the kind I like,
and the seats in the cyar was as comfortable as any chair I ever set
in, and I jest leaned back and looked out o' the winder and thought
about the times when I'd ride to town with father, when I was a little
child, and father'd take care of me and p'int out the sights to me
like Henrietta and Archibald did that day.
"I reckon Kentuckians are the biggest fools in the world over their
own State. Sam Amos used to say if you'd set a born-and-bred
Kentuckian down in the Gyarden of Eden he'd begin to brag about his
farm over in the blue-grass; and you jest ride from here to Lexin'ton
about the first o' June, what Abram used to call 'clover and
blue-grass time,' and if you are a Kentuckian, you'll thank God, and
if you ain't a Kentuckian, you'll wish you was.
"There's a heap of good to be got out of travelin', honey. One thing
is, I won't have to go back thirty or forty years to find somethin' to
talk about when you come to see me. Even if I hadn't seen Henrietta or
Henrietta's home, the things I saw on the way from here to Lexin'ton
will keep me talkin' the rest o' my days and make me happier jest to
think of 'em. Such farms and hills and trees and orchards, and such
level corn-fields, oat-fields and pretty rollin' land in between 'em I
know can't be seen anywhere but in Kentucky.
"I couldn't help thinkin' of old man Mose Elrod. His farm j'ined the
Amos farm, and a better piece o' land you couldn't 'a' found; but he
had a cousin down in Texas, and the cousin kept writin' to him about
the soil o' Texas and the climate o' Texas and the money there was to
be made there, till finally old man Mose got the Texas fever and sold
out and moved down in the neighborhood o' San Antonio. Every now and
then he'd write home, and from what he said we judged he was
prosperin' and feelin' contented in his new home; but in about a year
and a half here he come, walkin' in and takin' the neighbors by
surprise. He went all over the neighborhood shakin' hands and tellin'
folks how glad he was to be back again. Says he, 'I've been homesick
night and day for eighteen months, and all the money in Texas couldn't
keep me away from Kentucky any longer.'
"He said he set up all night on the cyars so's the conductor would
tell him when he got on Kentucky soil, and the nearer he got home the
happier he got, and when the brakeman hollered, 'Muldraughs Hill!' he
jumped up, threw up his hat, and hollered, 'Glory! Hallelujah!' Of
cours
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