Leonard Huxley - "The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3"

H. Rider Haggard - "Nada the Lily"

A. H. Leahy - "Heroic Romances of Ireland Volume 2"

Louisa May Alcott - "Jo's Boys"

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




His work was done, and no buccaneer ever gloated more over hidden
treasure than Jason over the prize discovered by him and known of
nobody else in the world. He raised his head and looked up the
shimmering black face of his find. He took up his pick again and
notched foot-holes in each side of the yellow ditch. He marked his
own height on the face of the column, and, climbing up along it,
measured his full length again, and yet with outstretched arm he
could barely touch the top of the vein with the tips of his
fingers. No vein half that thick had the rock-pecker with all his
searching found, and the lad gave a long, low whistle of happy
amazement. A moment later he dropped his pick, climbed over the
pile of new dirt, emerged at the mouth of the passage, and sat
down as if on guard in the grateful coolness of the little ravine.
Drawing one long breath, he looked proudly back once more and
began shaking his head wisely. They couldn't fool him. He knew
what that mighty vein of coal was worth. Other people--fools--
might sell their land for a dollar or two an acre, even old Jason,
his grandfather, but not the Jason Hawn who had dug that black
giant out of the side of the mountain.

"Go away, boy," the rock-pecker had said, "Get an education. Leave
this farm alone--it won't run away. By the time you are twenty-
one, an acre of it will be worth as much as all of it is now."

No, they couldn't fool him. He would keep his find a secret from
every soul on earth--even from his grandfather and Mavis, both of
whom he had already been tempted to tell. He rose to his feet with
the resolution and crouched suddenly, listening hard. Something
was coming swiftly toward him through the undergrowth on the other
side of the creek, and he reached stealthily for his rifle, sank
behind the bowlder with his thumb on the hammer just as the bushes
parted on the opposite cliff, and Mavis stood above him, peering
for him and calling his name in an excited whisper. He rose
glowering and angry.

"Whut you doin' up here?" he asked roughly, and the girl shrank,
and her message stopped at her lips.

"They're comin' up here," she faltered.

The boy's eyes accused her mercilessly and he seemed not to hear
her.

"You've been spyin'!"

The dignity of his manhood was outraged, and humbly and helplessly
she nodded in utter abasement, faltering again:

"They're comin' up here!"

"Who's comin' up here?"

"Them strangers an' grandpap an' Uncle Arch--an' another rock-
pecker."

"Did you tell'em?"

The girl crossed her heart and body swiftly.

"I hain't told a soul," she gasped". I come up to tell you."

"When they comin'?"

The sound of voices below answered for her.

The boy wheeled, alert as a wild-cat, the girl slid noiselessly
down the cliff and crept noiselessly after him down the bed of the
creek, until they could both peer through the bushes down on the
next bend of the stream below. There they were--all of them, and
down there they had halted.

"Ain't no use goin' up any furder," said the voice of Arch Hawn;
"I've looked all up this crick an' thar ain't nary a blessed sign
o' coal."

"All right," said the colonel, who was puffing with the climb.
"That suits me--I've had enough."

At Jason's side, Mavis echoed his own swift breath of relief, but
as the party turned, the rock-pecker stooped and rose with a black
lump in his hand.

"Hello!" he said, "where did this come from?"

The boy's heart began to throb, for once he had started to carry
that very lump to his grandfather, had changed his mind, and
thoughtlessly dropped it there. The geologist was looking at it
closely and then began to weigh it with his hand.

"This is pretty good-looking coal," he said, and he laughed. "I
guess we'd better go up a little farther--this didn't come out all
by itself."

The boy dug Mavis sharply in the shoulder.

"Git back into the bushes--quick!" he whispered.

The girl shrank away and the boy dropped down into the bed of the
creek and slipped down to where the stream poured between two
bowlders over which ascent was slippery and difficult. And when
the party turned up the bend of the creek, Arch Hawn saw the boy,
tense and erect, on the wet black summit of one bowlder, with his
old rifle in the hollow of his arm.

"Why, hello, Jason!" he cried, with a start of surprise; "found
anything to shoot?"

"Not yit!" said Jason shortly.

The geologist stepped around Arch and started to climb toward the
foot of the bowlder.

"You stop thar!"

The ring of the boy's fiery command stopped the man as though a
rattlesnake had given the order at his very feet, and he looked up
bewildered; but the boy had not moved.

"Whut you mean, boy?" shouted Arch. "We're lookin' for a vein o'
coal."

