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HICKORY HILL SETTLEMENT
Sy NARY E. SRYAN, Author of Nanch. Wild Work, Kildee, Uncle Ned’s White Child. Etc.
CHAPTER XIII.
HE three weeks that had passed since
Vera took up her abode at Hickory Hill,
had brought unmistakable improvement
to her in health and spirits.
“I declare Miss Vera,” said Mrs. Wig
gins, one morning when Vera came
down to breakfast, “Your eyes jes’ gits
brighter and your cheeks rounder ever’
day—”
T
Rob’s look told eloquently that he concurred in
his mother’s opinion. Vera’s letters to her mother
and Harvey were always cheerful, but Harvey chose
to believe she was not sincere.
“I know you are longing to throw up the sponge,
Vera,” he wrote, “but of course you won’t own it.
You won’t confess that you are disgusted with try
ing to make the young moonshiner idea shoot book
ward, when it would rather shoot ‘revenous.’ I re
member when you were a tot and Aunt Margaret
was distressed at having given you by mistake a
quinine tablet, instead of a peppermint drop; how
you bravely kept from making a wry face and de
clared the tablet wasn’t bitter —much. Well, you
are swallowing your Hickory Hill pill and smiling
just that way now, only you can’t fool your loving
coz, who wants you to come home and is counting
the days until Christmas brings you. Meantime,
I’m tackling the law manfully for your sake alone —
not for any love for legal lore or for old Rube —
I mean, my revered Uncle; Honorable Reuben Wal
ton. I went to see Aunt Margaret one evening this
week and found her playing whist with your vener
able suitor, the Judge. She was well, and looked
wonderfully young and pretty. I told them I had
just had such a nice letter from you. The Judge
looked daggers at me. Your mother said she had
a letter or a card from you almost every day, while
two poor little letters is the extent of your hand
writing vouchsafed to the poor fellow, who thinks
of you by day and dreams of you by night.”
In reply to this letter, Vera wrote: “Instead of
being disgusted with Hickory Hill, I find new beau
ties in it every day. I feel that ‘divine appeal of
the mountains,’ of which poets tell us. And the
people—my liking for them grows warmer as I
gain an insight into the sterling qualities that under
lie their unpolished exterior. Os the moonshiners,
I have as yet seen nothing, though I crave a sight
of this picturesque element of mountain citizenry.”
Vera had not only not seen any mountaineer, who
bore the reputation of being a moonshiner, but she
had not been able to learn anything about the secret
and carefully hidden “stills.” That they existed
some where in the caves and gorges of the moun
tains she felt sure, as she had several times de
tected the taint of whiskey on the breaths of two
of her larger boys—one of them the Dick Holly,
whom Miss Stokes, in a letter to Vera had told her
was the boy bully of the neighborhood.
One day, at noon recess, five mounted men, rode
past the school house, two of them in blue uni
forms.
They were regarded with scowling looks by the
larger boys and girls.
“It’s them revenous,” was muttered among them.
“They’re huntin’ Wolf Den,” said one. “Goody, they
can’t find it!” cried a small boy. “Es they do find
it,” said Dick Holly, “they’ll be sorry, for they’ll
feel the Wolf’s teeth afore they git into it.”
That evening, Vera learned from her landlady
that “Wolf’s Den” was a “still,” which was said to
. be in operation somewhere in the Hickory Hill
neighborhood. The revenue officers had hunted for
it without success.
“Is it near here?” Vera asked. Mrs. Wiggins
shook her head mysteriously. “Pears like none of
our folks don’t know,” she said. “There’s two hun
dred dollars offered to anybody that’ll show the
gov’ment spies whar it is, but it ain’t been pointed
out yit, an’ I dunno as they will. “Taint none of
their business no how. I ain’t upholdin’ whiskey.
My ole man hardly ever takes a drink and Rob
never teches it. It’s good for cramps in a body’s
stomich, but red pepper tea does jes’ as well. But
The Golden Age for November 18, 1909.
it makes my blood run hot, when I see them revenous
huntin’ down one of our folks with blood hounds and
a tramplin’ down ther craps an’ breakin’ up their
prop’ty an’ carryin’ em off to rot in jail; for jes’
doing what they fathers and grandfathers done afore
them, turnin’ a part of ther corn crap, into somethin’
they can sell to git money to buy shoes and clo’s
for their selves and their families. They made the
corn by their own sweat an’ they think they’ve a
right to use it to keep ther children from goin’ naked.
That’s the way they feels about it —them what so
po’ and has got such big famly’s specially.”
Vera understood that this bitterness against the
government for measures, which they regarded as
unjust and unwarranted, was inherited and engrained
in the minds of the mountaineers, even those who
did not believe it right to make or use whiskey. “It
can only be eradicated by education that will broaden
their minds and give them more enlightened views,”
she thought. “If the government were as wise as
it should be, it would give substantial help to in
dustrial schools in the mountains, that would teach
the young people trades and industries, and better
ways of farming and living. It would help the
women of the State in their work of establishing
these industrial schools, and the traveling library
and free lecture course. I believe all this will come
in time and I shall be thankful if I can help to
wards it ever so little.”
CHAPTER XIV.
For nearly a week, Vera did not encounter any
serious trouble in her school. She forebore to be
very strict. These mountain-nurtured young spirits
would not bear a too-tight hold of the reins. Her
methods followed the line of the old counsel, given
to wives concerning their lords:
“Be to their virtues ever kind,
Be to theii- faults a little blind.”
