Big Sandy

BIG SANDY

Books _by JEAN THOMAS

:DEVIL'S DITTIES

THE TRAIPSIN* WOMAN

THErSINGIN* FIDDLER OF LOST HOPE HOLLOW

THE SINGIN' GATHERIN' (in collaboration with
Joseph A. Leeder)

BALLAD MAKIN' IN THE MOUNTAINS OF KENTUCKY

BIG SANDY

Big Sandy View

JEAN THOMAS

BIG SANDY

NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

ANA3A, OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

COPYRIGHT, 1940,

BY
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY, INC.

PRINTED IN THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

To the memory of my father
WILLIAM GEORGE BELL

kinsman of the first white man in Cumberland Gap

"Dr. Walter, the English chap"

and who first within my hearing said

"Big Sandy against the world"

CONTENTS

1. BIG SANDY AGAINST THE WORLD 3

2. HOME LIFE ON BIG SANDY 1O

3. THEY HAVE PRESERVED THE WAYS OF THEIR

FORBEARS 44

4. WORK 87

5- DAFFY JOHN 99

6. MININ* INDEPENDENT 11 7

7. MAKIN' 142

8. ROMEO AND JULIET 176

9. CLERGY, LAW, AND MEDICINE 245

10. TALL TALES 266

11. FESTIVAL 286

INDEX 297

ILLUSTRATIONS

Big Sandy View Frontispiece

Ebenezer with the carpet bag to face p. 20

Dumb bull, mace, homemade shoe, chair,

broom " 21

Washing by the creek " 68

The battlin' trough " 69

Sorghum makin' " 92

The sorghum mill " 93

The drift mouth " 132

Within the mine " 133

A mountain family: distant kin of Henry

Clay " 164

A jolt wagon " 165

The Hatfield clan " 228

Linin' a hymn " 229

Reverend Zepheniah Meek " 260

Doctor Nelson Tatum Rice " 261

BIG SANDY CREW

Oh, they saddle up the horses and away they'll ride,
They saddle up the horses and away they'll ride,
First thing a courtship and they'll sit down;
Jenny, think your Johnny-cake is bakin' most too brown.

They saddle up the horses and ride when they please
Their old jeans pants up to their knees;
Brogan shoes turned up at the toes,
And big yarn socks was all the go.

Girls use no powder, but their face is red,
Their hair done up on the back of their head.
An old linsey dress, the color was brown,
And the tail of it a-draggin' the ground.

It's good mornin' Nancy and hello John,
Come over tonight and we'll parch some corn.
We'll have some fun, I'll play you a tune,
We'll get married about next June.

An old log house and a clapboard door,
An old log house and a clapboard door,
An old log house and a clapboard door,
An old stone chimney and an old puncheon floor.

A homemade table and a corded bed,
They had no stove but a skillet and lid.
They rake out the ashes and throw in the dough,
It's old corn dodger, don't you know?

Had a little cow and they milked her in the gourd,
Set it in the corner, covered it with a board;
Some got milk, some got none; that's how they used to do
When I run around with the Big Sandy crew.

BOATIN' ON SANDY

I live on Big Sandy River,
From Rockcastle County I came;
I work on Bill Lyons' push boat,
Gabe Stafford they call my name.

When folks raised sorghum, dug ginseng,
On haulm' such loads Bill was bent;
We loaded our boat with its tonnage,
And away down Big Sandy we went.

We pushed round the curve at Fishtrap,
With backs bent over the pole,
To keep her from grazing the sand bar
And wrecking our precious tole.

Then down past the point at Louisa
Where the Tug and Levisa Forks meet;
And Bill played a jig on his banjo,
While we rested and took time to eat.

It was dark when we passed the old Grist Mill
That sets at the Falls of Big Elaine,
We shore was a tired bunch of sinners,
But never a man did complain.

So on down the river we're floating,
We sing as our push boat we steer,
A-hopin' that some fair young damsel
That lives on the bank will appear.

No doubt we will hug her and kiss her,
And then, when our mind is at ease,
We'll turn our backs on her and jilt her,
And at Catlettsburg court who we please.

Oh! this is the life of the river,
The song of a push boatin' man,
We love who we please and as often,
We eat and we sleep when we can.

BJG SANDY

1

BIG SANDY AGAINST THE WORLD

IT WAS AT A SOCIAL GATHERING, AND IN LONDON, THAT
Big Sandy made its first bid for world recognition, and
it did so in the person of a very charming young lady
of the last century. It was the custom in those days, I am
told, for the ladies to withdraw when time came for the
toasts to go round, but this occasion marked the exception,
for some reason. The health of the queen was pledged, and
after one or two more toasts, came one to the young lady,
welcoming her as an attractive and honored guest. The
necessity to respond found her in a state of confusion
bordering collapse, for she had expected no such request,
and she heard her own words before she had the faintest
idea of what to say: "Big Sandy against the world! "

Later it embarrassed her somewhat to tell of that oc-
casion, but it amused her, too, and the story was told with
great glee in her native district. The feeling among its
people that the Big Sandy country was an entity in its own
right had never before crystallized, but it was there, and
had been there for a long time, awaiting the moment of
expression. "Big Sandy against the world" came to imply
no meaning of hostility to what was not Big Sandy, but
rather a feeling of unity, kinship, common interest among
its people, of pride in the beauty and wealth of the land

3

BIG SANDY AGAINST THE WORLD

and of the qualities of its folk. It is a feeling which I shared
before I was old enough to understand it, and one which
I have never since had occasion to deny.

The mountain people of Kentucky already have an estab-
lished place in literature: they have represented themselves,
and have been represented, and misrepresented, by others.
I could wax indignant on the matter of misrepresentation;
indeed, one purpose of this book is to show the mountain
people as they are rather than as romantic fiction would
sometimes have them: proud, aloof, liberty-loving people,
on the one hand; degraded poor-white trash on the other.
The truth, of course, lies between, as it always does, and
the truth, at present, is changing as rapidly as the colors
on a distant wooded hill in September twilight. And that
is another purpose of this book, to record the passing of
one of the last large districts of handicraft culture in the
United States.

Kaintuckee, a corruption of an Indian word, like "Ohio"
and "Louisiana" once indicated a vast, undefined stretch
of land west of the Appalachians and south of the Ohio
River, whither free men of the Atlantic seaboard could
escape the tyranny of the king, or later, of the federal gov-
ernment. Tyranny was readily discovered and cordially
hated, in those days. There, Daniel Boone found for a
while the breathing space he needed, and other men of
similar independence of spirit followed him. On the west-
ern tableland of the area now included within the state's
boundaries an agricultural society prospered, and because
of the ease of communication by way of the rivers the
Ohio and Mississippi, the Cumberland and Tennessee
and by way of Boone's Trace through Cumberland Gap,
one of the major early roads to the west, developed large

BIG SANDY AGAINST THE WORLD

settlements and maintained regular communication with
the East.

The terrain of the Big Sandy district in eastern Ken-
tucky is rugged, traversed in the early days only by the
roughest of trails, and Big Sandy River is navigable by
steamboats of any size for only about one hundred miles.
Although its valleys and coves are fertile enough, its early
settlers were hunters and trappers in the main, who moved
their habitations frequently, planted small garden plots
when they planted at all, and were slow to settle down. By
the lime they did so the tide of commerce had passed them
by, and until very recent times parts of the Big Sandy
region remained remote enough from centers of civilization
to satisfy Daniel Boone himself.

Part of the Big Sandy region lies in West Virginia, for
Big Sandy River and one of its main tributaries, Tug Fork,
form most of the boundary between West Virginia and
Kentucky. In the southwest corner of Virginia, on the
heights of the eastern portion of the Cumberland Moun-
tains, innumerable springs and brooks contribute to the
formation of Tug Fork, which establishes itself as a stream
worthy of a name not far from the point where Virginia,
West Virginia and Kentucky meet, and thence flows north-
westward and northward to the Ohio. To the west of the
sources of Tug, a similar confluence of rivulets form a
small stream called Russell Fork, which cuts a deep gash
in the Cumberlands as it flows out of Virginia into Ken-
tucky. This cut, called the "Breaks of Sandy'' is about two
miles long and is noted for its scenic beauty, being some-
times called "the Grand Canyon of the Sandy/' Rising
still further to the west of Russell, Levisa Fork joins it

5

BIG SANDY AGAINST THE WORLD

within the boundaries of Kentucky, and the two flow north-
ward to join Tug and thereby create the Big Sandy.

There is some disagreement about the application of
these names. Strictly speaking, I suppose, "Big Sandy"
applies only to the forty-odd-mile stretch of water flowing
from Louisa north to the Ohio River at Catlettsburg. The
Big Sandy system, on the other hand, includes all the
streams I have named as well as a good many more. For
the sake of clarity I shall name each part of the system as
the residents do. To us each part has a local habitation
and a name, and all belong to Big Sandy. Incidentally, the
Indians called Big Sandy the Chatterawha, which, being a
difficult word for mountain people to pronounce, has been
made by them into something that sounds like "Chat-
teroy."

Shallow-draft river steamboats can navigate these waters
for a little more than a hundred miles up Levisa Fork, and
about ninety miles up Tug, and even more important in
the history of the country are the spring freshets on all
the streams, which swell them sufficiently to float logs
down to the sawmills in centers of industry. Logging was
one of the early industries of the region, and has long been
an important one; each spring still sees great rafts of timber
being floated down to the main waters.

Push boats offered the first form of commercial naviga-
tion on the network of waterways in the early days barges
which were laboriously poled upstream, or guided down-
stream, going from settlement to settlement, taking such
provisions as milled flour, refined sugar, spices, tools, har-
ness, and arms and ammunition to the settlers, and receiv-
ing in exchange agricultural products, furs, honey and
beeswax, and a great variety of other products. Later, small

6

BIG SANDY AGAINST THE WORLD

steam packets provided the same service, but in time they
were driven from the rivers by the swiftness and relia-
bility, even though at greater cost, of the railroads. Now,
except for the rafts of timber, and occasional barges of
coal, there is little commercial traffic on the Big Sandy
waters.

Looking down upon the Big Sandy country, a bird's-eye
view would reveal a great oval basin of jagged hills and
mountains, clear, rushing streams and heavy, second-
growth forests. It is a fertile territory and a rich one, rich
in minerals and timber and above all, in beauty.

From north to south the valley is a hundred and fifty
miles long, and from east to west averages about eighty
miles wide. In area it equals some of the northern states;
including those parts of it which lie in Virginia and West
Virginia, the valley comprises over four thousand square
miles.

The bottom and cove lands produce heavy crops of
grain, tobacco and meadow grasses. On the hillsides, grass,
grain, timber and fruit of nearly every kind peculiar to a
north-temperate latitude are cultivated. One of the exotic
products of the early days was ginseng. A variety of that
medicinal root, highly valued in China and in such demand
that it was almost exterminated there, was found growing
wild in the Big Sandy hills, and fetched such a good price
that it was almost exterminated there. Now it is cultivated
by some of the mountain people, is still in demand, and
still brings a good price. While the timber is now all sec-
ond growth, it grows rapidly and there are valuable species:
poplar, oak, cherry, walnut, sugar, beech, hickory, linden,
sycamore. "Trees of heaven" (Aihnthus glandulosa) forty
or fifty feet tall, with their flower of a greenish cast similar

BIG SANDY AGAINST THE WORLD

to the blossom of the poplar tree, grow on the mountain-
sides.

Until comparatively recent times, most of the people of
this region lived and died within a few miles of their birth-
place, seldom traveled farther afield than the county seat,
traded but little in world markets, grew and preserved
what food they needed, and made their own clothing, and
houses, and furniture. They were shy of strangers, although
ready enough to extend a warm welcome to a visiting medi-
cine show, itinerant preacher, or even a commercial sales-
man, once he had reassured them as to his good intentions.

The mountain people of Kentucky have often suffered
hardships unnecessary in the times in which they lived;
in matters of education and health they have been far be-
hind the times, and in religion they have sometimes been
superstitious. They often took the law into their own
hands, adding injury to injury and causing suffering to
the innocent. But in the main they suffered for their own
shortcomings. While it is possible for the selfishness of a
man in Wall Street to bring unhappiness to persons un-
known to him and remote from him in other parts of the
nation, the wrongdoing of a mountain man was quickly
succeeded by its own retribution and remorse.

Big Sandy people still have positive contributions to
offer to society; chief among them, their poetic speech and
their indigenous balladry. Dependent upon themselves for
amusement, they have for several centuries kept alive the
chanteys of their ancestors, the romantic border ballads
brought from Scotland, and folk songs from England and
Ireland. They have learned to compose their own songs
in the traditional manner, and even to make their own
musical instruments: "banjers," fiddles and pipes. They

8

BIG SANDY AGAINST THE WORLD

have kept alive and in good social standing that old Amer-
ican instrument, the mouth harp.

They have kept alive, too, a tradition of manhood, of
courtesy, of respect for others, that is inevitably lost in
urban civilization. Although the stranger is looked upon
with suspicion, he is given shelter and food when he needs
it; he is accepted as a friend when he has proved his worth.
They have kept alive the power of feeling strongly in mat-
ters of faith, of tradition, and of justice; a power which,
though often mistaken, still remains one of the glories of
mankind.

It happened long ago but it is still illustrative of Big
Sandy folk, the story of Horatio Catlett who, with his
father, Sawny, and his sisters, now incognito, gave the
name to Catlettsburg, near the mouth of Big Sandy. The
Catletts kept an inn, famous for its cuisine, which often
sheltered such notables as General Jackson, and Henry
Clay, on their trips to and from Washington. Horatio Cat-
lett at length got into financial difficulties, his property
was mortgaged, and was about to be taken away from him.
As a last resort, resting a heavy hand upon his cane, he
trudged excitedly into the inn, to discuss terms with the
new manager, and the two engaged in a heated argument.
So passionate was Horatio, and so overwhelmed, that he
died on the spot. "So suddenly/' a historian declares, "that
an autopsy was deemed necessary." But there was no foul
play connected with Horatio's demise. It was his own high
blood pressure, generated by his own passion, that did him
off.

