The mother, when each letter had been read, placed it upright on the
board shelf which was the mantel of the family fireplace. When a new
letter came she took down the old one and put it carefully away. So
there was always "some news from Alvin" which was accessible to all the
neighbors.
"Will" Wright, president of the Bank of Jamestown, received the first
printed story that gave any description of the fight Alvin had "put up"
in the Forest of Argonne, and Mr. Wright hurried to Mrs. York with it.
With the family gathered around her in that hut in the mountains, and
with tears running down her expectant face, she learned for the first
time what her boy had done. She made Mr. Wright read the story--not
once, but seven times.
America was ready for Sergeant York when among the returning soldiers
his troop-ship touched port--the harbor of New York in May, 1919. The
story of the man had run ahead--his fight in the forest, that had added
to the cubic stature of the American soldier; the artlessness of his
life and the genuineness of his character, which as yet showed no alloy;
the modest, becoming acceptance of illustrious honors paid to him in
France. The people saw in this simple, earnest mountaineer the type of
American that had made America. They thought of him as coming from that
stratum of clay that could be molded into a rail-splitter and, when the
need arose, remodeled into the nation's leader.
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