“I don't know,” said Marston.
The smoke of the young engineer's coke ovens lay far below us and the
Blight had never seen a coke-plant before. It looked like Hades even
in the early dusk--the snake-like coil of fiery ovens stretching up the
long, deep ravine, and the smoke-streaked clouds of fire, trailing like
a yellow mist over them, with a fierce white blast shooting up here
and there when the lid of an oven was raised, as though to add fresh
temperature to some particular male-factor in some particular chamber
of torment. Humanity about was joyous, however. Laughter and banter
and song came from the cabins that lined the big ravine and the little
ravines opening into it. A banjo tinkled at the entrance of “Possum
Trot,” sacred to the darkies. We moved toward it. On the stoop sat an
ecstatic picker and in the dust shuffled three pickaninnies--one boy and
two girls--the youngest not five years old. The crowd that was gathered
about them gave way respectfully as we drew near; the little darkies
showed their white teeth in jolly grins, and their feet shook the dust
in happy competition. I showered a few coins for the Blight and on we
went--into the mouth of the many-peaked Gap. The night train was coming
in and everybody had a smile of welcome for the Blight--post-office
assistant, drug clerk, soda-water boy, telegraph operator, hostler,
who came for the mules--and when tired, but happy, she slipped from
her saddle to the ground, she then and there gave me what she usually
reserves for Christmas morning, and that, too, while Marston was looking
on. Over her shoulder I smiled at him.
That night Marston and the Blight sat under the vines on the porch
until the late moon rose over Wallens Ridge, and, when bedtime came, the
Blight said impatiently that she did not want to go home. She had to go,
however, next day, but on the next Fourth of July she would surely come
again; and, as the young engineer mounted his horse and set his face
toward Black Mountain, I knew that until that day, for him, a blight
would still be in the hills.