Part 1

Produced by Mark C. Orton, Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

AMERICAN FOLKWAYS

EDITED BY ERSKINE CALDWELL

BLUE RIDGE COUNTRY

JEAN THOMAS

DUELL, SLOAN & PEARCE . NEW YORK

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COPYRIGHT, 1942, BY JEAN THOMAS

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

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To My Brother

DOCTOR GEORGE G. BELL

A once itinerant "Tooth Dentist" who became the first Republican county judge in more than a quarter of a century at the mouth of Big Sandy and whose unique sentences have become legendary throughout the Blue Ridge

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APPALACHIAN RITUAL

Emerald nobility Reaching to the sky, Makes the eye a ruler Fit to measure by.

In the spring an ecstasy Lies upon the hills-- Purpling with new red-buds, Ruffling colored frills.

Make an early ritual For the mountain side; Pine and beech are spectators, White dogwood a bride.

Give a pair of ivory birch For a wedding gift, All the mountain side a church Where wild flowers sift

Velvet carpet-petals down To the edge of hill and town, Showing wild-grape fringes through Opal cloud-thrones dropped from blue.

Now the summer like a queen Does her mountain home in green; With a season for a bier Some old majesty lies here.

Autumn gold is swift and fleet With a wing upon the feet, Rushing toward a winter breath Pausing for immaculate death.

In such economic bliss And a swift parenthesis-- In immortal mountain trails, There are resurrection tales.

All the while the mountains know Sudden death is never so.

--Rachel Mack Wilson

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CONTENTS