Blue Ridge Billy

by Lois Lenski

Overview

A young boy dreams of music and sunshine in the Great Smoky Mountains

As far as Billy is concerned, there’s no sight more beautiful than the sun setting over the Blue Ridge Mountains. When the day is done, he sneaks away from his work to watch the sun go down. If his father knew, he would call Billy lazy, but Mama would understand. She knows life in the mountains is hard and that there’s no point in living if a person can’t take time to appreciate what he has. Billy dreams of the day when he can pick up his fiddle and sing the folk songs of his people. Until then, he will be content with the sun.
 
This beautifully written novel tells a story of simple fun and irresistible pleasures in 1 of the most beautiful regions in the United States.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781504022040
Publisher:	Open Road Media
Publication date:	10/13/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	215
File size:	23 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Born in Springfield, Ohio, in 1893, Lois Lenski achieved acclaim as both an author and illustrator of children’s literature. For her Regional America series, Lenski traveled to each of the places that became a subject of one of her books. She did meticulous research and spoke with children and adults in the various regions to create stories depicting the lives of the inhabitants of those areas. Her novel of Florida farm life, Strawberry Girl, won the Newbery Award in 1946. She also received a Newbery Honor in 1942 for Indian Captive, a fictionalized account of the life of Mary Jemison. Lenski died in 1974.
Born in Springfield, Ohio, in 1893, Lois Lenski achieved acclaim as both an author and illustrator of children’s literature. For her Regional America series, Lenski traveled to each of the places that became a subject of one of her books. She did meticulous research and spoke with children and adults in the various regions to create stories depicting the lives of the inhabitants of those areas. Her novel of Florida farm life, Strawberry Girl, won the Newbery Award in 1946. She also received a Newbery Honor in 1942 for Indian Captive, a fictionalized account of the life of Mary Jemison. Lenski died in 1974.

Read an Excerpt

Blue Ridge Billy

---

By Lois Lenski

OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA

Copyright © 1946 Lois Lenski
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5040-2204-0

---

CHAPTER 1

The Half-Way-Up House

"Just in time!" said the boy.

He pushed aside a laurel bush, climbed the fence and sat down on the top rail. He took a deep breath and looked around.

Mountains were piled up like puddings before him. Some were deeply wooded; others, like patchwork quilts, were covered with fenced-in fields of green grass or plowed red soil. Beyond, a range of higher mountains loomed up. Three peaks in a row, called the Three Top range, stood out clearly on the left. To the right, higher than the others, rose "the Peak," like a sharp finger, pointing to the sky.

The sun was setting. It threw a rosy glow over the mountains, that soft radiance which comes only between sundown and dark. A few birds chirped, and from the distance, back up the steep mountain behind him, came the faint sound of chopping. Otherwise, everything was still. It was so still, the whole earth seemed to be wrapped in silence.

The boy, Billy Honeycutt, watched the rosy glow turn to purple, then to deep blue. He watched the mountains fade away in blue haze.

"Hit's a comin' on toward dark," he said to himself, still sitting motionless.

He felt a deep content, as if he had just drained to the bottom a gourdful of water, ice-cold from the spring; or, better still, as if he had just finished off a large slice of his mother's dried-apple pie, with sugar and cream on top. But no — his satisfaction was deeper than mere appetite. Why else did he hurry so to get his chores done each evening, and scramble up the mountainside? Just to watch the sun go down each night made the whole day seem easier.

He mustn't let Pappy catch him, sitting on the fence, doing nothing. He mustn't let Pappy know. Pappy would get riled, or worse still, laugh at him and joke about it. But Mammy — she would understand. Only he was too shy to talk to her. But she understood things without being told. She knew why he was always so restless and couldn't sit still in the house. She sensed his desire to roam and encouraged it.

A deeper blue filled the sky, above the sharp-pointed finger of "the Peak." Soon dusk like a heavy curtain would fall. He was glad no one — not a single soul — knew how he loved to come here, night after night, to watch the sun go down.

Then he heard voices in the stillness.

He jumped quickly from his perch and turned back to look. He was annoyed that anyone should have found out his secret watching place.

They were women's voices. He might as well see who it was.

He left the fence and strolled back up through the woodsy mountainside. Suddenly he saw them, up beyond, through the trees. It was old Granny Trivett and her granddaughter, Sarey Sue. They were always around somewhere.

"Hoo-oo-hoo!" he called.

"Hoo-hoo!" came Sarey Sue's reply, like an echo.

