The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1910-07-29
CHAPTER II.

BILE in the annals OF the Lebanon iron
and coal region as the first OF an
epoch, and as the year of the great
flood. But the herald of change had
not yet blown his trumpet in Paradise
Valley; and the world of russell and
green and limestone white, spreading
itself before the eyes of the boy sit
ting with his hands locked over his
knees on the top step of the porch
fronting the Gordon homestead, was
the same world which, with due sea-
sonal variations, had been his world
from the beginning.
1t was a hot July afternoon, full
month after the revival, and Thomas
Jefferson was at that perilous pass
where Satan is said to Turk for the
purpose of providing employment for
the idle. He was wondering If the
shade of the hill oaks would be worth
the trouble it would take to reach IT,
when his mother came to the open
window of the living room: small.
fair, weIl-preserved woman, this moth
er of the boy of IL, with light brown
hair grazing a little at the temples,
and eyes remindful of vigils, of fervent
beseeehing, of mighty wrestlings
against principalities and powers and
the rulers of the darkness of this
world.
you, Thomas Jefferson" she said.
gently, but speaking as one having au-
thority, you'd better be studying your
Sunday lesson than sitting there doing
nothing"
"Yes'm," said the boy, but he made
no move other than to hug his knees
a little closer. He wished his mother
would stop calling his Thomas Jeffer-
son." To be sure, it was his name.
or at least two-thirds of it.; but he
liked the Buddy" of his father, or the
''Tom-Jeff" of other people a vast deal
better.
Further. the thought OF studying
Sunday lessons begot rebellion. At
times, as during those soul stirring re-
vival weeks, now seemingly receding
into a far-away past, he had moments
of yearning to be wholly sanctified.
But the miracle of transformation
which he had confidently expected as
the result of his coming through" was
still unwrought. When John Bates or
Simon Cantrell undertook to bully him,
as aforetime, there was the same in
toxicating experience of all the visible
world going blood-re before his eyes
the same sinful desire to slay them.
one or both.
-5fcIIrCt q rII6 Upef WINDOW
of the living-reom. His mother had
gone about her Homework, and he
could hear her singing softly. as befi.-
ted the still, warm day. All hymns
were beginning to have that effect, ami
this one in particular always renewed
the conflict between the yearning for
sanctlty and a desire to do something
desperately wicked; the only middle
course lay in flight Hence, the battle
being fairly ON, he stole another glance
at the window, sprang afoot, and ran
silently around the house and through
the peach orchard to Chamber over the
low stone wall which was the only
barrier on that side between the will
derness and the sown.
Men spoke of Paradise as "the val.
ley" though it was rather sheltered
cove with Mount Lebanon for it's back
ground and semicircular range of
Oak-grown hills for its other rampant
Splitting it endwise ran the white
streak of the pike, macadamized from
the hill quarry which, full quarter
of a century before the Civil War, had
furnished the stone for the Dabn.y
manor-house; and paralleling the road
unevenly lay ribbon of silver, known
to less poetic souls than Thomas JEFF
ferson's as Turkey Creek, but loved
best by him under it's almost forgotten
Indian name of Chiawassee
Beyond the valley and it's inclostng
hills rose the "other mountain" blue
in the sunlight and royal purple in the
shadows-the Cumberland: source and
birthplace of the cooling west wind
that was whispering softly to the ce-
darS on high Lebanon. Thomas Jeffe--
son called the loftiest of the purple
distances Pisgah, picturing it as the
mountain from which Moses had look
ed over into the Promised Land. Some
time he would go and climb it and
feast his eyes on the sight of the Ca
man beyond; yea, he might even 20
down and possess the good land, il so
the Lord should not hold him back as
He had held Moses.
That was high thought, quite in
keeping with the sense of overlordship
bred of the upper stillnesses To COM
pany with it, the home valley straight
way began to idealize itself from the
upiifted point OF view on the mount
OF vision. The Paradise fields were
delicately outlined squares of v,y;a
6A0SAA "a oOAOCh yCAOW, OF the
red brown of the upturned earth =,
the fallow places. The old negro quar-.
ters on the Dabney grounds many
years gone to the ruin of disuse. were
vine- grown and invisible save a. I
spot of summer verdure; and the mar.
or-house itself. gray. grim and forl.Id-
ding to small boy scurrying past II
In the deepening twilight, was now NO
more than great square roof with the
cheerful sunlight playing on it.
Farther down the valley, near the
place where the white pike twisted IL
self between two of the rampant hills
to escape into the great valley Of be
Tennessee, the split-shingied roof un-
der which Thomas Jefferson had eaten
and slept since the earliest beginning
OF memories became also part Of
the htgh-mountain harmony: and the
ragged. red iron-ore beds on the slope
above the furnace were softened fntn
blur OF joyous color.
The iron furnace, with it's alternaf-
II