“Young man, I ain’t runnin’ John Davis’s business, an’ he ain’t runnin’ mine. If you want that land at twenty dollars an acre, you can have it. If you don’t, you can let it alone. I shan’t take a cent more nor less.” Continuing to protest, the agent drew from his pocket a blank contract of purchase and began to fill it up, drawing his chair to the little three-cornered porch stand. Poising his pen in his hand, he looked up at the old man appealingly:-- “Let’s make it two hundred dollars, Mr. Pickett. Really, I--” But Abner Pickett interrupted him impatiently:-- “I’ve told you what’s what. If you want the property at my figure, get your paper ready an’ I’ll sign it; if you don’t want it, say so an’ don’t waste any more o’ my time.” That settled it. The contract was completed, and duly signed and sealed by Abner Pickett. When he had done this, he turned slowly to the agent:-- [Illustration: Signing the Contract.] “Now, I want to tell you just one thing, young man,” he said; “your company sent their engineers here an’ laid out their railroad in a scientific an’ gentlemanly way. They had consideration for me an’ for my property. An’ above all else--far an’ away above all else--they had respect an’ reverence for the dead. When they came to my graveyard they turned aside an’ ran around it, didn’t they?” “Really, Mr. Pickett, I am not familiar with the details of the location. But you have seen the stakes set by the engineers, haven’t you? Well, those stakes mark the centre line of the right of way you are selling to us.” “Very good. But if your engineers had staked a line through my graveyard, regardless of the rights o’ the livin’, or the reverence due the dead, they couldn’t ’a’ bought a square inch o’ my land for all the money they could ’a’ piled on my farm. An’ what’s more, I’d ’a’ lawed ’em, an’ jawed ’em, an’ fought ’em from now till the crack o’ doom. That’s all. Good day!”