Autumn had painted the wooded hillside bright scarlet, golden brown,
vivid orange, and yellow that shone in the late September sunlight like
a giant canvas beyond the rambling farmhouse at the head of Garrett's
Fork of Big Creek where dwelt the Good Shepherd of the Hills, William
Dyke Garrett and his gentle wife. Here in Logan County in the heart of
the rugged West Virginia country, Uncle Dyke and Aunt Sallie lived in
the selfsame place for all of seventy years. Sallie Smith, she was, of
Crawley's Creek, a few miles away, before she wed the young rebel of the
Logan Wildcats. That was away back in 1867, February 19th, to be exact.
He was twenty, she in her teens. He had been born and grew to young
manhood in a cabin only a stone's throw from where he and Miss Sallie,
as he always called her, went to housekeeping. As for their neighbors,
there wasn't a person in the whole countryside that didn't love Sallie
Garrett, nor one that didn't revere the kindly Apostle of the Book. So
long had Dyke Garrett traveled up and down the valley comforting the
sick, praying with the dying, funeralizing the dead.
I had heard him preach in various places through the West Virginia
hills.
"Hello, Uncle Dyke!" I called from the roadside one autumn day in 1936.
"Howdy! and welcome!" he replied cheerily, rising at once from his
straight chair and taking his place in the door. His wife stepped nimbly
to his side, for all her ninety-odd years, and echoed the husband's
greeting.
It is the way of the mountains.
I lifted the wood latch on the gate and went up the white-pebbled path.
Flower-bordered it was, with brilliant scarlet sage, purple bachelor
buttons, golden glow. There was pretty-by-night, too, though their
snow-white blossoms were closed tight in the bud for it was not yet
sundown; only in the twilight and by night did the buds bloom out.
"That's why they wear the name Pretty-by-Night," mountain folk will tell
you. There were clusters of varicolored seven sisters lifting up their
bright petals. Moss, some call it in the mountains. There were bright
cockscomb and in a swamp corner of the foreyard a great bunch of
cat-o'-nine tails straight as corn stalks.
Tall, erect stood the Good Shepherd of the Hills, fully six feet three
in his boots, his white patriarchal beard pillowed on his breast. The
blue-veined hands rested upon the back of his chair as he gazed at me
from friendly eyes. Aunt Sallie, a slight bird-like little creature,
reached scarcely to his shoulder. Her black sateen dress with fitted
basque and full skirt was set off with a white apron edged with
crocheted lace. The small knot of silver hair atop her head was held in
place with an old-fashioned tucking comb. About her stooped shoulders
was a knitted cape of black yarn.
"Take a chair," invited Uncle Dyke when I reached the porch, waving me
to a low stool. "Miss Sallie al'lus favors the rocker yonder on account
the high back eases her shoulders. She's not quite as peert as she was
back in 1867."
"It took a bit of strength to tame Dyke and I had it to do." She
addressed me rather than her husband. "He was give up to be the wildest
young man in the country when he came back from the Home War."
The Civil War having been ended for some two years and the young private
of the Logan Wildcats having been tamed, he became converted to
religion. Thereupon he began to preach the Gospel.
But never in all the years of his ministry from 1867 to 1938, when
failing health took him from the pulpit, did Uncle Dyke Garrett receive
a penny for preaching. He never had a salary. William Dyke Garrett got
his living from the rugged little hillside farm that he tended with his
own hands.
"Before I was converted to religion," he said, straightening in his
chair, "I played the fiddle and many a time went to square dances. But
once I got the Spirit in here,"--placing a wrinkled hand upon his
breast--"I gave up frolic tunes and played only religious music. There
are other ways for folks to get together and enjoy themselves without
dancing. Now there's the Big Meeting! Every year on the first Sunday of
September folks come from far and near here to Big Creek and bring their
basket dinner."
"Dyke started it many a year ago," Aunt Sallie interposed with prideful
glance at her mate.
Again he took up the story. "After we've spread our basket dinner out on
the grass all under the trees we have hymn-singing and--"
"Dyke reads from the Scripture and preaches a spell." Aunt Sallie meant
that nothing should be left out. Nor did the old man chide her.
"Many a one has been converted at the Big Meeting"--his eyes
glowed--"and nothing will stop it but the end of time. They'll have the
Big Meeting every year long after I'm gone. I'm certain of that."
