away back yonder, years ago, bought it for a blessing for his children, and—"

      "Indeed he did! Si Hawkins said to me—"

      "It proved a curse to him as long as he lived, and never a curse like it was inflicted upon any man's heirs—"

      "I'm bound to say there's more or less truth—"

      "It began to curse me when I was a baby, and it has cursed every hour of my life to this day—"

      "Lord, lord, but it's so! Time and again my wife—"

      "I depended on it all through my boyhood and never tried to do an honest stroke of work for my living—"

      "Right again—but then you—"

      "I have chased it years and years as children chase butterflies. We might all have been prosperous, now; we might all have been happy, all these heart-breaking years, if we had accepted our poverty at first and gone contentedly to work and built up our own wealth by our own toil and sweat—"

      "It's so, it's so; bless my soul, how often I've told Si Hawkins—"

      "Instead of that, we have suffered more than the damned themselves suffer! I loved my father, and I honor his memory and recognize his good intentions; but I grieve for his mistaken ideas of conferring happiness upon his children. I am going to begin my life over again, and begin it and end it with good solid work! I'll leave my children no Tennessee Land!"

      "Spoken like a man, sir, spoken like a man! Your hand, again my boy! And always remember that when a word of advice from Beriah Sellers can help, it is at your service. I'm going to begin again, too!"

      "Indeed!"

      "Yes, sir. I've seen enough to show me where my mistake was. The law is what I was born for. I shall begin the study of the law. Heavens and earth, but that Braham's a wonderful man—a wonderful man sir! Such a head! And such a way with him! But I could see that he was jealous of me. The little licks I got in in the course of my argument before the jury—"

      "Your argument! Why, you were a witness."

      "Oh, yes, to the popular eye, to the popular eye—but I knew when I was dropping information and when I was letting drive at the court with an insidious argument. But the court knew it, bless you, and weakened every time! And Braham knew it. I just reminded him of it in a quiet way, and its final result, and he said in a whisper, 'You did it, Colonel, you did it, sir—but keep it mum for my sake; and I'll tell you what you do,' says he, 'you go into the law, Col. Sellers—go into the law, sir; that's your native element!' And into the law the subscriber is going. There's worlds of money in it!—whole worlds of money! Practice first in Hawkeye, then in Jefferson, then in St. Louis, then in New York! In the metropolis of the western world! Climb, and climb, and climb—and wind up on the Supreme bench. Beriah Sellers, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, sir! A made man for all time and eternity! That's the way I block it out, sir—and it's as clear as day—clear as the rosy-morn!"

      Washington had heard little of this. The first reference to Laura's trial had brought the old dejection to his face again, and he stood gazing out of the window at nothing, lost in reverie.

      There was a knock-the postman handed in a letter. It was from Obedstown, East Tennessee, and was for Washington. He opened it. There was a note saying that enclosed he would please find a bill for the current year's taxes on the 75,000 acres of Tennessee Land belonging to the estate of Silas Hawkins, deceased, and added that the money must be paid within sixty days or the land would be sold at public auction for the taxes, as provided by law. The bill was for $180—something more than twice the market value of the land, perhaps.

      Washington hesitated. Doubts flitted through his mind. The old instinct came upon him to cling to the land just a little longer and give it one more chance. He walked the floor feverishly, his mind tortured by indecision. Presently he stopped, took out his pocket book and counted his money. Two hundred and thirty dollars—it was all he had in the world.

      "One hundred and eighty . . . . . . . from two hundred and thirty," he said to himself. "Fifty left . . . . . . It is enough to get me home . . . . . . . Shall I do it, or shall I not? . . . . I wish I had somebody to decide for me."

      The pocket book lay open in his hand, with Louise's small letter in view. His eye fell upon that, and it decided him.

      "It shall go for taxes," he said, "and never tempt me or mine any more!"

      He opened the window and stood there tearing the tax bill to bits and watching the breeze waft them away, till all were gone.

      "The spell is broken, the life-long curse is ended!" he said. "Let us go."

      The baggage wagon had arrived; five minutes later the two friends were mounted upon their luggage in it, and rattling off toward the station, the Colonel endeavoring to sing "Homeward Bound," a song whose words he knew, but whose tune, as he rendered it, was a trial to auditors.

      Chapter LXII.

       Table of Contents

      Philip Sterling's circumstances were becoming straightened. The prospect was gloomy. His long siege of unproductive labor was beginning to tell upon his spirits; but what told still more upon them was the undeniable fact that the promise of ultimate success diminished every day, now. That is to say, the tunnel had reached a point in the hill which was considerably beyond where the coal vein should pass (according to all his calculations) if there were a coal vein there; and so, every foot that the tunnel now progressed seemed to carry it further away from the object of the search.

      Sometimes he ventured to hope that he had made a mistake in estimating the direction which the vein should naturally take after crossing the valley and entering the hill. Upon such occasions he would go into the nearest mine on the vein he was hunting for, and once more get the bearings of the deposit and mark out its probable course; but the result was the same every time; his tunnel had manifestly pierced beyond the natural point of junction; and then his spirits fell a little lower. His men had already lost faith, and he often overheard them saying it was perfectly plain that there was no coal in the hill.

      Foremen and laborers from neighboring mines, and no end of experienced loafers from the village, visited the tunnel from time to time, and their verdicts were always the same and always disheartening—"No coal in that hill." Now and then Philip would sit down and think it all over and wonder what the mystery meant; then he would go into the tunnel and ask the men if there were no signs yet? None—always "none."

      He would bring out a piece of rock and examine it, and say to himself, "It is limestone—it has crinoids and corals in it—the rock is right" Then he would throw it down with a sigh, and say, "But that is nothing; where coal is, limestone with these fossils in it is pretty certain to lie against its foot casing; but it does not necessarily follow that where this peculiar rock is coal must lie above it or beyond it; this sign is not sufficient."

      The thought usually followed:—"There is one infallible sign—if I could only strike that!"

      Three or four times in as many weeks he said to himself, "Am I a visionary? I must be a visionary; everybody is in these days; everybody chases butterflies: everybody seeks sudden fortune and will not lay one up by slow toil. This is not right, I will discharge the men and go at some honest work. There is no coal here. What a fool I have been; I will give it up."

      But he never could do it. A half hour of profound thinking always followed; and at the end of it he was sure to get up and straighten himself and say: "There is coal there; I will not give it up; and coal or no coal I will drive the tunnel clear through the hill; I will not surrender while I am alive."

      He never thought

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