A Man's World

flogging. But from this grew my conception of

Presbyterian minister of the Tennessee Mountains. He was my uncle, but I always called him "the Father." He was t

ted. And yet he was a Christian. I have never known one who served his God more earnestly, more devotedly. He was a scholar of the old type. He knew his Latin and Greek and Hebrew. And as those were rare accomplishments among the mountain cl

not so much her face as her clothes. In all those years she must have had some new ones, but if so, they were always of the same stuff and pattern as the old. Sharpest of all I remember the ridges the bones of her corset m

e time when she would lapse from her dignity was when one of the negroes would rush into the kitchen with the news that a buggy was turning into our yard. The sudden scurry, the dash into her bedroom, the speed with

secret. I think she tried to do her Christian duty towards me, but it was decidedly perfunctory. She was very busy with the

cut down the tall grass and weeds. Next to our house was the church, it was an unattractive box. I remember that once in a long while it was painted, but the spire was never completed above the belfry. There was a straggling line of houses on each side of the stre

lad whom I remember with envy. His father was carter for our community and sometimes he took his son down with him. They slept in the great covered wagon in the square before the county court house, and came back the next day. The

nd the valley were Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain. But none of the boys I played with realized that the world beyond the mountains was anything like the country we could see. It would have surprised us if the teacher had po

n see that he had a craven streak in him, a taint of sneakiness, an inabilit

ng to make an overnight visit to some friends in a neighboring township and at breakfast-he was to start about noon-he asked the Father to reiterate the prohibition. A few hours later I found Oliver smoking a corn-sil

the Father found

I could,"

her replied, "he distin

without reason. And I could not, in honor, explain the reason. The Father was not the kind to spoil his children by

I had never given the matter any thought. As I would not admit that I had lied, this was t

e persisting in your lie. You will be found out. And i

een over at once. The next morning I sat sullenly in my room waiting for Oliver's return, wondering if he would tell the truth. I was not at all

was happening, he had picked me up in his arms. And, wonder of wonders, he was crying. I had never before seen a grown man cry. He w

the matte

e lad for a lie and he was telling the

an vaguely to understand that there was such a thing as justice. I had always supposed that punishments were a matter of the parents' good pleasure.

of course I was much more interested in them than in any abstract conception of justice. Yet in some gradual, subconscious way, the idea a