Presently his thoughts looped back to his wedding to Sallie Smith. "Our
infare-wedding lasted three days. The first day at Sallie's, the second
day at Pa's house, and the third right here in our own home. That was
the way in those times. And I got so gleeful I fiddled and danced at the
same time! That'll be seventy-one year come February of the year
nineteen thirty-seven." Slowly he rolled his thumbs one around the
other, then he stroked his long beard, eyes turned inward upon his
thoughts. "Well, sir, if I should get married one hundred times I'd
marry Miss Sallie Smith every time. We've traveled a long way together
and we've had but few harsh words."
His mate lifted faded eyes to his. "Dyke, it was generally my fault,"
she said contritely, "but I was bound to scold when you'd get careless
about your own self. I vow," the little old lady turned to me, "he took
no thought of his health nor his life nor limb. There was nothing he
feared--man nor beast nor weather. In the early days there were no roads
in this country and he rode horseback from one church to another through
the wilderness. In the dead of night I've known him to get up out of bed
and go with a troubled neighbor who had come for him to pray with the
dying."
Uncle Dyke chuckled softly. "Sometimes they were not as near death as I
thought. Once I remember John Lawton came from way over in Hart County.
His wife was at the point of death, he said. She had lived a mighty
sorry life had Dessie Lawton."
"Parted John and his wife!" piped Aunt Sallie, "and that poor girl went
to her grave worshiping the ground John Lawton walked on; hoping he'd
come back to her. Dyke claims there's ever hope for them that repent, so
when John brought word that Dessie wanted to make her peace with the
Lord before she died, Dyke said nothin' could stay him. So off he rode
behind John to pray over that trollop!" Aunt Sallie's eyes blazed. "They
forded the creek no tellin' how many times. They got chilled to the
bone. When they got there Dyke stumbled into the house as fast as his
cold, stiff legs could pack him, fell on his knees 'longside Dessie's
bed and begun to pray with all his might. Then he tried to sing a hymn,
but still never a word nor a moan out of Dessie, covered over from head
to foot in the bed. Directly John reached over to lay a hand on her
shoulder. 'Dessie, honey,' he coaxed, 'Brother Dyke Garrett's come to
pray with you!' He shook the heap of covers. And bless you, what they
thought was Dessie turned out to be a feather bolster. John snatched
back the covers. The bed was empty except for that long feather bolster
that strumpet had covered over lengthwise of the bed. Come to find out
Dessie had sent John snipe huntin', so to speak, and she skipped out
with a timber cruiser. Dyke was laid up for all of a week; took a deep
cold on his chest from riding home in his wet clothes."
The old preacher smiled at the memory. "Could have been worse, like John
Lawton said that night. 'Dessie's got principle!' said he. 'She could
a-took my poke of seed corn, but there it is a-hangin' from the rafters.
And she could a-took my savin's.' With that John Lawton pried a stone
out of the hearth with the toe of his boot. Underneath it lay a little
heap of silver coins. John blinked at it a moment. 'There it is.
Dessie's shorely got principle. No two ways about it.' He shifted the
stone back to place, tilted back in his chair, and patting his foot
began to whistle a rakish tune. He was still whistling as I rode off
into the bitter night."
There was another time Dyke recalled when old Granny Partlow sent word
that she couldn't hold out against the Lord no longer. Granny was
nearing eighty and for thirty of her years she had sat a helpless
cripple in a chair. At the birth of her seventeenth child, paralysis had
overtaken Deborah, wife of Obadiah Partlow, rendering her useless to her
spouse and their numerous offspring. She had protested bitterly, saying
right out that it wasn't fair and that so long as the affliction was
upon her she meant to ask no favor of the Lord. Deborah Partlow was
through with prayer and Scripture and Meeting, though in health never
had been there a more pious creature than Obadiah Partlow's wife.
Neighbor folk saw her wither and pine through the years. A grim figure,
she sat day in and day out in her chair wherever it was placed. Lifeless
from the waist down, using her hands a little to peel potatoes or string
beans, though so slow and laborious were the movements of the stiff
fingers her children and Obadiah said they'd rather do any task
themselves than to give it to her. At last she had become an old woman,
shriveled, grim, still bitter about her fate.
No one was more surprised than Uncle Dyke Garrett when she sent for him.
