A Son of the Hills

Sandy Morley grows up in Lost Hollow, a struggling settlement beneath a southern mountain, where broken roads and declining family fortunes shape everyday life. Harriet T. Comstock's novel begins with the history of the Morleys and Waldens before turning to Sandy's troubled childhood. After his father brings Mary into their cabin, the boy finds refuge among the trees and resolves to leave. His first preparations are modest: collecting what nature provides and turning it into money.

Cynthia Walden and Marcia Lowe, known locally as the Cup-of-Cold-Water Lady, bring another thread of care and vulnerability into the story. The middle excerpt shows Marcia comforting Cynthia and speaking with an elderly man distressed by a child's factory work. Regional dialogue, religious feeling, and close attention to poverty give the novel its texture. Readers interested in older American fiction can examine how it connects personal hopes with inherited status and a community's treatment of its children.