Charles Asbury Stephens - "Left on Labrador"

Sir James George Frazer - "The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3)"

Noah Davis - "A Narrative of The Life of Rev. Noah Davis, A Colored Man."

New York Times - "Current History, A Monthly Magazine"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

A Son of the Hills

H >> Harriet T. Comstock >> A Son of the Hills




"And what am I?" he asked, "what have you made me?"

"Oh! I did not make you, Sandy. You just were! The moonlight was
streaming in through the window where the roses and honeysuckle are--it
was a leafy moonlight and all ripply like dancing water. I was not
afraid--I went right boldly up to--your picture, Sandy, and I knew you
at once. You know in the Significant Room of my book it says there was
a man in a cage; the man and his dream; and the man that cut his way
through his enemies--the biggest of them all! But, oh! Sandy, mighty
plain and fine I saw you like you were all three of the book folks.
You were Sandy of the cage--and the cage was Lost Hollow! You were
Sandy with your dream of helping us-all. Me, the po' lil' white trash
in Crothers' factory--everybody! Then you were Sandy cutting your way
through your enemies like the Hertfords are to your family; I heard
Aunt Ann telling Ivy--and then right sudden I saw you hanging up in a
gold frame with the ripply moonlight shining on you---- The Biggest of
Them All!"

Sandy's eyes were brilliant and glittering; his breath came quick and
hard, and to steady himself he whispered:

"I am going away--to-night!"

The vision vanished and Cynthia felt two large tears roll down her
cheeks. They left no sorry stains upon the pale smoothness of the
girl's skin; Cynthia's eyes could always hold a smile even when dimmed;
her eyes were gray with blue tints and her straight, thick hair was the
dull gold that caught and held light and shade. Some day she was going
to be very handsome in an original and peculiar fashion, and Sandy
unconsciously caught a glimpse of it now, and it disturbed him.

"I am going--to-night. I wonder if there is enough?"

He glanced at the box. "I have never counted it."

"Never counted it? I have counted it every week. That's because I am
I, and you are you, Sandy. There's over thirty dollars."

At this Sandy gasped.

"I--reckon it will take me to Massachusetts," he said.

"I reckon it will take you to the world's end," Cynthia, the mystic
exclaimed, "and back again!"

"Back again!" Sandy's imagination could not stretch past a certain
limit.

"But you are coming back, Sandy?" A startled fear crept into the
girl's eyes; "you promised!"

"I shall come back--yes!"

"Let us count the money together, Sandy."

Dishevelled dark head and smooth bright one bent close in the dimming
light. There was a far-distant rumble of thunder, but neither heeded
it; showers were almost daily occurrences, and excitement and
concentration ran high. Suddenly Sandy started back and pointed to a
small roll of bills--three one-dollar bills they were--but Sandy had
never put a piece of paper money in the box!

"That!" he whispered hoarsely; "how did that get here?"

Too late Cynthia saw her mistake. All the small savings and sacrifices
of her life she had exchanged that very day at the post-office for the
three bills. Tod Greeley had picked out the cleanest and newest, and
now they had betrayed her.

Sandy was on his feet at once, and a stern frown drew his brows
together; the bruise on his cheek stung as the blood rushed to it, and
then he waited.

Presently Cynthia rose to her feet and from her slim height faced Sandy
on the level--eye to eye.

"I put it there!" defiance and pride touched the words, "it means as
much to me as it does to you--the going away, I mean. I've thought it
all out--you'll have to pay it back--pay it as I want it."

Sandy's mind worked more slowly; gropingly he strove to understand.

"How did you get it?" he asked relentlessly.

Cynthia laughed a little.

"Just scratches and pricks--it was great fun! I've been gathering the
wool from the bushes under which the sheep go, for years and years;
ever since you began to save, Sandy. Lily Ivy sold the wool to the
darkies--and I got Mr. Greeley to change the pennies--for bills. It is
all mine, every bit!"

A mist rose to Sandy's eyes--it almost hid that pure flower-like face
shining under the dark trees.

"You mustn't be mean, Sandy; besides, you are to pay it all back."

"How?" That word was all Sandy could master for a sharp pain in his
throat drove all else he meant to say back.

"Why, you are going to set me free--you must marry me!"

Like a child playing with fire Cynthia heedlessly spoke these words.
They had no deeper significance to her than the lilt of a world-old
song. Marriage was the end-all and consummation of her magic stories
and, in this case, it had simply been a trifle more difficult to
consider on account of the social difference between Sandy and her.
However, that had been overcome by the wand of imagination. Sandy
would evolve into something so peculiarly splendid that the chasm could
be bridged!

