Lucy S. Furman

“ Then when I stepped off the train, thar was the living human faces of my own blood, John and Marthy, and the eight young uns whose countenances I had never beheld. And as I gazed, women, more scales drapped from my long-blind eyes. In the face of John here, the boy I had allus abused for no-git-up and shiftless, I beheld loving-kindness and onselfishness writ large and fair; looking on little Evy, I seed love divine in her tender eyes, and light raying out from her yaller hair and from the other seven smaller head' bunched around her like cherubim'. And Marthy! ”

“ Twice at dinner her shaking hands knocked over her coffee-cup, and once the sorghum-pitcher, little fair-haired Evy cleaning up quietly after her granny, and placing things to her hand so deftly and furtively that she did not know it was done at all, while on her other side sat Marthy, ever kind, solicitous, and patient, and at the far end of the table John vied with her in unobtrusive but loving attentions to "maw." Never had "the women" seen an elderly or afflicted person more tenderly and devotedly cared for. ”

“ It would be hard to find on the globe a group of people who need more this sort of democratic hand-to-hand contact than those Miss Furman describes, or a group with whom it is a greater satisfaction to establish it. Tucked away on the tops and slopes of the mountains of Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee are thousands of families, many of them descendants of the best of English stock. Centuries of direful poverty combined with almost complete isolation from the life of the world has not been able to take from them their look of race, or corrupt their brave, loyal, proud hearts. ”

“ New notions of heroism and honor are filtering into the country along with the notions of sanitation and health. That injuries can be honorably forgiven and forgotten is a hard doctrine to swallow in Eastern Kentucky, but when you see it practiced by those from the great world of which you have only dreamed it comes easier.
The contrast between the two ways of living—that in the settlement and that in their mountain homes—is not long in doing its work. Decent living even in great poverty is possible if you know how, and the settlement shows what can be done with what you have. ”

“ It is the life story of a girl who has her own way to make in the world. The various experiences through which she passes, the various viewpoints which she holds until she comes finally to realize that service for others is the only thins that counts, are told with that same intimate knowledge of character, that healthy optimism and the belief in the ultimate goodness of mankind that have distinguished all of this author's writing. ”

“ Take all else I got, but not her! It is cruel, it is onjust. I rebel ag'in' it, I will never endure it.' And I kep' a-crying it as I seed her fade and thin; I cried it when the last breath flickered from her pore little body; I cried it when I laid her in the cold ground; I cried it when the preachers come to see me atterward, threatening judgment; I cried it when I felt the curse a-falling and the sight of my-eyes a-going ”

“ To be told that the baby is dying not because the Lord is angry with the family but because the milk is impure may seem little better than impiety at first, but save the baby by proper care and you have gone a long way to proving that pure milk is God's law and that all the prayers in the world will not change His ruling.
For distorted imaginings of the way the world is run the settlement is giving to the mountaineers something of the harmony and beauty of science. ”

“ Right here, women, I ax your pardon if I stop a spell, for of a truth words fails me and tears squenches me. What did I see in that kind, gentle, patient face of hern? Women, it were the very living sperrit of Christ hisself I seed thar—the sperrit that returned love for hate, mercy for revilement, joy and life for curses and death. ”

“ Proud, self-reliant, the sons of heroes, bred in brave traditions, knowing nothing of the debasing greed for money, strengthened by a hand-to-hand struggle with nature from their very infancy (I have not known of one who did not begin at five or six to shoulder family responsibilities such as hoeing corn, tending stock, clearing new ground, grubbing, hunting, gathering the crops) they should bring to their country primal energy of body and spirit, unquenchable valor, and minds untainted by the lust of wealth. ”

“ What more fruitful and appealing world for work, particularly for women, do these United States offer? If there is an idle or lonely woman anywhere revolting against the dullness of life, wanting work with the flavor and virility of pioneering in it, let her look to these mountains. She 'll find it. And what material to work with will come under her hands! "I often ask myself," says the heroine of "Mothering on Perilous," one of Miss Furman stories of the settlement school, "What other boys have such gifts to bring to their nation? ”

