Stephen Leacock - "The Hohenzollerns in America"

Gabrielle E. Jackson - "Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home"

Leonard Huxley - "The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2"

George Meredith - "A Reading of Life, and Other Poems"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: The Heart Of The Hills

J >> John Fox, Jr. >> The Heart Of The Hills




An hour later Gray found Marjorie seated on a grape-vine bench
under honeysuckles in her mother's old-fashioned garden, among
flowers and bees. Jason had just told her good-by. For the last
time he had felt the clasp of her hand, had seen the tears in her
eyes, and now he was going for the last time through the fragrant
fields--his face set finally for the hills.

"Father is better, the county judge has waked up, and there is no
more danger from the night riders, and so I am going back to the
mountains now myself."

"Jason has just gone."

"I know."

"Back to Mavis?"

"I don't know."

Marjorie smiled with faint mischief and grew serious.

"I wonder if you have had the same experience, Gray, that I've had
with Mavis and Jason. There was never a time that I did not feel
in both a mysterious something that always baffled me--a barrier
that I couldn't pass, and knew I never could pass. I've felt it
with Mavis, even when we were together in my own room late at
night, talking our hearts to each other."

"I know--I've felt the same thing in Jason always."

"What is it?"

"I've heard John Burnham say it's a reserve, a reticence that all
primitive people have, especially mountaineers; a sort of Indian-
like stoicism, but less than the Indian's because the influences
that produce it--isolation, loneliness, companionship with
primitive wilds-have been a shorter while at work."

"That's what attracted me," said Marjorie frankly, "and I couldn't
help always trying to break it down--but I never did. Was--was
that what attracted you?" she asked naively.

"I don't know--but I felt it."

"And did you try to break it down?"

"No; it broke me down."

"Ah!" Marjorie looked very thoughtful for a moment. They were
getting perilously near the old theme now, and Gray was getting
grim and Marjorie petulant.

And then suddenly:

"Gray, did you ever ask Mavis to marry you?"

Gray reddened furiously and turned his face away.

"Yes," he said firmly. When he looked around again a hostile right
shoulder was pointing at him, and over the other shoulder the girl
was gazing at--he knew not what.

"Marjorie, you oughtn't to have asked me that. I can't explain
very well. I--" He stumbled and

He stopped, for the girl had turned astonished eyes upon him.

"Explain what?" she asked with demure wonder. "It's all right. I
came near asking Jason to marry me."

"Marjorie!" exploded Gray.

"Well!"

A negro boy burst down the path, panting:

"Miss Marjorie, yo' mother says you an' Mr. Gray got to come right
away."

Both sprang to their feet, Gray white and Marjorie's mischievous
face all quick remorse and tenderness. Together they went swiftly
up the walk and out to the stile where Gray's horse and buggy were
hitched, and without a word Marjorie, bareheaded as she was,
climbed into the buggy and they silently sped through the fields.

Mrs. Pendleton met them at the door, her face white and her hands
clenched tightly in front of her. Speechless with distress, she
motioned them toward the door of the sick-room, and when the old
colonel saw them coming together, his tired eyes showed such a
leap of happiness that Gray, knowing that he misunderstood, had
not the heart to undeceive him, and he looked helplessly to
Marjorie. But that extraordinary young woman's own eyes answered
the glad light in the colonel's, and taking bewildered Gray by the
hand she dropped with him on one knee by the bedside.

"Yes, Uncle Bob," Gray heard her say tenderly, "Gray's not going
back to the mountains. He's going to stay here with us, for you
and I need him."

The old man laid a hand on the bright head of each, his eyes
lighting with the happiness of his life's wish fulfilled, and
chokingly he murmured:

"My children--Gray--Marjorie." And then his eyes rose above them
to the woman who had glided in.

"Mary--look here."

She nodded, smiling tenderly, and Gray felt Marjorie rising to her
feet.

"Call us, mother," she whispered.

Both saw her kneel, and then they were alone in the big hallway,
and Gray, still dazed, was looking into Marjorie's eyes.

"Marjorie--Marjorie--do you--"

Her answer was a rush into his outstretched arms, and, locked
fast, they stood heart to heart until the door opened behind them.
Again hand in hand they kneeled side by side with the mother. The
colonel's eyes dimmed slowly with the coming darkness, the
smiling, pallid lips moved, and both leaned close to hear.

"Gray--Marjorie--Mary." His last glance turned from them to her,
rested there, and then came the last whisper:

"Our children."