Billy saw they had a sled-load of wood. It was a small mountain sled, made to carry loads over grades too steep or rough for wagons, and was used more in summer than in winter. It was pulled by Granny's cow. They had been chopping light limbs for firewood and were hauling it home. Sarey Sue held the saplings in place, while Granny whacked the cow with a long hickory stick.

"Go 'long, Old Brindle. Go 'long!" said Granny.

Granny Trivett was thin and small, with a brown, wrinkled face and sharp, dark eyes. A red head-handkerchief was tied under her chin. Her skirt of brown linsey hung long and full to her ankles, covered in front with a blue cotton-check apron.

Sarey Sue, the girl, twelve years old, was long, skinny and brown. Her brown hair hung loose and uncombed on her shoulders. Her feet were bare beneath her linsey skirt. The evening air was chilly, but she wore no wrap.

"Here, let me help," said Billy.

Part of the load was about to fall, as the sled curved and swayed up the hill behind the slow-moving cow. Billy shoved the wood higher and shifted its weight to the center of the sled.

"I'll walk behind and ketch it, if it falls again," he said.

Sarey Sue laughed. "Don't let hit fall and bust your head!"

The cow wound slowly in and out among the trees, her bell clanging sharply.

"Hit ain't much further now," said Granny.

"Here we air," said Sarey Sue, after a little.

"At the Half-Way-Up House!" added Billy. "I always say your house is just half-way up the mountain — a good place to stop and ketch your breath."

"Law, yes," laughed Sarey Sue. "Hit shore is."

In the falling darkness, the tiny cabin seemed to be leaning against the great mountain, as if for warmth, shelter and comfort. It was built of logs, with a mud-daubed rock chimney at one end and a porch across the front. The roof was covered with hand-riven shingles or clapboards, curling loosely from age.

Sarey Sue ran in and lighted a lamp on the table beside the small window. Its feeble rays threw a slant of light across the uneven boards of the porch floor, and down the rickety steps.

Billy helped Granny unload the wood and put the cow in the shed. "I got to be goin'," he said.

"Come in, have a chair and rest yourself a while," said Granny.

"Well, I just believe I will," said Billy.

He stepped on the porch and began to sniff. The air was filled with fragrance — the pungent sweetness of sassafras, the sharp tang of various mints, the cleanness of pine bark. Great piles of roots and bark lay on the floor in dark corners of the cabin room. From the ceiling hung bunches of leaves and branches of various wildflowers and herbs. Billy sniffed again. The smell of all these wild things was satisfying.

The room was simply furnished with a bureau, a table and two split-bottom chairs. A spool bed stood in one corner, covered with a patchwork quilt, and a hand-hewed loom and wooden chest in the other. The fireplace, used for cooking, was at the end.

"Been yarbin' lately?" asked Billy, using the usual mountain expression for "gathering herbs."

"Law, yes, we been out all evenin'," said Sarey Sue. She poked at the backlog in the fireplace, then threw some small sticks of wood in front of it.

"Where'd you go? Back up on Laurel Mountain?"

"Law, no," said Granny, "over to the Peak. There was some certain roots there I'd a mind to get."

"Why that's a fur piece!" exclaimed the boy. "Must be nigh five miles, ain't hit? You-all must be tired in your bones."

"I don't never get tired," said Granny. "Or else, maybe hit's the smell o' yarbs gives me strength."

Sarey Sue sat down on a small overturned keg on the hearth, picked up a curious-looking instrument, and pushed it back and forth. Strange sounds began to come out of it, making a tune.

"We'll have us a music party!" announced the girl, leaning back and pumping vigorously.

Billy Honeycutt stared. "What's that ere thing?" he stammered.

"Hit's an accordion," answered Sarey Sue. "My Pappy had it afore he died."

"I been a-wantin' to sell hit," said Granny. "Hit's worth a sight o' money. But Sarey Sue won't hear to it. Her Pappy had that instrument and she's a mind to keep hit. That's Sourwood Mountain she's playin':

"Chickens a-crowin' on Sourwood Mountain,
Hay diddy ump diddy iddy um day;
So many pretty girls I can't count 'em,
Hay diddy ump diddy iddy um day.
My true love is a sun-burnt daisy,
She won't work and I'm too lazy ..."

Sarey Sue's merry music filled the room. Then she stopped pumping and the tune was ended.

"How'd you learn to play?" asked Billy.

"Just by ear," said Sarey Sue. "I was nigh six years old when I just took it up and begun to play."

"She'd sit as unconcerned," added Granny, "and work at it as if her life depended on it, while folks stood around and laughed at her. How her Pappy laughed! Now she don't never think what she's doin'. She just rattles away on them little ole tunes, and we never get lonesome no more."

