The Wiving of Lance Cleaverage

NOON of summer in the highlands of Tennessee; the Cumberlands, robed in the mid-season's green, flashed here and there with banding and gemming of waters. The two Turkey Track Mountains, Big and Little, lying side by side and one running so evenly from the other that only the dweller upon them knew where to differentiate, basked in the full glow of a Sabbath morning radiance.

A young fellow of twenty-three, crossing the crown of a higher hill, tonsured years ago by the axe of some settler, but offering half way up its side resistance of undergrowth and saplings, paused a moment in the open to look down. Below him the first church bell had just rung in the little gray structure across the creek. Shining above the ocean of woods and the cabin homes that, like islets, dotted the forest at wide intervals, the Sabbath sun caught and lightened upon something [2] bright, swung upon the newcomer's back. Himself as yet unseen, he gazed down upon this his world, spread map-like below him. He could pick out everybody's home. Each one of those cabins wore to-day, from porch floors hollowed with much scouring to inner cupboard niche, an air of Sunday expectancy that lacked little of being sanctimonious. Only the house-mother remained in charge of each, preparing the Sunday company dinner with even more outlay of energy than the preceding six had required. The men had, by common consent, adjourned to spring, barn, the shelter of big trees in the yard; he caught glimpses of the young folks below him on the woods-paths, attired in their brightest frocks and shirts, and whatever finery they could command, sauntering by twos and threes toward preaching. His smiling, impersonal gaze was aware of Callista Gentry sitting on a rock above the spring, holding a sort of woodland state like a rustic queen. The time of roses was past in this southern land, but every dooryard in the Turkey Tracks was painted gay with hollyhocks, while in ravine and thicket flamed the late azaleas, ranging from clear pale yellow, through buff and orange, to crimson. These lay piled in a sheaf beside the big gray rock, and the girl who sat there was showing her mates how to trim their hats with them, while several boys looked on and presumably admired. [3]

The curious feature of Callista Gentry's following was, that it included as many young women as young men, and the chariot wheels of her mates looked robbed always, because, inferentially, the man who courted any other would rather have Callista Gentry if he might.