Now he was nearing the
mountains again.
XI
THE journey to the mountains was made with a heavy heart. In his
absence everything seemed to have suffered a change. Jellico had
never seemed so small, so coarse, so wretched as when he stepped
from the dusty train and saw it lying dwarfed and shapeless in the
afternoon sunlight. The State line bisects the straggling streets of
frame-houses. On the Kentucky side an extraordinary spasm of
morality had quieted into local option. Just across the way in
Tennessee was a row of saloons. It was "pay-day" for the miners,
and the worst element of all the mines was drifting in to spend the
following Sabbath in unchecked vice. Several rough, brawny
fellows were already staggering from Tennessee into Kentucky,
and around one saloon hung a crowd of slatternly negroes, men
and women. Heartsick with disgust, Clayton hurried into the lane
that wound through the valley. Were these hovels, he asked
himself in wonder, the cabins he once thought so poetic, so
picturesque? How was it that they suggested now only a pitiable
poverty of life? From each, as he passed, came a rough, cordial shout of greeting. Why was he jarred so strangely? Even nature had changed. The mountains seemed stunted, less beautiful. The light, streaming through the western gap with all the splendor of a
mountain sunset, no longer thrilled him.
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