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I

By Sarah Barnwell Elliott

Author of "Jerry"

"But when I saw that woman's face,
Its calm simplicity of grace-

IT had been a wild morning up among the Cumberlands. A March morning full of rain, of clouds that veiled the mountains. and of wind that tore the clouds to shreds. But at the turn of the day the wind had fallen. The great masses of trees that purpled the mountain-side from base to apex had ceased their tossing, and stood in dark monotony, save when a gray cliff thrust itself out, or a wild, snow-swollen stream dashed its spray toward the sky as it flung itself down into the valley.

The shadows are gathering early over a little valley known as "Lost Cove." On all sides the mountains rise about it in soft, sweeping curves, until they stand out against the sky a level, unbroken line. There is little of rugged wildness in these old mountains, for no stormy outburst marked their birth. They stand the perfect work of the ages. Their gray old faces looked out across the slow silurian sea, whose wandering waves began the patient work of denudation.

No rugged wildness, but a silent grandeur of repose smoothes every curve of every spur that stretches out across the plain, and a great unspoken

dignity lives in the straight sky line that marks the summit.

On three sides the mountains guard Lost Cove, on the fourth the barrier that shuts this basin from the world is lowered. But though lowered, the little stream that through all the years had hollowed out Lost Cove, found here an obstacle that its patient zeal could not remove. It could not rise above it-it could not wear it through, and so it sank, and burrowing deep among the "hidden bases of the hills,' found victory and freedom. From out the black-browed cave it flashed again into the glad sunshine, with a mocking laugh for the barring cliffs that rose two hundred feet above it, to face the eastern sun.

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Near the upper end of the Cove, which is nearly a mile long, there stands a house built of squared logs, carefully morticed at the corners, and neatly "chinked" with plaster. Seventy years ago it was built by the first Warren, as a defense as well as a shelter. Three rooms, a lobby, a loft, and two piazzas make the extent of it. A room either side the lobby that connects the front and back piazzas, and from which a rough stairway leads up to the loft. The third room is made by boarding in the end of the back piazza, and through its single window a modern cookingstove pushes its pipe. The floors look worn with scrubbing, the small, deep

set windows shine like eyes, and the great stone chimneys that grace either end of the house, look as if there for eternity. Around the house built is a rough picket-fence; within this enclosure there are some cedar-trees, some common rose bushes, some chickens and some much-scratched grass. Beyond, and rising and falling with the swells of the mountain, is a rail fence which shuts in from the public road the lot where the hogs, and cows, and horses are kept, and where stand the few out-buildings. From the lower end of this outer lot, the fields stretch down the Cove to where the stream sinks, and a stately beech-grove crowns the rising ground. The public road from the mountains turns at Mr. Warren's gate, and zig-zags along these fields to the beech-wood, then it marches over the divide to the far-off valley.

A young woman leaned over the outer gate. The rain had ceased, and the wind came softly with a touch of spring. It would be clear on the morrow, the girl thought as she looked up from the shadows of the Cove to where the cloudbroken sunlight flashed and faded on the mountain-tops. A clear spring day, and as the warm wind swept by, her fair cheeks flushed with gladness for the coming spring.

The winter had been hard, and for the first time the Warrens had felt themselves poor. This girl's father had been killed a few months before, and she and her grandparents had had to fight through the cold weather alone. And now, as she waited for the cows, the touch of warmth in the wind brought to her mind a new problem-the planting. Some help would have to be hired, and where was the money? They had bacon, and apples, and potatoes that could be sold-if she could take them to the town on top the mountain. The color flamed into her face; she had never "peddled" in her life! Her grandfather was held fast by rheumatism, and her grandmother would far rather starve than go on such an errand.

Presently a cow-bell clanked, and down the mountain-side, in dignified procession, came the rough, long-legged, patient-eyed cows. The girl roused herself with a sigh, and holding the big

gate open, remembered one more article that could be sold-butter.

She fetched two wooden piggins, white with scouring, and some fodder, then brought the cows in one at a time to the inner lot. She moved with the deliberation of age, and milked with patient sedateness. This quietness was a class-habit, but increased in this girl's case through her having lived always with old people; and now the heavy responsibilities that crowded upon her seemed to have banished all youthful

ness.

The Warrens had always been well-todo, making at home almost everything they needed. After his sons left him the old man had been quite able to carry on the place, and before his strength failed his eldest son had returned with his motherless baby, Hannah. So there had been little need for money until now, when, her father dead and her grandfather disabled, Hannah needed to hire help. She might have paid in kind, but everybody that she knew made all they needed. The only people she had ever heard of who bought everything and saved nothing, were these new people on the mountain, who were held throughout the country to be strangely "lackin'" Old Mrs. Warren pronounced them "darn fools, a-settin' round with books in their hands."

The milking done, Hannah took the pails into the kitchen. With the same lack of haste she stirred the fire under the kettle, opened the oven to look at the corn-bread, strained the milk, then taking up an axe went into the back-yard. Her face grew graver as she looked at the wood-pile; she would have to go for more to-morrow, and she sighed as she pulled a log into position for cutting.

