The Call of the Cumberlands

Dusk was falling, when he hitched his horse in a clump of timber, and,

lifting his saddlebags, began climbing to a cabin that sat far back in

a thicketed cove. He was now well within South territory, and the need

of masquerade had ended.

The cabin had not, for years, been occupied. Its rooftree was leaning

askew under rotting shingles. The doorstep was ivy-covered, and the

stones of the hearth were broken. But it lay well hidden, and would

serve his purposes.

Shortly, a candle flickered inside, before a small hand mirror.

Scissors and safety razor were for a while busy. The man who entered in

impeccable clothes emerged fifteen minutes later--transformed. There

appeared under the rising June crescent, a smooth-faced native, clad in

stained store-clothes, with rough woolen socks showing at his brogan

tops, and a battered felt hat drawn over his face. No one who had known

the Samson South of four years ago would fail to recognize him now. And

the strangest part, he told himself, was that he felt the old Samson.

He no longer doubted his courage. He had come home, and his conscience

was once more clear.

The mountain roads and the mountain sides themselves were sweetly

silent. Moon mist engulfed the flats in a lake of dreams, and, as the

livery-stable horse halted to pant at the top of the final ridge, he

could see below him his destination.

The smaller knobs rose like little islands out of the vapor, and

yonder, catching the moonlight like scraps of gray paper, were two

roofs: that of his uncle's house--and that of the Widow Miller.

At a point where a hand-bridge crossed the skirting creek, the boy

dismounted. Ahead of him lay the stile where he had said good-by to

Sally. The place was dark, and the chimney smokeless, but, as he came

nearer, holding the shadows of the trees, he saw one sliver of light at

the bottom of a solid shutter; the shutter of Sally's room. Yet, for a

while, Samson stopped there, looking and making no sound. He stood at

his Rubicon--and behind him lay all the glitter and culture of that

other world, a world that had been good to him.

That was to Samson South one of those pregnant and portentous moments

with which life sometimes punctuates its turning points. At such times,

all the set and solidified strata that go into the building of a man's

nature may be uptossed and rearranged. So, the layers of a mountain

chain and a continent that have for centuries remained steadfast may

break and alter under the stirring of earthquake or volcano, dropping

heights under water and throwing new ranges above the sea.