Only a few months before, when Alvin had returned home on a furlough
which he secured while in training at Camp Gordon, he had "picked up" a
wagon ride over the thirty-six miles from the railroad station to
Jamestown, and had walked the twelve miles from "Jimtown" to Pall Mall,
carrying his grip.
His mother was among those who met him at Jamestown. They rode together,
and the last of the long shadows had faded from the "Valley of the Three
Forks o' the Wolf" when they reached their cabin home.
The next morning, while it was not yet noon, the Sergeant and Miss
Gracie Williams met on "the big road" near the Rains' store. Those
sitting on the store porch--and there was to be but little work done on
the farms that day--saw the two meet, bow and pass on. Pall Mall is but
little given to gossip. Yet there was a strange story to be carried back
to the woman-folk in the homes in the valley and on the mountainsides.
Only the foxhound, that moved slowly behind his newly returned master,
knew of an earlier meeting that day between Sergeant York and his
sweetheart, and of a walk down a tree-shaded path that had given the
hound time to explore every fence-rail corner and verify his belief that
nothing worth while had been along that road for days.
But a quiet, uneventful life in the valley was not to return to Sergeant
York.
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