The effect of Cynthia's words upon Sandy was tragic. He closed his
eyes in order that he might shut out the hurting power of her face and
commanding eyes--but between the lids and his vision the girl mocked
him--he could not escape her!

The night before his manhood had been stung to life by Mary's cruelty;
it was fanned into live flame now by the childish tenderness of this
girl so near to womanhood that the coming charm and sweetness glorified
her. Then she touched him and a wave of delicious pain coursed through
his body.

"How did--this happen?" A finger lightly passed over the bruise on his
cheek. He could not answer.

"I know! But they couldn't hurt the you of you, Sandy. I see the
bigness shining through everything. Why do you keep your eyes shut?"

Sandy opened his eyes desperately and saw only the child until eye met
eye again, and then the vision of what Cynthia foretold shook him once
more.

"My head--spins," he said vaguely; "the day's heat made it ache."

"You will take my money, Sandy?"

"Yes."

"And you will come back and--marry me?"

"I'll come back and--and----"

"Will you marry me, Sandy, like they do in books?"

"If--if--that is the best way, yes."

"Oh! it always is! It's a mighty fine way, because then no one
can--make you do things. I shall make you do whatever I choose,
Sandy--will you mind?"

"No."

"You know in my book, Sandy, there is a Madam Bubble and I'm making
myself like her. You can make yourself into anything, I reckon, Sandy,
if you just _will_, and dream about it. Listen to me!" Cynthia had
Sandy by the shoulders now in frank, playful mood. "I am tall and
comely--I looked up the word, and it says it means to be agreeable and
good-looking. Well, I'm good-looking--or I'm going to be. Then the
book says Madam Bubble speaks smoothly and smiles at the end of a
sentence. I've tried and tried and now I can smile that way. Look,
Sandy!"

Again Sandy forced himself to fasten his eyes on the sweet, tender
mouth.

"I love to smile, Sandy."

Suddenly the girl's gay tone changed; she came back to grim facts with
a catch in her voice.

"How I shall miss you, Sandy. The woods will be right empty--till you
come again! I shall make believe find you on the hills even when I
know you are not here, but always I will be able to see you in the
Significant Room! I'm going to study and make myself fit for you--I
shall be right busy. I am going to ask Aunt Ann to let me learn of the
little doctor. I shall study the books you have and--it won't seem
long, Sandy!"

The brave attempt at cheer, the tender renunciation in the soft voice,
wrung Sandy's heart.

"I'm sorry I hated the little doctor for teaching you, Sandy. She
helped you--to--to come back quicker, only I did not know then. She'll
help me now, I reckon, to be ready for you. Sandy, I just couldn't see
you go down The Way! You stand here like you were going to stay on
forever and I'll run down the trail. I won't look back once, Sandy,
but--kiss me good-bye."

It was the little Cyn of the past playful days who pleaded so
pathetically--forgetting caste and dividing line. The little Cyn who
had always clung to her comrade when danger or fear threatened; but
behind the childish words rang the woman's alluring sweetness--the
woman little Cyn was some time to be. By a mighty effort Sandy Morley
bent and kissed the pretty upturned mouth. The rough, unlovely
clothing could not disguise the dignity of the stiff, boyish form; the
bluish bruise on his face grew darker as the hot blood surged through
it, but the clear, boyish eyes were frank and simple at last as the:

"Good-bye, Cynthia!" rang sharply.

There was one look more, full of brave sorrow, then Cynthia turned
abruptly and ran like a wild thing of the woods into the shadow of the
pines.

Sandy stood and watched her, with his thin face twitching miserably,
until the sound of her going died away; then he groaned and bent to
pick up the box of money that had lain unheeded while bigger things had
been conceived and born. Slowly, mechanically he counted the small
fortune to the last piece, then he placed two half dollars in the box
and left it where any one could easily find it. Poor Sandy was beyond
suffering now, or indeed beyond any sensation except that of dull
action. His head was aching excruciatingly; fever throbbed in his body
and a heavy weariness overcame him. He would rest before he went to
his father!

Sinking to the ground he leaned against the tree under which Cynthia
had stood and, for a moment, lost consciousness.




CHAPTER V

"So you've come home to be fed, eh?"

Martin Morley slunk into a chair and eyed the woman by the cook-stove
ingratiatingly.

"I sho' have," he replied; "it smells like ash cakes, and I've brought
a bucket of buttermilk from ole Mis' Walden's place. She certainly is
a techersome woman but a powerful good manager."

"Where's the buttermilk?"

"Outside the do'!"

"Run and fetch it, Molly."