"Nobody's lonesome round here," said Sarey Sue, pumping again.

Billy sat still and watched her. His ears feasted on her tunes.

Everybody called the Trivetts poor. But they had an instrument that made music, to keep them from getting lonesome, way up here on the side of the mountain. It made finer music than Walt Moseley's guitar, finer even — no, almost as fine — as Uncle Jamie's fiddle. No, Granny and Sarey Sue weren't poor. They were rich indeed. They could have music whenever they wanted it.

"We never have no music frolics to our house," said Billy. His voice was sad. "My Pappy don't like tune-singin'— only hymns at the church-house. We ain't got no instrument at all, no guitar nor banjo." He pronounced the words git'-tar and ban-jer.

"Your Mammy sang when she was young," said Granny. "All them Bronsons could sing. And your Uncle Jamie, her brother, he still sings. Why, he's called Fiddlin' Jamie, the Singin' Fiddler, all over the county."

"Law, yes, they all sing at Uncle Jamie's house," said Billy, "all the boys, Rick, Glen and Jack. And so does Ettie Bell." He paused, staring at Sarey Sue's accordion.

"I wisht I could get me an instru-ment ..." He breathed the words softly — he scarcely dared say them. "A banjo to pick ..." It was like wishing for the moon.

"Sarey Sue's Pappy made hisself a banjo once," said Granny brightly, "when he was just a little rabbity feller like you. He stretched a tanned groundhog skin over a cheese hoop, and shaped a stick of wood for the banjo's neck. He put beeswax on sewin' thread for the strings."

"You might could get some horse hair from your Old Dandy's tail, for the strings," said Sarey Sue.

Billy shook his head. "Sounds like a heap o' work to me."

"You might could grub yarbs — sassyfrack or gen-sang — and earn money and get you a store-bought one," said Sarey Sue hopefully.

"Huh! You grub the whole endurin' day, gatherin' stuff like that, and get maybe a penny a pound, or two or three cents or somethin'. I'd be a little ole man afore I'd get me a banjo."

"Hit's hard work, grubbin' yarbs," admitted Granny. "If hit wasn't for that ole cow-brute and the milk and butter she gives us, and them chickens, we couldn't make out to live. The roots and yarbs just bring in a little extry. Poor people has a time in this world. I reckon they'll fare better in the next."

"Don't you get nothin' for goin' around and takin' your yarb tea and makin' ailin' folkses well?" asked Billy. "Somebody's always callin' on you to doctor 'em."

"Not money," said Granny. "The Lord give all the roots and yarbs for folkses to use, so I couldn't take no money for 'em. Sometimes somebody brings me a ham or somethin'. Last summer when Saphronia Lyle like to died, and I saved her, she brung me a goose. I been storin' the pickin's away till I git enough for a feather bed."

"Then we'll sleep in feathers," said Sarey Sue, "not on shucks no more."

But Billy was not thinking about feather beds.

"Won't you come grub sassyfrack with us?" asked Sarey Sue.

The boy shook his head. "Too much work to do at home."

"Law sakes," laughed Granny. "There's always a way round the mountain, if you can't climb over. You don't need no instrument to make music with, as long as you got a tongue in your head. Why don't you sing?" "Songs ain't no good except to set and listen to," said Billy. He dropped his head shyly. "Don't know ary tunes to sing."

"You, Billy Honeycutt, don't know no tunes? Why, every boy that's worth a cent can sing. Ain't you 'shamed of yourself, when all your kinfolks been singin' from morn till night? You don't know Cacklin' Hen?" The next minute Granny was singing:

"Old hen cackles,
She cackles in the barn;
Old hen cackles,
She cackles in the barn!
Why she make such a hollerin' in the barn?

Old hen cackles,
She cackles in the lot;
Old hen cackles,
She cackles in the lot!
Next time she cackles, she'll cackle in the pot!"

"My Pappy used to sing that!" cried Sarey Sue, clapping her hands.

When they stopped laughing, the room grew quiet again. Granny leaned back in her oak-split rocker and began to hum softly to herself. Was she going to sing a ballad-song, one of those weird, high-pitched tunes of hers?

Billy's mother had told him that Granny's head was full of the old songs she remembered from her grandmother's and great-grandmother's singing. Granny was like all those old people who had gone on before — she could sing and sing. She knew all seventeen verses of Barbary Allen. But she only sang when she felt like singing. Sometimes she wouldn't sing at all. When you asked her to, she never would.

The boy sat very still, looking at the floor.

