Gordon Keith - Thomas Nelson Page

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Keith's observation had not Ferdy Wickersham answered it in some haste.

      "She went after the cows," he said, with a quick look at her, "and I went fishing, but I did not catch anything."

      "I thought, Phrony, I saw you in the orchard," said her mother.

      Wickersham looked at her quickly again.

      "No, she wasn't in the orchard," he said, "for I was there."

      "No, I wasn't in the orchard this evening," said Euphronia. "I went after the cows." She looked down in her plate.

      Keith ate the rest of his supper in silence. He could not tell on Ferdy; that would not be "square." He consulted his mentor, his chief, who simply laughed at him.

      "Leave 'em alone," he counselled. "I guess she knew how to lie before he came. Ferdy has some sense. And we are going to leave for the mountains in a little while. I am only waiting to bring the old squire around."

      Gordon shook his head.

      "My father says you mistake his hospitality for yielding," he said. "You will never get him to consent to your plan."

      Rhodes laughed.

      "Oh, won't I! I have had these old countrymen to deal with before. Just give them time and show them the greenbacks. He will come around. Wait until I dangle the shekels before him."

      But Mr. Rhodes found that in that provincial field there were some things stronger than shekels. And among these were prejudices. The more the young engineer talked, the more obstinate appeared the old countryman.

      "I raise cattle," he said in final answer to all his eloquence.

      "Raise cattle! You can make more by raising coal in one year than you can by raising cattle all your life. Why, you have the richest mineral country back here almost in the world," said the young diplomat, persuasively.

      "And that's the reason I want to keep the railroads out," said the squire, puffing quietly. "I don't want the Yankees to come down and take it away from us."

      Rhodes laughed. "I'd like to see any one take anything from you. They will develop it for you."

      "I never seen anybody develop anything for another man, leastways a Yankee," said Squire Rawson, reflectively.

      Just then Ferdy chipped in. He was tired of being left out.

      "My father'll come down here and show you old mossbacks a thing or two," he laughed.

      The old man turned his eyes on him slowly. Ferdy was not a favorite with him. For one thing, he played on the piano. But there were other reasons.

      "Who is your father, son?" The squire drew a long whiff from his pipe.

      "Aaron Wickersham of Wickersham & Company, who is setting up the chips for this railroad. We are going to run through here and make it one of the greatest lines of the country."

      "Oh, you're goin' to run it! From the way you talked I thought maybe you had run it. Was a man named Aaron once thought he knew more 'bout runnin' a' expedition than his brother did. Ever heard what became of him?"

      "No," said Ferdy.

      "Well, he run some of 'em in the ground. He didn't have sense to know the difference between a calf and God."

      Ferdy flushed.

      "Well, my old man knows enough to run this railroad. He has run bigger things than this."

      "If he knows as much as his son, he knows a lot. He ought to be able to run the world." And the squire turned back to Rhodes:

      "What are you goin' to do, my son, when you've done all you say you're goin' to do for us? You will be too good to live among them Yankees; you will have to come back here, I reckon."

      "No; I'm going to marry and settle down," said Rhodes, jestingly. "Maybe I'll come back here sometime just to receive your thanks for showing you how benighted you were before I came, and for the advice I gave you."

      "He is trying to marry a rich woman," said Ferdy, at which Rhodes flushed a little.

      The old man took no notice of the interruption.

      "Well, you must," he said to Rhodes, his eyes resting on him benevolently. "You must come back sometime and see me. I love to hear a young man talk who knows it all. But you take my advice, my son; don't marry no rich man's daughter. They will always think they have done you a favor, and they will try to make you think so too, even if your wife don't do it. You take warnin' by me. When I married, I had just sixteen dollars and my wife she had seventeen, and I give you my word I have never heard the last of that one dollar from that day to this."

      Rhodes laughed and said he would remember his advice.

      "Sometimes I think," said the old man, "I have mistaken my callin'. I was built to give advice to other folks, and instid of that they have been givin' me advice all my life. It's in and about the only thing I ever had given me, except physic."

      The night before the party left, Ferdy packed his kit with the rest; but the next morning he was sick in his bed. His pulse was not quick, but he complained of pains in every limb. Dr. Balsam came over to see him, but could find nothing serious the matter. He, however, advised Rhodes to leave him behind. So, Ferdy stayed at Squire Rawson's all the time that the party was in the mountains. But he wrote his father that he was studying.

      During the time that Rhodes's party was in the mountains Squire Rawson rode about with them examining lands, inspecting coal-beds, and adding much to the success of the undertaking.

      He appeared to be interested mainly in hunting up cattle, and after he had introduced the engineers and secured the tardy consent of the landowners for them to make a survey, he would spend hours haggling over a few head of mountain cattle, or riding around through the mountains looking for others.

      Many a farmer who met the first advances of the stranger with stony opposition yielded amicably enough after old Rawson had spent an hour or two looking at his "cattle," or had conversed with him and his weather-beaten wife about the "craps" and the "child'en."

      "You are a miracle!" declared young Rhodes, with sincere admiration. "How do you manage it?"

      The old countryman accepted the compliment with becoming modesty.

      "Oh, no; ain't no miracle about it. All I know I learned at the Ridge College, and from an old uncle of mine, and in the war. He used to say, 'Adam, don't be a fool; learn the difference between cattle.' Now, before you come, I didn't know nothin' about all them fureign countries--they was sort of vague, like the New Jerusalem--or about coal. You've told me all about that. I had an idea that it was all made jest so,--jest as we find it,--as the Bible says 'twas; but you know a lot--more than Moses knowed, and he was 'skilled in all the learnin' of the Egyptians.' You haven't taken to cattle quite as kindly as I'd 'a' liked, but you know a lot about coal. Learn the difference between cattle, my son. There's a sight o' difference between 'em."

      Rhodes declared that he would remember his advice, and the two parted with mutual esteem.

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      The young engineer, on his return to New York, made a report to his employer. He said that the mineral resources were simply enormous, and were lying in sight for any one to pick up who knew how to deal with the people to whom they belonged. They could be had almost for the asking. But he added this statement: that the legislative charters would hardly hold, and even if they did, it would take an army to maintain what they gave against

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