The child, glaring at Martin, sprang to do her mother's bidding and as
she passed Morley he seemed to note, for the first time in his life,
her fantastic beauty. And then Morley stared after her--she looked
like _his_ mother! With the thought a blush of shame rose to his thin,
sallow face.

His mother! Between his mother and him lay a black abyss. What right
had anything, holding part in that shadow, to look like his mother? He
arose and almost snatched from the child the pail she had brought in.

"Hyar!" he cried, "let me take that, you're slopping it over the floor.
Whar's yo' brother?"

With this Mary Morley turned from her task with hot, blazing face? She
had been handsome once--but the fleeting beauty was gone.

"Sho'! _whar's_ that blessed son of yours?" Mary screamed. "You better
go and find out. Do you know what the brat has been doing all these
years? Years, I say! While we-all have been slaving and starving he's
been saving up; cheating us-all out of his earnings. Eating us-all out
of house and home while he--saved and glutted!"

Martin stared at the woman as if she were speaking a foreign language.

"Who--tole yo?" he asked vaguely, hoping by the question to clarify the
moment's confusion.

"Molly, she don' keep her eye on him fo' years! It's under a stone
beyond the Branch--dollars and dollars while we-all done without."

"Whar did he--get it?"

"He only gave us part of what he earned--he made us-all fools while he
hid the rest."

This was too bewildering for Martin and he looked helplessly at the
girl who had been informer. The bold little face of Molly confronted
him with something like fear in it.

"He'll sho' kill me!" she whined, "him and that--that Cynthia Walden."

This latter betrayal was new to Mary Morley and she came forward
angrily.

"None of your lying!" she commanded--"nobody's going to hurt you so
long as you tell the truth. What has the Walden girl got to do with
the stolen money?"

"She watched it! She licked me right smart once because I--tried to
find out how much there was. She told me she'd kill me sho' if I let
on and I ain't till to-day when ma said she'd send me down to Miss
Lowe's to larn things if she only had money to buy me some shoes. Why
should Sandy have that money and me no shoes?"

Why he yearned to lay the lash on the girl before him, Martin could not
tell, but she filled him with savage anger. She looked so mean, so
hard and--young! Then he tried to think it was Sandy with whom he was
angered. He had left the boy to his own devices, to be sure,
but--hidden money and the Walden girl aroused a sudden hot fear in him.

"You lie!" he cried in a tone that for many a day Mary, with her
growing power over him, had not heard. "You-all lie; you're a lying
lot. I'll find the boy----" Martin reached up and took down a lash
whip which hung beneath an old rusted sword on the wall. "I'll find
the boy and the truth, and by heaven! the sneak and liar, whoever he
may be, will get a taste of this!" He snapped the lash sharply.

Molly shrank from his path and Mary gazed after him in sullen
amazement. Led by some intuition, Martin strode down the path leading
to the Branch and, just as he crossed the almost-dry stream bed, he
saw, on the hill opposite, Sandy coming toward him. The boy stopped as
he caught sight of his father and waited at the edge of the woods. His
brief rest had refreshed him and the cool evening breeze, bearing a
shower in its keeping, calmed his aching head and feverish body.
Martin noticed how white and haggard the boy looked and some instinct
warned him to hide the whip behind his back. When he reached Sandy the
two stepped back to where a log lay across the path and upon that
Martin dropped, while Sandy braced against a tree.

"Whar was yo' going?" asked Morley.

"Home, Dad. I wanted to see you--and then----"

"Well----"

"I'm going away!"

"Going away?"

"Come, too, Dad! Come and let us fight it out together. She----" The
boy's eyes, haunted and fierce, turned toward the home place. "She
don't belong to us or with us. I don't know how better to say it--but
she don't. She won't mind; no one will mind after the first. I've got
to go and--I want you! I've been saving and saving little by little
for years--there's enough now and we can go to-night. Out
beyond--somewhere--Dad, there's something better for us than--this. By
and by we'll come back. We'll come and help----" and a sob choked the
words; "we'll come and help all Lost Hollow. Somehow I feel--called!"

Martin Morley stared at the boy before him as though he saw a ghost.
And indeed a ghost of the grim past did confront him. He saw himself
as he once was ere his Inheritance was downed forever. He, too, had
wanted to break away; get out to the free chance and the new hope.

"You can't do it!" he said in a faint voice to that ghost of himself
standing opposite in the darkening shadows. "There's something as
allus holds us-all from getting away. It began back there in
grandfather's day--it's settled on us-all like a death grip."

Sandy listened as if already he was far and apart from all the sordid,
little hampering things that made up the life of Lost Hollow.