HOME LIFE ON BIG SANDY

EVEN TODAY IT IS STILL POSSIBLE TO FIND IN THE BIG
Sandy country, along Turkey Fork, John's Creek,
George's Creek, Jennie's Creek, Beaver, and Tad-
pole, families who still live in the same place in the same
way as their Anglo-Saxon forbears who climbed deep into
the wilderness of the Appalachians a century or two before.

For instance, there is Aunt Linthie Thacker and her
folk. To this day they cook at the open fireplace and cut
pumpkin in rings to dry on a stick suspended from the
"foir board" [the mantel shelf]. There also is the "dip/'
the same primitive lamp which their forbears used, an
earthen cup filled with fat in which a coil of tow covered
with tallow is placed, the lighted end hanging over the
edge of the cup. To be sure, Aunt Linthie keeps a tallow
candle in the same brass candle stick her mother used be-
fore her. "And in case a body needs a heap o' light," she
will tell you, "there's the oil lamp and the shiny tin pan
behint it to give a mighty glow."

Mountain women, especially those living in the Big
Sandy country, are apt with their hands and turn the sim-
plest thing on the place to use. You'll see a picture frame
made of corn shucks hanging close by the mantel shelf; a
rug on the floor made from strips of wool and cotton left

10

HOME LIFE ON BIG SANDY

from "wearin' clothes/' the strips being plaited or braided,
then sewn round and round or in an oval shape to make a
rug. A homemade flintlock gun hangs above the fireplace,
and a turkey wing is on the mantel shelf, with which the
tidy housewife brushes the ashes and soot from the hearth.
A corn husk filled with homemade sausage is kept conven-
iently near the fireplace for cooking. The churn is made of
cedar, with brass hoops. A flax wheel has been in the family
for generations. A gourd filled with sugar for cooking is
close at hand; always a gourd vine is to be seen growing
near the kitchen door of the mountain home, for the gourd
serves many purposes: drinking cup, at the wash tub for
bailing out water, and, if large enough, it is a handy vessel
in which to carry salt to the barn for the cattle.

In early days, tasks were made pleasant at the fireside by
all joining in. Flax pulling, which otherwise would have
been a mean task, became the occasion for a lively gather-
ing, as did the irksome job of picking burrs from wool. All
gathered about the glowing log fire and told tales, ex-
changed riddles, sang ballads, while each helped with the
work. In those days men wore buckskin breeches and hunt-
ing shirts of the same material; homemade linen or cotton
shirts, which wives and daughters made during many busy
hours at wheel and loom. They even made their own shoes
of buffalo hide. Their hats were of fur; at this craft the
women were often very apt. Today the mountain man
wears, preferably, a wide-brimmed black felt, even in sum-
mer, though sometimes the younger fellows, following the
ways of their forbears who wore plaited hickory hats in the
field, compromise with a wide-brimmed straw as they plow
or hoe in the scorching sun.

The grandmothers of the present generation wove linsey-

11

HOME LIFE ON BIG SANDY

woolsey for frocks and shirts, made their own dyes of bark
and herbs, spun flax into cloth for bed linens and table
cloths and petticoats, nightgowns and Sunday shirts. They
were proud of their deerskin shoes and slippers. Today
they have "store" shoes and boots and slippers. The boys,
true to tradition, prefer heavy, high-topped boots to a trim-
fitting polished shoe. And they prefer to congregate at a
blacksmith shop or the general store, where they are at
home in their heavy, rough clothes, and their simple
amusements, and can sit with their elders, chew tobacco,
and whittle, to an occasion that calls for a clean white
shirt.

So proud of a "man-child" is the mountain father, he
can scarcely wait until the offspring is big enough to wear
sure-enough breeches and galluses. I remember once see-
ing a child scarcely two, for whom the mother had cut
down a pair of the father's breeches, and she had made the
little fellow a pair of knitted galluses, too. Usually moun-
tain boys have long pants before they are eight. They are
never better pleased than when wearing overalls with gal-
luses and many pockets. Their shirts are of dark-blue mate-
rial of a heavy grade of denim or cheviot. Before they are
old enough to go "courtin' " they prefer these dark, heavy
clothes. For winter, mufflers, pulse-warmers a kind of
knitted wristletand ear muffs have never ceased to be
popular among the men folk.

The girls wear calico, dark-blue and red and pink, with
a gingham or a lawn dress for Sunday. Many of them still
wear sunbonnets instead of straw hats. Their mothers and
grandmothers wear calico in summer, of dark blue, black,
or gray, and black sateen bonnets. Dark wool dresses in
winter, and hoods and fascinators, and yarn stockings and

12

HOME LIFE ON BIG SANDY

socks, often knitted by the older women, are customary.

When you enter the windowless cabin in the Big Sandy
country it is the men folk who will first greet you. "Drag
up a cheer and sot a spell." Chewing his homemade twist
contentedly, he will tell you, "A pipe ties a body down.
Hit's all right for the wimmin folks to smoke a pipe, p'tkler
old granny wimmin who don't mind, for about all they're
fit for is to tend the baby. But for us men folks it's a heap
more comfortabler for us to take a chaw of t'backer. We
can step around where we're a-mind to, not wearyin' about
a hot coal from the foirplace to keep a pipe a-goin'."

Usually the man will tell you proudly, "I heir-ed this
scope of land, this log house, from pa, same as him from
his'n." There are not many tenant farmers in the moun-
tains, or even those who make a crop on shares. Love of
independence makes the mountain man want to own his
own place, however small the acreage may be. He toils un-
ceasingly until it is well cleared, and father and son work
side by side in planting and harvesting the crop. Often I
have seen even the women folk, mother and daughter,
when the housework is finished, pick up a hoe and go into
the corn patch, hoeing row for row with their men.

"What was good enough for pa and ma is good enough
for me," a man will tell you, and his wife will nod silent
assent. "My foreparents lived in this log house and made
on we can do the same." Which may account for the fact
that many a log house stands to this day. Many families
have added a plank lean-to kitchen to the old house, or
even a couple of plank, up-and-down-board rooms. But
the old log house stands unchanged on many a creek, in
many a quiet hollow.

"A log house," older folk will argue, "is cool in summer

HOME LIFE ON BIG SANDY

and warm in winter. We've got wood aplenty to keep the
foir goin' in the main house and there's room around the
foirplace for the whole family." Sometimes they nail
weatherboards over the log to "prettify" it, or restore a
tumbled-down "cat-and-clay" chimney of mud and sticks
and stones with brick. Now and then there are even brick
houses on remote creeks. They look strangely out of
place.

"We raise our bread/' the man will say, gazing proudly
over his acres from the open door, "and the woman [his
wife] ever does enough cannin' to last from one summer
to the next/ 7

And to prove his words he leads the way, the wife fol-
lowing, to the cellar house. Usually it is built of logs and
stones against the hillside, and shelves are heavy with
earthen jars, glass jars and even cans of homemade pre-
serves, apple butter, jelly, cucumber pickles, beets, string
beans.

"We have our own meat," he opens the door of the
smokehouse. "We keep it salted down year after year in
the meat log" he points to a great hollowed log against
the wall containing sides of pork "our sausage meat we
case ourselves" from the rafters of the smokehouse hang
rings of sausage, blood pudding, and liver pudding, en-
cased in hog bladders. "What more could a man want?"
the thrifty husbandman wants to know. "Here a man can
raise a good crop: corn, tobacco, more 'taters than one
family can eat in the round of a year, bee stands that give
him all the sweetnin' he wants; a patch of sorghum [sugar
cane], bushels of beans and tomaters, and cucumbers that
set off the table in summer and make good eatin' for
pickles of a winter time. And beets, too; why, last year my

HOME LIFE ON BIG SANDY

woman canned a hundred jars of beet pickles right yonder
off that little piece of ground/' He pauses to indicate a
small mound beyond the cellar house. "See that! We
buried enough turnips to do us till next plantin 7 time, to
say nothin' of feedin' a whole passel of them lazy, good-
for-nothin' Keetons that squatted on our place.

"They said they'd work on shares if we'd let 'em stay.
We fixed up the old house so's it wouldn't leak, give 'em
grub. But I reckon, all told, the whole passel didn't putt
in one good week's work. Some folks is down right do-less.
Never own an acre of land, nor a nag, nor a cow-brute,
nor a plow. Just nat'erly triflin' and ornery. Just want to
rove from place to place, livin' off t'other man's labors. But
they're mostly not bornt of the Big Sandy country. They're
mostly what you might say furriners and hill billies/' My
host spat contemptuously on the ground. "Tried to get
above their raisin', and turned out no good. Hill billies,
that's what they are, comin' back into our country from
the lowlands/'

He reflected a momertt. "Sometimes, though, there are
folks who try and just can't get ahead, though they've
lived all their endurin' lives here in these mountains. Some-
times it might be because they're sickly, punyin' around,
can't save enough to buy a place for themselves. It hap-
pens that way sometimes," he admitted thoughtfully, "but
mostly you'll find folks in the Big Sandy country livin' on
heir-ed [inherited] land, where their foreparents fit the
Indians."

Because their Anglo-Saxon forbears lived so long apart
from the outside world, contented, self-sustaining moun-
tain folk themselves have come to love the isolation of
quiet hollows. They genuinely love the traditions of their

HOME LIFE ON BIG SANDY

ancestors. Except for such love how else could the song
and lore and customs of the pioneers who braved the
perils of the wilderness have lived from generation to gen-
eration right down to the present in mountain fastnesses
that have barred the world? It is not merely because they
are separated from the main currents of society; it is cer-
tainly not "because they are backward/' that they live as
they do. Theirs is a way of life, to be preferred, perhaps, to
the confusion, the haste, and insecurity of urban districts.

For these reasons it is not uncommon to find in the
Big Sandy country today a mountain man like Ebenezer,
a woman like his daughter Lucretia, living in the self-same
pkce in the self-same way, following the same pursuits of
plow and spinning wheel and loom, as their forbears, and
like their kin before them, thrifty, uncomplaining. I came
upon them one summer day on one of my many journeys
in the mountains of Kentucky. I had set out in quest of a
weaver. I found her and more too.

"This is as fur as the road goes." The driver halted the
team and let fly a stream of tobacco juice from the corner
of his mouth. Without ado I climbed out over the muddy
wheels, portable typewriter in one hand, brief case and
camera in the other. I stood a moment while the driver
pointed with his whipstock. "Now, Woman, you foller
the branch off yon course and ginst you come to the first
left-hand fork of the creek, that's Turkey Fork. Ricollict!
Turkey Fork, hit jines the Big Sandy way off yonder nigh
the county seat. Now/' he spat again, "when you come to
where you can't go no furder on foot, that's whar Lucretia
and her pa, Ebenezer, is a-livin'. Ebenezer's woman, Fair
Ellen, is dead and gone this long time. And a good wife
she was to him to her dyin' day. She were tuck with lung-

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HOME LIFE ON BIG SANDY

consumption. Foller the creek and you can't go wrong!"
he admonished, and with that, clapped the reins on the
backs of his mules and disappeared into the forest, while
I turned to "foller the branch off yon course/'

There was not even a footpath along the winding
branch, but I did pass, after a long time, a corn patch on
the mountainside. I was despairing of ever coming in sight
of a house when suddenly I spied the footprint of a woman
in the sand. "It's the sign of a woman," I remembered
Little Davy's words, he who had been my guide on many
mountain journeys, "on account her toes p'ints in. Wim-
min don't set their foot straight like us men folks. We set
our foot same as the redskins done in their day when they
roved this country. We've got a rock with the sign of a
Indian's foot set clair and plain in it."

From there on I followed the trail marked by the
woman's foot, and finally reached the log house almost
hidden in a wooded hollow. A rough-hewn house of logs
it was, with a great stone chimney, just as it had been built
a century or more ago.

Lucretia and her father were at the door almost in-
stantly after my first "Hallo!" and they greeted me cor-
dially. The girl waited for her father's "Howdy!" and then
said, in a musical voice, "We're proud to see you." Ebe-
nezer stepped forth graciously and relieved me of my
luggage. "Come in, you're welcome to what we've got
Lucretia will have a hot snack afore you in the twinkle of
an eye. I allow you're hongry, awalkin' so far. Mought be
you're thirsty, too." He escorted me toward the well in
the front yard. The well is usually located in front of the
mountain home. Apparently mountain men are more
thoughtful or considerate of the passing stranger than of

HOME LIFE ON BIG SANDY

their women folk who do the cooking and housework.
Rarely is the well to be found near the kitchen door con-
venient for their use.

"This is lasty water/' declared the white-haired Ebe-
nezer, extending me the dripping gourd. "Hit comes from
a spring that never in my knowin' has been dry."

When I had drunk deep of the clear, sparkling water,
Lucretia, who had disappeared into the house, came hurry-
ing forth. "Mought be you want to tidy up a bit," she said
in her quiet voice, extending as she spoke a snowy white
towel with crocheted edge. "Come along," she invited,
"here s the wash block."

A high block of stone it was, rough hewn on top so as
to form a basin. Lucretia pulled out a corn cob at the side,
draining out the water that had been left there, and refilled
the basin with fresh water from the well. She brought a
cake of hoftiemade soap that lay drying on a bench near
the fence, a post of which supported an ancient, rusty,
farm bell.

In the twinkle of an eye, so it seemed to me, Lucretia
and her father again stood side by side in the doorway in-
viting me in to "eat a snack." There was "ham-meat" and
"shucky" beans [beans dried in the pod and partly hulled],
sorghum [cane molasses] and "gritted" bread, beet pickles,
blackberry pie, and preserves of quince and plum in abun-
dance upon the table. There was buttermilk and sweet
milk, cold from the spring house, a homemade cellar, un-
der the stone floor of which a cooling mountain stream
always flowed. I was glad there was no coffee, for usually
the mountain woman boils her coffee too long in the big
granite pot and, lacking a strainer, the grounds add their
unpleasantness to the bitter cup.

