Disclaimer:  The story of "Christy" is owned by the Marshall-LeSourd family.  I am in no way seeking profit or credit for her story.  This fiction is written for my personal enjoyment.  This story uses themes from the book, the CBS series and the PAX movies.

"The Spirit Remains"

by Mary K.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Neil helped Christy from the train car.  “They say you canna go home again once you’ve left a place for good.  I think perhaps they are correct, Lass.”

“Even though our home is no longer here, Neil, our roots grew deep and they are still here in these hills.”  She squeezed her husband’s hand.  “I’m just sorry that we had to come back under such sad circumstances.”

“Doc, Doc MacNeill!  Is that really you?

Neil turned toward the voice.  “Why Ben Pentland, how are you?”

"Fine as frogs hair, Doc.  I'm alive and kicking.  I'm eighty years old.  I've been retired nigh on twenty years now.  Miz Christy, I was sorry to hear about Miz Henderson.  She was a damn fine, I mean a mighty fine woman."

“Hello Mr. Pentland.  It is good to see you again.  Indeed, Miss Alice was a very special woman.”

“How old was she anyways?  Never did have the gumption to ask her.”

Christy smiled.  “She was seventy four years old.   She lived a good life.”

“Miz Christy, you ain’t wet behind the ears anymore.  I think you could handle my front name.”

“Thank you, Ben.”

“Yer mighty welcome.  Are ya staying with the Tatum’s?  Her son and daughter-in-law run the boarding house now.”

“Actually we are staying with John and Bessie in the old cabin, Ben.  When Christy and I moved, we rented it to John and Bessie.”

“They done ya proud, Doc.  Took good care of it all these years.”

“It will be interesting to see the place, Ben.”

“When’s the funeral?”

“There was a little bit of a problem with red tape and shipping the body across state lines, but it all worked out.  The funeral will be on Saturday.”

“What kind of tape is red?  Why do they have to use it on the body?  I’ve only heered of sticky tape.”

“I’m sorry Ben.  It is an _expression that is used when issues arise about crossing state boundaries, proper paperwork, things like that.  It’s a real mess that has to be sorted out.”

Ben nodded in understanding.  “The mail got kind of tangled up in a fine mess, Doc.  Postmaster general made some changes that people didn’t like.  They keep raising the cost of stamps.  Everyone complains.  It takes three cents to mail a letter now.”

“But Ben, they raised the rate in 1932.  That was eight years ago.”

“Miz Christy, I’m retired now.  T'ain’t my problem no more.  I’ll be there for the funeral.  I thought Miz Alice was mighty fine.  Yes indeedy, Doc, she was mighty fine.”

Christy nodded.  Returning here was bittersweet.  She held Neil’s arm as they walked down the station platform.  John Spencer was waiting for them with a horse drawn wagon.  'Four horses instead of just one,' Christy thought.  'I suppose times have changed a little.'

“Howdy Doc, Miz Christy.”

“Hello John.  How are you?  How is your family?”

“We’re doin’ just fine ma’am.  The honey business is keeping me busy.  I’ve been slow in keeping in touch with you both.  Daddy died this past winter.”

"I’m so sorry, John.  How did it happen?”

“You know that daddy could be a mought stubborn.”

Christy looked at Neil, and then back to John.  “You don’t say,” she said dryly.

John nodded.  “He was feeling a bit under the weather, but insisted he was all right.  We were going to build some new hives for the spring.  I came over in the morning to find him gone.  He died peacefully in his sleep.”

“He was a good man and a good friend,’ said Neil.

“He was a good daddy.”

“Indeed he was, John.”

Neil helped Christy into the wagon.  “It’s better than an automobile, Doc.  It’s faster.  They’ve built some roads through the National Forest.  We’re on the outskirts of the National Park.  It’s a pain in my butt, sorry Ma’am, but we were here first.  We got rights too.  The horses do better for the most part, especially on the old logging roads.  Creed Allen has a truck that gets around.”

“What does Creed do?” asked Christy.

“He makes furniture.  Tables and chairs mostly.  He’s considered a master craftsman.”

“What happened to Rob?”

“When the mill closed he went out west for a while and then came back east.  Writes short stories and articles for newspapers and magazines.”

"And Burl?”

John smiled.  "Burl works in a bank in Knoxville.  He's real good with numbers"  Christy smiled, remembering his difficulty with his multiplication tables."

“Oh John, I have a thousand questions.”

“Miss Christy, I have a thousand answers for you, if I know them.  You were in the right place at the right time.  You helped so many of us.  You believed that we could achieve whatever we wanted to do in our lives.  I write music and lyrics and they’ve been performed on the radio.”

“The Grand Ole Opry program?”

“The very same.”