"Well, you hain't a-goin' to find hit up this way."

"Whut you want to keep us from goin' up here fer?" asked the uncle
with sarcastic suspicion. "Got a still up here?"

"That's my business," said little Jason.

"Well," shouted Arch angrily again, "this ain't yo' land an' I've
got a option on it an' hit's my business to go up here, an' I'm
goin'!"

As he pushed ahead of the geologist the boy flashed his old rifle
to his shoulder.

"I'll let ye come just two steps more," he said quietly, and old
Jason Hawn began to grin and stepped aside as though to get out of
range.

"Hol' on thar, Arch," he said; "he'll shoot, shore!" And Arch held
on, bursting with rage and glaring up at the boy.

"I've a notion to git me a switch an' whoop the life out o' you."
The boy laughed derisively.

"My whoopin' days air over." The amazed and amused geologist put
his hand on Arch's shoulder.

"Never mind," he said, and with a significant wink he pulled a
barometer out of his pocket and carefully noted the altitude.

"We'll manage it later."

The party turned, old Jason still smiling grimly, the colonel
chuckling, the geologist busy with speculation, and Arch sore and
angry, but wondering what on earth it was that the boy had found
up that ravine. Presently with the geologist he dropped behind the
other two and the latter's frowning brow cleared into a smile at
his lips. He stopped, looking still at the black lump and weighing
it once more in his hand.

"I think I know this coal," he said in a low voice, "and if I'm
right you've got the best and thickest vein of coking coal in
these mountains. It's the Culloden seam. Nobody ever has found it
on this side of the mountain, and it is supposed to have petered
out on the way through. That boy has found the Culloden seam. The
altitude is right, the coal looks and weighs like it, and we can
find it somewhere else under that bench along the mountain. So you
better let the boy alone."

Little Jason stood motionless looking after them. Little Mavis
crept from her hiding-place. Her face showed no pride in Jason's
triumph and few traces of excitement, for she was already schooled
to the quiet acquiescence of mountain women in the rough deeds of
the men. She had seen Jason going up that ravine, she could simply
not help going herself to learn why, she was mystified by what he
had done up there, but she had kept his secret faithfully. Now she
was beginning to understand that the matter was serious, and for
that reason the boy's charge of spying lay heavier on her mind. So
she came slowly and shyly and stood behind him, her eyes dark with
penitence.

The boy heard her, but he did not turn around.

"You better go home, Mavie," he said, and at his very tone her
face flashed with joy. "They mought come back agin. I'm goin' to
stay up here till dark. They can't see nothin' then."

There was not a word of rebuke for her; it was his secret and hers
now, and pride and gratitude filled her heart and her eyes.

"All right, Jasie," she said obediently, and down the bowlder she
stepped lightly, and slipping down the bed of the creek,
disappeared. And not once did she look around.

The shadows lengthened, the ravines filled with misty blue, the
steep westward spur threw its bulky shadow on the sunlit flank of
the opposite hill, and the lonely spirit of night came with the
gloom that gathered fast about him in the defile where he lay. A
slow wind was blowing up from the river toward him, and on it came
faintly the long mellow blast of a horn. It was no hunter's call,
and he sprang to his feet. Again the winding came and his tense
muscles relaxed--nor was it a warning that "revenues" were coming-
-and he sank back to his lonely useless vigil again. The sun
dipped, the sky darkened, the black wings of the night rushed
upward and downward and from all around the horizon, but only when
they were locked above him did he slip like a creature of the
gloom down the bed of the stream.




VI

The cabin was unlighted when Jason came in sight of it and
apprehension straightway seized him; so that he broke into a run,
but stopped at the gate and crept slowly to the porch and almost
on tiptoe opened the door. The fire was low, but the look of
things was unchanged, and on the kitchen table he saw his cold
supper laid for him. His mother had maybe gone over the ridge for
some reason to stay all night, so he gobbled his food hastily and,
still uneasy, put forth for Mavis's cabin over the hill. That
cabin, too, was dark and deserted, and he knew now what had
happened--that blast of the horn was a summons to a dance
somewhere, and his mother and Steve had answered and taken Mavis
with them; so the boy sat down on the porch, alone with the night
and the big still dark shapes around him. It would not be very
pleasant for him to follow them--people would tease him and ask
him troublesome questions. But where was the dance, and had they
gone to it after all? He rose and went swiftly down the creek. At
the mouth of it a light shone through the darkness, and from it a
quavering hymn trembled on the still air. A moment later Jason
stood on the threshold of an open door and an old couple at the
fireplace lifted welcoming eyes.