XLIV

Jason did not meet young Aaron on the train, though as he neared
the county-seat he kept a close watch, whenever the train stopped
at a station, on both doors of his car, with his bag on the seat
in front of him unbuckled and unlocked. At the last station was
one Honeycutt lounging about, but plainly evasive of him. There
was a little group of Hawns about the Hawn store and hotel, and
more Honeycutts and Hawns on the other side of the street farther
down, but little Aaron did not appear. It seemed, as he learned a
few minutes later, that both factions were in town for the meeting
between Aaron and him, and later still he learned that young
Honeycutt loped into town after Jason had started up the river and
was much badgered about his late arrival. At the forks of the road
Jason turned toward the mines, for he had been casually told by
Arch Hawn that he would find his mother up that way. The old
circuit rider's wife threw her arms around the boy when he came to
her porch, and she smiled significantly when she told him that his
mother had walked over the spur that morning to take a look at her
old home, and that Mavis had gone with her.

Jason slowly climbed the spur. To his surprise he saw a spiral of
smoke ascending on the other side, just where he once used to see
it, but he did not hurry, for it might be coming from a miner's
cabin that had been built near the old place. On top of the spur,
however, he stopped-quite stunned. That smoke was coming out of
his mother's old chimney. There was a fence around the yard, which
was clear of weeds. The barn was rebuilt, there was a cow browsing
near it, and near her were three or four busily rooting pigs. And
stringing beans on the porch were his mother--and Mavis Hawn.
Jason shouted his bewilderment, and the two women lifted their
eyes. A high, shrill, glad answer came from his mother, who rose
to meet him, but Mavis sat where she was with idle hands.

"Mammy!" cried Jason, for there was a rich color in the pallid
face he had last seen, she looked years younger, and she was
smiling. It was all the doing of Arch Hawn--a generous impulse or
an act of justice long deferred.

"Why, Jason!" said his mother. "Arch is a-goin' to gimme back the
farm fer my use as long as I live."

And Mavis had left the old circuit rider and come to live with
her. The girl looked quiet, placid, content--only, for a moment,
she sank the deep lights of her eyes deep into his and the
scrutiny seemed to bring her peace, for she drew a long breath and
at him her eyes smiled. There was more when later Mavis had
strolled down toward the barn to leave the two alone.

"Is Mavis goin' to live with you all the time?"

"Hit looks like hit--she brought over ever'thing she has."

The mother smiled suddenly, looked to see that the girl was out of
sight, and then led the way into the house and up into the attic,
where she reached behind the rafters.

"Look hyeh," she said, and she pulled into sight the fishing-pole
and the old bow and arrow that Jason had given Mavis years and
years ago.

"She fetched 'em over when I wasn't hyeh an' HID 'em."

Slyly the mother watched her son's face, and though Jason said
nothing, she got her reward when she saw him color faintly. She
was too wise to say anything more herself, nor did she show any
consciousness when the three were together in the porch, nor make
any move to leave them alone. The two women went to their work
again, and while Mavis asked nothing, the mother plied Jason with
questions about Colonel and Mrs. Pendleton and Marjorie and Gray,
and had him tell about his graduating speech and Commencement Day.
The girl listened eagerly, though all the time her eyes were fixed
on her busy fingers, and when Jason told that Gray would most
likely come back to the hills, now that his father would get well,
she did not even lift her eyes and the calm of her face changed
not at all.

A little later Jason started back over to the mines. From the
corner of the yard he saw the path he used to follow when he was
digging for his big seam of coal. He passed his trysting-place
with Mavis on top of the spur, walled in now, as then, with laurel
and rhododendron. Again he felt the same pang of sympathy when he
saw her own cabin on the other side, tenanted now by negro miners.
Together their feet had beat every road, foot-path, trail, the
rocky bed of every little creek that interlaced in the great green
cup of the hills about him. So that all that day he walked with
memories and Mavis Hawn; all that day it was good to think that
his mother's home was hers, that he would find her there when his
day's work was done, and that she would be lonesome no more. And
it was a comfort when he went down the spur before sunset to see
her in the porch, to get her smile of welcome that for all her
calm sense of power seemed shy, to see her moving around the
house, helping his mother in the kitchen, and, after the old way,
waiting on him at the table. Jason slept in the loft of his
childhood that night, and again he pulled out the old bow and
arrow, bandling them gently and looking at them long. From his bed
he could look through the same little window out on the night. The
trees were full-leafed and as still as though sculptured from the
hill of broken shadows and flecks of moonlight that had paled on
their way through thin mists just rising. High from the tree-
trunks came the high vibrant whir of toads, the calls of katydids
were echoing through forest aisles, and from the ground crickets
chirped modestly upward. The peace and freshness and wildness of
it all! Ah, God, it was good to be home again!




