Chapter 10

It was impossible for Sergeant York to accept all of the invitations he received to visit cities and address conventions, and he had often to disappoint delegations who traveled the long, rough mountain road to urge in person his acceptance. And he could not, with a slow-moving pen upon a table of pine, answer all the communications that came. Before the war two letters for him in half a year was an occasion worthy of comment. Now each day, over the mountains upon a pacing roan, the postman came, and the mail-pouches, swung as saddle-bags, swayed in unison with the horse's step. Most of the letters were for the York home.

The public mind pays tribute to its heroes in ways that are odd. In the growing mass of mail that was kept in a wide wooden box under the bed--letters that in number "had got away" from the Sergeant's ability to answer--there were displayed many mental idiosyncrasies and an abundance of advice, and there were many strange requests. Some of them were pathetic begging letters, as tho the Sergeant were a rich man; some came from prison-cells, asking his influence to secure a pardon; some from those still desirous of securing a business partnership with him. Among them were even belated matrimonial proposals, describing the writers' attractive qualities. These the big Sergeant teasingly turned over to the golden-haired girl who, herself, had come but recently into that home, and they may safely be classed among those letters the Sergeant could never answer.

While he was at home, which was now only for brief intervals between trips in answer to the invitations he had accepted, it was noted that he was unusually quiet. Often he would sit for an hour or more upon the door-step, looking out past the arbor of honeysuckle, over the acres of land that had been given him, gazing on to the mountains. But he kept his own counsel. Some of those who lived in the valley, who saw him sitting, thinking, wondered if there had come a longing into Alvin's heart to be out in the world again.

But his problem was far from that. He had asked himself two questions: "What was the great need of the people who live far back in the mountains?" "What--since the world had been so generous to him, and lifted from his shoulders the trials of living--could he do for his people?" He was trying to answer them. Subconsciously, a great and a genuine appreciation of all that had been done for him was pushing him onward.

Unaided, he had solved the first. It was education. How keenly, within the few months that had passed, had he realized his own need!

But at that time he did not appreciate how rapidly he was building for himself a bridge over that shortcoming.

The second problem he found more difficult. He recognized he could do a greater good and his efforts would be more lasting and far-reaching if he proved to be an aid to the younger generation. In his effort to reach a practical plan he went as far as he could, with his limited knowledge of organization, before he sought counsel.

Then he asked that no other gifts be made to him, but instead the money be contributed to a fund to build simple, primary schools throughout the mountain districts where there were no state or county tax appropriations available for the purpose. Of the fund, not a dollar was to be for his personal use, nor for any effort he might put forth in its behalf.

So again the form of Sergeant York rose out of the valley, above the mountains, and the sunlight of the nation's approval fell upon it. Men of prominence volunteered to aid him in his efforts for the children of the mountains, and the result was the incorporation of the York Foundation, a non-profit-sharing organization, that is to build schoolhouses and operate schools. Among the trustees are an ex-Secretary of the United States Treasury, bishops of the churches, a state governor, a congressman, bankers, lawyers and business men.

[Footnote: The Trustees of the York Foundation are: Bishop James Atkins, Methodist Episcopal Church, South; W. B. Beauchamp, Director-General of the Methodist Centenary, Nashville, Tenn.; George E. Bennie, President, Alexander Bennie Co., Nashville, Tenn; C. H. Brandon, President, Brandon Printing Co., Nashville, Tenn.; P. H. Cain, Cain-Sloan Co., Nashville, Tenn.; Joel O. Cheek, President, Cheek-Neal Coffee Co., Nashville, Tenn.; James N. Cox, Gainesboro Telephone Co., Cookeville, Tenn.; Dr. G. W. Dyer, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn.; Judge F. T. Fancher, Sparta, Tenn.; Edgar M. Foster, Business Manager, "Nashville Banner," Nashville, Tenn.; Judge Joseph Gardenhire, Carthage, Tenn.; T. Graham Hall, Business Man, Nashville, Tenn.; Hon. Cordell Hull, Chairman of Democratic National Committee and former Congressman from York's district; Lee J. Loventhal, Business Man, Nashville, Tenn.; Hon. William G. McAdoo, former secretary of the United States Treasury, New York City; Hon. Hill McAllister, State Treasurer, Nashville, Tenn.; J. S. McHenry, Vice-President, Fourth & First National Bank, Nashville, Tenn.; Dr. Bruce R. Payne, President, George Peabody College for Teachers, Nashville, Tenn.; Rev. R. C. Pile, Pall Mall, Tenn.; T. R. Preston, President, Hamilton National Bank, Chattanooga, Tenn.; Hon. A. H. Roberts, former Governor of Tennessee, Nashville, Tenn.; Bolton Smith, Lawyer, Memphis, Tenn.; Judge C. E. Snodgrass, Crossville, Tenn.; Dr. James I. Vance, First Presbyterian Church, Nashville, Tenn.; Hon. George N. Welch, former State Commissioner of Public Utilities, Nashville, Tenn.; F. A. Williams, Farmer, Pall Mall, Tenn.; S. R. Williams, Farmer, Pall Mall, Tenn.; W. L. Wright, President, Bank of Jamestown, Pall Mall, Tenn., and Sergeant Alvin C. York.]

The fund is already a substantial one, steadily growing, and success is assured.

In connection with each school is to be land to be tilled by the students as a farm, and besides providing instruction in agriculture, the farm is to aid in the support of the school, and no child of the community is to miss the opportunity to attend through inability to pay the tuition charge. As each unit becomes self-supporting, another school is to be established in a new district.

In this new endeavor, Alvin wished to do what he could to shield the boys now at play among the red brush upon the mountainsides from being compelled to say, after they had grown to young manhood, what he himself had been forced to confess: "I'm just an ignorant mountain boy."

And he is making rapid strides of progress for himself. I saw him enter the great banquet room of a leading hotel in one of the country's largest cities. The hall was filled with men and women of refinement and culture. As Sergeant York and his young wife entered, the banqueters arose and cheered them. This demonstration was a welcome to "Sergeant York, the soldier."

He paused, with a smile of appreciation as he looked over the vast assemblage, and he bowed with a grace and dignity far beyond that which was expected of him from what his audience had read and heard. Then without turning his head, he reached for the hand of his bride and led her to the speakers' table upon a raised platform. And he was again to bring that assemblage to its feet and fill that hall with its cheers. This time it was for Alvin York, the man--as he talked to them about the boys of the mountains.

Three days afterward, he entered the store of John Marion Rains at Pall Mall. As all the chairs and kegs of horseshoes were occupied, he put his hands behind him, swung himself to a place of comfort upon the counter, and took his part in the battle of wit as the firing flashed amid the tobacco smoke. Pall Mall was home, and there he permitted no distinction between individuals.

This has wandered far afield as a biography of Sergeant York. It is but a story of the strength and the simplicity of a man--a young man--whom the nation has honored for what he has done, with something in it of those who went before and left him as a legacy the qualities of mind and heart that enabled him to fight his fight in the Forest of Argonne. The biography no doubt will be written later. He has not planned for the long years that lie ahead, but is following after a principle with a force that can not be deflected or checked. The future alone will tell where this is to lead him. This is really a story of but two years of his life--the period of time that has elapsed since Alvin York first found himself--a period in which he has done three things, and anyone of them would have marked him for distinction. He fought a great fight, declined to barter the honors that came to him, and using his new-found strength he has reached a helping hand to the children of the mountains who needed him.

PALMAM QUI MERUIT FERAT! [Let him bear the palm who has deserved it!]

End of Project Gutenberg's Sergeant York And His People, by Sam Cowan