The Call of the Cumberlands

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.