The Re-Creation of Brian Kent | Page 6

same neighborly spirit, brought from
their own humble households many tokens of their loving
thoughtfulness. And never did one visit that little log house by the river
without the consciousness of something received from the
silvery-haired old teacher--a something intangible, perhaps, which they
could not have expressed in words, but which, nevertheless, enriched
the lives of those simple mountain people with a very real joy and a
very tangible happiness.
For six years, Auntie Sue continued teaching the Elbow Rock
school;--climbing the hill in the morning from her log house by the
river to the cabin schoolhouse in the clearing on the mountain-side
above; returning in the late afternoon, when her day's work was over,
down the winding road to her little home, there to watch, from the
porch that overlooked the river, the sunset in the evening. And every
year the daily climb grew a little harder; the days of work grew a little
longer; she went down the hill in the afternoon a little slower. And
every year the sunsets were to her eyes more beautiful; the evening
skies to her understanding glowed with richer meaning; the twilight
hours filled her heart with a deeper peace.
And so, at last, her teaching days were over; that is, she taught no more
in the log schoolhouse in the clearing on the mountain- side. But in her
little home beside the river she continued her work; not from
text-books, indeed, but as all such souls must continue to teach, until
the sun sets for the last time upon their mortal days.
Work-worn, toil-hardened mountaineer mothers, whose narrow world
denied them so many of the finer thoughts and things, came to counsel
with this childless woman, and to learn from her a little of the art of

contentment and happiness. Strong men, of rude dress and speech,
whose lives were as rough as the hills in which they were reared, and
whose thoughts were often as crude as their half- savage and sometimes
lawless customs, came to sit at the feet of this gentle one, who received
them all with such kindly interest and instinctive understanding. And
young men and girls came, drawn by the magic that was hers, to
confide in this woman who listened with such rare tact and loving
sympathy to their troubles and their dreams, and who, in the deepest
things of their young lives, was mother to them all.
Nor were the mountain folk her only disciples. Always there were the
letters she continued to write, addressed to almost every corner of the
land. And every year there would come, for a week or a month, at
different times during the summer, men and women from the great
world of larger affairs who had need of the strength and courage and
patience and hope they never failed to find in that little log house by the
river. And so, in time, it came to be known that those letters written by
Auntie Sue went to men and women who, in their childhood school
days, had received from her their first lessons in writing; and that her
visitors, many of them distinguished in the world of railroads and cities,
were of that large circle of busy souls who had never ceased to be her
pupils.
Thus it came that the garden was made a little larger, and two rooms
were added to the house, with other modest improvements, to
accommodate Auntie Sue's grown-up boys and girls when they came to
visit her. But never was there a hired servant, so that her guests must do
their own household tasks, because, Auntie Sue said, that was good for
them and mostly what they needed.
It should also be said here that among her many pupils who lived
beyond the sky-line of the far, blue hills, not one knew more of the real
secret of Auntie Sue's life and character than did the Ozark
mountaineers of the Elbow Rock district, among whom she had chosen
to pass the evening of her day.
Then came one who learned the secret. He learned--but that is my story.
I must not tell the secret here.

CHAPTER II.
THE MAN IN THE DARK.
A man stood at a window, looking out into the night. There was no
light in the room. The stars were hidden behind a thick curtain of sullen
clouds.
The house was a wretchedly constructed, long-neglected building of a
type common to those old river towns that in their many years of
uselessness have lost all civic pride, and in their own resultant squalor
and filth have buried their self-respect. A dingy, scarcely legible sign
over the treacherous board walk, in front, by the sickly light of a
smoke-grimed kerosene lantern, announced that the place was a hotel.
Dark as it was,