A Sweet Home To Us

Southwest Virginia Project

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from Source:Campbell, 1921:123-124

There is nothing austere about the rural Highlands save the simplicity of life within them. There is a softness about the wooded heights and hollows, a beauty of melting curves, of lights and shadows, of tender distances wherein the hearth-smoke is a part and the cabin is at home. "Hit may be rough and rugged, but hit's a sweet home to us," and the Highlander who thus spoke from his heart expressed not only the feeling of his people but the homelike charm of these hills upon all who come to dwell among them.

Whether the long, forest-clad slopes be gray with winter; brilliant with the variant greens and flowering shrubs of spring; softened with the hazy serenity of summer; or rich with the russets, golds, and crimsons of autumn; the setting is one of exceeding beauty. Into it melts the wide-roofed cabin, at times to be distinguished only by the smoke ascending from the broad chimney, or the line of gaily colored quilts spread out to air and sun upon the palings. Nearer at hand the big wool-wheel on the porch is seen, and sometimes a loom with the housewife at work thudding out the yards of homespun, or the far-famed covers, quilts, and blankets. Hanks of wool of different colors are suspended from the rafters, with strings of beans, and "burney" peppers, and ears of drying seed corn. A saddle hangs from a wooden peg in the wall. Through the wide-swung door the many beds with their bright quilts, the big fireplace where a fire smoulders even in summer, the little straight-backed chairs with their seats of woven hickory, all give a quaint and old-time atmosphere as charming as it is simple. The yard is bare of grass, "swept smooth and pretty like the palm of your hand," but there is bloom for the summer through — a snow-ball and a rosy-bush, flowering quince and coral-berry. Daffodils are gay in spring, and lilies, dahlias, and sunflowers folio low, while chrysanthemum blossoms make rich clusters of color until the "black killin' frost." Here a gnarled and ancient cedar, and there a thick-set tree of box, speak of the pioneer who chose this spot on which to rear his home a century ago.

Close by is the branch, slipping through growth of "big" and " little" laurel and set with "holly-bush" and groups of towering " spruce-pine." Often the road lies in its bed — the only road, which must be "forded lengthwise" to the little homes which reach far up its course. Down it the man of the household finds his way to store or mill, to the neighboring hamlet and the county-seat; but the woman, especially if she lives up a smaller branch or away at the head of the hollow, is very much shut in. Home duties and the care of the children tie her closely, and the difficulties of travel during long seasons of the year serve still further to limit her to her immediate neighborhood. She has little to do with politics, and little to do with the management of church affairs save when occasion calls to prepare a bounteous repast for the visiting preacher and the many friends who come to hear him. Her place is the home, and in the home the relations of man and woman are Pauline.