At the age of fifteen Mary Brooks met William York, the son of Uriah
York, and they were married. A home was built for them, beyond the
branch, beside the spring. And Alvin York was their third son.
IV
The Molding of a Man
The first year after the marriage of William York and Mary Brooks, they
lived at the Old Coonrod Pile home, and William York worked as a
"cropper." Securing the farm that had been given the bride, they modeled
into a one-room home the corn-crib of Elijah Pile, that stood across the
spring-branch and up the mountainside. It was a log crib, and they
chinked it with clay, and using split logs from the walls of the old
shed, a puncheon floor was made. The coming of spring brought the
blossoms of flowers the girl-wife had planted.
Honeysuckle and roses have bloomed around that cabin each succeeding
summer, and it proved the foundation of a home that was to withstand the
troubles of poverty in many winters. It was a home so rare and real that
it pulled back to the mountains a son who had gone out into the world
and won fame and the offers of fortunes for the deeds he had done as a
soldier.
William York, in his simple philosophy of life, disciplined himself, and
later his boys, to the theory that contentment was to be found in the
square deal and honest labor. He was so fair and just in all relations
with his neighbors that the people of the valley called him "Judge"
York; and his honesty was so rugged and impartial that not infrequently
was he left as sole arbiter even when his own interests were involved.
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