18

HOME LIFE ON BIG SANDY

That day it pleased old Ebenezer to have me sit close
by on a straight hickory chair which he had made, while
he gritted corn for the noonday meal. "I fashioned this
gritter/' he told me matter-of-factly, "and this wood bowl
too, that you seen Lucretia mixin' hit in, and this rifle stock
besides/'

When dinner was over nothing would do but that I
"take the likeness of his handiwork/' He hurried indoors
to bring out another treasure. "Here's a carpet bag that
belonged to pa," he informed me. "He swapped it off some
scalawag who was goin' through the country long ago on
foot, after Morgan's raid."

Later that afternoon, to my delight, Lucretia sat at the
spinning wheel and permitted me to "take her likeness,"
with exhibits of her handiwork: a linen towel, like the
one she had brought out for my use, for which she had
grown the flax, spun it herself, and then woven the lines
on her own loom. The lace for its trimming she had
crocheted. But her greatest pride was a bolt of linsey-
woolsey [dress material] which she had woven on the
loom.

"Pa made the loom when first he brought Fair Ellen
his bride that were ma into this lonesome hollow. For
a time," Lucretia explained, "pa's parents they lived under
the clift yonder," pointing to a great overhanging rock
that jutted from the mountainside, "until this house were
finished and under roof." Her eyes swept the weather-
beaten house of logs that had withstood the storm and
winds of a century. "We'll all live and die here, I reckon,
same as Fair Ellen and the rest of our people." Lucretia
sat silently a moment, and presently her thoughts turned
back to her own handiwork. "Ma, Fair Ellen, pa ever

HOME LIFE ON BIG SANDY

loved to call her, she learnt me to make dyes/' said Lucre-
tia with quiet modesty, "of walnut bark, sassafras and roots
and madder. We've made all sorts of dyes yonder in the
bilin kittle."

She pointed to a great iron kettle in the kitchen yard
that hung on an iron bar supported by two wood forks.
"There's scarlet red/' she began to enumerate, "that we
make from madder, and brown from the hulls of black
walnut, and a brownish like or yaller that we make from
hickory bark. Of course we fotch in alum and indigo for
to make all sorts of colors of blue."

The father interrupted to conduct me to his blacksmith
shop close by where he made and mended his crude farm
implements; a bull-tongue plow, wagons, sledge hammers,
shovel, spade. He showed me, too, the smokehouse wherein
"piggins" small wooden tubs or barrels he had made
were filled with sausage and lard. "We allus keep a stand
of honey, too," pointing to a darkened corner of the shed
where stood what appeared to be a wooden churn of some
ten or twelve gallons' capacity. "Hit's made from mulberry
staves," he explained, "and the hoopsthey're hickory."
He lifted a wooden lid and urged me to taste with a
wooden ladle "the finest sweetnin' pure .wild honey that
a body ever putt to their lips." Home-cured hams hung
from the rafters. A half-dozen corn husks were suspended
from a stick placed crosswise of a corner beam. "Them
husks is full of sausage meat," he explained, "spiced p'tkler,
for a p'tkler occasion!" His eyes twinkled. "A weddin'
maybe when Lucretia is jined in wedlock to some worthy
feller that's fitten for to claim her for his bride." While his
daughter stood in silence by his side, Ebenezer confided
to me, "Lucretia and Widder Blanton's John are talkin'.

20

Ebenezer with the carpet bag

Dumb bull, mace, homemade shoe, chair, broom

HOME LIFE ON BIG SANDY

Have been since last corn plantin'. John's got breskit," he
declared with conviction, "he can outwork any man on
the creek. Never tires. Why, he planted thrice over as
much as I did that day"

"You're older in years, pa, than Widder Blanton's John/'
Lucretia interposed softly, "and besides you were puny
and ailin' last corn-plantin' time," she defended her sire.
"That's how come you to give consent for me to send
word to John to come lend a helpin' hand."

Whereupon the father took up the thread of his
thoughts. "Nohow, Lucretia can wed when she's a-mind
to. I can make on." He turned to show me a short log,
with a handle made of a strip of cowhide, that lay on the
floor. "Now hure's a dumb bull!" Ebenezer chuckled as
he picked it up. A hollowed log it was, no more than
twenty inches in length. "We usen to pack it to a bellin'
or a shiveree. This, for a fact, is a racket-raisin' contrap-
shun. Sounds p'int-blank like a steer a-bellerin'." And to
prove it, he pulled the rosined string that ran through the
coon hide stretched tight over the end of the log and
which served as a sounding head. It gave forth a terrific, a
deafening, bellowing sound.

The father and daughter fairly vied with one another to
show their handiwork, once they observed my interest.
Lucretia brought out a basket she had woven. It was of
strips of cane, made into mats. These she had cut to shape,
bound them with "factory" [calico], joined the edges with
needle and thread, and then lined the basket with "bleach"
[muslin]. Then she sat at the spinning wheel for me, and
the loom, too, and wove while I watched a "span" of
linsey-woolsey, the warp being of linen, the woof of wool.

Are mountain folk content with their lot? Why do they

21

HOME LIFE ON BIG SANDY

cling to the old ways? I thought perhaps Lucretia and
Ebenezer might provide a clue to the answer. To be sure,
Lucretia could, if she were so minded, forsake the loom
and spinning wheel and journey but a short way to the
general store at the county seat; or she could go farther
away to one of the river towns and buy at a modern store,
or at the five and ten, materials the like of which she
weaves laboriously from a crop of flax which she and her
aged father raise by their own toil. It was in my mind to
ask why she chose the harder way.

Lucretia answered gravely. "It costes more to trade in
town, to have boughten things. No need to pay sil'er for
what you can take from the yearth. We overly grow a
good crop of flax here on Turkey Fork. We have from
the first, when pa's grandsir cleared the ground, with his
woman trudgin' Alongside him, her packin' the old flint-
lock gun" she shot a quick glance at the relic in the wall
hooks "keepin' watch lest the Indians jump from behint
a tree and sculp the two of 'em. Then, there was no other
way to get woven cloth unless you grew it yourself. And
nohow/' there was another reason, "boughten garmints
are not as lasty as homemade things." For a moment
Lucretia looked inward upon her thoughts. "A body's hap-
pier not to forsake the ways of their elders," she vouch-
safed. "Now there's Lark Hewitt and his woman Ellen.
Oncet they forsaken Lonesome Creek off yon coast," she
raised a slender hand to indicate the direction, "to live in
town. Brack Keeton were the cause of it. He tried a heap
o' times to tote pa and me and others off with'm. We'd
not give ear to his talk. Eh, law," she sighed deeply, "Lark
and Ellen seen a moughty sorry life down there. Even
had to pay cash money for water to drink and to cook

22

HOME LIFE ON BIG SANDY

with!" Her eyes widened with incredulity. "The water
comes out of the wall. No well, no spring, no clear, gur-
glin' creek for to look upon. Fancy a body havin' to pay
sil'er for water to do a body's washin'. Fancy that! And
we here on Turkey Fork and Lonesome Creek have water
in abundance free as salvation!" Lucretia reflected a mo-
ment. "The youngins down yonder to Boydville in the
level land where Lark Hewitt lived ain't no woods to frolic
in, no posies to pluck nor to twine into wreaths. Lark, he
worked at public works," there was contempt in Lucretia's
voice. "Lark forsaken his native land the farm he'd heir-ed
from his grandsir. A body's no call to forsake the ways of
their elders," she repeated. "Now look yander," pointing
to a robin with a twig in its mouth flying toward a tall
beech in the foreyard. "Robins always build their nestes
just like they did from the beginnin' of time. Why should
human creatures change their ways? It's contrarious to the
nat're of us mountain people to forsake the old for the
new." She contemplated the bird building its nest.

"That robin, or its growed-off fledgling, build there year
arter year a sure place for a home nest. Life would be
hard away from our home nest away in strange countries
down in the level land. I'd never want to forsake this
place never in all my endurin' life." She took from her
apron pocket her crochet needle and thread and her fingers
began to move swiftly, fashioning a pattern of lace. "Out
in the level land where the mills and public works are,
folks don't have time for such as this. They're everly on
the go to spend what they yearn, Lark and Ellen tell us.
Folks don't sit around the foirside of a winter time and
make talk and sing song ballets. Lark's Ellen says they
don't even have time for books youngins don't learn their

HOME LIFE ON BIG SANDY

letters nor have spellin* matches like we usen to when I
were a child."

Then Ebenezer spoke up. "Lucretia here, on account of
Fair Ellen bein' took with lung-consumption in her young
day, had to take care of her ma couldn't go to school
every term. But she were apt at books. She learned right
off, by herself. Delights in books, Lucretia does."

A little shelf of well-worn volumes above the mantel
bore witness to her delights: there was a Bible, a McGuffey
Reader, a speller, a history, a geography, and a much
thumbed volume of Robert Burns' poems.

The old man himself had been a schoolmaster in his
youth. He had taught his daughter there by the fireside,
through the long winter evenings, he told me, by the light
of the glowing logs, and of pine "tarches" thrust in a hole
in the stone hearth there was the rounded hole whose
pitch made a smoky, flickering blaze to brighten the
printed page.

So pleasantly did the time pass with Lucretia and Ebe-
nezer, it was sundown before I realized it, so I stayed till
morning there on Turkey Fork. Women folk do not walk
a mountain road by night. To that ancient custom I cling
faithfully with my people of the Kentucky hills.

By sunup I was on my way again. Lucretia and her
father stood in the doorway according to mountain custom
to bid me farewell and to urge me to come again.

"Don't pass Lark Hewitt's folk by," old Ebenezer said.
"I'm sure it would pleasure Lark and Ellen no little to
have you tarry with them for a time/'

"They're back on Lonesome/' Lucretia reminded me,
"back in the home nest they are, as satisfied and peaceable
as you'd like/'

24

HOME LIFE ON BIG SANDY

So I did tarry for a time with Lark Hewitt and Ellen,
and heard more of their story; their sorry adventure in the
level land, their final contentment on Lonesome Creek.

Ellen was ever content with old ways, and Lark had not
complained until that time he had gone, at Brack Keeton's
urging, down to the Singin' Gathering "nigh the level
land," down in the foothills of the Cumberlands near
Boydville. Then folks had cheered until the hills gave back
the echo, and applauded tall, stalwart Lark Hewitt, tilted
back in a straight hickory chair, as he sang the wistful tale
of "Barbary Ellen." The throng that packed the hillsides-
they'd come from all over the nation to hear the music
of the mountains from the lips of mountain singers lin-
gered in the memory of Lark Hewitt.

Afterward, Brack Keeton had egged him on every time
they met. "Lark, you'd ort to come to town down to
Boydville. Singin' and makin' music like you do, no tellin',
you might even turn out to be a radio artist! And what's
more, there's a mill down yonder. Met a feller told me he
earned as much as twenty dollars in one day at the steel
mill there!" Twenty dollars in one day! That was more
money than Lark had seen after a whole summer's work,
hoeing, plowing, grubbing in boiling sun and pelting rain.

He tossed a piece of broken harness to the floor and
slumped into a chair, watching as Ellen plied a heavy
iron to and fro along the wearin' clothes she had been
battlin' before sunup at the battlin' block beside Lone-
some Creek. Tomorrow would be the first Sunday in the
month of May, the occasion when they carried posies to
the buryin' ground. She meant that they should be fit and
proper in clean garments.

HOME LIFE ON BIG SANDY

"Iffen you'd not be contrarious, Ellen, we could be right
now havin' it a heap easier, down in the level land. Why,
only t'other day Brack Keeton was a-sayin' how nice his
woman's got it now, down to Boydville. You could have it
nice too, Ellen. Brack's woman has got the purtiest, shiny
iron you ever laid eyes on. 'Lectric!" Lark watched Ellen
from the tail of his eye. "Just putt a contrapshun on the
end of a woir in the iron and hook that up to 'nuther con-
trapshun on the wall and stand thar. Right in the same
place and iron all day if you're a-mind to."

Ellen ironed as he talked. Presently she paused, rested
the iron on its end in the battered pie pan on the ironing
board. She was looking not at Lark, but beyond him toward
the split-rail fence that Lark's grandsire had made with his
own hands, long before either of them had been born.
She glanced through the other door at the big log room,
the main house, where all the Hewitts had been born,
married, and died, for generations. That room of logs
Lark's old grandsire had fashioned with his own hands.
"I'm wantin' we shall all look fitten and proper tomorrow
when we go to the buryin' ground," Ellen told her hus-
band. "I'm wantin' to putt a posie or two on ma's grave,
her dead and gone twenty years, ain't it?"

Lark had gotten up out of his chair, shoved it back
against the wall, and reached wearily for the broken har-
ness where he had tossed it on the floor. "I don't rightly
ricollict," he drawled indifferently. "I ain't studyin' on
them that's dead and gone. I ain't studyin' on old-fogey
ways no more, Ellen. Ginst I plow and hoe and grub
from sunup to nightfall, what have I got, nohow? Ginst I
git one piece o' harness mended, somethin' else busts.
That's how it goes everly from day to day, year in and

26

HOME LIFE ON BIG SANDY

year out. Can't git nothin' ahead. If 'twarn't for grandsir
leavin' this place to pa, and me heirin' hit from pa same
as him from his'n, we'd not even have a rooft over our
heads. What's a body to do? can't lay hands on hardly
nary dollar o' cash money."

"We've got a scope of land/' Ellen reminded. "We got
vittals a-plenty, what with cannin' we ever have a-plenty
through the winter; we got meat a-plenty to do us, stored
in the meat log yonder in the smokehouse. . . ."