"Uncle Lige, do you know whar my mammy is?"

The old man's eyes took on a troubled look, but the old woman
answered readily:

"Why, I seed her an' Steve Hawn an' Mavis a-goin' down the crick
jest afore dark, an' yo' mammy said as how they was aimin' to go
to yo' grandpap's."

It was his grandfather's horn, then, Jason had heard. The lad
turned to go, and the old circuit rider rose to his full height.

"Come in, boy. Yo' grandpap had better be a-thinkin' about
spreadin' the wings of his immortal sperit, stid o' shakin' them
feet o' clay o' his'n an' a-settin' a bad example to the young an'
errin'!"

"Hush up!" said the old woman. "The Bible don't say nothin' agin a
boy lookin' fer his mammy, no matter whar she is."

She spoke sharply, for Steve Hawn had called her husband out to
the gate, where the two had talked in whispers, and the old man
had refused flatly to tell her what the talk was about. But Jason
had turned without a word and was gone. Out in the darkness of the
road he stood for a moment undecided whether or not he should go
back to his lonely home, and some vague foreboding started him
swiftly on down the creek. On top of a little hill he could see
the light in his grandfather's house, and that far away he could
hear the rollicking tune of "Sourwood Mountain." The sounds of
dancing feet soon came to his ears, and from those sounds he could
tell the figures of the dance just as he could tell the gait of an
unseen horse thumping a hard dirt road. He leaned over the yard
fence--looking, listening, thinking. Through the window he could
see the fiddler with his fiddle pressed almost against his heart,
his eyes closed, his horny fingers thumping the strings like trip-
hammers, and his melancholy calls ringing high above the din of
shuffling feet. His grandfather was standing before the fireplace,
his grizzled hair tousled and his face red with something more
than the spirits of the dance. The colonel was doing the "grand
right and left," and his mother was the colonel's partner--the
colonel as gallant as though he were leading mazes with a queen
and his mother simpering and blushing like a girl. In one corner
sat Steve Hawn, scowling like a storm-cloud, and on one bed sat
Marjorie and the boy Gray watching the couple and apparently
shrieking with laughter; and Jason wondered what they could be
laughing about. Little Mavis was not in sight. When the dance
closed he could see the colonel go over to the little strangers
and, seizing each by the hand, try to pull them from the bed into
the middle of the floor. Finally they came, and the boy, looking
through the window, and Mavis, who suddenly appeared in the door
leading to the porch, saw a strange sight. Gray took Marjorie's
right hand with his left and put his right arm around her waist
and then to the stirring strains of "Soapsuds Over the Fence" they
whirled about the room as lightly as two feathers in an eddy of
air. It was a two-step and the first round dance ever seen in
these hills, and the mountaineers took it silently, grimly, and
with little sign of favor or disapproval, except from old Jason,
who, looking around for Mavis, caught sight of little Jason's
wondering face over her shoulder, for the boy had left the blurred
window-pane and hurried around to the back door for a better view.
With a whoop the old man reached for the little girl, and gathered
in the boy with his other hand.

"Hyeh!" he cried, "you two just git out thar an' shake a foot!"

Little Mavis hung back, but the boy bounded into the middle of the
floor and started into a furious jig, his legs as loose from the
hip as a jumping-jack and the soles and heels of his rough brogans
thumping out every note of the music with astonishing precision
and rapidity. He hardly noticed Mavis at first, and then he began
to dance toward her, his eyes flashing and fixed on hers and his
black locks tumbling about his forehead as though in an electric
storm. The master was calling and the maid answered--shyly at
first, coquettishly by and by, and then, forgetting self and
onlookers, with a fiery abandon that transformed her. Alternately
he advanced and she retreated, and when, with a scornful toss of
that night-black head, the boy jigged away, she would relent and
lure him back, only to send him on his way again. Sometimes they
were back to back and the colonel saw that always then the girl
was first to turn, but if the lad turned first, the girl whirled
as though she were answering the dominant spirit of his eyes even
through the back of her head, and, looking over to the bed, he saw
his own little kinswoman answering that same masterful spirit in a
way that seemed hardly less hypnotic. Even Gray's clear eyes,
fixed at first on the little mountain girl, had turned to Jason,
but they were undaunted and smiling, and when Jason, seeing
Steve's face at the window and his mother edging out through the
front door, seemed to hesitate in his dance, and Mavis, thinking
he was about to stop, turned panting away from him, Gray sprang
from the bed like a challenging young buck and lit facing the
mountain boy and in the midst of a double-shuffle that the amazed
colonel had never seen outdone by any darkey on his farm.

