In Happy Valley | Page 7

she was, and to the
boy's mind the absence of dignity in one case matched the crime in the
other.
"All right," he said at last; "but I reckon you better send somebody else
atter her. You can't trust me to git by that still"--he stopped with a
half-uttered oath of surprise:
"Look thar!"
A woman was coming up the road. She wore a black cotton dress and a
black sunbonnet--mourning relics for the dead husband which the
living one had never had the means to supplant--and rough shoes. She

pushed back the bonnet with one nervous, bony hand, saw the two
figures on the edge of the creek, and without any gesture or call came
toward them. And only the woman's quickness in St. Hilda saw the
tense 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