“Ballard,” he spoke in as steady a tone as he could command, “I’m driving back to the mouth of Pounding Mill Creek for the week end. Want to go along?”
Ballard did not look up. He replied in a word of one syllable: “Yes.” Yet it is probable that few spoken words have ever expressed so much.
“All right. We’ll start in an hour. With luck, we’ll be there in seven hours.”
For a boy, Johnny had a very long head. There were many things he might have done. He might have remonstrated with Ballard, told him that in the mountains you could kill a man for calling you the wrong kind of name, but not in Hillcrest. He might have sympathized with him, might have said, “We’ll get even with that Naperville mob.” The thing he did could not have been more right, had he been advised by a score of older heads.
When at last they started, there were three in the car instead of two. He had run across Jensie. She had insisted on going along. The car seat was wide. Johnny was not slow in accepting her challenge. So, with an hour of sunlight and many hours of glorious moonlight before them, they took the long, broad, winding trail that leads south.
Mile after mile sped by and not a word was said by anyone. They are strangely quiet people, these mountain folks—yet there are times when they appear to speak without saying any words. Their very silence speaks for them. Johnny had felt this many times. He was feeling it now. Jensie seemed to be saying, “Don’t be too hard on him, Johnny. Don’t let the boys be too hard on him. It’s our mountain ways.” And Ballard? He seemed to be saying, “I won’t go back. I’ll never go back. I won’t go back,” repeating it over and over. Strangely enough, because of this repetition, Johnny felt sure that in the end he would go back and he was glad.
They came at last to the crest of Big Black Mountain. There, without quite knowing why, Johnny cut off the gas and allowed his car to go rolling along to a gliding stop.
A second look told him why he had not gone on. He had been stopped by the sheer beauty of the scene that lay before them. Big Black Mountain is not a peak, it is a tree-grown ridge stretching away for miles and miles. To right and left of it are other ridges, Little Black Mountain, Stone Mountain, Pine Ridge, and all the rest. These ridges, covered as they were with the golden coat of autumn and shone down upon by a matchless moon, made a picture of breath-taking beauty. Jensie too felt the glory of it all, Johnny knew, for he felt her heart leap.
“It—it’s grand!” she murmured. “And to think! This is MY country.”
“Yes,” Johnny’s voice was low with emotion, “it’s your country.”