“Congratulations, John.  Aunt Hattie would have been so proud of you.”

“Thanks, Doc.  Bessie and I choose to live here and raise our children in these mountains.  This is our home.  You made it possible by letting us live in your cabin.  We’ve made a few changes.  We could afford to live in the city, but our hearts are here.  We can’t imagine living anywhere else.”

They lapsed into silence as they continued on through to Cutter Gap.  Christy inhaled the cool mountain air.  It was spring and the mountains were awash in their floral finery.  She closed her eyes and began to think about her mentor.  Alice's call had been an answer to a young girl's prayers.  Teaching here had been the most rewarding time in her young life.  The children had inspired her.

She fell in love with her beloved husband.  After a tumultuous and rocky courtship, she married Neil MacNeill.  They made a difficult decision to leave Cutter Gap.  Christy had developed tuberculosis.  Neil was able to diagnose it early enough.  They had moved up north to Saranac Lake in New York so that she could take the cure at the Trudeau Sanitorium.  Neil worked in the hospital.  They raised their family there, when Christy was cured.

“How is your family Doc?”

"Fine and dandy, John.  Eric has just finished his law degree and taken the bar exam.  He'll be working in a law firm in New York City.  Grace has gone to nursing school and is working in a hospital in Philadelphia.  As a matter of fact, it is the same hospital where I did my residency.  I'm working in Baltimore now.  The climate is a wee bit warmer than the Adirondacks."

“There were some winters when it was so cold, I thought we would freeze to death, and the snow, John, the snow seemed to last forever.”

“We’ve had some cold winters here through the years.”

“Cold is relative,” said Neil.  He held Christy’s hand and kissed it.  “I’ve forgotten how much I missed this place.”

“Well Doc, there’s a fishing pole waiting for you and I still tie my own dry flies and wet flies, so you’re welcome to test the fishing line.”

Neil smiled broadly at Christy.  “Now there’s a man after me own heart.”

“I imagine the two of you will be spending a lot of time on the river.”

“Well, you’ll be catching up on the gossip,” said Neil.

“Gossip?  I never gossip.”  Neil smiled at John, and rolled his eyes.  “I just try to catch upon everyone’s news.”  John smiled back at Neil.

The trip to the old Mission yard went more quickly than Neil would have thought.  He tried to take in all of the changes.  There were abandoned cabins and acres of land where tracts of trees had been logged out.  "Do you want to stop by the Mission, or would you rather go to the cabin first?" asked John.

Neil looked at Christy.  "I think we'd like to go to the cabin if you don't mind."  John took the road that would lead them to the old MacNeill homestead.  Bessie was waiting for them on the porch.  Christy swallowed.  This had been her first home with Neil.  He'd brought her here as a new, blushing bride.  Oh the memories that stirred in her heart!  Neil hugged her.  For a minute his eyes played a trick on him and instead of Bessie, he saw a young version of Christy waving her hand as he came home from a medical call.  Hounds came barking to greet them as John stopped the wagon.  His sons Seth, Isaac, and Jethro came running to take care of the horses.  A young girl came out and stood next to her Mama.  Christy stared with a visible start.  She looked like a young version of Fairlight.

Bessie walked down the stairs, and her daughter followed.  "Welcome home, folks.  It is so good to see you again.  How are you Miss Christy?  Doc?  It's been a real long time since we've swapped howdies."

Christy hugged Bessie.  "Hello, Bessie.  It certainly has been a very long time since we've been here."

"This here's my daughter Hope.  Hope Fairlight Spencer.  She's a real joy, Miss Christy.  We're the only females, so we have to stick together.  Come inside, I have mint tea to cool your parched throats."

They had added a generator, and they cooked with propane.  There were some changes, but the cabin looked almost the way it had when they moved away.

"Did you keep in touch with Miss Henderson?"

"Oh yes, Bessie.  She was like a grandmother to our son and daughter.  She came to visit us once a year during the summer.  The days would be hot, but the nights were cool.  She claimed that as she got older, she liked the humidity less and less.  We kept in touch with cards and letters and the telephone, of course.  She was an important part of our family."

"Will your children be coming?"

"I told them not to come," said Neil.  "There is nothing here for them.  It is better to remember Alice as she was in life.  They loved her dearly."

Christy nodded in agreement.  "We all did."

Bessie poured their tea, and Hope offered them a plate of cookies.  "Ah Lassie, you've learned to make your grandmother's hickory nut cookies.  I would love to stop by your parents' place, Bessie, for I knew Lety would have a plate of cookies for me."  He bit into a cookie.  "Just as I remembered them," he said with a satisfied smile.  Everyone laughed as the boys came into the cabin and were introduced to the MacNeills. Later, Bessie showed them to the guest room.  It had once been Neil's old laboratory.

