That was its greatest charm to my schoolmates. From any of the fields,
on the hill-side beyond the village, we could look down and watch the
two daily trains as they made a wide sweep up into this forgotten
country. There was one lad whom I remember with envy. His father was
carter for our community and sometimes he took his son down with him.
They slept in the great covered wagon in the square before the county
court house, and came back the next day. The boy’s name was Stonewall
Jackson Clarke. He lorded it over the rest of us because he had seen a
locomotive at close quarters. And he used to tell us that the court
house was bigger than our two churches "with Blake’s store on top."
I think that as a boy I knew the names of one or two stations on each
side of the county seat. But it never occurred to me that the trains
down there could take you to the cities and countries I studied about in
my geography. Beyond the valley were Missionary Ridge and Lookout
Mountain. But none of the boys I played with realized that the world
beyond the mountains was anything like the country we could see. It
would have surprised us if the teacher had pointed out to us on the
school map the spot where our village stood. The land over which
Cinderella’s Prince ruled was just as real to us as New York State or
the countries of Europe, the names of whose capitals we learned by rote.
My cousin Oliver I disliked. As a youngster I did not know why. But
now I can see that he had a craven streak in him, a taint of sneakiness,
an inability to be bravely sincere. It was through him that I got my
lesson in justice.
He was then about sixteen and I eight. His hobby at the time was
carpentry and, as I was supposed to dull his tools if I touched them, I
was forbidden to play in the part of the barn where he had his bench.
He was going to make an overnight visit to some friends in a neighboring
township and at breakfast—he was to start about noon—he asked the Father
to reiterate the prohibition. A few hours later I found Oliver smoking
a corn-silk cigarette behind the barn. He begged me not "to tell on
him." Nothing had been further from my mind. As a bribe for my silence
he said I might play with his tools. The spirit of his offer angered
me—but I accepted it.
After he had left the Father found me at his bench.
"Ollie said I could," I explained.
"At breakfast," the Father replied, "he distinctly said you could not."
But I stuck to it. The Father had every reason to believe I was lying.
It was not in Oliver’s nature to be kind to me without reason. And I
could not, in honor, explain the reason. The Father was not the kind to
spoil his children by sparing the rod, and there was no crime in his
code more heinous than falsehood. He tried to flog me into a confession.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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