“ The settlement in part at least is the outgrowth of a desire to find a place in which certain new notions of enlightening men and women could be freely tested and applied. The heart of the idea lies in its name. The modern bearers of good tidings instead of handing down principles and instructions at intervals from pulpit or desk settle among those who need them. They keep open house the year around for all, and to all who will, give whatever they have learned of the art of life. ”

“ When the children trained in our school go out to teach in the district schools, they take with them not only what they have learned in books, but our ideas as to practical living and social service also, each one becoming a center of influence in a new neighborhood. ”

“ With a little knowledge, and proper food and fresh air, your daughter's life could have been saved; with knowledge and proper treatment your sons need not have died of dysentery or typhoid or even diphtheria; with knowledge your blindness itself, which is no curse, but would as surely have come upon you had you never lost Evy and never rebelled in your heart, need have lasted only a few months. ”

“ The real name of the school creek is of course Troublesome, not Perilous.
Alas, nearly a thousand eager, lovable children are turned away yearly for lack of room and scholarships. The school is supported by outside contributions, one hundred dollars taking a child through the year. What better use of money could possibly be made by patriotic persons and organizations than to open the doors of opportunity to these little Sons and Daughters of the Revolution? ”

“ On the religious side all that they have had is the occasional itinerant preacher, thundering at them of the wrath of God; and on the cultural what Aunt Dalmanutha calls the "pindling" district school. In the teachings of both is an over-weight of sternness and superstition, little "plain human kindness," almost nothing that points the way to decent, happy, healthy living. ”

“ A more illuminating interpretation of the settlement idea than Miss Furman's stories "Sight to the Blind" and "Mothering on Perilous" does not exist. Spreading what one has learned of cheerful, courageous, lawful living among those that need it has always been recognized as part of a man's work in the world. It is an obligation which has generally been discharged with more zeal than humanity. To convert at the point of a sword is hateful business. To convert by promises of rewards, present or future, is hardly less hateful. ”

“ Aside from educational work proper, various forms of social service are carried on,—district nursing, classes in sanitation and hygiene, social clubs and entertainments for people of all ages, and a department of fireside industries, through which is created an outside market for the beautiful coverlets, blankets and homespun, woven by the mountain women, as well as for their attractive baskets. ”

“ Jennie is sent to a reformatory, to the days when her beauty is the inspiration of a successful painter, there is in the narrative an appeal to the emotions, to the sympathy, to the affections, that cannot be gainsaid. ”

“ After a somewhat protracted silence, Marthy's gentle voice resumed:
"And from that day to this John and me hain't left her sence. We shet up our house and moved down to hern; and she tuck to setting by the fire or out on the porch, allus a-knitting, and seldom speaking a word in all them years about Evy or her sorrow or her curse. When my first little gal come along, I named it Evy, thinking to give her some easement or pleasure; but small notice has she ever showed. 'Pears like my young uns don't do much but bother her, her hearing and scent being so powerful' keen. ”

“ While its academic work is excellent, special stress is laid upon the industrial courses, the aim being to fit the children for successful lives in their own beloved mountains. To this end the boys are taught agriculture, carpentry, wood and metal work, and the rudiments of mechanics; the girls cooking, home-nursing, sewing, laundry work, and weaving, these subjects being learned not only in classes, but by doing the actual labor of school and farm. ”

“ In that period the half-dozen clinics held in the school hospital by Dr. Stucky of Lexington, and his co-workers, have brought direct surgical and other relief to the afflicted of four counties. To be present at one of these clinics is to live Bible days over again, and to see "the lame walk, the deaf hear, the blind receive their sight, and the poor have the good news preached to them." ”

