In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

7^7^^¿7¿^TiSlí/^¿^^ Aj /wwwwwwwBll "SÄe was- hardly more human to Chevis than certain lissome little woodland flowers, the very names of which he did not know... " 59 The Star In The Valley by Mary Noailles Murfree "The Star in the Valley" was first published in the Atlantic in 1878 and along with seven other stories was gathered into the volume In the Tennessee Mountains in 1884. Although the Southern Mountaineer had received considerable treatment in fiction prior to this, it was Mary Noailles Murfree, under the pseudonym of Charles Egbert Craddock, who first delineated him as a separate type. The Southern Mountaineer as Murfree saw him (often very superficially) persists in the fiction of the mountaineer even to the present. "The Star in the Valley" is not one of Murfree 's better stories, but it is shorter than most. Love between the native and the outsider, though too sentimentally treated in this story, is a motif common in the fiction of the area. For more detailed studies of Murfree 's achievements in mountain fiction see Nathalia Wright's "Introduction" to the reprint of In the Tennessee Mountains (Tennesseana Editions, University of Tennessee Press, 1970), Cratis Williams' "Appalachia in Fiction" {Appalachian Heritage, Fall 1976), or his dissertation now in book form, The Southern Mountaineer in Fact and Fiction. He first saw it in the twilight of a clear October evening. As the earliest planet sprang into the sky, an answering gleam shone red amid the glooms in the valley. A star too it seemed. And later, when the myriads of the fairer, whiter lights of a moonless night were all athrob in the great concave vault bending to the hills, there was something very impressive in that solitary star of earth, changeless and motionless beneath the ever-changing skies. Chevis never tired of looking at it. Somehow it broke the spell that draws all eyes heavenward on starry nights. He often strolled with his cigar at dusk down to the verge of the crag, and sat for hours gazing at it and vaguely speculating about it. That spark seemed to have kindled all the soul and imagination within him, although he knew well enough its prosaic source, for he had once questioned the gawky mountaineer whose services he had secured as guide through the forest solitudes during this hunting expedition. 60 "That thar spark in the valley?" Hi Bates had replied, removing the pipe from his lips and emitting a cloud of strong tobacco smoke. " 'Tain't nuthin' but the light in Jerry Shaw's house, 'bout haffen mile from the foot of the mounting off the Back-bone. That's Jerry Shaw's house,—that's what it is. He's a blacksmith, an' he kin shoe a horse toler'ble well when he ain't drunk, ez he mos 'Iy is." "Perhaps that is the light from the forge," suggested Chevis. "That thar forge ain't run more'n half the day, let 'lone o' nights. I hev never hearn tell on Jerry Shaw a-workin' o' nights,—nor in the daytime nuther, ef he kin git shet of it. No sech no 'count critter 'twixt hyar an' the Settlemint." So spake Chevis's astronomer. Seeing the star even through the prosaic lens of stern reality did not detract from its poetic aspect. Chevis never failed to watch for it. The first faint glinting in the azure evening sky sent his eyes to that red reflection suddenly aglow in the valley; even when the mists rose above it and hid it from him, he gazed at the spot where it had disappeared, feeling a calm satisfaction to know that it was still shining beneath the cloud-curtain. He encouraged himself in this bit of sentimentality . These unique eventide effects seemed a fitting sequel to the picturesque day, passed in hunting deer, with horn and hounds, through the gorgeous autumnal forest; or perchance in the more exciting sport in some rocky gorge with a bear at bay and the frenzied pack around him; or in the idyllic pleasures of bird-shooting with a thoroughlytrained dog; and coming back in the crimson sunset to a well-appointed tent...

pdf