"What did--grandfather do?" he asked, like one who had no special
interest in the matter.

"It was my grandfather, he was the friend of Lansing Hertford. They
said he betrayed his friend--but they-all lied. First it was a
whisper, then in your grandfather's time they-all spoke louder. The
lie took away the faith of men from us-all and--that ended it! The lie
slinks low till some Morley raises his head and then it springs up and
strikes him down."

"It will not strike me down!" Sandy, weak and forlorn, straightened
against the tree with the darkness almost blotting him from the eyes
fastened tenderly on his face, spoke firmly. "I'll kill the lie
whatever it was! What did they say, Dad?"

Never before had Sandy cared. He knew there was something lurking in
the past that caused his father to slink from the mountain people,
caused the men and women to avoid and shun him, but it had always
existed. It was part of Lost Hollow and the Morley fate.

Then, alone with the last of his race, Martin Morley told the old story
that had sapped the vitality of his family. Such a small, mean thing
it seemed to have downed the once good stock! But in a place where
tradition thrives on starvation, lack of ambition and misunderstanding,
it had done its work. As Morley drawled the ancient wrong to light, as
he eased his soul of the burden and so shared it with his boy, his eye
brightened and he sat straighter upon the fallen log for--at its
completion--Sandy laughed!

"It was this--er--way. In them days us-all and the Hertfords was
equals. The plantation lying off to the east of the old Hertford home
place belonged to us-all"--many and many were the quarts of berries and
bushels of nuts Sandy had gathered from there!--"but it slipped
away--it's all gone years past. My grandfather and Lansing Hertford
was close friends--none closer. They fought and loved side by side
till Hertford--he got some kind of government order to go to furrin'
parts a mighty distance from Lost Hollow. Some time after he went my
grandfather followed on a pleasure trip--a pleasure trip, Sandy, think
of that! He went away for pleasure! His pockets full of money and him
right well fixed! On his travels he stopped and called on Hertford in
them furrin' parts and Hertford he gave to grandfather a mighty
precious bottle of stuff to bring back home to a big merchant down
Lynchburg way. What happened the Lord only knows, Sandy, but when the
merchant opened the bottle there wasn't nothing but water in it! No
one ever spoke out in grandfather's day--they dassent. He was a mighty
proud and upperty man, but a whisper and a nudge can do the work, and
little by little grandfather was pushed down and out. In my father's
time they spoke louder--they don' said how grandfather had sold the
precious stuff before he came back; Lord, Sandy, I leave it to you,
son, would he have come if he had done that low-down, mean trick?"

"No!" Sandy breathed the word like a hiss, and in the darkness and his
weakness he felt the poison of the lie stealing into his thought, but
he flung his head up proudly. "No! No!" he repeated clearly and
defiantly; "No!"

"But they-all never trusted none of us again."

Sandy recalled his first visit to the Walden back door and his courage
rose--they had learned to trust him even in Lost Hollow!

"Grandfather tried to rise up and failed. Father had his hope, but it
was killed; I strove, Sandy, I sho' did, God knows! but you see how it
has been with me. There's no use, son, we-all is damned!"

"I am--going to succeed!"

Sandy's voice struck through the gloom and stillness like a tangible
blow. Martin started and gave a nervous laugh.

"Come home!" he said; "come home and bring your money with you. It
will buy peace and pardon--them's better than any fool idees. And just
remember this, Sandy Morley, we-all may be dastards and hard drinkers
and what not, but we sho' don't desert women and children. They, down
there, belong to us, son, and I expect you and me belong to them!"

Martin rose hurriedly and dropped the whip in the underbrush.

"Come on home, son!"

But Sandy did not move.

"It's come with me or I go alone, Dad."

The child was master of the man!

"You mean it? You mean you dare to disobey--me?"

"I'm going to--take my chance, Dad, out among--folks!"

"You--will--obey--me!" But even as the words were spoken, Martin felt
how impotent they were.

"It's good-bye, Dad?"

It was good-bye. Both man and boy realized it. The night closed them
in and the protecting trees sheltered them for a moment more.

"You po' little lad! you mean it?"

"Yes, Dad. Will you come?"

Martin turned one glance to where the light from his cabin door shone;
then he groaned and said:

"No! God knows they do belong to me and I'm too old, too broken. The
curse will get the best of you, boy, and you'll come trailing home.
I'll be here--then! But----" And now Martin came closer and held him
by the thin, trembling shoulders.

"Grandfather never done it! It was one man's word agin another's and
the Hertfords have the luck--they allus had. Onct one of them come
back"--and here Morley came closer to Sandy--"it was back in ole Miss
Ann Walden's early days--he came back and something happened!" The
whisper made Sandy creep with chill.

