Sergeant York And His People

by Sam K. Cowan

Yet William York never prospered, as prosperity is measured by the accumulation of property, and it has been said of him that he "just about succeeded in making a hard living."

He was farmer, blacksmith, hunter—a man of the mountains who found pleasure in his skill with his rifle. But the memories of him that linger in the valley, or those that are revived at the mention of his name, are of him in the role of husband, father and friend.

The Civil War had scattered much of the wealth that Old Coonrod Pile had accumulated and Elijah Pile had conserved. The number of heirs brought long division to the realty and most of those who had benefited by the inheritance were all left "land poor."

To Nancy Brooks, as her part, came the home the old "Long Hunter" had built with such thoroughness and care, together with seventy-five acres of land. This she left to her boy who had been named after his ill— fated father—and he lives there to-day. To Mrs. York had been given seventy-five acres, "part level and part hilly," that was the share of her aunt, Polly Pile.

In the cave above the spring, which was Coonrod Pile's first home, William York built a blacksmith's shop, where he mended log-wagons and did the work in wood and metal the neighborhood required. He farmed, and worked in the shop—but in his heart, always, was the call of the forests that surrounded him, and it was his one great weakness. A blast from his horn would bring his hounds yelping around him; and often, unexpectedly, he would go on a hunt that at times stretched into weeks of absence.

His hounds were the master pack of those hills. On his hunts when he built his campfire at night he gathered the dogs around him and singled out for especial favors those whose achievements had merited distinction during the day. Following a custom that in those days prevailed among owners of hunting-hounds, the dog that proved himself the leader of the pack while on a hunt was decorated with a ribbon or some emblem upon the collar. Small game was abundant in the mountains that made the "Valley of the Three Forks o' the Wolf," but the deer and bear had withdrawn to the less frequented hills. The hunts were for sport; there was no real recompense in the value of the pelts.

Alvin was born in the one-room cabin on December 13, 1887. There were two older children—Henry and Joe. Alvin's early life was different in no way from that of other children of the mountains. He lived in touch with nature, and without ever knowing when or how the information came to him, he could call the birds by their names and knew the nests and eggs of each of them, knew the trees by their leaves and their bark, and was familiar with the haunts of the rabbit and the squirrel, the land- and the water-turtle. While still too small for the rough run of the mountains, he has stood, red-eyed, by the gate of his home and watched his father and the hounds go off to the hunt. And as he grew, his hair took on that color that trace of him while at play could be lost in the red-brush that grew upon the mountainside.

There was one part of the routine of the week at Pall Mall that has interested Alvin York from early boyhood. It was the shooting-matches, held on Saturday, on the mountainside, above the spring, just where a swell of the slope made a "table-land," and where a space had been cleared for these tests of skill. The clearing was long and slender, such a glade through the trees as the alley of the mountain bowlers which Rip Van Winkle found in the Catskills—only the shooting-range was longer. A hundred and fifty yards were needed for one of the contests.

This aisle had been cut through a forest of gray beech and brown oaks. At the points where the targets were to be set the clearing widened so that the sunlight, filtering through the leaves and flickering upon the slender carpet of green, could fall full and clear.

Each Saturday the mountaineers were there—and William York and Alvin were among the "regulars." Often there were fifty or more men, and they came bringing their long rifles, horns of powder, pouches made of skin in which were lead and bullet molds, cups of caps, cotton gun-wadding, carrying turkeys, driving beeves and sheep, which were to be the prizes. And when the prizes gave out, some of the men remained and shot for money—"pony purses," they were called.