ome the corn-crib of Elijah Pile, that stood across the
spring-branch and up the mountainside. It was a log crib, and they
chinked it with clay, and using split logs from the walls of the old
shed, a puncheon floor was made. The coming of spring brought the
blossoms of flowers the girl-wife had planted.

Honeysuckle and roses have bloomed around that cabin each succeeding
summer, and it proved the foundation of a home that was to withstand the
troubles of poverty in many winters. It was a home so rare and real that
it pulled back to the mountains a son who had gone out into the world
and won fame and the offers of fortunes for the deeds he had done as a
soldier.

William York, in his simple philosophy of life, disciplined himself, and
later his boys, to the theory that contentment was to be found in the
square deal and honest labor. He was so fair and just in all relations
with his neighbors that the people of the valley called him "Judge"
York; and his honesty was so rugged and impartial that not infrequently
was he left as sole arbiter even when his own interests were involved.
In talks by the roadside, at the gate of his humble home, seated on the
rocks that surround the spring, many a neighborhood dispute has been
settled that prejudice could have fanned into a lawsuit.

Yet William York never prospered, as prosperity is measured by the
accumulation of property, and it has been said of him that he "just
about succeeded in making a hard living."

He was farmer, blacksmith, hunter--a man of the mountains who found
pleasure in his skill with his rifle. But the memories of him that
linger in the valley, or those that are revived at the mention of his
name, are of him in the role of husband, father and friend.

The Civil War had scattered much of the wealth that Old Coonrod Pile had
accumulated and Elijah Pile had conserved. The number of heirs brought
long division to the realty and most of those who had benefited by the
inheritance were all left "land poor."

To Nancy Brooks, as her part, came the home the old "Long Hunter" had
built with such thoroughness and care, together with seventy-five acres
of land. This she left to her boy who had been named after his ill--
fated father--and he lives there to-day. To Mrs. York had been given
seventy-five acres, "part level and part hilly," that was the share of
her aunt, Polly Pile.

In the cave above the spring, which was Coonrod Pile's first home,
William York built