The Shepherd of the Hills | Page 8

that way ever since. There's them that says it's the same old
gang, what's left of them, and some thinks too that Jim and Wash
knows about the old Dewey mine."
Mr. Howitt, remembering his conversation with Jed Holland, asked
encouragingly, "Is this mine a very rich one?"
"Don't nobody rightly know about that, sir," answered Aunt Mollie.
"This is how it was: away back when the Injuns was makin' trouble
'cause the government was movin' them west to the territory, this old
man Dewey lived up there somewhere on that mountain. He was a
mighty queer old fellow; didn't mix up with the settlers at all, except
Uncle Josh Hensley's boy who wasn't right smart, and didn't nobody
know where he come from nor nothing; but all the same, 'twas him that
warned the settlers of the trouble, and helped them all through it,
scoutin' and such. And one time when they was about out of bullets and
didn't have nothin' to make more out of, Colonel Dewey took a couple
of men and some mules up on that mountain yonder in the night, and
when they got back they was just loaded down with lead, but he
wouldn't tell nobody where he got it, and as long as he was with them,
the men didn't dare tell. Well, sir, them two men was killed soon after
by the Injuns, and when the trouble was finally over, old Dewey
disappeared, and ain't never been heard tell of since. They say the mine
is somewhere's in a big cave, but nobody ain't never found it, 'though
there's them that says the Bald Knobbers used the cave to hide their
stuff in, and that's how Jim Lane and Wash Gibbs knows where it is;
it's all mighty queer. You can see for yourself that Lost Creek down
yonder just sinks clean out of sight all at once; there must be a big hole
in there somewhere."
Aunt Mollie pointed with her knife to the little stream that winds like a
thread of light down into the Hollow. "I tell you, sir, these hills is pretty
to look at, but there ain't much here for a girl like Sammy, and I don't
blame her a mite for wantin' to leave. It's a mighty hard place to live,
Mr. Howitt, and dangerous, too, sometimes."

"The city has its hardships and its dangers too, Mrs. Matthews; life
there demands almost too much at times; I often wonder if it is worth
the straggle."
"I guess that's so," replied Aunt Mollie, "but it don't seem like it could
be so hard as it is here. I tell Mr. Matthews we've clean forgot the ways
of civilized folks; altogether, though, I suppose we've done as well as
most, and we hadn't ought to complain."
The old scholar looked at the sturdy figure in its plain calico dress; at
the worn hands, busy with their homely task; and the patient, kindly
face, across which time had ploughed many a furrow, in which to plant
the seeds of character and worth. He thought of other women who had
sat with him on hotel verandas, at fashionable watering places; women
gowned in silks and laces; women whose soft hands knew no heavier
task than the filmy fancy work they toyed with, and whose greatest care,
seemingly, was that time should leave upon their faces no record of the
passing years. "And this is the stuff," said he to himself, "that makes
possible the civilization that produces them." Aloud, he said, "Do you
ever talk of going back to your old home?"
"No, sir, not now;" she rested her wet hands idly on the edge of the pan
of potatoes, and turned her face toward the clump of pines. "We used to
think we'd go back sometime; seemed like at first I couldn't stand it;
then the children come, and every time we laid one of them over there I
thought less about leavin', until now we never talk about it no more.
Then there was our girl, too, Mr. Howitt. No, sir, we won't never leave
these hills now."
"Oh, you had a daughter, too? I understood from Mr. Matthews that
your children were all boys."
Aunt Mollie worked a few moments longer in silence, then arose and
turned toward the house. "Yes, sir, there was a girl; she's buried under
that biggest pine you see off there a little to one side. We--we--don't
never talk about her. Mr. Matthews can't stand it. Seems like he ain't
never been the same since--since--it happened. 'Tain't natural for him to
be so rough and short; he's just as good and kind inside as any man ever

was or could be. He's real taken with you, Mr. Howitt, and I'm mighty
glad you're goin'