"What we got laid by," Lark countered, "in cash
money? A body's got to have cash money saved up so's
iffen they want to sit back and rest a spell they can pay
their county tax and"

"We've always paid the tax," Ellen answered, "ain't we,
Lark?" Eyes widened with apprehension.

"Yes, so far," he answered reluctantly. "But a body's
got to lay by somethin' have cash money in the bank like
Brack Keeton and his woman has Brack's workin' at the
mill!"

"What doin'? Who larnt him to work at public works?"

"Brack's somethin' like a deppity sher'f. The mill kinda
has to be watched. Fellers might come around and pilfer
have to kinda keep guard and watch on the mill. Brack
wears a badge and iffen he's a-mind to he can get a man
warranted for breakin' the law."

Ellen's eyes met Lark's. "I ain't a-wantin' no man of
mine," she said resolutely, "for to be a sher'f or no deppity
sher'f a-keepin' guard and watch on nobody or nothin'!"
She remembered back to the time when the deputy sheriff,
Kirk Foley, had taken off old Uncle Johnny Stidum for
"makin'," way up at the head of the holler. Kirk Foley
had worn a badge, he belonged to that loathsome cate-

2 7

HOME LIFE ON BIG SANDY

gory known to the mountain people as "hill billies." A
hill billy is one who makes mock of his own people, holds
them up for ridicule to folk out in the level land.

Lark understood her. "I'd not be a deppity or nothin'
like that, Ellen; I'll be maybe operatin' a 'lectric crane, or
iffen that don't suit my fancy, I'll take my guitar and go
to that place" to save his life he couldn't think of the
words: radio station "I'll go to them fellers and they'll
say: 'Name your own price, Lark, we need a feller like you
here. You'll be makin' hundreds of dollars with your tunes
and ditties, first thing you know.' "

Ellen stood silent, her eyes on the morning glories tum-
bling and climbing over the stoop outside kitchen-house
door; rising to the far-off ridge with its pink rhododendron
in "full blowth." "I'll go, Lark, wherever you see fitten for
to take me, any time arter tomorrow. That bein' the first
Sunday in May, I'm wantin' to putt a posie on the graves.
It ain't that I'm wantin' to contrary you. . . ."

"You shall have your way, Ellen," Lark was at once
contrite. " 'Tain't that I'm wantin' to be contrarious,
nuther, nor to forsake Lonesome. Don't you appreciate,
Ellen, hit's for you and the baby?"

"No man's land" in Boydville was a row of dilapidated
shacks. One of the town's richest men had bought the
hovels, getting them at his own price for moving them to
make way for a factory. In the fourth one from the end
of the row, Lark and Ellen and Little Lark found a home
in the level land. You stepped out the front door right on
to the concrete road. From the kitchen door Ellen looked
upon a concrete wall constructed to keep the hillside from
sliding down and carrying the shacks with it. Exactly alike

28

HOME LIFE ON BIG SANDY

were all the shacks, with not even a vestage of paint or
whitewash to distinguish one from the other. She hung
the washing over a sagging rail on the narrow platform
beside the kitchen door.

How frightened she had been that first day when she
heard a loud knock at the door. Lark was out looking for
work. The knock was repeated. It could not be a friend;
out on Lonesome you didn't knock you called a cheery
"hallo!" as you drew near the house. Only an enemy
would knock and then shoot. They had done that to Bije
Ellington. A stranger had come from the level land to
"warrant" Bije for "makinV Bije's dead body had toppled
over right in the doorway before the eyes of Molly.

Ellen cowered in a corner, hugging her baby, silent,
trembling. The door-to-door salesman went off down the
street, laughing.

As time went on she got "naturalized" to folks knocking
on the door, as Lark told her she would. She came to know
about agents and peddlers, the "stallmint" man, the collec-
tor, insurance agents. One of them sold her a broom that
you rolled along the floor and it took up every scrap. So
fascinated was she to see the contrivance glide over the
floor on little unseen wheels, swallowing dust and litter,
that she paid the first quarter. They kept the sweeper just
two weeks. When the collector came next time, Ellen
didn't have the necessary quarter, and he took the sweeper
away.

As time went on, she began to wish she hadn't left be-
hind all the things Lark had urged her to leave, the old-
fogey things. Now, before you cooked on the gas stove,
Lark learned that it was necessary for him to take ten
dollars in cash money to the gas office. "Where's the

29

HOME LIFE ON BIG SANDY

spring, or the well?" Ellen had asked that first day. "I'm
thirstinT' And Lark had laughed proudly. "Hesh! Ellen,
there's no spring. Look hure." And there, bless you, he
turned a little iron wheel on top of a pipe and water
spurted; spurted right out of the wall!

But before the water spurted Lark had had to go down
to the water office and give the man there three dollars in
cash money.

"You can't take along the oil lamps nor Granny's old-
fogey candlestick," Lark had said. "Look," he invited
Ellen's gaze, "just turn this little black button," he reached
overhead to the swinging electric bulb, "and there you got
light!" But before Lark turned on the light he had to pay
in advance cash money to the 'lectric man.

"There's a lot of thievin' goin' on around Boydville,"
Brack Keeton had warned Lark, and Lark in turned warned
Ellen. "Don't forget to lock your door." A lock on the
door! Such a thing was unheard of in Ellen's life, unheard
of on Lonesome Creek. Ellen had never seen a door key.
She put it on a long string around her neck to make sure
to have it handy if she ever left the house.

A miserable, fly-specked, single bulb dangled from the
ceiling in each of the three dirty rooms of the shack in no
man's land rooms that reeked of the smell of fried foods.
The floors were filthy, and the walls were covered with
layers of torn and faded wall paper. The rubberoid roofing
on the box house had many patches, but not enough. The
first rainy day brought puddles of water here and there.
Ellen had to move the bed to the middle of the floor; had
to put the dishpan on the bed to catch the water. A rub-
beroid roof. Ellen and Lark had been accustomed only to
a rived-oak shingle roof on their house of logs, with shingles

3

HOME LIFE ON BIG SANDY

made by Lark's grandsire's own hand, that still kept out
the rain and snow.

From Jake's secondhand place Lark bought a few pieces
of furniture. Not brand new, of course. Why buy brand
new things? "All you gotta do," Jake explained, "is buy
you a coupla cans of paint at the five and ten."

The five and ten! Already Lark and Ellen were learning
of that wonderland. A world of beautiful and useful goods
spread invitingly, amazingly, before their perplexed eyes.
She'd take this, she'd take that. Bless you, that first day
Ellen made her way wearily, but excitedly, back to their
house with her paper poke filled to overflowing with all
sorts of useless gadgets. She'd spent the money she meant
to hold back for the collector, for the payments to Jake on
their furniture; the money for the gas man, the 'lectric
man, the water man and for the house rent.

"I'm wantin' you to get yourself a pretty," Lark had
said proudly, "I'll be makin' big money, first thing you
know."

Then had come that first encounter at the radio station.
Always Ellen would remember that first day after they had
gotten their pieces of furniture into place and Lark had
paid the 'stallmints on everything and Jake marked it on
the card and she had pinned the card up on the wall for
safe keeping and convenience when the collector came
around. Then Lark had set out with his guitar. Brack
Keeton had told him that they were looking for a fellow
like him at the radio station, and told him how to find the
place. Lark had washed his face till it shone, soaked his
hair with soapy water till there was not a wave to be seen,
and set his hat down tight on his head. But as he waited in
the station offices his heart beat wildly. A sickening fear

3 1

HOME LIFE ON BIG SANDY

came upon him. "You've made your brags to your woman,
to a heap o' folks out on Lonesome. You're a-bound to go
in there and try your hand," he urged himself on.

A dapper fellow appeared at a door on which was let-
tered "We welcome new talent." "Hey you!" he pointed
to Lark, "come in."

Inside the audition room, Lark stumbled over a velvet
rug.

"Had radio experience?" The questions shot at him.
"Been in town long?" Lark shook his head. "What'll it
be?" asked the young man. "Let's get goin'. If you got
anything, let's have it."

Lark managed to brush a hand over the strings of the
guitar, lifted his head and sang "Barbary Ellen" just as he
had sung it many a time in the moonlight on the steprock
when he was courtin' Ellen Trivis.

"Know anything else?" the radio fellow interrupted.
"Say, what about 'Pappy and the Apple Tree?' Let's hear
the real hill-billy stuff if you got it. This crap you're singin'
won't go!" Lark's fright returned.

"You look the part, out and out," said the radio chap,
flicking the ash from his cigarette. "Hill billy from head to
foot!" He appraised Lark Hewitt with a cynical eye.
"Don't happen to have a jug of corn in your pocket, or a
gun on your hip, do you, Hill Billy?"

When the station staff burst into the room they saw the
program director pulling himself to his feet by means of a
chair, his hair disheveled, a trickle of blood oozing from a
cut on the cheek. Lark Hewitt, white with rage, held the
neck of his shattered guitar at his side. . . .

There was still the mill. Twenty dollars a day. Hope
once more rose in Lark's bosom. Next morning he got up

3 2

HOME LIFE ON BIG SANDY

before sunup to walk to the mill. After all, maybe he
would be better off getting twenty dollars a day for oper-
atin' a 'lectric crane. But Lark Hewitt of Brushy Fork of
Lonesome Creek wasn't prepared for the things that faced
him.

First of all there was a bewildering questionnaire! He
could read and write simple things, but never could he
figure out that bewildering list of questions. What do you
know about electricity? Ever operate a crane? Ever handle
a motor? The head of the Division of Employment popped
questions thick and fast at the bewildered applicant.

Brack Keeton was no longer at hand to give advice.
With his wife he had moved on to another town down
the river; working now at a shoe factory as night watch-
man, his wife, with the hennaed permanent and gold
tooth, engaged in smearing mustard on hot dogs at the
Greasy Spoon Lunch Wagon.

Ellen was cooking mush when Lark slumped wearily
into a chair beside the kitchen table that evening. Too
beaten to offer a word, he sat tapping his fingers slowly
on his knee. At length Ellen spoke, though on Lonesome
Creek women folk waited until their men folk spoke first.

"Nohow, there's other work besides operatin' a crane.
We'll make on."

Then had followed the weary tramp through the streets
of Boydville, seeking a job. "Anything I ain't carin' I've
got breskit," he had blurted desperately. It was Mrs.
Brown's brother-in-law, the fellow who got reeling drunk
every pay day, who finally got Lark a fob as burner in the
scrap yard: Freeberg's scrap yard. "You putt on eye-specs/'
Lark explained to Ellen when he trudged wearily home

33

HOME LIFE ON BIG SANDY

that first evening, "and you taken a tarch in your hand, a
tarch that shoots out a big flame, and you hold it agin
the iron and burn it smack dab in two. You sit honkered
down on a great passel of rusty iron, old broke-up cars and
such, and you sot thar and burn hit up into pieces with
the blowin' tarch."

The first week Lark's arms were burned in spots all the
way to the elbow. His hands were raw sores. Before he
knew it there were no soles left on his shoes, from walking
around on rough scrap piles, stepping on hot iron. Free-
berg's scrap yard was away down near the river bank. You
couldn't come home to eat dinner. Had to pack it along
in a tin bucket.

Once you got a job burning in the scrap yard, Jake, the
secondhand man, and everybody else seemed to know it.
Then there began a stream of people knocking at your
door. First there was the Metropolicy man! "You gotta
keep your old woman and your kid and yourself insured!"
"Gotta buy you a lot in the cemetery." Out on Lonesome
there was the family buryin' ground; Granny Trivis lay
sleeping there and Ellen's parents and Lark's folk. Out on
Lonesome Creek neighbor folk gathered together and with
loving, tender care fashioned a box of pine, covered it with
black "factory" for old folks, or "bleach" of spotless, pure
white for a child; lined the pine box with soft cotton or a
clean "kiverlid." "You gotta have a undertaker and em-
balm 'em here in Boydville."

Another tap at the door. The refrigerator agent. "You
oughta have an electric icebox. Miz Brown, your neighbor,
has got one. Dollar down and two dollars a month.
Cheaper'n buyin' ice. All you gotta do, turn the button

34

HOME LIFE ON BIG SANDY

there, V you got ice, day or night. Never notice it on your
electric bill."

"Sure, get you one/' Lark said. "I'm wantin' you to
have what others has got, like I promised you. You got a
right to have what others has got."

The great glistening white cupboard was delivered a
few days later, and set up in the kitchen. Ellen and Lark
had paid the dollar down, but what with work being
scarce, when the fourth payment came due and they had
no money, the van backed up to their door and took away
the refrigerator.

"We've got to have a radio," Lark argued with Ellen.
"Know a feller can get me one cheap. One of his buddies
that's workin' on another yard couldn't keep up his pay-
ments. Jake took it back. But it's good as new/'

He bought the radio, on time. Dollar down, fifty cents
a week. Lark would have had it paid for in no time, if
nothing had happened.

A strike in the scrap yard!

"Say, you," a slick-tongued fellow sidled up to Lark one
morning, "what about signin' the card?" He had looked
at Lark with a cold eye. "Sign the card, or else"

The strike in Freeberg's scrap yard dragged along for
weeks.

Lark fell behind with his house rent and with his
grocery bill. They had to move into a smaller shack, a
worse one, for which they paid more rent. There was no
garden patch where you could go dig a few potatoes, cut
off cabbages, pull up an apronful of onions, or beans.