Then the sad, mournful tune began to fill the room. It was the ballad of The Two Brothers. Sarey Sue set her accordion on the floor, cupped her chin in her hands and listened. Billy closed his eyes dreamily. The words were soft but plain to hear. A little later, Billy made his way down the dark mountain with the tune ringing in his ears:

"Monday morning go to school,
Friday evening home;
Brother, comb my sweetheart's hair
As we go walking home.

Brother, won't you play a game of ball?
Brother, won't you toss a stone?
Brother, won't you play no other game
As we go marching home?

I can't play no game of ball,
I can't toss no stone,
I can't play no other game,
Brother, leave me alone ..."

CHAPTER 2

A Turn of Corn

"Whoa mule! Whoa, I say!
If somebody don't head that mule,
He's goin' to run away.

Whoa mule! Whoa, I say!
Got him hooked in the harness,
Got him hooked at last.

I see my mule a-comin'
He's comin' with a smile;
If you don't watch out
He'll kick you half a mile!"

Billy Honeycutt's voice rang out loud and clear through the quiet valley. He leaned against the sacks of corn and jerked the reins. His mule, Old Bet, picked her steps carefully.

The road, a rough wagon track, was filled with muddy ruts. It had rained hard for several days, and heavy wagons loaded with timber, bound for Mountain City, had left deep tracks. Winding in and about, the road followed Roundabout Creek. In two miles, it crossed the creek twenty-seven times — or, was it the creek crossing the road? Billy sometimes wondered. Usually, in dry weather, he rode on the fine gravel in the creek bed, but today the creek was full of water. A heavy rain always filled the creek up. Old Bet did not like splashing through it so many times, but Billy did.

Soon he reached the village of Solitude.

The creek turned in a wide curve to the left behind Jeb Dotson's store. Part of it ran under the store. At the left rear corner, the building had a wooden leg, which rested on a rock in the creek bed.

"Golly!" exclaimed Billy, pulling up his mule and staring in at the rear window. "Ketch me sleepin' in that ere bed with the water risin' and all!" For Jeb, a bachelor, lived in his store, and his bed, as any one could see from the window, was right in the corner, with the creek running under.

"Jeb'll git washed away some night," said Billy, and rode along.

The creek flowed on for a short distance to the dam, where it widened into a broad millpond. From one side, a narrow race carried the water along the side of the hill to a point above Hamby's mill. Billy jogged down the road, past Jasper Jackson's big house and the church-house, till he came to the post office, where he pulled up. The post office was probably the smallest in the United States. It was not more than eight feet square, with a partition through the middle, and a tiny stove in the outer half.

"Howdy, Miss Viney. Ary letter for me?" he called.

The postmistress, who had a long nose but a genial smile, put her head out of the little window in the partition and shook it. "Who'd be a-writin' to you, Billy Honeycutt?"

"Dunno," said the boy. Like many mountain people, he believed that post offices were meant to produce letters, and he always lived in hope. "Giddap!" he called. He slapped Old Bet and started on again.

Soon, walking in the road ahead, he saw the familiar figure of Sarey Sue Trivett. Her small face was enclosed in a huge slat sunbonnet, and she carried a sack of corn slung across one shoulder.

"Howdy, Sarey Sue," said Billy, as he came up to her. "Walkin' to mill?"

"I reckon," answered the girl with a grin.

"Where's your mule?" inquired Billy.

"Hain't got none, less'n I borry your'n." She shifted the sack to her other shoulder.

Billy reached the mill first. He tied the little gray mule to the hitching rail, beside a brown-and-white-spotted horse already there.

The great mill-wheel stood still, but a steady trickle of water, escaping from the mossy race, dripped noisily onto the rocks below. Old Hamby sat humped over on a chair outside the door, napping. Under his dark felt hat, his long beard gleamed white. Startled from his doze by the sound of footsteps, the old man rose, picked up his stick, and looked to see who was coming.

(Continues...)

---

Excerpted from Blue Ridge Billy by Lois Lenski. Copyright © 1946 Lois Lenski. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Table of Contents

Contents

I. THE HALF-WAY-UP HOUSE,
II. A TURN OF CORN,
III. SPRING FRESHET,
IV. OVER THE MOUNTAIN,
V. A SPLIT-OAK BASKET,
VI. THE COWCUMBER TREE,
VII. A KNOCK AT THE DOOR,
VIII. JEB DOTSON'S STORE,
IX. THE HOUND PUP,
X. OLD-TIMEY CHIMNEY,
XI. THE CRY OF A PANTHER,
XII. BIG FAT POSSUM,
XIII. A LETTER FOR BILLY,
Mountain Words And Phrases,
A BIOGRAPHY OF LOIS LENSKI,