Christy turned to her husband as he closed the door.  He took her into his arms and kissed her.  She clung to him, needing his love and support.  "I must say, her decorations are an improvement, Neil."

He laughed.  "They would have had no way of knowing that this was my laboratory, Lass.  I disposed of everything pertaining to my research by sending it to Harold Wade at St. Timothy's.  He was quite happy to receive those specimens."  They rested for a while after their journey.  In the late afternoon John and Neil went fishing, while Christy helped Bessie and Hope prepare dinner.

The following day word had traveled that the MacNeill's had come home for Miss Alice's funeral.  People stopped by the cabin on and off all day long.  They got word from the funeral parlor in El Pano that the body had arrived safely.  It would be delivered to the church early the following morning.

 Eric and Grace stepped off the train.  They were certainly in unfamiliar territory.  "Howdy folks.  You look lost."  The word howdy had been drawn out and sustained for a few seconds.  The two turned towards the friendly voice.  An old man was perched against a wooden barrel.  "Yep.  Lost.  I reckon yer MacNeill's."  Eric looked startled.  "You got the look of your Pap.  And you little lady, yer pert like yer Ma.  I guess you come for Miz Henderson's funeral."

"She was our grandmother."

"Course she wuz, little lady.  She loved you folks a heap.  I'm Ben Pentland.  Glad to swap howdies with you MacNeill young-uns."

"I'm Grace, Mr. Pentland."

"I'm Eric, sir."

"Pleased ta meet ya both.  Yep, I delivered a whole bunch of yer Ma's letters over the years.  Never knew no one else who had so much to say in letters.  Every week she'd send a passel.  Why Ruby Mae Beck can talk as fast as yer Ma can write.  She's a-comin in for the funeral with her family by the way.  You'd better warn yer Ma.  They live round Maryville way.  Not too far as the crow flies.  Only an hour or two, depending on the dadburned traffic.  Will drives a truck hauling freight.  Who's expecting you?"

"No one.  Our parents didn't know we were coming." said Eric.

"Guess I'd better lead you to the Spencer's.  First day I met yer Ma she bamboozled me into letting her walk with me to Cutter Gap.  She met yer Pap that very first day. 'Twas like lightning and thunder, though it didn't seem so at the time.  Gosh dang, them were the good old days."

If Christy was amazed at the people who stopped by the cabin, she was even more astounded at the amount of people who stopped by for Miss Alice's funeral.  This woman had been such an amazing source of faith and goodness for so many people, for so many years.  First of all, her children arrived on the same train.  Neither one was about to let their Granny Alice go without being there to attend her funeral.  They were both insatiably curious about Cutter Gap.  They had heard so many stories during the long winter nights of their youth.  They had to come, to see the places their parents knew and loved so well.  They came to meet the people, to finally put faces on those they had heard so much about growing up.  Christy hugged them with joy, and Neil wiped the tears from his eyes at the sight of his son and daughter.  They made him so very proud.

Word had spread like wildfire that Alice Henderson had finally come home for good.  People came to pay their respects to this special woman who had given them her love and support for so many years.  They came from Cataleechie, Raven Gap, Low Gap, El Pano and Knoxville to say goodbye one last time to a woman who had been such a driving force of faith and love in their lives.

Eric and Grace were simply speechless by the outpouring of well-wishers who came by the give their condolences to their family.  Granny Alice was revered here.  They had not realized that their parents were considered living legends.  It was so hard to take it all in when they realized that the stories they had heard as children were really only the tip of the iceberg.

The most shocking surprise of all was the appearance of Reverend David Grantland.  He accompanied Reverend Vincent McHone to conduct her funeral service.  David had been a missionary in China for years.  When the Japanese began to invade, he was sent home.  He had kept in touch with Vincent throughout the young man's theological studies.  They had kept up their correspondence after Vincent had been ordained.  Vincent had called him when he received word from Neil that Alice had died.

Christy looked around.  David gave a stirring eulogy.  "Why we've come full circle," she thought.  It was good to have Neil sitting next to her in church.  She smiled, remembering how he tried so desperately to convince her that he did not believe in God.  'Never say never,' she thought to herself.  Eric and Grace were a comfort to her.

Everyone brought food.  It was though a silent message had been sent out to the Cove.  There was enough to feed a multitude.  David looked around and said, "It's like the miracle of the loaves and the fishes."  Mountain hospitality was once again brought to the forefront.  Neil filled himself up with the foods he had grown up on, much to Christy's amusement.  Families now had a source of refrigeration, depending on where they lived.  He felt as though he was partaking of manna from heaven.

Lulu Spencer had married Sam Houston Holcombe.  "Doc," she said, "have a piece of sweet potato pie.  I used to help Mama make it."