There was an outlet from all this. She could marry her cousin Si Durket. She would rather cut wood all day! And the axe swung into the air with an ease and swiftness scarcely to be looked for from a woman.

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It was low, and the walls, finished up to the rafters with wood, were painted gray, spattered with white. A pine bedstead, with tall posts and piled into a dumpling with feather-beds, filled one corner. In another corner there stood a high chest of drawers, above which hung a spotted looking-glass and some peacock feathers. A spinning-wheel, a small table full of dusty odds and ends, a large rocking-chair covered with a patchwork quilt, and a few splintbottomed chairs, finished the furnishing of the room. In the rocking-chair, close to the great fireplace, sat an old man, and an old woman stood near a window catching the last light on her work.

She had been a handsome woman once, and, like Hannah, was tall, but here the likeness ended. Mrs. Warren's face was sharp and hard, the girl's face was grave and strong; Mrs. Warren's eyes were keen, while Hannah's eyes were thoughtful, almost sad. Further, Mrs. Warren's temper and tongue were famous, while Hannah seemed still and gentle. Perhaps time was needed to reveal Hannah; perhaps the temper of her grandmother had made her esteem peace as the greatest good. Each son had had to take his wife away, and Hannah's father had only come back after his wife's death, when, seeing that his father needed him, he stayed. A gentle, patient man, he could put up with the temper his mother, whose maiden name had been Durket, was proud to call the "Durket sperret." With regard to his child, he knew that no real harm would come to any creature absolutely dependent on his mother. "Her own" meant a great deal to Mrs. Warren. Her sons' wives she had looked on as aliens. The kitchen stove introduced by one of these unworthies had caused the final breaking up of the family. The young woman had declared the open fireplace to be old-fashioned, and her husband bought

the stove. The "Durket sperret" could not stand this, and the young people had to go, but not the stove; Mrs. Warren kept that, and for the future vented much of her superfluous wrath on it.

As Hannah entered, Mrs. Warren turned sharply:

"I wonder you don't git tired a-playin' nigger, Hannah Warren," was her greeting. The girl put down and arranged the wood before she answered:

"Thar is wuss things," then stood looking down into the fire. Straight as a young poplar, with the grace and roundness of perfect strength and youth in every curve, Hannah, in her scant black frock, was dowered with a beauty rare in any class. A grave, clear-cut face, waving brown hair taken straight back and twisted in a knot, a full throat that showed exquisitely white where the little faded shawl fell away from it, and hands that, if hard and brown, were very shapely.

Her grandmother looked at her intently as she stood there, and grumbled a little under her breath.

"Ain't you none better, Gramper?" Hannah asked pityingly of the old man, bent nearly double in his chair.

"I'm some easier," he answered, patiently, "but I'm tore up a-steddyin' 'bout the crap."

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The crap wouldn't count if Hannah had a shavin' o' sense," the old woman struck in sharply.

"Supper's ready, Granny," Hannah said, and left the room.

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You pesters Hannah moren human, Mertildy," the old man suggested, mildly;" an' she a good gal."

"I reckon I knows my own flesh an' blood, John Warren," his wife retorted; "an' but fur you, I'd larn her some sense, or know why. Si Durket's my own brether's son, an' as good as Hannah Warren will ever git. He's got a plenty, an' is free-handed an' hearty, an' he'll do to look at too. He's a Durket through an' through."

"All the same, Mertildy, Hannah don't favor Si."

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Mr. Warren shook his head "You've missed the furrer, Mertildy," he said; "tain't the yoke, hit's the tother steer thet's the trouble. The yoke is fur all, one way or anether, an' we gits our necks sorely galded, thet's true; but hit's the tother steer thet mostly gits us, an' Hannah shan't be yoked ginst her will. You worn't, Mertildy."

"I reckon the difference would abeen wore out by now, anyhow," Mrs. Warren answered, ungraciously, "an' I'd abeen jest as well pleased;" and she left the room.

For more than a year Si Durket had been courting his cousin Hannah. Hannah's father and grandfather had supported her in saying no, agreeing that a man who could strike his mother and curse his old father, was not to be desired; but Mrs. Warren championed Si vigorously. That a woman lived who could refuse a Durket, she would not believe. A Durket who would be rich when his father died, for there was much land and only two brothers to divide it; further, a Ďurket who had been to school. Mrs. Warren had a great contempt for education, nevertheless she urged Si's "larnin " as a point in his favor.

Another potent cause for Mrs. Warren's earnestness was that the wife of Si's brother Dave, a young woman from a town, had openly laughed at Si's choice of Hannah, a country girl who had never been out of Lost Cove a halfdozen times in her life, and who was poor compared with some girls Si might have won.

These considerations did not sway Si, but he was keen enough to repeat this speech to his Aunt Warren, who in her rage declared that Hannah should marry Si, if only "to down thet sassy hussy, Minervy!" And Si, seeing how work and poverty were pressing the girl, felt his hopes rise.

