Mothering on Perilous Part 1

Mothering on Perilous.

by Lucy S. Furman.

I

ARRIVAL ON PERILOUS

JOSLIN, KY.

_Last Thursday in July._

Here I am at the end of the railroad, waiting to begin my two-days'

wagon-trip across the mountains. But the school wagon has not arrived,--my landlady says it is delayed by a "tide" in the creeks. By way of cheering me, she has just given a graphic account of the twenty-year-old feud for which this small town is notorious, and has even offered to take me around and show me, on walls, floors and court-house steps, the blood-spots where seven or eight of the feudists have perished. I declined to go,--it is sad enough to know such things exist, without seeing them face to face. Besides, I have enough that is depressing in my own thoughts.

When I locked the doors of the old home day before yesterday, I felt as a ghost may when it wanders forth from the tomb. For a year I had not been off the place; it seemed I should never have the courage to go again. For I am one whom death has robbed of everything,--not only of my present but of my future. In the past seven years all has gone; and with Mother's pa.s.sing a year ago, my very reason for existence went.

And yet none knows better than I that this sitting down with sorrow is both dangerous and wrong; if there is any Lethe for such pain as mine, any way of filling in the lonely, dreaded years ahead of me, I must find it. It would be better if I had some spur of necessity to urge me on. As it is, I am all apathy. If there is anything that could interest me, it is some form of social service. A remarkable settlement work being done in the mountains of my own state recently came to my attention; and I wrote the head-workers and arranged for the visit on which I am now embarked. I scarcely dare to hope, however, that I shall find a field of usefulness,--nothing interests me any more, and also, I have no gifts, and have never been trained for anything. My dearest ambition was to make a home, and have a houseful of children; and this, alas, was not to be!

_Night._

Howard Cleves, a big boy from the settlement school, has just arrived with the wagon--he says he had to "lay by" twenty-four hours on account of the "tide"--and we are to start at five in the morning.

SETTLEMENT SCHOOL ON PERILOUS.

_Sunday, In Bed._

I have pa.s.sed through two days of torture in that wagon. When we were not following the rocky beds of creeks, or sinking to the hubs in mudholes, we were winding around precipitous mountainsides where a misstep of the mules would have sent us hundreds of feet down. Nowhere was there an actual road,--as Howard expressed it, "This country is intended for nag-travel, not for wagons." The mules climbed over logs and bowlders, and up and down great shelves of rock, the jolting, cras.h.i.+ng, banging were indescribable, my poor bones were racked until I actually wept from the pain and would have turned back long before noon of the first day if I could; the thirteen hours--during which we made twenty-six miles--seemed thirteen eons, and I fell into the feather-bed at the stopover place that first night hat, dress, shoes and all.

Yesterday, having bought two pillows to sit on, I found the jolting more endurable, and was able to see some of the beauty through which we were pa.s.sing. There is no level land, nothing but creeks and mountains, the latter steep, though not very high, and covered mostly with virgin forest, though here and there a cornfield runs half-way up, and a lonely log house nestles at the base. There were looms and spinning-wheels in the porches of these homes, and always numbers of children ran out to see us pa.s.s. Just at noon we turned into Perilous Creek, the one the school is on. Here the bed was unusually wide and smooth, and I was enjoying the respite from racking and jolting, when Howard said with an anxious brow, "All these nice smooth places is liable to be quicksands,--last time I come over, it took four ox-teams to pull my span and wagon out. That's how it gets its name,--Perilous."

We escaped the quicks, thank heaven, and just at dark the welcome lights of the school shone out in the narrow valley. I was relieved to find I should be expected to remain in bed to-day.

Racked muscles, black-and-blue spots, and dislocated bones are not exactly pleasant; but physical pain is an actual relief after endless ache of heart and suffering of spirit.

A pretty, brown-eyed boy just brought in a pitcher of water, asked me if I came from the "level country" and how many times I had "rid" on the railroad train; and gave me the information that he was Philip Sidney Floyd, that his "paw" got his name out of a book, that his "maw" was dead, that he was "very nigh thirteen," and had worked for "the women"

all summer.

