Sergeant York And His PeopleCowan, Sam K. (Sam Kinkade)
History
Sergeant York And His People
Cowan, Sam K. (Sam Kinkade)
Appalachians (People); Tennessee, East -- Social life and customs; York, Alvin Cullum, 1887-1964
At the post office of Pall Mall, which is also the store of "Paster"
Pile--a frame building upon stilts to allow an unobstructed flow of the
Wolf when on a winter rampage--the road turns at right angles to the
west. Through fields of corn it goes, across a stretch of red clover to
the clump of forest trees which is the schoolhouse grounds and in which
nestles the little church that has played such a prominent part in the
life of the village. Then the road goes beside the graveyard and again
through corn to the general store of John Marion Rains, which with five
houses in sight--and one of these the York home--marks the western
confine of Pall Mall.
One can be in the center of Pall Mall and not know it, for the residents
live in farm houses that dot the valley and in cabins on the
mountainsides. The little church, which sits by the road with no homes
near it, is the geographical as well as the religious center of the
community--it is the heart of Pall Mall.
Passing the Rains store the roadway tumbles down to the York's big
spring. A brook in volume the stream flows clear and cool from a low
rock-ribbed cave in the base of the mountain.
Across the spring branch, up the mountainside in a clump of honey-suckle
and roses and apple trees is the home to which Sergeant York returned.
It is a two-room cabin. The boxing is of rough boards as are the
unplaned narrow strips of batting covering the cracks. There is a
chimney at one end and in one room is a fireplace. The kitchen is a
"lean-to" and the only porch is on the rear, the width of the
kitchen-dining room. The porch is for service and work, railed partly
with a board for a shelf, which holds the water-bucket, the tin wash
basin and burdens brought in from the farm.
Parts of the walls of the two rooms are papered with newspapers and
catalog pages; the rough rafters run above. The uncovered floor is of
wide boards, worn smooth in service, chinked to keep out the blasts of
winter.
The porch in the rear is on a level with the mountainside. To care for
the mountain's slope a front stoop was built. The sides of it are
scantlings and the steps are narrow boards.
The house has been painted by Poverty; but the home is warmed and lit by
a mountain mother's love. The front stoop is a wooden ladder with flat
steps but the entrance to the home is an arbor of honey suckle and
roses.
On summer nights the York boys sat on that stoop and sang, and their
voices floated on the moonbeams out over the valley. The little mother
"pottered" about, with ever a smile on her face for her boys. They were
happy.
It was from this home that Alvin went to war, and it was to it he
returned.
Visitors know, and it is well for others to realize, that Pall Mall and
the "Valley of the Three Forks o' the Wolf" are back among the rising
ranges of the Cumberland Mountains forty-eight miles from the railroad.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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