Margaret P. Montague, living among the West Virginia mountains, has
written many successful stories of the Hill people whom she knows so
well.
The chain of incidents narrated by the simple-hearted Virginia
dressmaker is of absorbing interest, and seems to be the real
experiences of one who had actually endured the tragedy of having lived
in the horror of the aftermath of battle. But even more interesting than
these scenes of pitiful suffering is the effect produced upon the woman
who endures it all. Her whole attitude toward life was changed. What
matters it now that her father was not an aristocratic Virginian? What
if she were a poor dressmaker at the little village of Johnson's Falls?
What though she was not elected a member of the Laurel Literary Society?
She had been face to face with war and death and Hell and God. The
little things of life had unconsciously sunk away and the great enduring
themes had boldly emerged to re-create her spiritual self.