And so Abner Pickett sat, that morning, and looked upon and listened to his own son, Dannie’s father, as he gave his testimony on the witness stand. Handsome, manly, frank in all his answers, the impression created by Charlie Pickett, both in the mind of the court and in the minds of the spectators, was a most favorable one. Long before he had finished there was not an unprejudiced person in the court room who was willing to believe, for a moment, the insinuation made by Nicholson that the D. V. & E. stakes had been removed under Pickett’s direction for the benefit of the T. & W. And when, on cross-examination, he was pressed to give his reason for going around instead of across the Pickett graveyard, he was content to reply simply that he understood that the right of eminent domain, conferred by the commonwealth of Pennsylvania upon railroad corporations, did not include the right to occupy burial-places. And Abner Pickett, who knew of his son’s far deeper reason for not crossing the graveyard, listened with bowed head, appreciating to the full the delicacy which so skilfully avoided the thrusting of personal and family sentiments and secrets before the court and the public. It was the first time in thirteen years that he had looked upon Charlie’s face. He could not help but observe how mature and manly the boy had grown; he could not help but admire his stalwart figure, his handsome countenance, his graceful bearing. He could not wholly repress the feeling of pride that would swell up in his heart as he looked upon this splendid specimen of young manhood, and listened to his answers, given with a quickness and rare intelligence not often found in the court room. “This is your boy,” something in his breast kept repeating to him; “this is your boy; this is _your_ boy.” And yet--and yet, for two days he sat with him in the same room, brushed past him in the corridor, could have reached out his arm at almost any moment and touched him, looked straight again and again into his appealing and eloquent eyes, and never gave the first sign or hint that he desired a reconciliation. Strange how stubbornness and obstinacy and the unforgiving spirit will rule the natures and thwart the happiness of men. Gabriel was called to the witness stand to testify to having seen Nicholson and his men set their stakes from the mouth of the gap westerly on the afternoon of September twenty-seventh. “Yes,” he replied, in answer to the lawyer’s question. “I seen ’em. They come straight from the gap acrost the graveyard an’ up into the potater field where I was workin’.” “Saw them set their stakes, did you?” “Ev’ry one of ’em; ’specially the one they hammered into the middle of the graveyard.” “Did you see any stakes in the gap that day?” “Not a stake. Wasn’t through the gap till the next mornin’. Then they was a plenty of ’em there; but not a sign of a stake in the graveyard. Wa’n’t that kind o’ queer?”