Fox The Heart of the Hills

1. Auflage 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4553-6092-5
Verlag: Seltzer Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 552 Seiten

Classic western. According to Wikipedia: 'Born in Stony Point, Kentucky to John William Fox, Sr., and Minerva Worth Carr, Fox studied English at Harvard University. He graduated in 1883 before becoming a reporter in New York City. After working for both New York Times and the New York Sun, he published a successful serialization of his first novel, A Mountain Europa, in Century magazine in 1892. Two moderately successful short story collections followed, as well as his first conventional novel, The Kentuckians in 1898. Fox gained a following as a war correspondent, working for Harper's Weekly in Cuba during the Spanish-American War of 1898, where he served with the 'Rough Riders.' Six years later he traveled to Asia to report on the Russo-Japanese War for Scribner's magazine. Though he occasionally wrote for periodicals, after 1904, Fox dedicated much of his attention to fiction. The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come (published in 1903) and The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (published in 1908) are arguably his most well known and successful works, entering the New York Times top ten list of bestselling novels for 1903, 1904, 1908, and 1909 respectively. Many of his works reflected the naturalist style, his childhood in Kentucky's Bluegrass region, and his life among the coal miners of Big Stone Gap, Virginia. Many of his novels were historical romances or period dramas set in that region.'

Autoren/Hrsg.

