Author : Clarence Monroe Wallin
Publisher : Library of Alexandria
ISBN 13 : 1465592148
Total Pages : 122 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (655 download)
Book Synopsis Gena of the Appalachians by : Clarence Monroe Wallin
Download or read book Gena of the Appalachians written by Clarence Monroe Wallin and published by Library of Alexandria. This book was released on 2020-09-28 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It was late in the afternoon of a cold winter’s day when they sent for him to go and perform the last sad rites at the burial of Lucky Joe. Lucky Joe had outstripped the law in his crimes for more than forty years—hence the people had well dubbed him “Lucky.” For more than three decades his name had been the synonym of dread and fear among the people of the hills. He had at length whipped them into granting him whatever he exacted of them, whether the thing in itself was right or wrong. But one memorable day, the tardy finger of the law apprehended him, and he stood up before the bar of Justice and heard the court pronounce, “Joseph Filson, guilty!” Quickly he was ushered away to the penitentiary—down to a Southern jail and to hard and endless toil for the remainder of his life. The gates of the prison closed and locked their iron jaws behind him: his keeper admonished him to be obedient, and he immediately chose to work at the blacksmith’s forge. Day after day, he swung the sledge in silence. Then the days crowded into months and into years, but he pounded away at the anvil unmindful of the end. Finally death came and knocked at the door of his narrow cell and took him away. The news of the great outlaw’s death flashed back to the hills, and horse and rider took up the message and sped over the peaks and down into the narrow gorges to tell the mountainfolk of the end. Many a mountain mother and son ran out to the roadside to meet the rider, and received the news with gladness. Men and boys gathered in groups about the forks of the roads and doubted that it could be true. But, when the remains were forwarded to the railroad station nearest the mountain home, doubt and distrust gave way to the evidence, and all were satisfied. “No, he wouldn’t come,” said the man at the gate. He sat there, on his horse and fumbled at the horn of his saddle for more than a minute, all the while trying to find words with which to make further known his mission. “I say, thet we took ’im to the school-house yisterday, but the preacher wouldn’t come. Don’t think thet he wanted to come nohow, cause you see, Lucky wuz allus a purty bad man. But we’ve brot ’im back to the school house today, an’ we want to put ’im away nice, an’ as we knowed that you wuz here, we’d like to git you to come. We knowed thet you wuz not a preacher, but thet you wuz a kinder public Sunday-school speaker—an’ we want to put ’im away nice—an’ like to git you to come.” Paul Waffington saddled his horse and led him out into the deep snow, mounted, and followed the stranger out into the storm. The way was dangerous, but the two men picked their way along the mountain pass as best they could. The roar and the fury of the storm increased as they went, and the cold wind cut like the blade of a knife. Many times they were forced to lie down in the saddle with their heads against their horses’ necks to protect themselves from the cutting sleet and driving snow. True enough, the man had said at the gate that Paul Waffington was not a preacher. Nor was he engaged in any preparations to that end. But choosing to remain a layman, the Sunday-school and the children were the direct objects of his Christian activities. But when some human heart was sore and duty called, he responded without a murmur. Hence throughout the blinding storm of this winter day he rode with the stranger to the burial of Lucky Joe. Despite the midwinter storm that was raging, he found the little school-house overflowing with the people of the hills. Great bunches of mountaineers stood about in the deep snow, on the outside, while the house was crowded to the door with thinly clad mothers bearing in their arms their children. All had come, alike, to get a glimpse of the face of the dead man whose name, to them, had been born of destruction.