Sore of foot and sorer of heart, Lark Hewitt came home
one evening. The strike was over, and he'd been working
from six that morning to eight o'clock that night. He'd

35

HOME LIFE ON BIG SANDY

had little to eat, drinking coffee out of a tin can, crunching
a cold sandwich. Lark by nature was a peace-loving man.
None of the Hewitts had ever been "warranted" for
trouble of any kind. Disturbances here with the strikers
burned deeply into the soul of him. His heart was sore, his
feet, his hands. His arms and back ached. He was weary
of the whole thing. Even so, he helped Ellen straighten
their few pieces of furniture in the small shack, helped set
up the stove. Had to draw ahead to pay his gas bill at the
other shack they'd left. Had to draw ahead for the water
bill, the 'lectric. "They'll shut it off if you don't pay up.
Then where will you be?" Had to draw ahead to pay on
the grocery bill, so Staley's would let him have a poke of
flour, a few potatoes, lard, coffee. "A man's gotta eat, his
family's gotta eat!" Brushing a hand across his furrowed
brow as if to clear the confusion he said dejectedly, " 'Pears
like 'tain't like I 'lowed hit would be-"

"There's a heap o' men folks plumb out o' work," Ellen
offered consolation. "You got a job, Lark. We'll make on
somehow. I've cooked us up a big kittle o' greasy vittals.
Turnip greens and taters, some cracklins I got offen the
meat man."

The next pay day, though he had worked eight hours a
day for six days, burning on Freeberg's scrap yard, Lark
came home with scarce four dollars in his pay envelope.
"Wells garnisheed me," he had said helplessly. "Took
nigh all my draw for house rent. But look" he drew a
parcel from under his jumper. "I aimed to get you that
new shiny iron, iffen I didn't fetch home nary copper
cent"

He reached overhead, removed the fly-specked light
bulb, hooked up the iron.

36

HOME LIFE ON BIG SANDY

Cautiously Ellen gripped the smooth black handle. Not
hot at all. You didn't have to have a clumsy holder like
with Granny's iron. She moistened a finger, touched it to
the gleaming iron. Sizzling hot! To and fro it glided over
a white pillow case, leaving never a smudge. She caught
a glimpse of her reflection as it slid over a shirt, a frock of
Little Lark's, an apron, and all the while she stood there
in the same place. "Hit's nigh witchy," she murmured,
and there were little glad flecks in Ellen's dark eyes, a look
of proud possession, as she'd lift it to gaze at its smooth,
shiny surface. "See your likeness, baby child!" She held it
at safe distance that Little Lark might view his mirrored
self. He cooed and patted his chubby hands in delight.

Lark had paid fifty cents down. Neither he nor Ellen
minded how long it would take to pay for it. At last they
had the 'lectric iron, like Brack Keeton's woman had, like
Lark had bragged Ellen should have.

So pleased was Ellen over her new possession, she
snatched up the baby from the chair where Lark had put
him while he went to the grocery, and hurried out the
kitchen door, down the back way to Mrs. Sexton's, to tell
the good news. When she got there one of the Sexton
children had cut its finger with the butcher knife. It was
not until the roaring red fire engine dashed up the concrete
road that she realized she had forgotten the electric iron.
The kitchen was completely gutted by flames, leaving the
Hewitts only the clothes upon their backs. Sheets, pillow
cases, table cloths, quilts, "kiverlids," all that they had
brought from Lonesome Creek had gone up in flames.

It was on Saturday of the next weekpay day. Lark had
come home carrying on his shoulder the long-promised go-
cart. He'd bought it at Jake's. "Good as new!" Jake had

37

HOME LIFE ON BIG SANDY

said. "Your wife can scrub it. Look at the rubber tires, an'
the brakes!" Jake demonstrated the security of the brake
gripping on the back wheels. "J ust put that little handle
down, see! There you got it fast, can't push it, see, with
the brakes on! Safe!" Jake grinned and rubbed his hands
one around the other.

The baby laughed and clapped his hands when Ellen,
after scrubbing the go-cart and drying it well, lifted him
into the seat, carefully fastening the strap about his mid-
dle. "Look, Lark! 'Tis a purtey ve-hikel, now that Tve
scrubbed hit. Fair blue, mought nigh the color of our
baby child's eyes." She wheeled him out along the con-
crete road, Lark walking proudly beside her, nodding and
smiling to this one and that one who peered from the
doorways of the shacks in no man's land. Ellen and Lark
beamed with pride. At last she gave the handle to Lark
and he pushed the cart proudly about. "Mind the ve-
hikels," Ellen warned as lumbering trucks bowled along,
"whilst I get supper."

When Little Lark fell asleep, Lark pulled the go-cart to
the door, set the brake as Jake had showed him, and left
it standing where all who passed by could see. He went
into the shack to tell Ellen that their child was sleeping
just outside the door. "Plumb satisfied," he was saying,
"peaceable as a chick under a hen's wing." And Ellen,
moving happily from stove to table, answered with quiet,
contented smile, "Lark, I'm plumb pleased our babe's got
his pretty at last."

"He's a right to have what others has," Lark answered.

Then they heard a neighbor's child scream. No one
knew how it happened, but the brake on the go-cart had
been released. Little Lark, asleep in his clean-scrubbed ve-

38

HOME LIFE ON BIG SANDY

hikel, rolled down to the roadway. A great truck piled high
with scrap iron coming fast around the curve, bore down
upon the sleeping child. . . .

When Lark brought in the mangled little body, Ellen
sank into a chair in the kitchen, sat like a figure of stone,
hands clenched in aproned lap, speechless, dry-eyed, star-
ing into space. After a long time, when neighbor women
had washed the babe and placed the lifeless little body on
the bed, for Lark would have no undertaker lay a hand on
his child, after they had put on the little white dress that
Ellen herself had made for Lark would have no boughten
shroud of satin for his childhe came to Ellen's side. He
touched her shoulder, as you would to arouse a sleeper.
"Ellen Ellen you can't take on this way the Good Lord
knows best."

Ellen stirred. "Our child, our onliest little man," she
murmured brokenly.

"Hit's all my fault," Lark stammered. "None of this
would ever a-happened, hadn't been for me. But now,
we're goin' back to Lonesome. Startin' back at sunup.
We're takin' Little Lark back too, back to the buryin'
ground where t'other Hewitts and Granny Trivis and your
folks lay a-sleepin'. Hit's all my doin's, all this misery I've
brought upon my own household."

"Lark!" Ellen's voice was steady, "don't fault yourself,
Lark. Hit's still the month of May. The mornin' glories
will be bloomin' over the kitchen-house door, the moun-
tain laurel will be in full blowth, and the purtey-by-night
on Lonesome. . . ."

At the county seat, whither they traveled by truck,
neighbor folk from Lonesome Creek met them with a jolt
wagon. In this way they had journeyed down to Boydville.

39

HOME LIFE ON BIG SANDY

Tenderly they lifted the little pine box that Lark had
fashioned with his own hands into the bed of the wagon
filled with clean hay. Lark climbed wearily to the board
seat; Ellen sat beside him. Two neighbor men rode ahead
on horseback. It was the way on Lonesome Creek. The
moon was high as they drew near their cabin. Neighbor
women folk had gathered in, lighted the lamp.

Slowly the little procession moved along the narrow
footpath to the buryin' ground atop the ridge, two neigh-
bor men carrying the little pine coffin. They had already
dug the little grave. And now they put down their tender
burden. Ellen and Lark stood side by side. In the moon-
light, her face pale, her eyes tearless, Ellen looked strangely
tranquil. In her hand she held a posey, a "purtey-by-night"
she had lingered to pluck by the kitchen-house door. And
now old Brother Marbry was offering a word of prayer.
"Lark" Ellen's voice was scarce above a whisper "iffen
you don't mind, I'm wantin' my baby for to have this
posey in his leetle hand, this purtey-by-night"

And when Ellen had had her way, they placed Little
Lark beside Delinthie, mother of Ellen who had borne all
of twelve, and Granny's son, Ephraim Trivis, who had
sired the sturdy flock of a full round dozen. Close to the
grave of Old Lark, grandsire of Lark, lay the child of Ellen
and Lark Hewitt in the buryin' ground atop the ridge on
Lonesome Creek.

Alone now Ellen and Lark stood side by side.

"Ellen" Lark lifted his eyes, no longer troubled, to
those of his mate. "Our man-child, he's at rest now, hure
alongside the Hewitts and the Trivises, hure on Lone-
some. He won't never know none of the misery of us down
there to Boydville. What's good enough for me is good

40

HOME LIFE ON BIG SANDY

enough for mine " Lark's voice was hushed, "that were
ever my grandsir's talk"

"And Granny Trivis, she ever said the same/' Ellen
echoed softly. "Lark," it was a voice of hope and tender-
ness, "you mind how Granny ever spoke of the purtey-by-
night bloomin' off yonder by the kitchen-house door?
Look, Lark," she pointed to their cabin in the moonlight.
"See, yonder's the purtey-by-night. Mind how Granny
ever said when she gathered in the dry pods, there's hope
and promise?" Ellen rested a hand lightly on his shoulder
as he stood, head uncovered, there on the ridge in the
moonlight, a gentle breeze stirring his dark hair. "Lark,
we'll never forsake Lonesome, never, never, on account of
our man-child a-sleepin' hure and on account, Lark,
there's a babe comin' for to take his place."

Then Lark Hewitt lifted high his head in the moonlight,
his strong hand sought Ellen's arm, he gripped it tight, as
he had Granny Croswait's arm that time she had told him
of their first born, and now at last he found his voice.
"Ellen, for a fact, are we goin' to have another babe?"
There was joy and peace and hope in his voice. "You are
sartin hit's truth you speak, Ellen?" She nodded reassur-
ance, "Then soon as he's big enough for to sot foot on the
yearth I'm aimin' to larn him a heap o' things. A lonesome
tune like 'Barbary Ellen,' a gay ditty. I aim to larn him a
heap about Lonesome Creek" In his hope and joy, in a
moment's time Lark Hewitt had brushed aside the years,
leaped eagerly to the future and all that it held. "I'm aimin'
for to clear another scope of land and make a big crop,
open a seam o' coal. There's plenty under this yearth hure,
grandsir named hit to me many's the time. There's all a
body wants, hure on Lonesome, for me and mine."

4 1

HOME LIFE ON BIG SANDY

That had been a year or more ago, and now this sum-
mer's day when I tarried with the Hewitts, Lark himself,
after Ellen and I had washed and dried the dishes, took
me over the place to see all that had been accomplished.
There was the well-covered barn, mended fences, there
were fat hogs and plump chickens, and Bossy with another
calf. "There's a span o' mules money can't buy/' He
caressed their satin noses as we passed their stalls. "And
look off yonder, that big scope of clearing and see the drift
mouth. I opened that seam of coal my own self, and al-
ready I've sold a good many ton. Paid cash for my new
gee-tar out of the first ton. Ellen wouldn't have it no other
way/' he smiled boyishly. "We got money laid by, me and
Ellen, in the bank down to the county seat. You taken
notice how Ellen bragged on her new iron cook stove with
the oven on top where she can keep vittals warm till I
come in from the field. She claimed t'other'n was good
enough. I had to coax her to let me sell it for scrap and
fotch on the new iron stove. There's nothin' in this worl'
too good for my woman!" Lark said fondly. "See that new
chicken house I built for her behint the barn? She set a
dozen or more hens right off, nice dry, clean nestes make
plenty of good healthy chicks under a good rooft." He
pointed proudly to his carpentry. "Ellen thinks a sight
more of that chicken house and her iron stove than some
wimmin do of a new store frock."

Everywhere there was something of which Lark Hewitt
was proud. Above all there was Ellen, happy with a "man-
child" in her arms.

"We call his name Little Lark for his sire," Ellen had
said almost as soon as I set foot in the house, laying a
gentle hand on the curly head. "Little Lark arter his sire

42

HOME LIFE ON BIG SANDY

and his grandsir and our first born that the good Lord
taken from us."

That, too, I came to know, was an old custom among
mountain folk in naming their children.

Always I'd remember the three there by the kitchen-
house door in the evening, Lark with his new guitar, and
Ellen with Little Lark in her arms, the soft evening breeze
blowing his golden curls, the morning glories over the
stoop, purple and blue and fair pink in the moonlight, the
sweet-scented "purtey-by-night" beside the door, and Lark
singing softly as he strummed the strings, singing softly
the wistful tale of Barbary Ellen.

43

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

The girl sat silent. Suddenly she straightened as if an
unseen hand had struck her in the face. " 'Tain't that I
mind pap marryin' agin. I can bide the flouts of a step-
maw, same as many a one afore me has done. But/' she
cried with indignation, "hit's the Jcind of a critter he tuck
that riles me!" The dark eyes blazed. "Woman, do you
appreciate she's already wheedled pap into sendin' off to
git lier a set of chiny dishes? Cups and saucers with red
roses on 'em! My maw, Alliefair, made on withouten sich
fixins. I said as much to pap right out afore his woman.
Says he, 'Iffen you don't like the way I'm treatin' your step-
maw, you can leave my rooft! My rooft and Sippi's. For
what's mine, is her'n.' "

Elvirie twisted her fingers together, tapped a bare foot
nervously on the floor. "What's more," her eyes narrowed
to a slit, "that critter, her as were Missippi Tuchin, Luke
Tuchin's widder, afore she come by the name of Mullan,
she wears a pink calicker bonnet! Starched, as stiff as that
board!" Elvirie clapped a quick hand upon the table. "Eh,
law, Alliefair Pridemore Mullan never carried on in no
sich fashion," the girl added proudly. "Humble, maw were,
and right livin'. Putt on her black calicker frock when she
become a wedded wife, and her just turned thirteen. Putt
it on and kept it on! That were Alliefair."

"Alliefair what a pretty name," I seized the opportunity
to stem the tide of Elvirie's rancor.

"I everly favored it/' said the girl softly, all the anger
gone from her voice.

"And Pridemore your mother's maiden name that's
pretty too. Alliefair Pridemore/' I put the two together,
"how lovely/' Elvirie surveyed me quietly. Again her hand
clutched the bosom of her faded dress as if to make sure

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

of whatever was hidden there. "Do you know/' I ventured
carefully, "if my name were not what it is, and I could
choose a name for myself, I believe I'd choose Pridemore.
It seems to mean so much/'

Elvirie's head lifted high. "I named hit to maw many's
the time when she were livin', that she give up a heap
prettier name than she tuck when she married pap."

