Cumberland Mountains -- Fiction; Kentucky -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Mountain life -- Fiction
"Nothing--nothing. It seems awful to a Northern man."
The stranger thought he had heard a groan behind him, and he had--King Camp
was the name of the Northern man's father-in-law. Ah, he was beginning to
understand; but why did Juno not want him to come for five years?
"Is--is Red King Camp--how long was his sentence?"
"Let's see--he's been in two years, and I heard he had three years more.
Yes, I remember--he got five years."
Once more the Bluegrass man thought he heard a groan, but the other
was only clearing his throat. The New Englander asked no more questions,
and about two hours by sun they rode over a ridge and down to the bed of
Clover Fork.
"Well, stranger, we part here. You go up to the head of the creek, and
anybody'll tell you where Red King lives. There's plenty of moonshining
up that way, and if anybody asks your name and your business--tell 'em
quick. They won't bother you. And if I were you I wouldn't criticise these
people to _anybody_. They're morbidly sensitive, and you never know when
you are giving mortal offense. And, by the way, most offenses _are_ mortal
in these hills."
"Thank you. Good-by--and thank you."
Everybody knew where old King Camp lived--"Fust house a leetle way down
t'other side o' the mountain from the head of Clover." And nobody asked
him his name or his business. Near dusk he was at the head of Little Clover
and looking down on Happy Valley. The rimming mountains were close overhung
with motionless wet clouds. Above and through them lightning flashed, and
thunder cracked and boomed like encircling artillery around the horizon.
The wind came with the rush of mighty wings, and blackness dropped like
a curtain. By one flash of lightning he saw a great field of corn, by
another a big, comfortable barn, a garden, a trim picket-fence, a yard
full of flowers, and a log house the like of which he had not seen in
the hills--and a new light came--Juno's work! A torrent of rain swept
after him as he stepped upon the porch and knocked on the door. A moment
later he was looking at the kindest and most motherly face and into the
kindest eyes he had ever seen.
"I'm Juno's husband," he said simply. For a moment she blinked up at him
bewilderedly through brass-rimmed spectacles, and then she put her arms
around him and bent back to look up at him again. Then, still without a
word, she led him on tiptoe to an open door and pointed.
"She's in thar." And there she lay--his Juno--thin, white, unconscious,
her beauty spiritualized, glorified. He sat simply looking at her--how
long he did not know--until he felt a gentle touch on his shoulder. It
was Juno's mother beckoning him to supper.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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