The houses of Kentucky mountaineers are usually built upon a water
course. Every native family living on Cumberland River, or its forks or
tributaries, had a flock of geese which are kept to supply feathers for
their feather beds. The geese are rarely eaten. It is bad enough to be
plucked twice a year; the sensation is not pleasant and nights in the
mountains are cool.

Even sadder days were in store for the geese after the establishment of
the Jewish colony in Harlan; the average life of a goose is fifty years
and this for the Harlan County flock was considerably reduced. The
colony found no trouble in purchasing plucked geese at bargain prices
for food and grease.

Leo began his regular Sunday call on Rachael Rothchilds at 11 a. m. and
continued it without break or intermission until 11 o'clock every Sunday
night.

Rachael, during each of three winters, expended a month's salary buying
geese to feed Leo and he grew fat and slick, the sly, old fox, on
hot-baked goose for dinner and cold roast goose for supper. Every time
he sneezed she pressed upon him the gift of a jar of goose grease with
which to anoint his chest, and he blackened and sold it to his customers
for shoe oil.

Leo was slow and careful in making proposals and suggesting a wedding
day. For three long, suspensive years he called from two to three times
weekly upon the girl and each Sunday feasted upon the fat of Gooseland,
which is at the headwaters of the Cumberland River--all the while making
the girl believe that she was to be his wife, though she was made to
understand that the date was far ahead in the dim vistal future when his
financial position justified marrying one who bore the name of that
celebrated family of bankers. The day of the girl's contemplated
happiness might have been moved forward with satisfactory celerity had
not Leo inquired of his friend Simon, of Louisville, as to old man
Rothchild's bank account, and learned that he had nothing that sounded
like real money but his name, whereas to Leo a rich Jewess by any other
name would have seemed sweeter.

After the courtship had continued three years, the shoe merchant in
preparing for a fire sale left too many tracks in the snow. The fire
marshal reported that the fire was caused by an Israelite in the
basement and Leo, after many worries and the loss of his insurance,
sought other goose pastures.

In the early summer Cornwall wrote Howard Bradford, reminding him of his
promis