long. The clouds were snow-white, tumbling,
ever-moving, and between them the
sky showed blue and deep. Grass, leaf,
weed and flower were in the richness that
comes to the green things of the earth just
before that full tide of summer whose
foam is drifting thistle down. The air was
clear and the mountains seemed to have
brushed the haze from their faces and
drawn nearer that they, too, might better
see the doings of that day.
From the four winds of heaven, that
morning, came the brave and the free. Up
from Lee, down from Little Stone Gap,
and from over in Scott, came the valley-
farmers--horseback, in buggies, hacks,
two-horse wagons, with wives, mothers,
sisters, sweethearts, in white dresses,
flowered hats, and many ribbons, and
with dinner-baskets stuffed with good
things to eat--old ham, young chicken,
angel-cake and blackberry wine--to be
spread in the sunless shade of great
poplar and oak. From Bum Hollow
and Wildcat Valley and from up the
slopes that lead to Cracker's Neck came
smaller tillers of the soil--as yet but
faintly marked by the gewgaw trappings
of the outer world; while from beyond
High Knob, whose crown is in cloud-land,
and through the Gap, came the mountaineer
in the primitive simplicity of home
spun and cowhide, wide-brimmed hat and
poke-bonnet, quaint speech, and slouching
gait. Through the Gap he came in two
streams--the Virginians from Crab Orchard
and Wise and Dickinson, the Kentuckians
from Letcher and feudal Harlan,
beyond the Big Black--and not a man
carried a weapon in sight, for the stern
spirit of that Police Guard at the Gap
was respected wide and far. Into the
town, which sits on a plateau some twenty
feet above the level of the two rivers that
all but encircle it, they poured, hitching
their horses in the strip of woods that runs
through the heart of the place, and broad
ens into a primeval park that, fan-like,
opens on the oval level field where all
things happen on the Fourth of July.
About the street they loitered--lovers hand
in hand--eating fruit and candy and drinking
soda-water, or sat on the curb-stone,
mothers with babies at their breasts and
toddling children clinging close--all
waiting for the celebration to begin.