"Granny Partlow craved baptism," Uncle Dyke remembered the story as
clearly as though it had happened but yesterday. "The ice was all of a
foot thick in the creek but men cut it with ax and maddock, spade and
saw. It had to be a big opening to make room for Deborah Partlow and her
chair. Though her children and grandchildren and old Obadiah
protested--'It'll kill you!' 'You'll be stone dead before
night!'--Granny had her way. Nor would she put on her bonnet or shawl.
Resolute, she sat straight in her chair as neighbor men packed her
through the snow to the creek. The women standing on the bank wept and
wailed till they couldn't sing a hymn. 'It'll kill Granny Partlow!' they
cried."
Uncle Dyke was silent a long moment. "No one could ever rightly say how
it come about. But the minute my two helpers brought the old woman up
out of the icy waters she leaped out of her chair and took off up the
bank for home, fleet as a partridge, through snow up to her knees,
holding up her petticoats with both hands as she flew along. Lived to be
a hundred and three. Hoed corn the day she died of sunstroke." The Good
Shepherd of the Hills sighed contentedly. "Deborah Partlow bein'
baptized under ice brought a heap of converts to religion."
"But that baptizin' caused me no end of anxiety," Aunt Sallie took up
the story. "That day when Dyke went out to saddle old Beck the snow was
plum up to his boot tops. The mountains were white all around and the
creek froze in a sheet of ice. But go Dyke would. I wropt his muffler
twice around his neck, got his yarn mittens and pulse warmers too and
throwed a sheep hide over the top of his wood saddle and one under
it--to ease the nag's back. He had wooden stirrups too. Made the whole
thing himself. I dreaded to see Dyke ride off that winter's day for
there was a sharp wind that come down out of the hollow and froze even
the breath of him on his long black beard till it looked white--white as
it is today. I watched him ride off. Heard the nag's feet crunching in
the snow. All of three full days and nights he was gone, for at best the
road to Hart County was rough and hard to travel. In the meantime come a
blizzard. Not a soul passed this way, so I got no word of Dyke. I
conjured a thousand thoughts in my mind. Maybe he'd met the same fate of
old man Frasher who fell over a cliff in a blinding snowstorm. Maybe the
nag had stumbled and sent Dyke headlong over some steep ridge. The
children, we had several then, could see I was troubled, though I tried
to hide it. Finally on the third night I had put our babes to bed and
was sitting by the fire too troubled to sleep. I had about give up hope
of seeing Dyke alive again. It was in the dead of night I heard a voice.
It sounded strange and far off, calling 'Hallo! Hallo!', more like a
pitiful moan it was. I lighted a pine stick at the hearth and hurried as
best I could through the snow to where the voice was coming from. I
stumbled once and fell over a stump and the pine torch fell from my
hand. It sputtered in the snow and nearly went out before I could pull
myself up to my feet. And all the time the voice seemed to be getting
farther away. But it wasn't. It was just getting weaker. In a few more
steps I come on the nag deep in a snowdrift up to its shanks and there
slumped over in the saddle was Dyke. His feet were froze fast in the
stirrups. He was numb and nigh speechless. I wropt my shawl around him
and hurried, back to the house, heated the fire poker red hot and with
it I thawed Dyke Garrett's boots loose from them wooden stirrups." Aunt
Sallie sighed. "Of course no mortal can tell when salvation will take
holt on their heart but after Granny Partlow's baptizing and Dyke having
to be thawed out of his stirrups I was powerful thankful when the Spirit
descended on a sinner in fair weather."
"It's not always womenfolks like Granny Partlow who are slow to open
their heart to the Spirit. Now take Captain Anderson!
"In his home there never lived a more free-hearted man. Loved to have
folks come and stay as long as they liked. Once I recall a man came to
the county seat in court week. He was making tintypes and charged a few
cents for them. Captain Anderson had his picture made and was so pleased
with it he coaxed the fellow to go home with him so that he could get a
tintype of Levicy and the children. He never stopped until he had ten
dollars' worth of tintypes and then he didn't want the fellow to leave.
But he did. Finally settled over on Beaver. His name was Jerome Bailey
and he died a rich man and always said he got his start with the ten
dollars he earned making tintypes for Captain Anderson Hatfield."
Uncle Dyke reflected a long moment. "There's good in all of us no matter
how wicked we may seem to others. And down deep in the heart of me I
knew my Captain would one day open his heart to salvation."
