The Heart of the Hills

The Heart Of The Hills, by John
Fox, Jr.

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Title: The Heart Of The Hills
Author: John Fox, Jr.

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THE HEART OF THE HILLS
By John Fox, Jr.
Author of "The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come," "The Trail of the
Lonesome Pine," Etc.
With Four Illustrations By F. C. YOHN

IN GRATEFUL MEMORY OF MY FATHER
WHO LOVED THE GREAT MOTHER, HER FORMS, HER MOODS,
HER WAYS.
TO THE END SHE LEFT HIM THE JOY OF YOUTH IN THE
COMING OF SPRING
June 28, 1912.

THE HEART OF THE HILLS

I
Twin spirals of blue smoke rose on either side of the spur, crept
tendril-like up two dark ravines, and clearing the feathery green crests
of the trees, drifted lazily on upward until, high above, they melted
shyly together and into the haze that veiled the drowsy face of the
mountain.
Each rose from a little log cabin clinging to the side of a little hollow at
the head of a little creek. About each cabin was a rickety fence, a patch
of garden, and a little cleared hill-side, rocky, full of stumps, and
crazily traced with thin green spears of corn. On one hill-side a man
was at work with a hoe, and on the other, over the spur, a boy--both
barefooted, and both in patched jean trousers upheld by a single
suspender that made a wet line over a sweaty cotton shirt: the man, tall,
lean, swarthy, grim; the boy grim and dark, too, and with a face that
was prematurely aged. At the man's cabin a little girl in purple
homespun was hurrying in and out the back door clearing up after the
noonday meal; at the boy's, a comely woman with masses of black hair
sat in the porch with her hands folded, and lifting her eyes now and
then to the top of the spur. Of a sudden the man impatiently threw
down his hoe, but through the battered straw hat that bobbed up and
down on the boy's head, one lock tossed on like a jetblack plume until
he reached the end of his straggling row of corn. There he straightened
up and brushed his earth-stained fingers across a dullred splotch on one
cheek of his sullen set face. His heavy lashes lifted and he looked long
at the woman on the porch-- looked without anger now and with a new
decision in his steady eyes. He was getting a little too big to be struck
by a woman, even if she were his own mother, and nothing like that
must happen again.
A woodpecker was impudently tapping the top of a dead burnt tree near
by, and the boy started to reach for a stone, but turned instead and went

doggedly to work on the next row, which took him to the lower corner
of the garden fence, where the ground was black and rich. There, as he
sank his hoe with the last stroke around the last hill of corn, a fat
fishing-worm wriggled under his very eyes, and the growing man
lapsed swiftly into the boy again. He gave another quick dig, the earth
gave up two more squirming treasures, and with a joyful gasp he stood
straight again--his eyes roving as though to search all creation for help
against the temptation that now was his. His mother had her face
uplifted toward the top of the spur; and following her gaze, he saw a
tall mountaineer slouching