"Jenny with a ruff-duff a-kickin' up the dust," clicked his feet.

"Juba this and Juba that!
Juba killed a yaller cat!
Juba! Juba!"

"Whoop!" yelled old Jason, bending his huge body and patting his
leg and knee to the beat of one big cowhide boot and urging them
on in a frenzy of delight:

"Come on, Jason! Git atter him, stranger! Whoop her up thar with
that fiddle--Heh--ee--dum dee--eede-eedle--dedee-dee!"

Then there was dancing. The fiddler woke like a battery newly
charged, every face lighted with freshened interest, and only the
colonel and Marjorie showed surprise and mystification. The
double-shuffle was hardly included in the curriculum of the
colonel's training school for a gentleman, and where, when, and
how the boy had learned such Ethiopian skill, neither he nor
Marjorie knew. But he had it and they enjoyed it to the full.
Gray's face wore a merry smile, and Jason, though he was breathing
hard and his black hair was plastered to his wet forehead, faced
his new competitor with rallying feet but a sullen face. "The
Forked Deer," "Big Sewell Mountain," and "Cattle Licking Salt" for
Jason, and the back-step, double-shuffle, and "Jim Crow" for Gray;
both improvising their own steps when the fiddler raised his voice
in "Comin' up, Sandy," "Chicken in the Dough-Tray," and "Sparrows
on the Ash-Bank"; and thus they went through all the steps known
to the negro or the mountaineer, until the colonel saw that game
little Jason, though winded, would go on till he dropped, and gave
Gray a sign that the boy's generous soul caught like a flash; for,
as though worn out himself, he threw up his hands with a laugh and
left the floor to Jason. Just then there was the crack of a
Winchester from the darkness outside. Simultaneously, as far as
the ear could detect, there was a sharp rap on a window-pane, as a
bullet sped cleanly through, and in front of the fire old Jason's
mighty head sagged suddenly and he crumbled into a heap on the
floor. Arch Hawn had carried his business deal through. The truce
was over and the feud was on again.




VII

Knowing but little of his brother in the hills, the man from the
lowland Blue-grass was puzzled and amazed that all feeling he
could observe was directed solely at the deed itself and not at
the way it was done. No indignation was expressed at what was to
him the contemptible cowardice involved--indeed little was said at
all, but the colonel could feel the air tense and lowering with a
silent deadly spirit of revenge, and he would have been more
puzzled had he known the indifference on the part of the Hawns as
to whether the act of revenge should take precisely the same form
of ambush. For had the mountain code of ethics been explained to
him--that what was fair for one was fair for the other; that the
brave man could not fight the coward who shot from the brush and
must, therefore, adopt the coward's methods; that thus the method
of ambush had been sanctioned by long custom--he still could never
have understood how a big, burly, kind-hearted man like Jason Hawn
could have been brought even to tolerance of ambush by
environment, public sentiment, private policy, custom, or any
other influence that moulds the character of men.

Old Jason would easily get well--the colonel himself was surgeon
enough to know that--and he himself dressed and bandaged the
ragged wound that the big bullet had made through one of the old
man's mighty shoulders. At his elbow all the time, helping, stood
little Jason, and not once did the boy speak, nor did the line of
his clenched lips alter, nor did the deadly look in his
smouldering eyes change. One by one the guests left, the colonel
sent Marjorie and Gray to bed, grandmother Hawn sent Mavis, and
when all was done and the old man was breathing heavily on a bed
in the corner and grandmother Hawn was seated by the fire with a
handkerchief to her lips, the colonel heard the back door open and
little Jason, too, was gone--gone on business of his own. He had
seen Steve Hawn's face at the window, his mother had slipped out
on the porch while he was dancing, and neither had appeared again.
So little Jason went swiftly through the dark, over the ridge and
up the big creek to the old circuit rider's house, where the
stream forked. All the way he had seen the tracks of a horse which
he knew to be Steve's, for the right forefoot, he knew, had cast a
shoe only the day before.

At the forks the tracks turned up the branch that led to Steve's
cabin and not up toward his mother's house. If Steve had his
mother behind him, he had taken her to his own home; that, in
Mavis's absence, was not right, and, burning with sudden rage, the
boy hurried up the branch. The cabin was dark and at the gate he
gave a shrill, imperative "Hello!"

