In Happy Valley | Page 7

anxiety of the mother's face relax. The boy saw nothing; he was only amazed.
"Why, mammy, whut the--whut are you doin' up hyeh?"
The mother did not answer, and St. Hilda saw that she did not want to answer. St. Hilda rose with a warm smile of welcome.
"So this is Chris's mother?"
The woman shook hands limply.
"Hit's whut I passes fer," she said, and she meant neither smartness nor humor. The boy was looking wonderingly, almost suspiciously at her, and she saw she must give him some explanation.
"I been wantin' to see the school hyeh an' Miss Hildy. I had to come up to see Aunt Sue Morrow, who's might' nigh gone, so I jes kep' a-walkin' on up hyeh."
"Miss Hildy hyeh," said the boy, "was jes about to send fer ye."
"To sen' fer me?"
"I been drunk agin."
The mother showed no surprise or displeasure.
"Hit's the fourth time since sorghum time," the boy went on relentlessly. "I axed Miss Hildy hyeh to whoop me, but she says she don't nuver whoop nobody, so she was jes a-goin' to send fer you to come an' whoop me when you come a-walkin' up the road."
This was all, and the lad pulled out an old Barlow knife and went to a hickory sapling. The two women watched him silently as he cut off a stout switch and calmly began to trim it. At last the woman turned to the teacher and her voice trembled.
"I don't see Chris thar more'n once or twice a year, an' seems kind o' hard that I got to whoop him."
The boy turned sharply, and helplessly she took the switch.
"And hit hain't his fault nohow. His stepdaddy got him drunk. He tol' me so when he come home. I went by the still to find Chris an' cuss out ole Jeb Mullins an' the men thar. An' I come on hyeh."
"Set down a minute, mammy," said Chris, dropping on the log on one side of St. Hilda, and obediently the mother sat down on the other side.
[Illustration]
"Mammy," he said abruptly, "I'll stop drinkin' if you will."
St. Hilda almost gasped. The woman lifted her eyes to the mountainside and dropped her gaze presently to her hands, which were twisting the switch in her lap.
"I'll stop if you will," he repeated.
"I'll try, Chris," she said, but she did not look up.
"Gimme yo' hand."
Across St. Hilda's lap she stretched one shaking hand, which the boy clasped.
"Put yo' hand on thar, too, Miss Hildy," he said, and when he felt the pressure of her big, strong, white hand for a moment he got up quickly and turned his face.
"All right, mammy."
St. Hilda rose, too, and started for the house--her eyes so blurred that she could hardly see the path. Midway she wheeled.
"Don't!" she cried.
The mother was already on her way home, breaking the switch to pieces and hiding her face within the black sunbonnet. The boy was staring after her.

THE LORD'S OWN LEVEL
The blacksmith-shop sat huddled by the roadside at the mouth of Wolf Run--a hut of blackened boards. The rooftree sagged from each gable down to the crazy chimney in the centre, and the smoke curled up between the clapboard shingles or, as the wind listed, out through the cracks of any wall. It was a bird-singing, light-flashing morning in spring, and Lum Chapman did things that would have set all Happy Valley to wondering. A bareheaded, yellow-haired girl rode down Wolf Run on an old nag. She was perched on a sack of corn, and she gave Lum a shy "how-dye" when she saw him through the wide door. Lum's great forearm eased, the bellows flattened with a long, slow wheeze, and he went to the door and looked after her. Professionally he noted that one hind shoe of the old nag was loose and that the other was gone. Then he went back to his work. It would not be a busy day with Uncle Jerry at the mill--there would not be more than one or two ahead of her and her meal would soon be ground. Several times he quit work to go to the door and look down the road, and finally he saw her coming. Again she gave him a shy "how-dye," and his eyes followed her up Wolf Run until she was out of sight.
The miracle these simple acts would have been to others was none to him. He was hardly self-conscious, much less analytical, and he went back to his work again.
A little way up that creek Lum himself lived in a log cabin, and he lived alone. This in itself was as rare as a miracle in the hills, and the reason, while clear, was still a mystery: Lum had never been known to look twice at the same woman. He was big, kind, taciturn, ox-eyed, calm. He