XLV

Next day Jason carried over to Mavis and his mother the news of
the death of Colonel Pendleton, and while Mavis was shocked she
asked no question about Gray. The next day a letter arrived from
Gray saying he would not come back to the hills--and again Mavis
was silent. A week later Jason was made assistant superintendent
in Gray's place by the president of Morton Sanders' coal company,
and this Jason knew was Gray's doing. He had refused to accept the
stock Gray had offered him, and Gray was thus doing his best for
him in another way. Moreover, Jason was to be quartered in Gray's
place at the superintendent's little cottage, far up the ravine in
which the boy had unearthed the great seam of coal, a cottage that
had been built under Gray's personal supervision and with a free
rein, for it must have a visitor's room for any officer or
stockholder who might come that way, a sitting-room with a wood
fireplace, and Colonel Pendleton had meant, moreover, that his son
should have all the comfort possible. Jason dropped on the little
veranda under a canopy of moon-flowers, exultant but quite
overcome. How glad and proud his mother would be--and Mavis. While
he sat there Arch Hawn rode by, his face lighted up with a
humorous knowing smile.

"How about it?" he shouted.

"D'you have anything to do with this?"

"Oh, just a leetle."

"Well, you won't be sorry."

"Course not. What'd I tell ye, son? You go in now an' dig it out.
And say, Jason--" He pulled his horse in and spoke seriously:
"Keep away from town till little Aaron gets over his spree. You
don't know it, but that boy is a fine feller when he's sober.
Don't you shoot first now. So long."

The next day Jason ran upon Babe Honeycutt shambling up the creek.
Babe was fearless and cordial, and Jason had easily guessed why.

"Babe, my mammy told you something."

The giant hesitated, started to lie, but nodded assent.

"You haven't told anybody else?"

"Nary a livin' soul."

"Well, don't."

Babe shuffled on, stopped, called Jason, and came back close
enough to whisper:

"I had all I could do yestiddy to keep little Aaron from comin' up
hyeh to the mines to look for ye."

Then he shuffled away. Jason began to get angry now. He had no
intention of shooting first or shooting at all except to save his
own life, but he went straightway over the spur to get his pistol,
Mavis saw him buckling it on, he explained why, and the girl sadly
nodded assent.

Jason flung himself into his work now with prodigious energy. He
never went to the county-seat, was never seen on the river road on
the Honeycutt side of the ancient dead-line, and the tale-bearers
on each side proceeded to get busy again. The Hawns heard that
Jason had fled from little Aaron the morning Jason had gone back
for his Commencement in the Blue-grass. The Honeycutts heard that
Aaron had been afraid to meet Jason when he returned to the
county-seat. Old Jason and old Aaron were each cautioning his
grandson to put an end to the folly, and each was warning his
business representative in town with commercial annihilation if he
should be discovered trying to bring on the feud again. On the
first county-court day Jason had to go to court, and the meeting
came. The town was full with members of both factions, armed and
ready for trouble. Jason had ridden ahead of his grandfather that
morning and little Aaron had ridden ahead of his. Jason reached
town first, and there was a stir in the Honeycutt hotel and store.
Half an hour later there was a stir among the Hawns, for little
Aaron rode by. A few minutes later Aaron came toward the Hawn
store, in the middle of the street, swaggering. Jason happened at
that moment to be crossing the same street, and a Hawn shouted
warning.

Jason looked up and saw Aaron coming. He stopped, turned, and
waited until Aaron reached for his gun. Then his own flashed, and
the two reports sounded as one. One black lock was clipped from
Jason's right temple and a little patch flew from the left
shoulder of Aaron's coat. To Jason's surprise Aaron lowered his
weapon and began working at it savagely with both hands, and while
Jason waited, Aaron looked up.

"Shoot ahead," he said sullenly; "it's a new gun and it won't
work."

But no shot came and Aaron looked up again, mystified and glaring,
but Jason was smiling and walking toward him.

"Aaron, there are two or three trifling fellows on our side who
hate you and are afraid of you. You know that, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Well, the same thing is true about me of two or three men on your
side, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"They've been carrying tales from one side to the other. I've
never said anything against you."

Aaron, genuinely disbelieving, stared questioningly for a moment--
and believed.

"I've never said anything against you, either."

"I believe you. Well, do you see any reason why we should be
shooting each other down to oblige a few cowards?"

"No, by God, I don't."

"Well, I don't want to die and I don't believe you do. There are a
lot of things I want to do and a lot that you want to do. We want
to help our own people and our own mountains all we can, and the
best thing we can do for them and for ourselves is to stop this
feud."