II

GETTING ACQUAINTED

_Monday Night._

Early this morning I was taken around by Philip and a smaller boy named Geordie to see the buildings,--handsome ones of logs, set in a narrow strip of bottom land along Perilous Creek. The "big house" especially, a great log structure of two-dozen rooms, where the settlement work goes on, and the teachers and girls live, is the most satisfying building I ever saw. There are also a good workshop, a pretty loom-house, and a small hospital, and the last s.h.i.+ngles are being nailed on the large new school-house. When I asked the boys why any school-term should begin the first of August, they explained that the children must go home and help their parents hoe corn during May, June and July.

All day the children who are to live in the school, and many more who hope to, were arriving, afoot or on nags, the boys, however small, in long trousers and black felt hats like their fathers, the girls a little more cheerfully dressed than their mothers, whose black sun-bonnets and somber homespun dresses were depressing. Many of the parents stayed to dinner. There is a fine, old-fas.h.i.+oned dignity in their manners, and great gentleness in their voices. I have always heard that, shut away here in these mountains, some of the purest and best Anglo-Saxon blood in the nation is to be found; now I am sure of it. It was pathetic to see the eagerness of these men and women that their children should get learning, and to hear many of them tell how they themselves had had no chance whatever at an education, being raised probably sixty or eighty miles from a school-house.

Late in the afternoon, as Philip, Geordie and I were fastening up straying rose-vines on the pine-tree pillars of the "big house" porch, a one-legged and very feeble man, accompanied by a boy, dismounted at the gate and came up the walk on a crutch. During the time he sat on the porch, my two a.s.sistants abandoned their work to stare open-mouthed at him. When he was called in to see the heads, Geordie inquired of his boy,

"How'd your paw git all lamed up thataway?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "My two a.s.sistants abandoned work to stare open-mouthed at him."]

The new arrival pulled his black hat down, frowned, and measured Geordie with gray, combative eyes, before replying, coldly,

"Warring with the Cheevers."

"Gee-oh, air you one of the Ma.r.r.s.es from Trigger Branch of Powderhorn?"

"Yes."

"What's your name?"

"Nucky."

"How old air you?"

"Going-on-twelve."

"What kin is Blant Marrs to you?"

"My brother."

"You don't say so! Gee, I wisht I could see him! Have you holp any in the war?"

"Some." Here Nucky was called in, to the evident disappointment of his interlocutor. Later, I saw him at the supper-table, gazing disapprovingly about him.

After supper I had a few minutes talk with the busy head-workers, and placed myself at their disposal, with the explanation that I really knew very little about anything, except music and gardening. They said these things are just what they have been wanting,--that a friend has recently sent the school a piano (how did it ever cross these mountains!) and that some one to supervise garden operations is especially needed.

"Besides, what you don't know you can learn," they said, "we are always having to do impossible and unexpected things here,--our motto is 'Learn by doing.'" I am very dubious; but I promised to try it a month.

They told me that between six and seven hundred children had been turned away to-day for lack of room,--only sixty can live in the school, though two hundred more attend the day-school, which begins to-morrow.

_Friday Night._

What a week! Foraging expeditions and music-lessons to big girls in the mornings, and in the afternoons, gardening, with a dozen small boys to keep busy. This is an industrial school,--in addition to the usual common-school subjects, woodwork, carpentry, blacksmithing, gardening, cooking, sewing, weaving and home-nursing are all taught, and the children in residence also perform all the work on the place, indoors and out. But alas, my agricultural force is diminis.h.i.+ng,--the small boys are leaving in batches. This is the first year any number have been taken to live in the school, and they are unable to endure the homesickness. Nucky Marrs left after one night's stay; three others followed Tuesday afternoon, and five on Wednesday; more were taken in, but left at once. Keats Salyer, a beautiful boy who has wept every minute of his stay, ran away a third time this morning. Yesterday Joab Atkins left when the housekeeper told him to help the girls pick chickens. Eight new boys came in to-day, but the veterans, Philip and Geordie, say these are aiming to leave to-morrow.

Friday is mill day in the mountains, and this morning, having had the boys sh.e.l.l corn, I took it to mill to be ground into meal, in a large "poke" (sack) slung across my saddle. When I had gone a mile up Perilous, the thing wriggled from under me and fell off in the road. Of course I was powerless to lift it, though equally of course I got off the school nag and tried. There was nothing to do but sit on the roots of a great beech until somebody came along. Two men soon rode up, and smiling, dismounted and politely set the poke and me on Mandy again, and I reached the mill in safety. When I got back, my black china-silk was ruined from sitting on the meal.

III