In the years that followed, the pair--already come to be called Pap
Overholt and Aunt Cornely--well fulfilled the old doctor's prophecy. The
very next year after their baby was laid away, John's older brother, Jeff,
lost his wife, and the three little children Mandy left were brought at
once to them, remaining in peace and welfare for something over a year
(Jeff was a circumspect widower), making the place blithe with their
laughter and their play. Then their father married, and they were taken to
the new home. He was an Overholt too, and shared that powerful paternal
instinct with John. Three times this thing happened. Three times Jeff
buried a wife, and the little Jeff Overholts, with recruited ranks, were
brought to Aunt Cornelia and Pap John. When Jeff married his fourth
wife--Zulena Spivey, a powerful, vital, affluent creature, of an unusual
type for the mountains,--and the children (there were nine of them by this
time) went to live with their step-mother, whose physique and disposition
promised a longer tenure than any of her predecessors, Pap and Aunt
Cornelia sat upon the lonely hearth and assured each other with tears that
never again would they take into their home and their lives, as their very
own, any children upon whom they could have no sure claim.
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