A Chilhowee Lily: 1911

In Short

Set among the high ridges of the Great Smoky and Cumberland mountains, this tale turns on a sudden fever for hidden treasure. After a letter arrives for a mountain girl named Loralinda Byars, word spreads that a wounded pay agent buried a chest of stolen company funds beside a flowering Chilhowee lily. As local men tear up the mountainside searching for the spot, Loralinda holds her peace to protect a promise, while her jealous suitor tries to force her secret from her. The story endures for its rich regional dialect, vivid wilderness setting, and sharp moral contrast between mountain greed and unbending personal honor.

The Story

The drama opens high above Chilhowee on a late August evening, where three mountain men gather along a rugged ridge road. Ozias Crann, a bitter and calculating rustic, carries a pickaxe and bad news. He reveals to young Rufe Kinnicutt and the heavy-set Pete Swofford—who travels everywhere leading a pet black bear cub on a chain—that a letter has just arrived at the local mill for Loralinda Byars. A year earlier, during a violent strike at the nearby Tanglefoot Mine, the company's pay agent, Paul Renfrow, was shot by ambushing miners. Renfrow managed to crawl to the Byars cabin, where Loralinda and her grandmother nursed him back to health before her grandfather hauled him to the railway line concealed on two feather beds.

Now Renfrow has written from afar, asking Loralinda as a personal favor to dig up a small box he hid during his flight and express it to him. He noted in his letter that he buried it beside a blooming Chilhowee lily. Crann convinces the men that the box holds the company payroll—the stolen gold and silver—and that because the mine has collapsed and the records are burned, the money is fair game. Soon, half the mountain is frantically digging up every white blossom in the woods. Crann, however, scheme to use Rufe Kinnicutt’s courtship of Loralinda to coax the exact location from her.

Rufe visits Loralinda that very night at her family's cabin, finding her spinning thread under the full moon. Consumed by jealousy over the handsome stranger's letter and eager to prove his control over her, Rufe demands she reveal the secret, claiming that a proper betrothed couple keeps no secrets. Loralinda gently insists she never cared for Renfrow, but she firmly refuses to break her word to keep his confidence. When Rufe threatens to abandon her forever if she will not choose him over her promise, she silently retreats into the cabin, leaving him alone in the yard with the barking hounds and her crotchety grandfather.

By morning, the weather turns to a dreary, rain-soaked gray. The treasure hunters grow desperate as their digging yields nothing. Crann, standing in the Byars cabin while Loralinda spins and her rheumatic grandmother complains, experiences a sudden flash of insight. He remembers seeing a delicate Chilhowee lily growing high in a specific cliffside niche along the public road—the only spot an injured outsider could have easily reached. Crann rushes to the precipice and digs, striking a small japanned box. A violent scramble breaks out among the watching men on the slippery edge of the cliff. When the box falls and its lock shatters, it reveals no gold, but only damp company receipts, vouchers, and account ledgers needed for liquidation.

Loralinda later calmly reveals that she knew all along what was in the box; Renfrow had carried the actual payroll money with him, safely sewn into the very feather beds he rode on to the train. Having seen Rufe's greed and bad faith, Loralinda refuses to take him back, leaving Rufe to haunt the mountain roads, haunted by his folly and the lost love he compares to the pure, unreachable lily.

How It Unfolds

A rumor at sunset Ozias Crann informs his companions on the mountain crest that a letter from a former pay agent has set the local mill ablaze with gossip. He convinces them that a buried chest of mine money lies hidden beside a wild lily, sparking a frantic search across the ridge.

The test of devotion Rufe Kinnicutt visits Loralinda Byars at her spinning wheel under the moonlight to demand she share the stranger's secret. When she refuses to break her word, he issues a harsh ultimatum and walks away, expecting her to yield.

The morning search A heavy rain falls over the mountains, dampening the spirits of the treasure seekers as their digging proves fruitless. Inside the gloomy Byars cabin, Loralinda quietly endures both her suitor's absence and her grandmother's irritable complaints.

A flash of memory Observing Loralinda's calm presence, Crann suddenly recalls seeing a prominent white lily growing in a rock niche right beside the main road. Realizing an injured outsider would have hidden his burden near the highway, he slips away with his pickaxe.