Anyone could tell you how the Good Shepherd of the Hills through the
long years had pleaded and prayed with Devil Anse to forsake the thorny
path, even far back when they returned from the Home War. Already the
Captain of the Wildcats had made a notch on his gunstock by killing
Harmon McCoy in 1863. He was already the leader of his clan. And all the
time Uncle Dyke kept pleading with his comrade to give up sin. But not
until Uncle Dyke Garrett had preached and prayed for nearly fifty years
and Devil Anse too had become an old man did he admit the error of his
way. Not until then were the patience, faith, and hope of Uncle Dyke
rewarded.
"It was one of the happiest days of my life," he told me, "when Captain
Anderson took my hand. Sitting right here we were together. It was in
the falling weather. These hills all around about were a blaze of glory,
like they are today. And here sat Captain Anderson, in this very rocking
chair where Miss Sallie is sitting now. We were alone. Miss Sallie was
busy with her posies down yonder near the gate. 'Dyke,' says the Captain
of the Logan Wildcats, in a voice so soft I could scarce hear, 'I've
come into the light! I crave to own my God and Redeemer. I long to go
down into the waters of baptism and be washed spotless of my
transgressions.' I could not move hand or foot. My tongue clove to the
roof of my mouth. Captain Anderson gripped the arms of the rocker there
as if to steady himself. A man who had tracked mountain lion and bear,
panther and catamount. I could see the face of him, that old
daredeviltry vanish away and on his countenance a childlike look of
repentance. It took a heap o' courage for Captain Anderson to admit his
transgressions even to me, his lifelong friend. But I always knew that
down deep in the heart of him there was good and that his hour would
come when he'd fall upon his knees before the Master and say, 'Here I
am, forgive me Lord, a poor sinner!' But when the words fell from his
trembling lips I could not even cry out in rejoicing, 'Thank God!', like
I always aimed to do when my comrade should come within the fold. I sat
with my jaws locked, my tongue stilled. Captain Anderson spoke again.
'Dyke,' sez he, 'brother Dyke ...' I could feel my heart pounding like
it would burst out of my breast. 'Brother Dyke,' he repeated the words
slowly, pleadingly, 'ain't you aimin' to give me the hand of
fellowship?' Then, still unable to utter a word, I reached out my hand
and my comrade seized it, gripped it tight. There we sat looking at each
other and so Miss Sallie found us as she came up the path there with her
arms filled with posies, golden glow, and scarlet sage, and snow-white
pretty-by-night just burst into bloom for it was sundown. 'Men!' said
she, 'at last you're brothers in the faith! I know it. Ah! I'd know it
from the look of peace on the faces of the two of you, even if I did not
witness the sign of your hands clasped in fellowship!' The next Sabbath
day, it fell like on the third Sunday of the month, we witnessed the
baptism of a once proud and desperate rebel. A rebel against the Master!
The baptism of him and six of his sons as well who had not before
received salvation."
Swiftly the word passed along the creeks and through the quiet hollows.
"Devil Anse has come through!" There was great rejoicing throughout the
West Virginia hills, indeed throughout the southern mountains. Not only
the leader of the Hatfields, but six of his sons, had "got religion" and
"craved baptism." Hundreds flocked from out the hollows of West Virginia
and Kentucky to witness the Hatfield baptizing.
That was another autumn day only a few years ago as time goes.
The sun was sinking behind the mountain, casting long shadows on the
waters of Island Creek when the Good Shepherd of the Hills moved slowly
down the bank to the water's edge. Behind him followed his old friend,
no longer the emboldened Devil Anse with fire in his eagle eye, but a
meek, a silent, penitent figure. The autumn breeze stirred his
snow-white hair, his scant gray beard. Upon his breast the old clansman
held respectfully his wide-brimmed felt as he walked with head uplifted
in supplication. Behind him followed his six sons. Jonse came first,
Jonse, who had loved pretty Rosanna McCoy, reckless Jonse, who like his
father had slain he alone knew how many of the other side. Then came
Cap, Elias, Joseph, Troy, Robert.
Slowly and with steady stride Uncle Dyke walked into the water. Up to
the waist he stood holding the frayed Bible in his extended right hand.
"Except ye shall repent and go into the waters of baptism ye shall
perish. But if ye repent and accept salvation, though your sins be as
scarlet they shall be washed whiter than snow," the voice of the Good
Shepherd of the Hills drifted down the valley.