Fox, John

Leseproben

 XVI
  The boy was curled up on the rear seat of the smoking-car. His face was upturned to the glare of light above him, the train bumped, jerked, and swayed; smoke and dust rolled in at the open window and cinders stung his face, but he slept as peacefully as though he were in one of the huge feather-beds at his grandfather's house--slept until the conductor shook him by the shoulder, when he opened his eyes, grunted, and closed them again. The train stopped, a brakeman yanked him roughly to his feet, put a cheap suit-case into his hand, and pushed him, still dazed, into the chill morning air. The train rumbled on and left him blinking into a lantern held up to his face, but he did not look promising as a hotel guest and the darky porter turned abruptly; and the boy yawned long and deeply, with his arms stretched above his head, dropped on the frosty bars of a baggage-truck and rose again shivering. Cocks were crowing, light was showing in the east, the sea of mist that he well knew was about him, but no mountains loomed above it, and St. Hilda's prize pupil, Jason Hawn, woke sharply at last with a tingling that went from head to foot. Once more he was in the land of the Blue-grass, his journey was almost over, and in a few hours he would put his confident feet on a new level and march on upward. Gradually, as the lad paced the platform, the mist thinned and the outlines of things came out. A mysterious dark bulk high in the air showed as a water-tank, roofs new to mountain eyes jutted upward, trees softly emerged, a desolate dusty street opened before him, and the cocks crowed on lustily all around him and from farm-houses far away. The crowing made him hungry, and he went to the light of a little eating-house and asked the price of the things he saw on the counter there, but the price was too high. He shook his head and went out, but his pangs were so keen that he went back for a cup of coffee and a hard-boiled egg, and then he heard the coming thunder of his train. The sun was rising as he sped on through the breaking mist toward the Blue-grass town that in pioneer days was known as the Athens of the West. In a few minutes the train slackened in mid- air and on a cloud of mist between jutting cliffs, it seemed, and the startled lad, looking far down through it, saw a winding yellow light, and he was rushing through autumn fields again before he realized that the yellow light was the Kentucky River surging down from the hills. Back up the stream surged his memories, making him faint with homesickness, for it was the last link that bound him to the mountains. But both home and hills were behind him now, and he shook himself sharply and lost him-self again in the fields of grass and grain, the grazing stock and the fences, houses, and barns that reeled past his window. Steve Hawn met him at the station with a rattle-trap buggy and, stared at him long and hard.   "I'd hardly knowed ye--you've growed like a weed."   "How's the folks?" asked Jason.   "Stirrin'."   Silently they rattled down the street, each side of which was lined with big wagons loaded with tobacco and covered with cotton cloth--there seemed to be hundreds of them.   "Hell's a-comin' about that terbaccer up here," said Steve.   "Hell's a-comin' in the mountains if that robber up here at the capital steals the next election for governor," said Jason, and Steve looked up quickly and with some uneasiness. He himself had heard vaguely that somebody, somewhere, and in some way, had robbed his own party of their rights and would go on robbing at the polls, but this new Jason seemed to know all about it, so Steve nodded wisely.   "Yes, my feller."   Through town they drove, and when they started out into the country they met more wagons of tobacco coming in.   "How's the folks in the mountains?"   "About the same as usual," said the boy, "Grandpap's poorly. The war's over just now--folks 'r' busy makin' money. Uncle Arch's still takin' up options. The railroad's comin' up the river"--the lad's face darkened--"an' land's sellin' fer three times as much as you sold me out fer."   Steve's face darkened too, but he was silent.   "Found out yit who killed yo' daddy?"   Jason's answer was short.   "If I had I wouldn't tell you."   "Must be purty good shot now?"   "I hain't shot a pistol off fer four year," said the lad again shortly, and Steve stared.   "Whut devilmint are you in up here now?" asked Jason calmly and with no apparent notice of the start Steve gave.   "Who's been a-tellin' you lies about me?" asked Steve with angry suspicion.   "I hain't heerd a word," said Jason  coolly. "I bet you burned that toll-gate the morning I left here. Thar's devilmint goin' on everywhar, an' if there's any around you I know you can't keep out o' it."   Steve laughed with relief.   "You can't git away with devilmint here like you can in the mountains, an' I'm 'tendin' to my own business."   Jason made no comment and Steve went on:   "I've paid fer this hoss an' buggy an' I got things hung up at home an' a leetle money in the bank, an' yo' ma says she wouldn't go back to the mountains fer nothin'."   "How's Mavis?" asked Jason abruptly.   "Reckon you wouldn't know her. She's al'ays runnin' aroun' with that Pendleton boy an' gal, an' she's chuck-full o' new-fangled notions. She's the purtiest gal I ever seed, an'," he added slyly, "looks like that Pendleton boy's plumb crazy 'bout her."   Jason made no answer and showed no sign of interest, much less jealousy, and yet, though he was thinking of the Pendleton girl and wanted to ask some question about her, a little inconsistent rankling started deep within him at the news of Mavis's disloyalty to him. They were approaching the lane that led to Steve's house now, and beyond the big twin houses were visible.   "Yo' Uncle Arch's been here a good deal, an' he's tuk a powerful fancy to Mavis an' he's goin' to send her to the same college school in town whar you're goin'. Marjorie and Gray is a-goin' thar too, I reckon."   Jason's heart beat fast at these words. Gray had the start of him, but he would give the Blue-grass boy a race now in school and without. As they turned into the lane, he could see the woods-- could almost see the tree around which he had circled drunk, raging, and shooting his pistol, and his face burned with the memory. And over in the hollow he had met Marjorie on her pony, and he could see the tears in her eyes, hear her voice, and feel the clasp of her hand again. Though neither knew it, a new life had started for him there and then. He had kept his promise, and he wondered if she would remember and be glad.   His mother was on the porch, waiting and watching for him, with one hand shading her eyes. She rushed for the gate, and when he stepped slowly from the buggy she gave a look of wondering surprise and pride, burst into tears, and for the first time in her life threw her arms around him and kissed him, to his great confusion and shame. In the doorway stood a tall, slender girl with a mass of black hair, and she, too, with shining eyes rushed toward him, stopping defiantly short within a few feet of him when she met his cool, clear gaze, and, without even speaking his name, held out her hand. Then with intuitive suspicion she flashed a look at Steve and knew that his tongue had been wagging. She flushed angrily, but with feminine swiftness caught her lost poise and, lifting her head, smiled.   "I wouldn't 'a' known ye," she said.   "An' I wouldn't 'a' known you," said Jason.   The girl said no more, and the father looked at his daughter and the mother at her son, puzzled by the domestic tragedy so common in this land of ours, where the gates of opportunity swing wide for the passing on of the young. But of the two, Steve Hawn was the more puzzled and uneasy, for Jason, like himself, was a product of the hills and had had less chance than even he to know the outside world.   The older mountaineer wore store clothes, but so did Jason. He had gone to meet the boy, self-assured and with the purpose of patronage and counsel, and he had met more assurance than his own and a calm air of superiority that was troubling to Steve's pride. The mother, always apologetic on account of the one great act of injustice she had done her son, felt awe as she looked, and as her pride grew she became abject, and the boy accepted the attitude of each as his just due. But on Mavis the wave of his influence broke as on a rock. She was as much changed from the Mavis he had last seen as she was at that time from the little Mavis of the hills, and he felt her eyes searching him from head to foot just as she had done that long-ago time when he saw her first in the hunting- field. He knew that now she was comparing him with even higher standards than she was then, and that now, as then, he was falling short, and he looked up suddenly and caught her eyes with a grim, confident little smile that made her shift her gaze confusedly. She moved nervously in her chair and her cheeks began to burn. And Steve talked...