talk and plying him with questions as to what his
coal royalties had run to on this tract and what on that, in the space
of the past few years. With neither boast nor evasion, the old man
answered them.

"But, heavens above, Uncle Billy," exclaimed one of the visitors--(for
every man and child called him Uncle Billy--"An' I reckon," he said,
"ther houn-dawgs would too, if so be they had ther gift of speech").
"Heavens above, if you go on making money like that you'll be able to
sign a check for a million dollars before you end up!"

The storekeeper fished from the pocket of cotton overalls some crumbs of
"natural leaf" to rub between his leathery palms, and thrust them
greedily between his white-stubbled lips.

"I reckon, son," he answered drily as he once more shoved forward along
the counter the tin of crackers, "ef so be thar was any sich-like need,
I could back a bank-check fer thet much money terday."

His visitors sat up agaze, with "Vienny" sausages poised between tin-can
and lip, dripping grease on their khaki-clad knees.

At last one of them inquired in a dazed voice, "But why don't you live
like a rich man, Uncle Billy? Aren't you sick of this God-forsaken
desolation?"

Uncle Billy leaned with his elbows on his counter and seemed to be
giving the question judicial reflection. Finally he shook his head.

"A man's right apt ter weary of anything in due time, but I've always
lived hyar. I wouldn't hardly hev no ease in my mind no-whars else, I
reckon. I leaves all thet newfangled business ter my children an'
gran'children and I follers in the track of my fore-parents my own
self." He paused, then added with a note of defensive pride:

"Not thet I denies myself nothin' though. My old woman's got a brussels
cyarpet on ther floor upsta'rs right now an' a pianner thet hit tuck
four yoke of oxen ter team acrost ther mountings from ther railroad
cars."

"Would she play it for us, Uncle Billy?"

"Wa'al she kain't jest ter say play hit, yit, but she aims ter git
somebody ter l'arn her how some day--She l'arnt readin' an' writin' when
she war past three score."

Back in Marlin Town--a town now boasting sidewalks of concrete and a new
brick station, the fishermen saw the columned and porticoed mansions of
the old man's sons--and their thoughts went back to the store with its
bolts of calico, its harness, and above it the living quarters where
these children had been born.

For the wealth of that county in co