"What?" he asked, hoarsely.

"He done a mighty wrong to--Miss Ann's little sister, her that was
called Queenie and looked it! We-all knew, but we-all stood by Miss
Ann, even such as me stood by her! it was the only thing we-all could
do for her. He got away! Then that po' chile took to watching from
the balcony for him who never come--and then she went away--and by and
by--the baby come home!"

"The baby?"

Sandy trembled and grew faint. He had eaten little and the burden
being laid upon him was more than his strength could bear.

"Cynthia--the lil' girl with the face of Queenie, her mother?"

"No! No!" What he feared and abhorred the boy could not tell, but
every instinct in him rose to do battle for the child--friend of his
starved and empty life.

"It's your part, son, to stand by and never let on! We-all have done
it; we-all took what Miss Ann said for gospel truth--and so must you!"

Then it was that Sandy laughed! The sound startled and shocked Martin
and he almost reeled from before it, but strangely enough it seemed to
brighten the heavy darkness.

"I don't believe it!" said Sandy between his bursts of laughter. "It's
a bad dream--we-all must wake up."

"We can't fight them, Sandy!"

The poor legacy of hatred, wrong, loyalty, and despair was all that
Martin Morley had to offer his boy as a weapon in the coming fight.
The uselessness and weakness of it struck Sandy even then as he stood
on the threshold of the new life. What did it matter? But it was the
small thing, the old past that made up the shabby present of The
Hollow. He was going to leave everything--even the old grudge--already
the wider thought called him and gave a touch of daring to his laugh.

"Good-bye, Dad!"

And then Morley staggered toward Sandy and stretched his arms out to
him. There was one thing more he had to offer!

"I--I want to tell you 'bout--yo' mother, Sandy--and me! No one ain't
all bad; she was all good and yo' must lay hold o' the good. It will
help if yo' can cling fast enough."

Oddly enough Sandy found himself against his father's breast without a
sense of strangeness. Long years ago he had so lain in the strong
arms--the recollection brought others in its wake; memories of safe,
happy days--before Mary had come into their lives.

"I was older then her!" Martin spoke as if confessing to one who
demanded the best and the truth at last. It was as though he felt that
with the neglect and injustice he had of late shown the boy, there had
been the holding back of his just due. "Yo' mother came from The
Forge, she left a good home for me because she believed in me--she was
terrible young and trusting and she didn't live to--find out! I was
old enough to be her father, and I tried. God help me! I tried, but
it was the old curse and not even the love I had for her could keep me
up. But while she lived--it was better. The cabin was clean and tidy
and she always sang about her work. She only stopped singing toward
the last--when she got thinking about you she got solemner and stiller
and then--you came! She--died the day after, and the blackness of it
has shut the sunlight out of my life ever since, Sandy. I ought to
have took my pay and made no fuss, and for a time I did. You and me
lived on in the cabin with a woman's hand to help at the pinch, and for
years I kept my head and yours above water. But when yo' are a man,
son, you'll think kinder o' me than what yo' do to-day; a man's a man,
and a lonely man is the worst of all--and so"--Martin's grizzly head
was pressed against Sandy's--"and so--Mary came! She didn't ask much;
she only wanted to live along with us-all in the cabin, but----" The
dreary years seemed to spread before both man and boy in the silence
which followed.

"Good-bye, Sandy, good-bye!" Martin choked and held the boy off at
arm's length. "Yo' great-grandfather's name was Sandford Morley. I
gave you the name for good luck--maybe it--will help. Good-bye!"

"Good-bye--dear old Dad!"

The one-time trust and affection flooded the moment and place. Quite
simply and naturally they kissed and fell apart.

"Yo' go first, lad--yo' ain't got nothing to take?" Sandy shook his
head.

"No, Dad. Good-bye. The money will help me on. Some day I'm coming
back, Dad, coming back to help! Wait for me, Dad, and hold tight for
me--so I'll be glad. Dear, dear, old Dad!"

Then Sandy turned and set his face toward The Appointed Way. It had
been hard to see Cynthia flee from him, leaving him lonely and
forsaken; but it was harder now to leave the sad, broken father in the
desolate blackness of night--and enter the new, hard life alone! But
with never a backward look Sandford Morley went to meet his fate.

Martin stood and listened until the last sound dropped into silence.
Then he went back. It was pitchy dark when he reached the cabin.
There were mutterings of thunder in the distance again, and the odour
of scorched meal in the air. Mary, with Molly hanging to her, stood by
the rough table in the middle of the room.

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