"Amen!" intoned the trembling voice of Devil Anse.
"Amen!" echoed the six sons grouped about their aged sire.
Then Aunt Levicy, wife of the grim clansman, began singing in a
quavering voice:
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me;
I once was lost, but now I'm found,
Was blind, but now I see.
The wives and daughters, mothers, sisters, and sweethearts of McCoys
took up the doleful strain:
'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed.
"Hit's our sign of peace!" shouted old Aunt Emmie McCoy clapping her
palsied hands high above her head, "the sign of peace 'twixt us and
t'other side!" Whereupon Young Emmie McCoy, still in her teens, who had
loved Little Sid Hatfield since their first day at school on Mate Creek,
threw her arms about his sister and cried, "Can't no one keep me and
Little Sid apart from this day on."
"Amen!" the voice of Devil Anse led the solemn chant. "Amen! God be
praised!"
Jonse, the first-born of the Hatfields, bowed his head and his
deep-throated "Amen! God be praised!" echoed down the valley. Then Cap
and Troy, Tennis, Elias, Joe, Willis, and the rest joined in. All eyes
turned toward Jonse. He who had loved pretty Rosanna McCoy when he was a
lad, she a shy little miss.
Many at the baptizing remembered the first meeting of the two
star-crossed lovers one autumn day long ago on Blackberry Creek. The day
when young Randall and Tolbert, her brothers, were there. Old folks
remembered too the time when Devil Anse had slain Harmon McCoy. But that
was long ago and forgiven. "Let bygones be bygones," Levicy had pleaded
with her mate, and Sarah, wife of Old Randall, did likewise with her
spouse. But only Levicy, of the two sorely tried women, had survived to
witness the answer to her prayers--peace between the households with the
baptism of Devil Anse and his six sons.
As one by one they went down into the waters of baptism, it was the
voice of Levicy Chafin Hatfield that led in that best-loved hymn tune of
the mountains:
On Jordan's stormy banks I stand and cast a wistful eye
Toward Canaan's fair and happy land where my possessions lie.
I'm bound for the Promised Land, I'm bound for the Promised Land.
Oh! who will come and go with me, I'm bound for the Promised Land.
The hills gave back the echo of their song.
It was a day of rejoicing.
As for Uncle Dyke Garrett he continued to journey up and down the broad
valley and through the hills, preaching the Gospel of repentance,
forgiveness, salvation. Above all he told of the baptism of Captain
Anderson and his six boys.
From the very first Dyke Garrett was more than a preacher.
Along lonely creeks into quiet hollows he went to pray at the bedside of
the dying, to comfort the bereft, to rejoice with the penitent. In the
early days he was the only visitor beyond the family's own blood kin, so
remote were the homes of the settlers one from the other. Like a breath
from the outside world were Uncle Dyke's words of cheer, while to him
they in the lonely cabins were indeed voices crying out in the
wilderness. Nor did flood nor storm, his own discomfort and hardship
deter him. Winter and summer, through storm and wind, he rode bearing
the good tidings to the people of the West Virginia ruggeds.
And now here he sat this autumn day in 1937, alert and happy for all his
ninety-six years. Bless you, he even talked of fighting!
"If anyone jumped on these United States without a good cause," he
declared vehemently, "I'd fight for my country--" Uncle Dyke didn't
quibble his words. "That is to say if Uncle Sam would take me. Me and my
sword!" Again he faltered, adding reflectively, "But after all the Bible
is the better weapon. With it I can conquer all things."
Slowly he arose from his chair and Aunt Sallie and I did likewise.
"Come," he invited, "I want you to see for yourself where I've baptized
many a one that has come to me." He pointed to a pool in the creek
beyond the house where he had made a small dam. As we stood together it
was on the tip of my tongue to ask how many couples he had baptized, how
many he had married. Abruptly with the uncanny sense of the mountaineer
he lifted the questions out of my mind, though it could have been
because so many others had asked the same things. "I've never kept count
of the wedding ceremonies I have performed, nor of the baptisms," he
said thoughtfully. "I have always felt that if it was the Lord's work I
was doing, He would keep the count."