Sometimes she shut her eyes and ears to instances
of minor disobedience or of mischief that was not
malevolent. On one occasion, while she was occu
pied in explaining an arithmetic rule to one of the
pupils, a scream from one of the girls startled her
and looking up quickly, she saw Elsie Woods, the
most nervous girl in school, jumping up and down
in the middle of the room and screaming: “Take
it off; take it off,” as loudly as she could.
Vera went up to her, asking: what is it?” “Oh,
it’s a rat; it’s a rat!” cried the girl, shaking her
head from side to side.
It’s tied on to her pig tail; the boys that sets be
hind her done it,” explained little Mazingrace. True
enough, there was a live field mouse tied fast to the
end of Elsie’s long plait vs tow-colored hair, and
struggling frantically to get loose. When the pig
tail was not describing a circle in the air, it’s terri
fied owner whirled around, the mouse was making
its way with it, around the girl’s waist as far as its
length permitted. The other girls stood off at a
respectful distance, the feminine terror of a mouse,
keeping them from offering any assistance, while
the boys were convulsed with delight at the fun.
Vera caught the gyrating girl and untied the
mouse. Grasping it in her handkerchief, she carried
it to the window and set it free. She led the excited
girl to her seat and sat by her until she was quiet.
When she went back to her place, she stood by her
chair and said:
“Fun that does not harm any one is all right, but
when it causes distress to another, it ceases to be
funny; it is thus wrong and unmanly. I will not ask
which one of you boys played the trick upon Elsie
Wood. I do not want to know. I wish to think of
every one of you as a gentleman and one of the
chief traits of a gentleman is kindness and courtesy.”
The school room was still as a tomb when she took
her seat. The boys looked abashed, but not resent
ful. She hoped they had accepted the rebuke with
out any bitter feeling towards the rebuker.
For a week there was fairly good order in the
school; then, one day, directly after noen recess, a
girl who had gone to the water bueket te get a drink,
jumped back with distended eyes.
“There’s a live snake in the bucket,” she shrieked.
Instantly the school was in commotion. The girls
were on their feet; some of them starting to run out;
others going as near as they dared to the shelf on
which the bucket stood. One small boy ventured
close enough to peep into the bucket. “It’s er
squirmin’ roun’ an’ try in’ to git out,” he announced.
Vera stood up and said in her clear, vibrating voice.
“I wish the one who did this to take the bucket
out at once and empty it.”
No one stirred or spoke. A glance had showed
Vera that Will Haddey was not in the room. She
waited awhile, and finding she was not going to be
obeyed, she walked quietly to the water-shelf and
took hold of the brass handle of the bucket. Shud
dering, for she had a horror of snakes, she looked
into the vessel and saw the greenish-brown little
reptile squirming actively around in the few inches
of water, hindered from getting out by the shape of
the bucket, which, as is usual with cedar buckets,
was large at the bottom and slanted inward to the
smaller top.
Vera took the bucket to the door and threw the
water out, but as soon as the vessel was tilted, the
snake darted out upon her arm and squirmed up
ward towards her face. She clutched it in an instant
and threw it out, but not before it had turned its
head and bitten her on the back of her hand.
A little cry escaped her, followed by terrified ex
clamations. It’s bit her; the snake’s bit teacher on
the hand. Several of the girls screamed and the
boys rushed towards her. She waved them back;
she had recovered her self-composure. She was
deathly pale, but she did not speak. The pupils
obeyed her gesture, all of them but two, Will Hadden,
who had just come in and Leia Bond. Leia ran up,
caught hold of the bitten hand and carrying to her
mouth, sucked the wound thoroughly. Hadden tore
a strip from his handkerchief and tied it tightly
about Vera’s wrist. Then he took a piece of chewed
tobacco from his mouth and applying it to the wound,
bound it there with another strip of handkerchief.
“I don’t reckon ’twas a poisonous snake,” he said,
“but it’s well to take no risks; you’d better go right
home; let me get you my horse, Miss Weston.”
“No,” Vera said, “I do not believe the hurt is se
rious. I thank you, Will and Leia, for your prompt
kindness. I shall always remember it with grati
tude. There are only two lessons to hear before
time for dismissal; and the pupils will please come
to order and go on with their studies.”
“When the time came for dismissing school, the
teacher stood up and said: “Before we go,I wish to
say a few words to you. I often hear you, you boys
particularly, speak of a square deal in your play.
You are quite in earnest about being given a square
deal by your play-fellows. This is as it should be.
A square deal is what each one of us has a right
to expect from the other whether in business or in
play. Now I wish to tell you, that I, too, want a
squara deal; I want it from you. I came here to
teach you; you came here to be taught. lam giving
you the best I can offer; are you doing the same
by me? Are you giving me a square deal? Ask your
consciences. All of you know this is my first expe
rience with a school. My coming here was opposed
by my friends, but I would not be discouraged. I
came, and I am glad. The first day our school opened,
when I saw you big boys, I thought, now I will have
these large boys to help me by setting the others
examples in study and behavior. I had never had a
brother; I had always envied girls who had big
brothers to stand by them, and I said to myself: ‘This
is like having a lot of big brothers as standbys.’ Well,
I am not going to let a few misdoings make me give
up this idea. It is too good to give up; too good to
think of you big boys as brothers and helpers; you
big girls as sisters and patterns for the younger ones
of our school family. I am going to do my best
by you and you are going to give me a square deal.
Will you? I am sure you are all thinking ‘I will,’ but
it would be good to hear you say it.” She stopped,
and looked at them earnestly, a grave smile just
touching her mouth. Will Hadden’s rich baritone
beamed ent, “I will,” and his utterance was echoed
(Continued on Page 14.)
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