Mr. Warren was troubled for Hannah in the present crisis, still he felt that any work was better than marrying a man she despised. Hard work made rest sweet, he thought, as he sat by the fire weary and disabled; made any food seem good, and left a peaceful satisfaction when the day was done, when one could smoke one's pipe and think

of the long dark furrows, and the wellstacked wood-pile, and the cattle penned from harm, and think that when the winter came, there would be a plenty and to spare. Aye, work was a good friend. But now his son was gone, and he could do nothing. It was hard on the girl.

"He knocked hisn's mammy-he's hard." The musing ended aloud, and Hannah coming in with his supper, heard him.

"I'll never tuck him," she said, in her soft slow voice, as she put the cup and plate on a chair near the old man. "Si kin cuss, an' Granny kin blate, I'll tuck hit, but I'll never tuck Si." She kneeled on the hearth with her hands fallen together in front of her. "An' 'bout the crap, Gramper, I 'llows I kin git thet Dock Wilson what's come to the Cove to he'p me do the ploughin', an' Granny kin drap, an' I kin kivver."

"Don't say nothin' to Granny 'bout drappin', chile," the old man said, with patient experience in his voice, "hit 'll jest gie her anether handle to grind on."

"Jest so," Hannah responded; "but, Gramper, if Dock's like hisn's stepmammy he'll strike fur high wages."

"Thet's true as true, an' thar ain't no money."

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Thar's things to sell," Hannah suggested; "I could tuck ole Bess, an' pack truck to the 'versity." "Peddle!" the old man said, in a lowered tone; a Warren woman ped

dle?"

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Hit ain't no sin."

"No, but no Warren woman ain't never peddled yit-never yit!"

"You said onest that I could go," the girl persisted; "an' hits peddlin', or hirin' out, or marryin' Si, Gramper."

"That's true, gal; but I hates hit."

"No moren I do, Gramper." Then hearing a chair pushed back in the kitchen, she rose. "I'll hev to git wood to-morrer," she added, "but I'll go on Friday. Don't say nothin' to Granny."

Mr. Warren nodded, and Hannah taking the cup and plate, reached the door just as her grandmother entered. The cawfee's 'bout out," she said, "an' the sugar's right low too." "I knows hit, Granny."

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'An' if Hannah did tuck Si," Mr. Warren said, patiently, "hit'd leave us 'thout no help, Mertildy, fur thet gal is all we hes."

Mrs. Warren laughed. "Thet's easy fixed," she answered; "goin' to Si's is jest a-goin' home, an' you kin bet youuns hide I'd go."

"Then you'd leave me, Mertildy," and the old man straightened himself. "I couldn't rest under no shed but John Warren's, an' I won't, kase thar ain't no shed big enough for two famblies, nummine if thar's only one apiece in them famblies. Moren thet, thar ain't never been a Warren beholden to nobody fur a shelter yit, an' John Warren ain't gwine to start hit. If you goes, Mertildy, you'll leave ole John to his lone."

Mrs. Warren smoked furiously, and, "You're sappy yit," was all the answer she vouchsafed.

Pondering his wife's words, the old man began to see the wisdom of Hannah's plan, while Hannah, at her work, was busy devising ways for the carrying out of this same plan. The coffee and sugar made a good excuse for her journey to this new mountain town, that was a market for all the country. She could arrange her load in an outhouse, and leave before the old people were up. When she went for wood she would stop at the Wilsons and find out about the people and prices at Sewanee. She had been there as a sightseer, but never to peddle. There were worse things than peddling, however, and Si Durket was one.

II

"Ofttimes like children we are led to meet Our life-or driven like slaves by circum

stance.

And suddenly it crowds us down to earth!
And in the thick we have no time to cry,
Only to fight! Then all is still. And through
The deadly calm of peace we moan- Oh, fool!
Oh, fool! now all thy life is done—is done!'

Yet, still, like children we were led to it;
Or driven like slaves by lashing circumstance,
And knew not of the ambush waiting there."

Up this

Ar the time this story opens, the railway station, known as Sewanee, consisted of a few shops, the post-office, and one or two small houses, built about a barren square. From this a broad road led to the "University," the other end of Sewanee. road the butcher and shoemaker had planted some locust-trees in front of their shops, and beyond them the confectioner had laid a stone pavement for the length of his lot, and planted some maple-trees, that in the autumn burned like flames of fire. Beyond the confectioner's the road was in the woods for a short space, then more houses. About a half-mile from the station this road ended in another road that crossed it at right angles, and up and down this the University town was built.

Between the houses, between the public buildings, wherever any space was left free from carpenters and stonemasons, the forest marched up and claimed its own, while the houses looked as if they had been convinced of their obtrusiveness, and had crept as far back as possible, leaving their fences as protection to the forest, and not as the sign of a clearing.

Very still and bare the little place. looked on the gray March morning, when, under Mrs. Wilson's guidance, Hannah made her entrance as a pedler. Down the road beaten hard by the rain, and dotted here and there with clear little pools of water, Hannah led old Bess, bearing the long bags in the ends of which were bestowed the apples and potatoes, the bucket of butter being fastened to the saddle.

They had not stopped at the station, for Mrs. Wilson said the people in the town paid better prices.

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