Fearing to get into deep waters I made haste to com-
ment, "Well, now, the name of Mullan, that's pretty too.
And it is a fine name, one that goes back to the Huguenots,
early settlers in our country. Elvirie Mullan, why, you
couldn't find a lovelier name if you searched through"

" 'Pretty is as pretty does,' maw allus claimed." Allie-
fair's daughter smiled dubiously. Silence fell between us,
as she studied the floor, then again she lifted her eyes to
mine. "I've an idee that there's nothing ever happened
but what it could be worse. Paw mought a tuck that ornery
Sarie Fraley to be a step-maw over me." A fearful look
came into the girlish eyes. "There was a heap o' talk," she
confided. "Now you take pore little Luvernie Feltham.
Ginst they funeralized her mommy, bless you, Yance Felt-
ham, her pap, had married him a second woman and she
had twins! She taken them to the funeral of Ettie, that
were Luvernie's mommy, and them collicky youngins
squaled and screamed so loud with gripin' pains, you
couldn't hear nary word Brother Marbry was sayin' about
Ettie Feltham layin' dead out in the church yard. Kept on
their squalin', did the twins of Yance by his second woman,
till abody couldn't even hear little Luvernie and her pap
weepin' and mournin', and t'other youngins of Yance by
Ettie, his first woman, carryin' on. But from where I sot in
the church Chouse I could see Yance and little Luvernie

47

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

were takin' on somethin' tumble. Ginst Brother Marbry
got done praisin' dead Ettie, Yance's eyes were red as a
fox, and his second woman, when she could spare her
apron from her own eyes, re'ched up and sopped up the
tears outten Yance's. Screamin' agin and agin that she
aimed to be a good, kind step-maw to Yance's motherless
youngins and for to mother Luvernie, oldest of the flock,
and the rest of 'em same as if they wuz her own. And that
very day, mind you, she flogged the life nigh outten
Luvernie. Claimed Luvernie pinched the twins and made
'em cry. Putt her outten the wagon and made her walk
home every step of the way from the church house."

For a long, quiet moment Elvirie contemplated her bare
feet. Presently she took up the thread of her thoughts.
"Things could be worser'n what they are for me. Nohow,
pap's woman, her that were Missippi Tuchin, ain't birthed
nary babe yit!" Elvirie's eyes glowed with satisfaction.
"And so fur as my eyes tell me, she ain't liable for none
yit!"

"Look yonder across the road," I laughed (too heartily,
I fear, for Elvirie gaped at me in perplexity), "the wind
has blown the judge's hat clear off his head and out into
the road."

Without a vestige of a smile Elvirie, following my
glance, observed: "Pore little spare-built Lawyer Tabor
a-chasin' the jedge's hat fast as ever his leetle bitsy spin'el
legs can pack him." She straightened in her chair. "Them
two is liable to be over here tirectly." With that she cau-
tiously drew from the bosom of her dress a folded paper.
She placed it in my hand. "Sarch them writin's, quick!
What do they call for?" she asked eagerly. "I'm satisfied
that you, a-follerin' the law like you do, traipsin' around

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

from one court to t'other, you've larnt a heap about docu-
mints. I confidence you. Aunt Ailsie out our way named
it to me you were a friendly turn, kind to her kin the
Vintons that was tried for a killin'. That's how come me
to be here." The Vinton case came back to my mind in a
flash. A poor unlettered lad tried for murder.

Elvirie's eager voice cut short my own revery. "I'd a heap
druther you read them writin's for me, stead of the jedge,
even, or Lawyer Tabor, 'cause that might make talk. And
pore old Brother Marbry, no use axin' him. He don't know
'B' from bear's foot. But," she quickly defended, "he's apt
at preachin' the Script're, and funeralizin' the dead."

When the paper was spread out on my table she leaned
closer and, placing a finger on the red notarial seal, said
with assurance, "I'm satisfied it is a documint and not a
letter. Thar's the sign of it! Maw told me whar it were
hid, in an iron cook vessel buried down under the stone
floor of the milk house. But she gasped her last afore she
could say what it were. 'Sarch! Sarch!' says she, over and
over, 'under the stones in the milk house.' And I sarched
unbeknownst to pap, when he was off sparkin' Sippi
Tuchin and that's what I found!"

It took but a glance to see that it was a deed from Allie-
fair Pridemore Mullan to her daughter, Elvirie Mullan,
"my beloved and only child of my body." A "documint"
indeed, the rights and covenants of which dated back to a
land grant from His Majesty Charles II. A "documint" by
which "for love and affection" Alliefair deeded outright all
her land and appurtenances thereunto belonging [inherited
from the Pridemores] to the "said Elvirie Mullan," with
the provision that "so long as my beloved husband, Heze-

49

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

kiah Mullan, shall remain unwed, he shall be permitted to
remain and reside in the home situate on the said lands."

The girl listened intently to the reading of the docu-
ment. "So long as he shall remain unwed." Her lips formed
the soundless words. Carefully she tucked the paper into
the bosom of her frock. "Let 'em throw out their flouts!"
she said, rising. "Throw out their taynts if they're a-mind
topap and his woman. Let her have her pink calicker
bonnet, starched, too, if it suits her fancy." The girlish
hand gripped the document, safe in the bosom of the
faded dress. "With these here writings I ain't skeert of a
mountain lion!" The dark eyes flashed defiance.

But in another moment the look of sadness crept slowly
back into Elvirie's face. "You'll ricollict, Woman, about
Alliefair's funeral?" she pleaded softly. "I'm wantin' you
to sit 'longside me in Naomi church house on Forsaken,
come Sunday two weeks. Aunt Ailsie on yon coast [across
the creek] will be proud to have you take the night with
her ginst you make it that far. I'll name it to her you'll be
there." She paused a moment, then added apologetically,
"There's no satisfaction stayin' at our house, or I'd a-bid
you come; there's never no tellin' when Sippi will cut one
of her shines. Sippi's a aggreevatin' critter."

Two weeks later I took the night with Aunt Ailsie, next
day being Sunday, and the elder having published a year
before that he aimed to funeralize Alliefair, neighbor folk
made ready for the occasion.

"I'll be bound to be up bright and early," Aunt Ailsie
said, "so's to swinge the chickens and make pies, for there
will be a passel o' folks from hither and yon comin' to the

5

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

funeralizin' of Alliefair. Alliefair stood in high degree
everywhars. And I aim to have vittals a-plenty to putt afore
whosoever comes."

It was a long way from the county seat to Pig Pen Fork
of Puncheon, where I found Aunt Ailsie's little house of
logs that looked as though it had nestled there always.
The hand-made shingles of the roof were warped and
weather-beaten, and the logs were nearly two feet wide.
You would know they were ancient from the manner in
which they were notched and fitted together. Aunt Ailsie
told me her grandfather had "cyarved" the wooden latch,
too, on the door; a crude affair, though deftly whittled at
the proper grain of the wood to insure its durability. Even
the chain and loop on the door had been beaten out on
the anvil by her kin. Aunt Ailsie still made use of a hand-
made broom and basket. The hickory chair which she
brought out for me had assumed a waxlike luster from long
usage. It too had been made by her kinsman. Even the
pickets on the fence around the kitchen door were hand
split. The newest thing on the place were old Tab's kittens,
which she was guarding jealously in their corn-shuck bed
near the churn which Aunt Ailsie had placed in the warm
chimney corner.

On the Sabbath morning when all things were ready we
made our way along the creek-bed road up the hollow to
Naomi church house, taking our place on the bench near
the front beside Elvirie. On the men's side of the church I
saw several whom I knew in connection with court cases.
On a bench just ahead of ours I spied the pink, starched
"calicker" bonnet. It's wearer sat with head tilted slightly
to the side; leaning toward her bewhiskered mate was the

5 1

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

second Mistress Hezekiah Mullan, she who had been Mis-
sippi Tuchin, "step-maw" of Elvirie.

Brother Marbry, of deep-set eyes and flowing patriarchal
beard, was already behind the little wooden pulpit, preach-
ing in a most doleful voice. His wrinkled hand now and
again turned the pages of a frayed volume that lay open
before him. Time and again he looked down over his
square-rimmed spectacles upon his flock. Again he mois-
tened his thumb and turned the pages of the book, choos-
ing another and still another text, dwelling at length upon
the dangers of hell's "foir," and the wickedness of the
world; sins of lust, of riches, anger and envy.

At this point he paused to "line" a hymn; he chanted a
line and the flock took it up:

And must this body die

This mortal frame decay,

And must these active limbs of mine

Lie molding in the grave?

Another and yet another stanza, line by line Brother
Marbry intoned, the flock in turn chanting in doleful
unison.

Having sung that hymn through to the end, Brother
Marbry led forth in another equally mournful, during the
singing of which all eyes turned upon Elvirie, whose gaze
rested on the little burying ground on a near-by ridge. Her
lips moved slowly though her voice raised scarce above a
whisper in the singing:

In that dear old village churchyard
I can see a mossy mound;
I can see where mother's sleeping
In the cold and silent ground.

5 2

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

Tru-ly grows the weeping willow,
Sweet little birds to sing at dawn;
I have no one left to love me
Since my mother's dead and gone.

I was young, but I remember
Well the night my mother died;
I stood there as her life faded
When she called me to her side,

Saying, "Darling I must leave you,
Angel voices guide me on;
Pray that we will meet in heaven
When your mother's dead and gone/'

Oft I wondered to the churchyard,
Flowers to plant with tender care;
On the grave of my dear mother,
Darkness finds me weeping there.

Looking at the stars above me,
Watching for the early dawn;
I have no one left to love me
Since my mother's dead and gone.

There was audible sniveling throughout the little church
house when the song was ended and now Brother Marbry
began to speak once more. Tenderly he spoke of the de-
parted "sister Alliefair Mullan, dead and gone a full
twelve-month this day. 9 ' Touchingly he spoke, exalting
Alliefair's devotion to her "lone lorn child, Elvirie."
Brother Marbry's voice was hushed now with solemnity as
he fixed sad eyes upon dead Alliefair 's one-time spouse.
"Hezekiah Mullan! never lived a better man than him.

53

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

It's right and proper for to scatter roses whilst we may, for
to let a word of deservin' praise fall on the ears of them
that's living" declared the solemn apostle of the Book,
"and surely Hezekiah Mullan yonder has ever set foot in
the right path. Doin' good unto his neighbor [Hezekiah
had recently bestowed a fat sow upon his less thrifty neigh-
bor, Brother Marbry] and likewise a shepherd to them that
is entrusted to his fold. Ever a faithful and devoted spouse
were Hezekiah to her that is gone before, Alliefair Pride-
more Mullan. Why, her slightest whim were his com-
mand."

Alliefair's "lorn child" Elvirie shifted impatiently.
Brother Marbry went on. "Yes, my friends, we all know
that Alliefair's slightest whim were Hezekiah's joy to ful-
fill. All that were in his power to give of worldly goods and
devotion he laid at her feet. A good shepherd indeed to
them in his fold were Hezekiah Mullan/' Brother Marbry's
sad look now included Elvirie and the wearer of the pink
calico bonnet. "Faithful and watchful is he over them left
behint. The same kind father and husband he con-tinues
to be to the livin' that he were to them that hasin part-
gone on before." Brother Marbry paused to drink deep
from the gourd dipper in the water bucket that stood on
the floor beside the pulpit. Others from the flock did like-
wise; mothers with babies on hips shambled forth from
their benches to quench the thirst of their little ones; stal-
wart fellows with drooping mustaches, old men with flow-
ing beards, young girls with lovely rosy lips, straggled at
will from their benches to drink of the refreshing waters
while Brother Marbry preached on and on. From time to
time, at some sad reference to the departed Alliefair, her
"surviving mate" dabbed at his eyes with a faded bandana.

54

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

Missippi sniffled audibly. But Elvirie, "my beloved and
lone lorn child of my body" sat quiet, dry-eyed.

"Hit's a heap of satisfaction for to ponder on the better
land/' the solemn voice of the preacher was assuring his
flock, "the better land where God-fearin' people like Heze-
kiah Mullan yonder hopes to meet his departed mate.
Where them that loved her, Alliefair Pridemore Mullan,
for we all feel certain she's at rest away off yonder in the
blessed promised land, or ort to have loved her," he fixed
a quizzical eye upon Elvirie, "them that is left behint, we
hope is lookin' to be reunited to her on t'other shore."
Brother Marbry placed a trembling hand upon the book.
"Iffen we believe the promise of the Word, the sweet
promise in thar!" he lifted high a hand and brought it
down with a mighty bang upon the frayed volume. "Thar's
the promise writ! Iffen we see fit to sarch for hit. Yas, my
friends, for the treasures in this world we've got to sarch!
Sarch!" shouted the quavering voice, "and sarch well!"

Elvirie Mullan straightened suddenly. She lifted a cau-
tious hand to the bosom of her dress. She looked neither
to right nor to left, but straight ahead. Straight at Brother
Marbry.

"One of the things we've got to sarch arter," the voice
was low and doleful, and he turned upon Elvirie a most
piercing gaze, "iffen we aim for to lay up treasures for
ourselves on this yearth, and peace in the promised land,
is brotherly love. It's writ in the book!" he thumbed avidly
the pages, looked searchingly at them. "It's writ!" he
boomed again and again, "right hure in John, and Mat-
thew, mebbe, too, and in Revelations. It's writ, I tell ye!"
Again he thumbed the book with trembling fingers. With
hands stilled now upon the book he turned once more

55

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

upon Elvirie, pleading earnestly. "Elvirie Mullan, iffen you
aim to foller the footsteps of your dead maw, her as were
Alliefair Pridemore in her maiden day; iffen you crave to
meet her in everlastin' glory, you've got a-bound to putt
hatred outten your heart. Humble yourself, Elvirie. Hum-
ble yourself to the will of the Master. Hit's your bounden
duty for to take your new maw, her as were Missippi
Tuchin, to your bosom. Her that your pap has seen fitten
to jine hisself to in holy wedlock. Her that wears the name
of the second Mistress Hezekiah Mullan."