"It's the God's truth," said Aaron solemnly, but looking still a
little incredulous.

"You and I can do it."

"You bet we can!"

"Let's do it. Shake hands."

And thus, while the amazed factions looked on the two modern young
mountaineers, eye to eye and hand gripping hand, pledged death to
the long warfare between their clans and a deathless friendship
between themselves. And a little later a group of lounging Hawns
and Honeycutts in the porches of the two ancient hostile hotels
saw the two riding out of town side by side, unarmed, and on their
way to bring old Aaron and old Jason together and make peace
between them.

The coincidence was curious, but old Aaron, who had started for
town, met old Jason coming out of a ravine only a mile from town,
for old Jason, with a sudden twitch of memory, had turned to go up
a hollow where lived a Hawn he wanted to see and was coming back
to the main road again. Both were dim-sighted, both wore
spectacles, both of their old nags were going at a walk, making no
noise in the deep sand, and only when both horses stopped did
either ancient peer forward and see the other.

"Well, by God," quavered both in the same voice. And each then
forgot his mission of peace, and began to climb, grunting, from
his horse, each hitching it to the fence.

"This is the fust time in five year, Jason Hawn, you an' me come
together, an' you know whut I swore I'd do," cackled old Aaron.

Old Jason's voice was still deep.

"Well, you've got yo' chance now, you old bag o' bones! Them two
boys o' ours air all right but thar hain't no manhood left in this
hyeh war o' ours. Hit's just a question of which hired feller gits
the man who hired the other feller. We'll fight the ole way. You
hain't got a knife--now?"

"Damn yo' hide!" cried old Aaron. "Do you reckon I need hit agin
you?" He reached in his pocket and tossed a curved-bladed weapon
into the bushes.

"Well," mumbled old Jason, "I can whoop you, fist an' skull, right
now, just as I allers have done."

Both were stumbling back into the road now.

"You air just as big a liar as ever, Jase, an' I'm goin' to prove
it."

And then the two tottering old giants squared off, their big,
knotted, heavily veined fists revolving around each other in the
old-fashioned country way. Old Jason first struck the air, was
wheeled around by the force of his own blow, and got old Aaron's
fist in the middle of the back. Again the Hawn struck blindly as
he turned, and from old Aaron's grunt he knew he had got him in
the stomach. Then he felt a fist in his own stomach, and old Aaron
cackled triumphantly when he heard the same tell-tale grunt.

"Oh, yes, dad--blast ye! Come on agin, son."

They clinched, and as they broke away a blind sweep from old Jason
knocked Aaron's brassrimmed spectacles from his nose.

They fell far apart, and when old Jason advanced again, peering
forward, he saw his enemy silently pawing the air with his back
toward him, and he kicked him.

"Here I am, you ole idgit!"

"Stop!" shouted old Aaron, "I've lost my specs."

"Whar?"

"I don't know," and as he dropped to his knees old Jason bent too
to help him find his missing eyes. Then they went at it again--and
the same cry came presently from old Jason.

"Stop, I've lost mine!"

And both being out of breath sat heavily down in the sand, old
Jason feeling blindly with his hands and old Aaron peering about
him as far as he could see. And thus young Jason and young Aaron
found them, and were utterly mystified until the old men rose
creakily and got ready for battle again--when both spurred forward
with a shout of joy, and threw themselves from their horses.

"Go for him, grandpap!" shouted each, and the two old men turned.

"Uncle Aaron," shouted Jason, "I bet you can lick him!"

"He can't do it, Uncle Jason!" shouted Aaron.

Each old man peered at his own grandson, dumbfounded. Neither was
armed, both were helpless with laughter, and each was urging on
the oldest enemy of his clan against his own grandfather. The face
of each old man angered, and then both began to grin sheepishly;
for both were too keen-witted not to know immediately that what
both really wished for had come to pass.

"Aaron," said old Jason, "the boys have ketched us. I reckon we
better call this thing a draw."

"All right," piped old Aaron, "we're a couple o' ole fools
anyhow."

So they shook hands. Each grandson helped the other's grandfather
laughingly on his horse. and the four rode back toward town. And
thus old Jason and old Aaron, side by side in front, and young
Jason and young Aaron, side by side behind, appeared to the
astonished eyes of Hawns and Honeycutts on the main street of the
county-seat. Before the Honeycutt store they stopped, and old
Aaron called his henchman into the middle of the street and spoke
vigorous words that all the Honeycutts could hear. Then they rode
to the Hawn store, and old Jason called his henchman out and spoke
like words that all the Hawns could hear. And each old man ended
his discourse with a profane dictum that sounded like the vicious
snap of a black-snake whip.

