The Tollivers were of good blood;
they had come from Eastern Virginia, and the original Tolliver had
been a slave-owner. The very name was, undoubtedly, a corruption
of Tagliaferro. So, when the Widow Crane began to build a brick
house for her boarders that winter, and the foundations of a
school-house were laid at the Gap, Hale began to plead with old
Judd to allow June to go over to the Gap and go to school, but the
old man was firm in refusal:
"He couldn't git along without her," he said; "he was afeerd he'd
lose her, an' he reckoned June was a-larnin' enough without goin'
to school--she was a-studyin' them leetle books o' hers so hard."
But as his confidence in Hale grew and as Hale stated his
intention to take an option on the old man's coal lands, he could
see that Devil Judd, though his answer never varied, was
considering the question seriously.
Through the winter, then, Hale made occasional trips to Lonesome
Cove and bided his time. Often he met young Dave Tolliver there,
but the boy usually left when Hale came, and if Hale was already
there, he kept outside the house, until the engineer was gone.
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