Elvirie sat like a figure of stone. The eyes of the flock
now turned upon her. Women folk peered from beneath
dilapidated slat bonnets. Sippi's pink bonnet, starched
stiff as a plank, had come closer toward the protecting
shoulder of her mate. A titter came from a far corner of
the little log church house, but it was lost almost instantly
in the awful silence.

Brother Marbry solemnly lifted the book and held it in
wide-spread palm. His arm was extended far over the little
wooden pulpit. "Don't you never aim to tender your heart,
Elvirie Mullan?" he beseeched in a trembling voice. "Ain't
you ever aimin' to sarch in the Word that is writ, for the
promise?" The book, extended now in outstretched hand
toward Elvirie, swayed slightly. "Don't you aim to sarch,"
admonished the grave voice, "for the treasures in this
world and"

"I have sarched!" cried Elvirie exultantly, "I've sarched
and found a treasure! I got the witness right hure!" She
struck her bosom with a quick hand as she arose.

"Amen!" boomed Brother Marbry, before the surprised
Elvirie could utter another word. "Amen!" he roared,

56

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

"Elvirie's got the witness in her breast!" he thundered ex-
citedly.

"Amen!" echoed Hezekiah Mullan.

"Amen!" re-echoed the gathering. "Elvirie's sarched!"

"Elvirie's got the witness in her breast!" chanted old
and young in ceaseless monotone.

Even had she tried to explain, Elvirie's feeble protest
would have been lost in the hysterical confusion.

"Praise the Lord! Amen!" chanted the flock as they
surged about Alliefair's "lorn child," shaking her hand
again and again, throwing their trembling arms about her
shoulders, Sippi, the second mate of Hezekiah Mullan,
shouting louder than all the rest and tugging at the hand
of the amazed Elvirie.

"I'm aimin' to treat you like my own flesh and blood
from this day on," shouted Sippi, clapping her hands
loudly, high above her head. "I aim to love this child like
the lamb of my bosom."

This sudden sign of peace, coming as it did when his
arm was stretched full length over the pulpit, caught
Brother Marbry unawares. The book trembled in his open
palm and dropped with a thud.

The frayed volume lay open on the floor, revealing its
faded half title. Printed at the top of the page in Old
English letters were these words:

CHAUCER'S CANTERBURY TALES
and below, in quaint script, was penned:

Jonathan Maybeny, his boot
North Lees 1704 Yorkshire
Honor the King Fear the Lord

57

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

To be sure, the entire flock knew that Brother Marbry
could neither read nor write. They knew full well that the
old man took pride in having a book before him. "He so
craves larnin'," Nace Tackett told me that day, "he likes to
make on like he can sure enough read the Script're. Ever
packs along that book into the pulpit. It's got a hide
[leather] kiver and has the favorance of the Good Book
that Brother Lindsay ever packed with him in this country
long ago, pap says. I'm satisfied," Nace Tackett confided,
with a dubious look in his eye, "it ain't a Bible a-tall.
We're sartin of it, most of us, but if it pleasures old
Brother Marbry to make on like he's takin' his text from
'twixt its kivers and readin' from its pages, there's no harm
done. That's how we all feel about it. And no livin' soul
amongst us would ever make Brother Marbry shamefaced
by axin' about that book. Nohow," he added in a voice
filled with sympathy and understanding, "do you appre-
ciate, Woman, that's all the book old Brother Marbry
owns on this yearth? His folks left it to him. 'Pears like
the book gives him confidence for to preach the Word."
Nace Tackett's voice was hushed with tenderness. "The
Script're says, 'Blessed are the peacemakers,' and sartin as
we live, Brother Marbry is numbered among them. You
bore witness to his goodness today."

From the doorway of Naomi church house on Forsaken
I watched Brother Jonathan Marbry ride contentedly
homeward on his bony nag, unaware of the rare treasure
that was his, the book evidencing his English kinship
under his arm, "him that was rightly a Mayberry." Un-
aware, too, was Brother Marbry, of that other treasure
which Elvirie had "sarched and found."

Though the rest had gone their way, a few lingered to

58

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

sing yet another hymn beside the grave-house of Alliefair
Pridemore Mullan. A crude grave-house it was, of rough
planks and a clapboard roof, to shelter her resting place
against snow and sleet, wind and rain. Elvirie herself with
her own hands had helped to make it, while dead Allie-
fair's own blood uncle, who now lingered to "line" her
favorite hymn tune from the Songster, had lent a helpin'
hand.

Elvirie, with the faintest whimsical smile, stood close
by, with the women folk of dead Alliefair's kin standing
resolutely at her side to "jine" in the song.

"Funeralizin" " the dead long after burial is an ancient
mountain custom that was born of necessity. In the early
days there were few preachers, so when death came, though
burial followed at once, the bereaved family awaited the
coming of the itinerant preacher, possibly for months be-
fore their loved one could be eulogized. Then, too, in days
when there was no means of communication and they had
only to rely on the grapevine system of word-of-mouth
messages, it took a long time to pass the word around to
friends and relatives near and far. So the custom began of
having the preacher "publish" the funeral of a departed
loved one, to take place as far ahead as a whole year. In
this way the word passed even to remote coves and hol-
lows so that when the day came there was a goodly gather-
ing at the "funeralizinV The custom continues today,
though it has taken on a more imposing aspect.

Last summer (1939) I attended for the second time the
"funeralizin' " of an old friend. Some call such service
now a "memorial service/' My old friend, having been a
prosperous man, left money to provide an annual memorial

59

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

service for himself. A great barbecue is prepared and peo-
ple come by the hundreds. Whole lambs are roasted over
pits of glowing log fires; beeves are quartered and roasted
by one who knows the art, and great iron kettles are filled
with delicious boiling vegetables. There is hymn singing
and again a eulogy over the departed brother. The occa-
sion is a cheery one. Friends meet with happy handclasp,
talking of crops, of bygone days. Last year the throng was
so great it spread out into the valley. Some of us climbed
the hill to the burying ground where rested the remains
of our old friend. Not beneath a home-carved "dornick,"
bless you, but under a giant shaft of costly marble that
cast a long shadow over the ivy-covered grave. "Look!"
cried a young kinsman of the departed, "the shadder of
grandsir's tomb reaches nigh to the gatherin' down yonder
in the valley. It's a sign his race will be lasty."

The old man, like his Revolutionary forbears, made sure
that his grave should not go unmarked. He himself bought
the monument and saw to it that it was placed in the
family burying ground before his demise.

In pioneer days a religious meeting any religious gather-
ing is called by mountain folk a "meeting," while a politi-
cal gathering is called a "speaking" would last all of a
week, and a prosperous family was known to provide food
and lodging for all who came. The custom survives to this
day, especially among the Regular Primitive Baptists on
Tug Fork and on Little Elaine.

The gathering of the Baptists has reached vast propor-
tions. Founded in 1813, it is called the Baptist Association,
and is composed of many Associations, such as Big Sandy
Valley Association, Burning Spring Association, and so on.
These in turn are made up of many churches in a given

60

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

district. My own "Traipsin' Woman" cabin on the Mayo
Trail was dedicated by Brother Dawson, a devout member
of the Regular Primitive Baptist faith, of the Burning
Spring Association, who preached the first sermon in that
rugged house of logs and thus consecrated it to the wor-
ship of the Master. It would be considered a breach of
trust and confidence if a minister of another denomination
were permitted to hold service within the cabin, and if
such should happen, Brother Dawson himself told me,
"us Regular Primitive Baptists would never again hold
meetin' under this rooft."

Each church, with its elders, moderators, clerks, and
members in good standing, subscribe to the constitution of
the Association. According to Article Two of their constitu-
tion, Regular Primitive Baptists "believe that the Lord's
Supper and the washing of the saints' feet are ordinances
of the Lord and are to be continued by the church until
His second coming/' They are a people who hold stead-
fastly to their beliefs. At one time, some of the very devout
Primitive Baptists did not believe in teaching the story of
Santa Glaus; they considered it wrong to teach what they
termed "a lie/' In pioneer days they did not even trim a
Christmas tree. Later, a tree came to be permitted, but
with one clear, bright light only; no colored lights, no
glistening, tinsel toys.

Even then they were not wholly solemn and without
merriment. The Yuletide was celebrated over a period of
twelve days, from December twenty-fifth, New Christmas,
to January sixth, Old Christmas. Each evening the young
people gathered at one another's homes for play games
and carol singing, and on these occasions they practiced
an amusing old custom called "popping the candle." The

61

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

host bored a small hole in to the wick near the bottom of a
candle, and into this he poured a pinch of gun powder.
When the candle burned down to this pointand it was
timed not to do so until around midnight and the candle
popped, that was the signal for the gathering to break up
and the guests to go their ways.

Burning Spring Association held its one hundred and
seventeenth annual session in 1937, which I had the joy
and privilege of attending at Lacy Valley Church in
Magoffin County. In the summer of 1939 I attended such
a meeting on Elaine, where a great feast was prepared in
the open. Beef, lamb, pork, were roasted over glowing
logs in deep-dug pits. Again the great iron kettle, used
betimes at hog killin', for soap making and for boiling
clothes, was used for boiling corn on the cob and other
vegetables, and there were even open ovens for baking
corn bread for this great religious gathering. Women folk
prepare for the "Association" days in advance, making
pies and cakes. Indeed, they look forward eagerly from
year to year to "Association week." Old and young antici-
pate the occasion with joy equal to that with which in
bygone days they looked forward to the county fair.

At one Association which I attended, old Aunt Rachel
made johnny cakes for some of the visiting preachers from
Elliott County. "I mind the time," the old woman told
me, "when ma made johnny cakes for a passel of preachers
that come to meetin' from out in Magoffin. She used bear's
oil for the shortenin'. And honey, we had, wild honey,
bless you, nigh as plentiful as sorghum is today. In them
days we had no roast lamb nor pork, the wolves was too
plentiful. Wolves is destructions varmints on innocent
lambs. But ginst the men folks got them varmints killed

62

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

off, a body could raise all the sheep they needed. Hit give
us wimmin folks something to do, too. There warn't a
house on the creek nor in nary holler that didn't have a
spinnin' wheel, a reel and a loom. Raised our own flax. I
ricollict long afore I were turned five year old I larnt to
fill the quills. Sat alongside Granny with my tasks whilst
she knit stockings for us wimmin folks and socks for the
men. Even down to the least uns had their tasks, in my
young day, pickin' burs outten wool, pullin' flax, rollin'
yarn into a ball so's to be handy for Granny with her knit-
tin'. Seemed like folks in them days took delight in work
around the fireside, singin' and makin' talk whilst our
hands were busy." Old Aunt Rachel sighed wistfully over
her memories, and then as she mixed more johnny cakes
she added, "There was no end of maples in that day and
time that give us maple sugar, and wild honey we had in
abundance. We always had enough sweetnin' to run us
through a whole year. Folks in them days was proper
dressed too/' old Rachel's eyes were fixed critically upon
a young lass in a knee frock, high heels, and a bleached
permanent. "Us wimmin folks didn't bare our carcass to
the world in my young day, like that peert critter comin'
up the road yonder. And men folks, too, were fit and
proper in their garmints. My grandsir wore breeches made
of dressed deerskin, had shoes, too, of the same, and so
did Granny/'

Though some ways change, mountain folk still hold to
the manner of holding "meeting"; that is, the day and
place is fixed, say, at Bethel Church on the second and
third Saturdays and Sundays of the month; at Laurel on
the first and, if the dates allow, the fifth, Saturdays and
Sundays; at Paint on the fourth Saturday and Sunday, and

63

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

so on. Devout members, so long have their forbears done
without the printed page, are able to hold these dates accu-
rately in their mind. They need no calendar, though the
Association does publish a small booklet setting forth the
time and place of meetings and the activities of the
churches of the Association.

There is still to be found the itinerant preacher who
keeps his "appointments," preaching the first Sunday of
the month on Otter Trail, the second on Indian Run, the
third on Troublesome. And if you are so minded, after
meeting, you may journey on to the burying ground and
see for yourself that the loved ones, though long since
dead, have not been forgotten. There's a bouquet of paper
flowers in a glass case, a trinket of a young maiden, a play
pretty of a baby child, a poppet [doll] of a little girl. Even
a picture of a loved one in a glass-covered box at the head
of the grave is frequently to be found. Indeed, it was a
small picture of Brother Joshua beside his wife which I
made with my camera, which he with loving care enclosed
with his trembling hands in such a glass-covered case and
placed at the head of her grave. He led me solemnly to the
spot that I might see for myself.

If you tarry long enough in the Big Sandy country you
are sure to meet old Brother Joshua of faded eye and flow-
ing white beard, trudging along on his way to comfort a
dying sinner, or to offer condolence to those bereaved, or,
perhaps, if it is a fair summer day, to a "baptizin' " in one
of the creeks. For, even though he is stooped of shoulder
and faltering of step, Brother Joshua vows, "I aim to keep
on here in the Master's vineyard as long as there's a sinner
cryin' out for help, as long as these humble hands can

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

minister baptism/' He is jealous of his reputation of hav-
ing baptized more people than any other person in all the
Big Sandy country and he defends it at all hazards.

Once, so the story goes, when the waters of the creek
were frozen over and the ice had to be broken, the old
fellow steadfastly refused to let a younger pastor take his
place. He wrapped a long wool scarf about his throat, put
on ear muffs, red yarn mittens, a heavy overcoat and,
stuffing his breeches into high-topped boots, waded into
the chilly waters, leading the hesitant penitent with a firm
hand. It was said that the "finer," himself a young man,
upon nearing the frozen creek remonstrated with Brother
Joshua, pleading with the old fellow not to undertake it.