“ There won't be one in twenty mile' that won't see me a-coming, and a-taking my stand by the grave-houses in these reesurrection gyarments, for to norate the wonders of my experience, and to shame and confound and drownd out Uncle Joshuay and t'other blind leaders of the blind whatever they dare raise their gray heads and hoary lies, and gin'rally to publish abroad, world-without-eend, the ons'archable riches and glory and power of the love of God. ”

“ After riding up Perilous Creek a short distance, they crossed Tudor Mountain, and then followed the headwaters of Clinch down to Skain's Fork, where in a forlorn little district-school-house the trained nurse gave a talk on the causes and prevention of tuberculosis, the spitting of tobacco-juice over the floor by teacher and pupils abating somewhat as she proceeded. Two miles farther on she stopped at the Chilton home for a talk to half a dozen assembled mothers on the nursing and prevention of typhoid, of which there had been a severe epidemic along Clinch during the summer. ”

“ Encircled as they are by the richest and most highly cultivated parts of this country, near as they are to us in blood, we have done less for their enlightenment than for that of the Orient, vastly less than we do for every new-come immigrant. ”

“ Yes, John and Marthy and Evy and t' other seven young uns, take the look of your life at that 'ere angel messenger that brung me the good tidings of great joy; that lifted me up out of the pit of darkness on to the mountain-tops whar I now sojourn. Yes, look, for in heaven you 'll never see no better sight. ”

“ And yet much of the altruistic work of the world has been done by one or a union of these methods.
That to which we have converted men has not always been more satisfactory than our way of going at it. It has often failed to make radical changes in thought or conduct. ”

“ She were the smartest, most managing woman in these parts, and I never did have no faculty, and don't run her house like I ought; and John is a puny man and not able to do all her bidding; and the young uns they gits terrible noisy and feisty at times, all but Evy."
"The women" rode with Marthy a mile farther, stopping before a lonely log-house, with corn-fields climbing to meet the timber half-way up the mountain in the rear. Marthy ushered her guests into the porch with the words, "Here 's the fotch-on women, Maw." ”

“ The relation of their poverty and ill-health to their lack of knowledge and their perpetual lawless warfare is quickly enough grasped by the young, and means a new generation with vastly improved morals, health, self-control. ”

“ I that rejoiced in the work of my hands and the pyeertness of my mind and the fruits of my industry, and when my man died were able to run the farm and take keer of the children as good as before—I am sot down here in the midst of rack and ruin, with the roof a-leaking over me, the chimbly sagging out, the fence rotten and the hogs in the corn, the property eatin' their heads off, and the young uns lacking warm coats and kivers, John and Marthy being so mortal doless ”

“ For it is well known that much of this section was settled originally by men who received land-grants for their services in the Revolution, and who, with their families, disappeared into these fastnesses to emerge later only at their country's call,—the War of 1812, the Mexican, the Civil, and the Spanish Wars bringing them out in full force, to display astonishing valor always. ”

“ But it were not till I sot in the railroad cyars ag'in, and the level country had crinkled up into hills, and the hills had riz up into mountains, all a-blazin' out majestical' in the joy of yaller and scarlet and green and crimson, that I raley got my sight and knowed I had it. Yes, the Blue Grass is fine and pretty and smooth and heavenly fair ”

“ The ludicrously funny and sometimes pathetic doings of the little, untamed feudists, moonshiners, and hero worshippers, form the subject-matter of the tale.
The story centers about one of the boys who has an "active war" in his family and whose martial adventures with those of his grown-up brother give a strong appeal to the narrative and furnish an exciting climax. ”

“ For she said, 'With your head-piece, Aunt Dally, it hain't too late for you to die a scholar yet; you got to git l'arning.' And, women, I got it. I knowed all my letters and were quite a piece in the primer before I left, and Evy here she aims to finish my education and have me reading Scriptur' come summer. Yes, it all seemed too good and fair to be true, and I lived in a daze. I come to myself sufficient', though, to have the little gal write John to hire a wagon and bring Marthy and all the young uns to the railroad for to meet me, and see the world and the cyars ”