wa’n’t nothin’ for it but to come back here to Homeville an’ make the most o’ what the’ was left—­an’ that’s what he done, let alone that he didn’t make the most on’t to any pertic’ler extent.  Mis’ Cullom, his wife, wa’n’t no help to him.  She was a city woman an’ didn’t take to the country no way, but when she died it broke old Billy up wus ‘n ever.  She peaked an’ pined, an’ died when Billy P. was about fifteen or so.  Wa’al, Billy P. an’ the old man wrastled along somehow, an’ the boy went to collidge fer a year or so.  How they ever got along ‘s they did I dunno.  The’ was a story that some far-off relation left old Billy some money, an’ I guess that an’ what they got off’m what farms was left carried ’em along till Billy P. was twenty-five or so, an’ then he up an’ got married.  That was the crownin’ stroke,” remarked David.  “She was one o’ the village girls—­respectable folks, more ‘n ordinary good lookin’ an’ high steppin’, an’ had had some schoolin’.  But the old man was prouder ’n a cock-turkey, an’ thought nobody wa’n’t quite good enough fer Billy P., an’ all along kind o’ reckoned that he’d marry some money an’ git a new start.  But when he got married—­on the quiet, you know, cause he knowed the old man would kick—­wa’al, that killed the trick, an’ the old man into the bargain.  It took the gumption all out of him, an’ he didn’t live a year.  Wa’al, sir, it was curious, but, ’s I was told, putty much the hull village sided with the old man.  The Culloms was kind o’ kings in them days, an’ folks wa’n’t so one-man’s-good’s-anotherish as they be now.  They thought Billy P. done wrong, though they didn’t have nothin’ to say ‘gainst the girl neither—­an’ she’s very much respected, Mis’ Cullom is, an’ as fur’s I’m concerned, I’ve alwus guessed she kept Billy P. goin’ full as long ’s any one could.  But ’t wa’n’t no use—­that is to say, the sure thing come to pass.  He had a nom’nal title to a good deal o’ prop’ty, but the equity in most on’t if it had ben to be put up wa’n’t enough to pay fer the papers.  You see, the’ ain’t never ben no real cash value in farm prop’ty in these parts.  The’ ain’t ben hardly a dozen changes in farm titles, ’cept by inher’tance or foreclosure, in thirty years.  So Billy P. didn’t make no effort.  Int’rist’s one o’ them things that keeps right on nights an’ Sundays.  He jest had the deeds made out and handed ’em over when the time came to settle.  The’ was some village lots though that was clear, that fetched him in some money from time to time until they was all gone but one, an’ that’s the one Mis’ Cullom lives on now.  It was consid’able more’n a lot—­in fact, a putty sizable place.  She thought the sun rose an’ set where Billy P. was, but she took a crotchit in her head, and wouldn’t ever sign no papers fer that, an’ lucky fer him too.  The’ was a house on to it, an’ he had a roof over his head anyway when he died six or seven years after he married, an’ left her with a boy to raise.  How she got along all them years