"By God, hit's GOT to stop."'

Then turned the four again and rode homeward, and for the first
time in their lives old Aaron and young Aaron darkened the door of
old Jason's house, and in there the jug went round the four of
them, and between the best of the old order and the best of the
new, final peace was cemented at last.

Jason reached the mines a little before dusk, and the old circuit
rider lifted his eyes heavenward that his long prayer had been
answered at last and the old woman rocked silently back and forth-
-her old eyes dimmed with tears.

Then Jason hurried over the hill and took to his mother a peace
she had not known even in her childhood, and a joy that she never
dreamed would be hers while she lived--that her boy was safe from
blood-oaths, a life of watchful terror, and constant fear of
violent death. In Mavis's eyes was deep content when the moon rose
on the three that night. Jason stayed a while after his mother was
gone within, and, as they sat silently together, he suddenly took
one of her hands in both his own and kissed it, and then he was
gone. She watched him, and when his form was lost in the shadows
of the trees she lifted that hand to her own lips.




XLVI

Winter came and passed swiftly. Throughout it Jason was on the
night shift, and day for him was turned into night. Throughout it
Mavis taught her school, and she reached home just about the time
Jason was going to work, for school hours are long in the hills.
Meanwhile, the railroad crept through the county-seat up the
river, and the branch line up the Hawn creek to the mines was
ready for it. And just before the junction was made, there was an
event up that creek in which Mavis shared proudly, for the work in
great part was Jason's own. Throughout the winter, coke-ovens had
sprung up like great beehives along each side of the creek, and
the battery of them was ready for firing. Into each, shavings and
kindlings were first thrust and then big sticks of wood. Jason
tied packing to the end of a pole, saturated it with kerosene,
lighted it, and handed it to Mavis. Along the batteries men with
similar poles waited for her. The end of the pole was a woolly
ball of oily flames, writhing like little snakes when she thrust
it into the first oven, and they leaped greedily at the waiting
feast and started a tiny gluttonous roar within. With a yell a
grinning darky flourished another mass of little flames at the
next oven, and down the line the balls of fire flashed in the dusk
and disappeared, and Mavis and Jason and his mother stood back
and. waited. Along came eager men throwing wood and coal into the
hungry maws above them. Little black clouds began to belch from
them and from the earth packed around, and over them arose white
clouds of steam. The swirling smoke swooped down the sides of the
batteries and drove the watching three farther back. Flames burst
angrily from the oven doors and leaped like yellow lightning up
through the belching smoke. Behind them was the odor of the woods,
fresh and damp and cool, and the sound of the little creek in its
noisy way over rocks and stray fallen timbers. Down from the mines
came mules with their drivers, their harness rattling as they
trotted past, and from the houses poured women and children to see
the first flaming signs of a great industry. And good cheer was in
the air like wine, for times were good, and work and promise of
work a-plenty. Exultant Jason felt a hand on his shoulder, and
turned to find the big superintendent smiling at him.

"You go on the day shift after this," he said. "Go to bed now."

The boy's eyes glistened, for he had been working for forty-eight
hours, and with Mavis and his mother he walked up the hill. At the
cottage he went inside and came out with a paper in his hand which
he handed to Mavis without a word. Then he went back and with his
clothes on fell across his bed.

Mavis walked down the spur with her step-mother home. She knew
what the paper contained for two days before was the date fixed
for the wedding-day of Marjorie and Gray Pendleton, and Gray had
written Jason and Marjorie had written her, begging them both to
come. By the light of a lamp she read the account, fulsome and
feminine, aloud: the line of carriages and motor-cars sweeping
from the pike gate between two rows of softly glowing, gently
swinging Japanese lanterns, up to the noble old Southern home
gleaming like a fairy palace on the top of a little hill; the gay
gathering of the gentlefolk of the State; the aisle made through
them by two silken white ribbons and leading to the rose-canopied
altar; the coming down that aisle of the radiant bride with her
flowers, and her bridesmaids with theirs; the eager waiting of the
young bridegroom, the bending of two proud, sunny heads close
together, and the God-sealed union of their hearts and lives. And
then the silent coming of a great gleaming motor-car, the showers
of rice, the showering chorus of gay good wishes and good-bys, and
then they shot away in the night for some mysterious bourne of the
honeymoon. And behind them the dance went on till dawn. The paper
dropped in Mavis's lap, and Martha Hawn sighed and rose to get
ready for bed.