"Dum the dum things! I don't believe the's a fly in Freeland County that hain't danced the wild kachuky on my head sence we set here.

Be I much specked ?" he asked, as he bent his bald poll for her inspection.
"Oh, go 'long!" she cried, as she gave him a laughing push.
"'Mongst other-things," he resumed, when he had returned to his chair and relighted his cigar, "the' was a piece of about ten or twelve hunderd acres of land down in Pennsylvany havin' some coal on it, he told me he understood, but all the timber, ten inch an' over, 'd ben sold off.

He told me that his father's head clerk told him that the old gentleman had tried fer a long time to dispose of it; but it called fer too much to develop it, I guess; 't any rate he couldn't, an' John's got it to pay taxes on." "I shouldn't think it was wuth anythin' to him but jest a bill of expense," observed Mrs.Bixbee.
"Tain't now," said David, "an' mebbe won't be fer a good while; still, it's wuth somethin', an' I advised him to hold onto it on gen'ral princ'ples.

I don't know the pertic'ler prop'ty, of course," he continued, "but I do know somethin' of that section of country, fer I done a little prospectin' 'round there myself once on a time.

But it wa'n't in the oil territory them days, or wa'n't known to be, anyway." "But it's eatin' itself up with taxes, ain't it ?" objected Mrs.Bixbee.
"Wa'al," he replied, "it's free an' clear, an' the taxes ain't so very much--though they do stick it to an outside owner down there--an' the p'int is here: I've alwus thought they didn't drill deep enough in that section.