You didn't have to ask Uncle Dyke Garrett either which were the happiest
days of his long life. You'd know from the look he bestowed upon his
frail mate that his supreme happy hour was when he married Miss Sallie
Smith. "My wedding day," he was saying as if the question had been
asked, "that was the happiest day of my whole life. And next to that
comes the day when the Lord chose me to administer baptism to Captain
Anderson and his six boys. Such hours as these are a taste of heaven
upon earth." His voice was hushed with solemnity. His brimming eyes were
lifted to the hills. "Though it was a day of sorrow I am grateful that
it also fell to my lot to preach the funeral of my lifelong friend
Captain Anderson. Most of all though, my heart rejoiced because Captain
Anderson had become like a little child, meek and penitent, worthy to
enter the fold."
Uncle Dyke sat silent a long time. His wrinkled hands cupped bony knees.
"It brought peace to Levicy's troubled heart." His eyes grew misty with
unshed tears. "I see her now as she lay so peaceful in her shroud and on
her bosom the gold breast pin she prized so much that Captain Anderson
brought her the time he was stormbound, when he met that scalawag
brother of Jesse James. She loved posies did Levicy and every springtime
we take some to her grave, me and Miss Sallie."
At this, Miss Sallie, slipping her small hand through the bend of his
arm, led the way down the flower-bordered path. "Posies are the
brightness of a body's days," she said softly. "You can't just set them
out and they'll bloom big. You have to work with them. Posies and human
creatures are a heap alike. Sometimes they have to be pampered. Like
Dyke here," she smiled up at her aged mate. "I had to understand his
ways, else I'd never have tamed him," she persisted. "He's the last
surviving one of his company--the Logan Wildcats." Aunt Sallie's blue
eyes lighted with pride. "I like to think of him outlasting me too."
I'd remember them always as they stood there in the sunset with the
golden glow and scarlet sage and the snow-white pretty-by-night all
about them, the two smiling contentedly as I waved them good-by far down
at the bend of the road.
It was the last time I ever saw Uncle Dyke alive. The next May--1938--he
died. I was gratified that it fell to my lot to attend his funeral. And
what a worthy eulogy the Reverend John McNeely, whom Uncle Dyke always
referred to as "my son in the Gospel," preached, taking for his text "My
servant, Moses, is dead," a text that the two had agreed upon long
before the Good Shepherd of the Hills passed away.
That day when the sermon was ended the great throng that filled the
valley and the hillsides, gathering about the baptismal pool he himself
had fashioned, sang Uncle Dyke's favorite hymn. Their voices blending
like the notes of a giant organ swelled and filled the deep valley:
Like a star in the morning in its beauty,
Like the sun is the Bible to my soul,
Shining clear on the way of life and beauty,
As I hasten on my journey to the goal.
'Tis a lamp in the wilderness of sorrow,
'Tis a light on the weary pilgrim's way,
It will guide to the bright eternal morrow,
Shining more and more unto the Perfect Day.
'Tis the voice of a friend forever near me,
In the toil and the battle here below,
In the gloom of the valley, it shall cheer me,
Till the glory of the kingdom I shall know.
I shall stand in its glory and its beauty,
Till the earth and the heavens pass away,
Ever telling the wondrous, blessed story
Of the loving Lamb, the only living way.
Uncle Dyke chose also his own grave site in the family burying ground
overlooking the house where he'd lived seventy-one years. Often he had
visited the spot and picked out the place beside him where Miss Sallie
should be laid to rest. His life had ended almost where it began. The
house in which he was born stands only a few miles from that in which he
died.
"He built this house his own self," Aunt Sallie quietly reiterated that
evening as some of us lingered to comfort her. "We came here to Big
Creek soon as we married. We've lived here seventy-one year." Through
brimming eyes she gazed toward the new-made grave. "We traveled a long
way together, me and Dyke--" a sob shook the frail little body--"and
now, I'm goin' to be mighty lonesome."
Big Meeting is still carried on just as Uncle Dyke wished it.
In September, 1940, I went again to mingle with the hundreds who show
their reverence for the Good Shepherd of the Hills by keeping fresh in
memory his teaching through their prayers and hymns at the Big Meeting
each autumn. And here again a worthy follower of Uncle Dyke Garrett
eulogized his deeds and mourned his loss. And close by, for all her
ninety-two years, his beloved Miss Sallie, with a trembling hand on the
arm of a kinsman, listened intently while those who knew and loved him
extolled her lost mate.
And now Miss Sallie is gone too. She died on July 28, 1941, at the age
of ninety-three and loving hands place mountain flowers on her grave and
that of Levicy Hatfield far across the mountain.