The autumn came, and the hills blazed out in their fanfare of splendid
color. The broken skyline took on a wistful sweetness under the haze of
"the Great Spirit's peace-pipe."
The sugar trees flamed their fullest crimson that fall. The poplars
were clear amber and the hickories russet and the oaks a deep burgundy.
Lean hogs began to fill and fatten with their banqueting on beechnuts
and acorns. Scattered quail came together in the conclave of the covey,
and changed their summer call for the "hover" whistle. Shortly, the
rains would strip the trees, and leave them naked. Then, Misery would
vindicate its christener. But, now, as if to compensate in a few
carnival days of champagne sparkle and color, the mountain world was
burning out its summer life on a pyre of transient splendor.
November came in bleakly, with a raw and devastating breath of
fatality. The smile died from horizon to horizon, and for days cold
rains beat and lashed the forests. And, toward the end of that month,
came the day which Samson had set for his departure. He had harvested
the corn, and put the farm in order. He had packed into his battered
saddlebags what things were to go with him into his new life. The sun
had set in a sickly bank of murky, red-lined clouds. His mule, which
knew the road, and could make a night trip, stood saddled by the stile.
A kinsman was to lead it back from Hixon when Samson had gone. The boy
slowly put on his patched and mud-stained overcoat. His face was sullen
and glowering. There was a lump in his throat, like the lump that had
been there when he stood with his mother's arm about his shoulders, and
watched the dogs chase a rabbit by his father's grave. Supper had been
eaten in silence. Now that the hour of departure had come, he felt the
guilt of the deserter. He realized how aged his uncle seemed, and how
the old man hunched forward over the plate as they ate the last meal
they should, for a long while, have together. It was only by sullen
taciturnity that he could retain his composure.
At the threshold, with the saddlebags over his left forearm and the
rifle in his hand, he paused. His uncle stood at his elbow and the boy
put out his hand.
"Good-by, Unc' Spicer," was all he said. The old man, who had been his
second father, shook hands. His face, too, was expressionless, but he
felt that he was saying farewell to a soldier of genius who was
abandoning the field. And he loved the boy with all the centered power
of an isolated heart.