Summary
From the mine-scarred hills of an Appalachian nowhere, a flame-bright girl—christened Babbie by a dying mother—cartwheels into existence like a reckless comet, trailing laughter that cuts through coal dust and paternal grief. Peter Conway, her granite-faced father, anneals his bereavement in the forge of her pranks; Hannah, the elder sister, wraps the child in devotional gauze, substituting womb for womb. Years compress; the girl’s radiance ripens into a siren-song for drunks and drifters—she marries a whiskey-soaked gargoyle, is battered, widowed, and spewed back to the clapboard homestead where innocence has already yellowed like old newsprint. Enter Ned Higgins, surveyor of futures and breaker of hearts, who arrives intending to court the stolid Hannah yet finds his pulse hijacked by Babbie’s ungovernable shimmer. Civil unrest slouches toward the camp: imported Pinkertons, bayonets glinting like ice picks, and a strike ready to combust. Reporter Asa Robins, saved by Babbie from striker fists, proposes; she refuses, igniting Ned’s jealousy and Hannah’s quiet implosion. The siblings perform a tragic pas de deux of renunciation: Hannah yields her betrothed, Babbie plays martyr, Ned oscillates between duty and wildfire hunger. A drunken agitator, foiled by Babbie’s pacifying priest, corners her in a glen; Ned rescues, confesses, is rebuffed. On a trestle above death’s roar, locomotive headlights eclipse their silhouettes—he flings them clear, awakens beneath her tear-salted gaze, extracts a vow that she instantly retracts, believing herself cursed. Blood-soaked headlines arrive: Peter faces execution by tribunal. Babbie, astride a stolen mare, snatches her father under rifle fire only to take a bullet meant for him. By the roadside she commends her beloved to the sister she has wronged, expires as dawn rinses the sky of soot, and leaves the living to mourn a brightness too incandescent to endure.
Synopsis
The wife of Peter Conway died in giving birth to a baby girl. Babbie, the motherless child, grew up to be beautiful and vivacious, her liveliness and innocent pranks were the joy and despair of her rough-handed but tender-hearted father, while Hannah, her elder sister, mothered and idolized the impulsive girl. But Babbie became the wife of a drunken wretch. Her husband died and back she fled to her father's arms. Hannah learned to love Ned Higgins, a newcomer, who at first did not like Babbie, but later found himself captivated by her artless charms, but the gathering clouds of an impending strike brought Asa Robins, a reporter, to the coal fields. After saving Asa from a beating at the hands of the strikers, Babbie refused his offer of marriage and the newspaperman was compelled to flee the town. Ned's jealousy was aroused by this incident and he unwillingly realized that he loved Babbie. With faltering voice he told Hannah the truth. She was crushed by the blow, but calmly replied, "Then you shall marry Babbie." Babbie appreciating the sterling worth of Ned, loved him deeply, but for her sister's sake rebuffed his advances and admonished him to remain true to Hannah. At last the strike was declared and the company imported trainloads of heavily armed guards to protect the mine property. Egged on by Dominick Kenelly, a drunken miner, the strikers prepared to attack the newcomers, but Babbie foreseeing its fatal consequences, summoned the priest, who averted the clash and rebuked the intoxicated leader. Enraged because Babbie foiled his plan, Kenelly attacked her in a lonely glen, and if it had not been for the timely interference of Ned, the girl would have been severely beaten. Ned again uttered his pleas, but Babbie remained unmoved. While crossing a railroad trestle, they were overtaken by an onrushing train. Seizing Babbie, he leaped and was rendered unconscious while Babbie was unhurt. She looked into his face and murmured, "Oh, my love, say that you are not dead." Ned opened his eyes. "Babbie, I love you. I can't live without you. Give me your promise." She impulsively threw her arms about his neck in an ecstasy of joy, when suddenly her sister's face flashed across her mind. "God of Mercy," she cried in anguish, "Everything I touch withers and is snatched from me. I am ill-starred; take away the curse." Convulsed with tears she fled, and prepared to leave home to forget her unfortunate love, when she heard that her father had been captured by the authorities and was to be court-martialed and executed. Stealing through the lines she rescued her father, and mounted on a horse they fled under a hail of bullets from the guards. Babbie was hit and fell from weakness from the horse, and for the first time her father learned of her wound. Ned and Hannah soon discovered the two at the roadside. Babbie fast nearing death, smiled at them, and taking the weeping Hannah's hand, placed it in Ned's. "I am going," she said almost inaudibly, "my star is sinking, and soon all will be over, but for my sake. Ned, love and cherish Hannah, as I have loved and cherished you." Babbie's lips ceased to move, and the little group bowed their heads and wept.
