The Law of the Land | Page 8

an' makin' us walk three mile of a hot mornin' to git a pail o' melk to
make up some co'hn bread. You call that a help, do you, Jim Bowles?
You may, but I don't an' I hain't a-goin' to. I got some sense, I reckon.
Railroad! Help! Huh!"
Jim Bowles crept stealthily a little farther away on his own side of the
board-pile, whither it seemed his wife could not quite so readily follow
him with her transfixing gaze.
"Well, now, Sar' Ann," said he, "the Cunnel done tol' me hit was all
right. He said some of ouah stock like enough git kilt, 'cause you know
these heah bottoms is growed up so close like, with cane an' all that,
that any sort of critters like to git out where it's open, so's they kin sort
o' look around like, you know. Why, I done seen four deer trails whils'
we was a-comin' up this mawnin', and I seen whah a b'ah had come out
an' stood on the track. Now, as fer cows, an' as fer niggers, why, it
stands to reason that some of them is shore goin' to git kilt, that's all."
"An' you men is goin' to stand that from the railroad? Why don't you
make them pay for whut gits kilt?"
"Well, now, Sar' Ann," said her husband, conciliatorily, "that's just
whut I was goin' to say. The time the fust man come down through
heah to talk about buildin' the railroad, he done said, like I tol' you
Cunnel Blount said, that we might git some stock kilt fer a little while,
till things kind o' got used to it, you know; but he 'lowed that the
railroad would sort o' pay for anything that got kilt like, you know."
"Pay! The railroad goin' to pay you!" Again the remorseless sunbonnet
followed its victim and fixed him with its focus. "Pay you! I didn't
notice no money layin' on the track where we come along this mawnin',

did you? Yes, I reckon it's goin' to pay you, a whole heap!" The scorn
of this utterance was limitless, and Jim Bowles felt his insignificance in
the untenable position which he had assumed.
"Well, I dunno," said he, vaguely, and sighed softly; all of which
irritated Mrs. Bowles to such an extent that she flounced suddenly
around to get a better gaze upon her master. In this movement, her foot
struck the pail of milk which had been sitting near, and overturned it.
"Jinny," she called out, "you, Jinny!"
"Yassam," replied Jinny, from some place on the gallery.
"Come heah," said Mrs. Bowles. "Git me another pail o' melk. I done
spilled this one."
"Yassam," replied Jinny, and presently returned with the refilled vessel.
"Well, anyway," said Jim Bowles at length, rising and standing with
hands in pockets, inside the edge of the shade line of the evergreens, "I
heard that thah was a man come down through heah a few days ago. He
was sort of takin' count o' the critters that done got kilt by the railroad
kyahs."
"That so?" said Sarah Ann, somewhat mollified.
"I reckon so," said Jim Bowles. "I 'lowed I'd ast Cunnel Blount 'bout
that sometime. 0' co'se it don't bring Muley back, but then---"
"No, hit don't," said Sarah Ann, resuming her original position. "And
our little Sim, he just loved that Muley cow, little Sim, he did," she
mourned.
"Say, Jim Bowles, do you heah me?"--this with a sudden flirt of the
sunbonnet in an agony of actual fear. "Why, Jim Bowles, do you know
that ouah little Sim might be a-playin' out thah in front of ouah house,
on to that railroad track, at this very minute? S'pose, s'posen--along
comes that thah railroad train! Say, man, whut you standin' there in that

thah shade fer? We got to go! We got to git home! Come right along
this minute, er we may be too late."
And so, smitten by this sudden thought, they gathered themselves
together as best they might and started toward the railroad for their
return. Even as they did so there appeared upon the northern horizon a
wreath of smoke rising above the forest. There was the far-off sound of
a whistle, deadened by the heavy intervening vegetation; and presently,
there puffed into view one of the railroad trains still new upon this
region. Iconoclastic, modern, strenuous, it wabbled unevenly over the
new-laid rails up to the station-house, where it paused for a few
moments ere it resumed its wheezing way to the southward. The two
visitors at the Big House gazed at it open-mouthed for a time, until all
at once her former thought crossed the woman's mind. She turned upon
her husband.
"Thah it goes! Thah it goes!" she cried. "Right