The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-09-20
WOMEN
 AND THINGS

any interview with him.
 I Now this was not because I was indif- ferent or uninterested but because really felt that he was tired of having to meet so many newspaper men who were eager to get him to tell of his wonderful exploit, though I well knew that he was very reticent in talking about it or himself
 I satisfied myself by sitting at table near where he sat at the luncheon. l and take it from me, for while he may be mountaineer I never saw royalty act less concerned in the face of the staring gaze of hundreds than he did. He seemed perfectly oblivious of the fact that he was the exposure of all eyes.
 
 Now I would not have been surprised had he been self-conscious and i'll at ease, or given himself away by overdoing it in order to show that he was used to being given ''the all over" But without the least bit of pose. he accepted 1t all as a matter of fact in such natural way as to really charm every one present.
 
 I tried to settle in my own mind the color of his eyes but never arrived at any definite conclusion. I could not de- termine to my own satisfaction whether they were light blue or of a grayfsh tinge. I meant to have asked Mrs. York, but she was so shy and modest that l was afraid it might embarrass her. I do not mind, however, in going on record that she had lovely eyes, and do not blame the intrepid York for falling for them.
 He is a bigger man physically than I had expected to see, and much more of a city man than I had been led to expect fnom the accounts seen of him in print. l think the reporters have rather over done playing him up as the typical un- educated east Tennessee mountaineer, for he wore his clothes with ease and deport- ed himself in such way as to show that while he might not have passed through college, yet he knew something of the world and it's ways.
 
 From what had seen I was prepared for any sort of gaucheries, but he never committed any, but handled himself as one used to meeting both men and women on an easy footing. I say this because frequently I have seen soldiers in khaki who made fine appearance. but when stripped of their war paraphernalia and garbed in multi fell from their high es- tate and looked most ordinary.
 
 Sergeant York has a good shaped head Sure he has given sufficient evidence that he is level-headed or he would have been swept off his feet by the military and social attentions paid him. But bet ter than this he has been able to keep his head in the face of tempting money offers to go on the vaudeville stage, play in the movies, or make his advent on the lecture platform. He has had many ready to exploit him.
 He is well built. I stood by his side | and he lowered above me. Now, I think am pretty good judge of physique, for all my life I have been an athlete and fond of athletics and accustomed to size men up. There isn't pound of way of moving around which indicates | that he has the agility of the cat trible in spite of the fact of his being as hard as a lightwood knot. He gives no evil dence of the real strength which he is capable of generating under the power 1 of his indornitah will
 | I do not think he would be picked out of crowd as an unusual man. am sure he could have stood about the Tut wiler lobby for a week without being noticed as out of the ordinary I am not saying this to detract one whit from his greetings. but rather to emphasize the fact that here in America it's the average man who when the need comes arises to the occasion and shows to the world that men bred in true democracy circumstances. York drove this home to the Germans.
 hour about Sergeant York and his fam fly and his home and from him gleaned many interesting facts. He was reared in a family of Il children. and at his fathers death some while back while not the oldest, yet upon him fell the burden largely of being the head of the house. He worked on the hill farm and also at the blacksmith's forge. His father was smith and his forge was beneath the sheltered rock overlooking the spring near the house.
 His mother belongs to the pioneer type of women used to work. and being able to do many things long since forgotten by most women. Professor Dyer says he asked her one day: Mrs. York, do you do your own work?' And with a buick wit, she answered: Yes. and a lot of other folks" know her type for I lived in the mountains of east Tennes- see and came in touch with the self-re- specting and God-fearing type of mothers who send out sons to make names for themselves in the great world.
 The thing which struck me most in the stories told me by Professor Dyer was the manner in which Alvin showed his true self in his letters to his mother. He got to look them over, and was amazed to find that from the trenches when shot and shell were flying fast he sat undis- turbed writing home to her who gave