Frances Hodgson Burnett

Seth Frances Hodgson Burnett

He came in one evening at sun set with the empty coal-train?his dull young face pale and heavy-eyed with weariness, his corduroy suit dusty and travel-stained, his worldly possessions tied up in the smallest of handkerchief bundles and slung upon the stick resting on his shoulder?and naturally his first appearance attracted some attention among the loungers about the shed dignified by the title of "dépôt." I say "naturally," because arrivals upon the trains to Black Creek were so scarce as to be regarded as curiosities; which again might be said to be natural. The line to the mines had been in existence two months, since the English company had taken them in hand and pushed the matter through with an energy startling to, and not exactly approved by, the majority of good East Tennesseeans. After the first week or so of arrivals?principally Welsh and English miners, with an occasional Irishman?the trains had returned daily to the Creek without a passenger; and accordingly this one created some trifling sensation.