In a few minutes the door opened and the tousled head of his
cousin was thrust forth.

"Is my mammy hyeh?" he called hotly.

"Yep," drawled Steve.

"Well, tell her I'm hyeh to take her home!" There was no sound
from within.

"Well, she ain't goin' home," Steve drawled.

The boy went sick and speechless with fury, but before he could
get his breath Steve drawled again:

"She's goin' to live here now--we got married to-night." The boy
dropped helplessly against the gate at these astounding words and
his silence stirred Steve to kindness.

"Now, don't take it so hard, Jason. Come on in, boy, an' stay all
night."

Still the lad was silent and another face appeared at the door.

"Come on in, Jasie."

It was his mother's voice and the tone was pleading, but the boy,
with no answer, turned, and they heard his stumbling steps as he
made his way along the fence and started over the spur. Behind him
his mother began to sob and with rough kindness Steve soothed her
and closed the door.

Slowly little Jason climbed the spur and dropped on the old log on
which he had so often sat--fighting out the trouble which he had
so long feared must come. The moon and the stars in her wake were
sinking and the night was very still. His reason told him his
mother was her own mistress, and had the right to marry when she
pleased and whom she pleased, but she was a Honeycutt, again she
had married a Hawn, and the feud was starting again. Steve Hawn
would be under suspicion as his own father had been, Steve would
probably have to live on the Honeycutt side of the ridge, and
Jason's own earlier days of shame he must go through again. That
was his first thought, but his second was a quick oath to himself
that he would not go through them again. He was big enough to
handle a Winchester now, and he would leave his mother and he
would fight openly with the Hawns. And then as he went slowly down
the spur he began to wonder with fresh suspicion what his mother
and Steve might now do, what influence Steve might have over her,
and if he might not now encourage her to sell her land. And, if
that happened, what would become of him? The old hound in the
porch heard him coming and began to bay at him fiercely, but when
he opened the gate the dog bounded to him whining with joy and
trying to lick his hands. He dropped on the porch and the
loneliness of it all clutched his heart so that he had to gulp
back a sob in his throat and blink his eyes to keep back the
tears. But it was not until he went inside finally and threw
himself with his clothes on across his mother's empty bed that he
lost all control and sobbed himself to sleep. When he awoke it was
not only broad daylight, but the sun was an hour high and
streaming through the mud-chinked crevices of the cabin. In his
whole life he had never slept so long after daybreak and he sprang
up in bed with bewildered eyes, trying to make out where he was
and why he was there. The realization struck him with fresh pain,
and when he slowly climbed out of the bed the old hound was
whining at the door. When he opened it the fresh wind striking his
warm body aroused him sharply. He wondered why his mother had not
already been over for her things. The chickens were clustered
expectantly at the corner of the house, the calf was bawling at
the corner of the fence, and the old cow was waiting patiently at
the gate. He turned quickly to the kitchen and to a breakfast on
the scraps of his last night's supper. He did not know how to make
coffee, and for the first time in his life he went without it.
Within an hour the cow was milked and fed, bread crumbs were
scattered to the chickens, and alone in the lonely cabin he faced
the new conditions of his life. He started toward the gate, not
knowing where he should go. He drifted aimlessly down the creek
and he began to wonder about Mavis, whether she had got home and
now knew what had happened and what she thought about it all, and
about his grandfather and who it was that had shot him. There were
many things that he wanted to know, and his steps quickened with a
definite purpose. At the mouth of the creek he hailed the old
circuit rider's house, and the old man and his wife both appeared
in the doorway.

"I reckon you couldn't help doin' it?"

"No," said the old man. "Thar wasn't no reason fer me to deny
'em."

He looked confused and the old woman gulped, for both were
wondering how much the lad knew.

"How's grandpap?"

"Right porely I heerd," said the old woman. "The doctor's thar,
an' he said that if the bullet had 'a' gone a leetle furder down
hit would 'a' killed him."

"Whar's Mavis?"

Again the two old people looked confused, for it was plain that
Jason did not know all that had happened.

"I hain't seed her, but somebody said she went by hyeh on her way
home about an hour ago. I was thinkin' about goin' up thar right
now."

The boy's eyes were shifting now from one to the other and he
broke in abruptly:

"Whut's the matter?"

The old man's lips tightened.

"Jason, she's up thar alone. Yo' mammy an' Steve have run away."

The lad looked at the old man with unblinking eyes.