The cliffside struggle Crann unearths the metal box at the edge of the precipice, only for nearby men to tackle him in a desperate bid for the loot. The box opens during the brawl, spilling useless business papers and tax vouchers into the mud.

The final reckoning Loralinda explains to the embarrassed men that the actual money was safely transported long ago inside a feather mattress. Rufe realizes his mistrust has alienated Loralinda forever, leaving her as distant to him as the ethereal mountain flower.

The People

• Loralinda Byars wants to live a quiet life of personal integrity and keep the promises she makes, regardless of the pressure around her. Confronted by her community's greed and her lover's jealousy, she stands firm, showing an ethereal calm that masks an unyielding moral spine. She ends the story free from a dishonorable suitor, though carrying the quiet grief of lost trust.
• Rufe Kinnicutt wants Loralinda's complete submission and affection, mixed with a foolish desire to prove his dominance over any rival. His insecurity and greed drive him to threaten their engagement, leaving him permanently rejected and filled with bitter regret.
• Ozias Crann wants easy wealth without honest labor, using his cunning nature to manipulate his neighbors into doing his work. He drives the plot through his crafty schemes, only to end up humiliated when his prized prize turns out to be worthless paperwork.
• Pete Swofford wants nothing more than a peaceful life with his trained pet bear cub, serving as a lumpish, slow-witted follower to Crann's schemes.
• Gran'daddy and Granny Byars represent the frail, weathered older generation of the coves; the grandmother is tormented by severe rheumatism, while the grandfather manages the household from his crutch stick.

In Its Own Voice

"The cluster grew in a niche on the rocky verge of a precipice beetling over the windings of the rugged primitive road on the slope of the ridge."

(The author establishes the dramatic mountain setting where the mysterious flower grows above the wilderness trail.)

"'Pears like thar won't be no night, ez ye mought call night, till this moon goes down,' he suggested. ''Pears nigh ez bright ez day!'"

(Rufe Kinnicutt hesitates on the ridge, noting the brilliant moonlight that threatens to expose their midnight digging.)

"Loralinda, sitting at her spinning wheel, was paler than ever, all her dearest illusions dashed into hopeless fragments, and a promise which she did not value to one whom she did not love quite perfect and intact."

(The narrator captures Loralinda’s resolute spirit as she sits in the damp cabin after rejecting her lover's ultimatum.)

What It's Really About

Beneath its adventure plot about buried paychecks and mountain treasure, the story explores the nature of integrity within an isolated community. It contrasts two distinct worldviews: the pragmatic, self-serving logic of men like Ozias Crann—who view promises as obstacles and unowned property as fair game—and the uncompromising moral code of Loralinda Byars.

The narrative questions what constitutes true value. While the men scramble through the dirt for gold that was never there, they trample the natural beauty around them and destroy their personal relationships. Loralinda’s steadfast refusal to break a promise to a stranger, despite receiving no reward for it, elevates her above the surrounding greed. The Chilhowee lily itself becomes a symbol of this rare, self-contained purity, thriving in harsh soil on the edge of a cliff, unheeded by the treasure hunters until they seek to uproot it.

Why Read It Today

This work offers a compelling window into the regional color literature of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Charles Egbert Craddock (the pen name of Mary Noailles Murfree) paints the Southern Appalachian landscape with extraordinary sensory detail, shifting effortlessly from sweeping vistas of purple mountain ranges to the intimate, damp interior of a smoky log cabin. Readers who appreciate historical regional writing, local folklore, and character-driven moral drama will find much to admire in its tight, evocative plotting.

The narrative does present specific hurdles for modern readers. The prose heavily features rendered mountain dialect ("ye uns," "bodaciously," "kuntry"), which requires a slow, attentive reading speed to catch the rhythm of the dialogue. Additionally, the story reflects the insular, nineteenth-century rural attitudes of its setting. Yet for those willing to engage with its period dialogue, the novella rewards the effort with a sharply drawn study of human character, rich environmental description, and a poignant conclusion that lingers long after the final page.