"I'm afeared it's too much for one of your years, Brother
Joshua," the convert argued.

"There's no time to halt in the salvation of a soul,"
Brother Joshua replied. "A body's got to ketch a penitent
sinner and hold him fast." He increased the grip of his
mittened hand upon the younger man's arm as with high-
lifted boot he stomped the ice, broke it, and trudged into
the water. For all his teeth were chattering, he managed
to repeat the words of baptism, and then immersed the
young man beneath the ice-filled waters. But in bringing
him up, what with the lad's struggle, Brother Joshua lost
his mitten and his wide-brimmed felt, which had been
placed too near the rim of the broken ice. Both were
caught in the swirling stream.

"Ketch 'em, fellers!" shouted the old man of flowing
white beard, waving a hand wildly, "ketch 'em!" Someone
on shore mistook the command to mean a young couple
who stood arm in arm near by, looking on with rapt atten-

65

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

tion. Two stalwart men ran to the side of the protesting
couple and rushed them straight to the water's edge and
were about to drag them in to the preacher's side. Luckily,
Brother Joshua by this time took in the situation and
shouted above the hilarious confusion. "Ketch 'em! I mean
my wearing clothes my hat yonder and my mittens, afore
they get swollered up in the waters and are packed plumb
down to the mouth of Big Sandy/'

Quick hands were to the rescue. The released courting
couple dashed off up the hillside as fast as their feet would
carry them. And Brother Joshua, muddy hat and mittens
in hand, teeth chattering, shambled off to a waiting wagon
that carried him to the warm fireside of friendly neighbors.

The custom of foot washing is devoutly followed by
the Regular Primitive Baptists, and for this occasion also,
the women make great preparation in cooking, and anyone
is welcome to share the feast. Foot washing is a part of
the communion service and takes place in the summer
months. Upon this occasion the women who are in good
standing who have kept the faith are seated on two
benches facing each other on one side of the church at
the front. On the opposite side two benches are similarly
placed and occupied by the men. Between the two is a
small table on which a white cloth conceals an object in
the center no taller than a castor. On the floor beneath the
table, beside the water bucket with its dipper, are two
small tin basins.

At the beginning of the service I have often heard the
congregation join in singing a "family song," that is, each
stanza begins with the name of a different member of the
family, like this:

66

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

O father will you meet me
On Canaan's happy shore?

And continuing through to "mother/' "sister/' "brother/'
"children." At the proper time the moderator invites an
elder to come forward and assist. He goes to the table and
lifts the cloth, revealing a plate of bread and a pitcher of
blackberry juice which has been provided by the wife of
one of the pastors. "We'll eat of the unleavened bread
and partake of the wine/' he announces, and then having
broken the bread in small pieces he passes it first to the
women, then to the men, who have already removed their
shoes and stockings. During this time they usually sing a
hymn such as:

Twelve months more have rolled around
Since we attended on this ground;
Ten thousand scenes have marked the year,
Since we met last to worship here.

When the long and doleful song is finished, again the
pastor quotes from the Scripture: "Jesus . . . riseth from
supper and layeth aside His garments." At this the men
folk remove their coats and hang them on wall pegs with
their hats. ". . . Layeth aside His garments," repeats the
pastor solemnly, "and He took a towel, and girded Him-
self."

And now a brother, in good standing you may be sure,
takes a towel that lies folded on the table, ties it about his
waist, making one loop and leaving a long end with which
to dry the feet of his brother. They take turns, each wash-
ing the feet of the other, until everyone seated on the two
benches has performed this act of humility.

When all have once more put on their shoes there is

6?

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

much shouting, weeping, hand clasping and hand clap-
ping, both women and men elbowing around in confusion.
Sometimes a penitent becomes quite happy and shouts
aloud in broken sobs that he is through with sin and
worldly ways forever. Then one after the other slap the
hand of the penitent, weep with him, shout with him if
they feel so impelled, and finally the meeting breaks up.
The moderator "publishes" [announces] the time and
place of the next meeting and all leave the church to linger
for a time under the shady trees for friendly visiting and
feasting.

"Foot washing hymn singin', vittals and j'inin', courtin'
and marry in' all go hand in hand/' the older women of
the mountains will tell you. And from what I have ob-
versed at the many meetings I have attended, I'm sure the
old match makers are right. They are ever present to keep
a watchful eye on courtin' couples at a foot washing a bap-
tizing and a funeralizin'. Ever ready and eager to help
along a courtin' case by praising one to the other.

The minute an older woman hears that a fair maiden
is "talkin' " she takes it upon herself to "start a quilt" for
the "fair bride-to-be." Eagerly she sits by young Nelle's
side to start her right. And if Nelle should ask innocently
enough, "Aunt Rosie, who told you that Buford and I are
talkin'?" Aunt Rosie, with eyes fixed upon the quilt
patches, coyly declares, "A little bird told me, Nelle, so
there." It is part of the game. Then she turns to talk of
quilts.

"Now that is the 'Double Weddin' Ring/ " Aunt Rosie
with a steady finger points the pattern of her favorite quilt.
"And it fetches good luck, my lass, and happiness to the

68

Washing by the creek

The battlin' trough

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

bride who pieces that pattern first of all/' And before the
blushing Nelle can offer a word, Aunt Rosie with needle
and thread starts the first block of the pattern, and stitches
away, forming one block and then another, and showing
Nelle just how to "lay the fair pink close by the sky-blue
piece of calico" to form the pattern. As she sews, Aunt
Rosie sings, and lovely Nelle gives ear, you may be sure,
to what is said and sung. The favorite verse of the quilting
song, which names all the various patterns, has always
been, for me:

My sister made the "Snowball" and the "Rose";
She lives alone, down Lonesome Holler ways,
An old maid? Yes, but not from lack of beaux;
Hit sorter hurts to ricollict them days-
Poor Jane, she loved Thomas too, you see-
But Tom, somehow, he allus favored me.

Possibly nowhere in the nation has simple and whole-
some life around the fireside been so genuinely preserved
as in the Big Sandy country. Mothers are not too busy to
stop churning or even cooking to teach the children a
play-game song. And if Aunt Rosie drops in to sit a spell,
she'll lay aside her sewing or knitting to show her young
kinfolk how to play "Fist-stalk," or "Finger game play
song," "Pawpaw Patch," or "Sweet Potatoes Cut and
Dried," a swinging song that is a great favorite with the
smaller children. If the older girls join in you may be sure
they 11 call for "Charlie Condemned," or "Sad Condi-
tion," both of which permit of harmless kissing; the
former goes back to the sixteenth century, while the latter,
a courting play-game song, dates to the Civil War. The
young boys find their fun in playing and singing "Black-

69

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

smith Shop/' which lends itself to many a lusty shout and
vigorous gesture. When the young people have tired of
singing games the older, more serious-minded of the group
will bring out a small wood box from a shelf in the chimney
corner containing grains of red and yellow corn, and a
board marked off something like a checker board except
that cross lines are drawn in each square. With these they
spend many happy hours playing ''Fox and Geese/' or
"Sheep's Skin/' or "Fox."

Boys delight to whistle, and to add volume to their
efforts, fashion a whistle of maple or papaw, cut in the
spring so that the bark will loosen readily. It is the same
instrument, and yet a far cry, this crude mountain whistle,
from the recorder of the sixteenth century, mentioned fre-
quently by Shakespeare, and by Pepys in his diary, April
8, 1668. As early as 1575, Queen Elizabeth was entertained
by its music at Kenilworth Castle, and we are told that
good Queen Bess herself was a skilled performer upon this
early flute.

Mountain children are naturally ingenious. I have never
come upon a cabin in the Big Sandy country too humble
to afford a jackknife for the boys, who never grow tired of
whittling some trinket for amusement, or even things of
use: a handle for a corn cutter, a butter paddle, a bread
bowl.

Of special satisfaction and comfort is a jackknife to a
crippled boy like Elias. Proudly he showed me a small
chair which he had whittled and placed patiently, stick by
stick, in a bottle.

"It must have taken a long time to make the chair," I
remarked, for we of the level land rarely ask direct ques-
tions in the mountains of Kentucky.

70

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

"No/' he answered, "it taken jest a leetle spell to fashion
the cheer. The job were to putt it in the bottle through
that pesterin' leetle neck/'

I wondered what ingenious tools young Elias, who had
never been able to walk a step in his life of fourteen years,
had used at the task. But before the question could be
asked he produced from his breeches pocket two rusty
wires which he straightened out, and showed me how,
with them, he placed one stick at a time through the
bottle neck until the chair was completed.

Men and boys often make their own musical instru-
ments. I have seen a banjo whittled from white oak, with
a coon hide for a sounding head. Many a cat, known to
be a "fowl-killin' varment, 7 ' has met its end for such
"thievin' " and been transformed into a sounding head
for a homemade "banjer" whilst its "inners" have supplied
the strings for the crude musical instrument.

Children of the Big Sandy country never lack for amuse-
ment: good, wholesome amusement. In summer there's
swimming, fishing, riding with their parents to meeting,
where, within proper distance, others come not so much to
hear the Word as to swap horses. "Horse jockeyin' " con-
ducted at these well-attended religious occasions is both
pleasant and profitable. Men and boys put their nags
through their various paces and usually find a buyer or
someone who is willing to "swap."

While some cling steadfastly to old and traditional
ways, others are equally prone to give up the old customs
and heirlooms.

One day I stopped in to see old Huldie Borders, on
Beaver Creek. She was canning blackberries and tomatoes,

7 1

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

and while I helped her wash earthen jars, and seal them,
we talked of many things.

"Quare how folks usen to fear tomatoes. I mind the
time I ett my first one. Some who'd never tasted the likes
afear-ed to called 'em devil's apples, claimed they were
pizen as a sarpint. Well, when I ett one bright red one
they all vowed I'd die before sundown. That were sixty-
odd year ago and here I am yit." She chuckled softly, as
she made fast another tin lid on its earthen jar. When the
task was finished and the hot canned fruit placed on a
bench to cool outside the kitchen door, old Huldie got in
a big way of talking of bygone days, of how her grandsir
and his brothers "fit the Red Coats." "Granny Borders
would a foird the old flintlock yonder too," glancing at the
gun in the wall hooks, "if need be. But wimmin folks in
them days had to look to their weavin' and spinnin' and
cookin' for the family. My Granny birthed eighteen babes.
They all growed up and married off. Settled in this coun-
try. Granny was give up to be the best weaver on this
creek. We've got a kiverlid she wove in the days of the
Revolution. Come," she invited, "see for yourself."

With that the little old woman climbed the wall ladder
to the loft, as nimbly as a girl in her teens. I followed at
her heels.

"Mind," she warned, "don't hit your head agin the
jystes."

She delved deep into an old trunk and brought out the
coverlid.

"Granny wove it," she explained, proudly spreading it
upon her knees as she sat on the hide-covered trunk, "and
she made her own dyes from mather roots and warnut
bark." That was old Huldie's way of saying madder and

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

walnut. "See," she said, "the colors are nigh as bright as
ever."

Later that day, before sunset, we climbed the steep
mountain path that led to the family burying ground, fol-
lowing the split-rail fence that her grandfather had built
in his youth. There in the hilltop place of the dead, four
soldiers of the Revolution slept under crumbling tomb-
stones, upon which remained the faint tracing of the sol-
diers' names and the battles in which they had fought.

"Josephus yonder," she pointed to a flat slab of stone,
"fetched that dornick his own self, they say, and putt it
there with his own hands. Cyarved like you see it. Wanted
to make sure we'd know where his corpse were a-restin'.
Fancy," she paused to survey the steep ascent which we,
empty handed, had traveled with great effort, "how winded
the pore old feller were ginst he clomb this mountainside
a-packin' that dornick, his tombrock, on his shoulder.
Somethin' like the Good Lord a-packin' his cross up Cal-
vary. I've hear-ed it said Josephus's hands was wore plumb
raw from his labors, and bleedin'. His woman had to wrop
his hands in linen soaked in oil to holp ease his misery."

With Chaucer and Spenser, old Huldie Borders at the
head of Beaver Creek said "wropt" for wrapped, "clomb"
for climbed, "jystes" for joists. And in saying "mather"
for madder was she not as correct as Lord Bacon's and Sir
Philip Sidney's "murther" for murder? In reverse, the
mountain folk say with the Elizabethans "furder" for fur-
ther.

There are many instances in the Big Sandy country of
this survival of old words which have long since vanished
from current usage elsewhere. Elvirie Mullan, I took
notice, for all she could neither read nor write, said

73

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

"sopped up the tears/' quite unaware of echoing Shake-
speare. She had no knowledge of Spenser, though with him
she said "yit" for yet, and her Aunt Ailsie said she would
"swinge" the chicken, using the same word as Spenser in:

The scorching flame sore swinged all his face.

Lucretia and her father, like Chaucer, added "es" to
form the plural of such a word as nest-"nestes." Such
words as "breskit," meaning liveliness, vigor, and "dor-
nick," a headstone, are practically obsolete in any form,
except in this pocket of the language where they are pre-
served.

One fair day I struck out at sunup along another fork
of a creek flowing into Big Sandy, with careful directions
from old Huldie how to find the Lovell place. I had been
wanting to visit it for some time. "Hit bein' the fore part
of the week/' she had said on second thought, "more'n
likely you'll find Elizabeth and her youngins washin', down
by the creek. Elizabeth taken after the Lovells, she's peart
at work. Didn't change her ways by marryin', only her
name. Says she aims to live on at the Lovell place all her
days and wants her offspring to do the same."

Upon reaching the log house almost hidden by wild
grape and morning-glory vines, I lifted the latch on the
gate and walked along the flower-bordered path. Though
I called "Hallo!" neither woman nor child appeared in the
open doorway. I paused on the gravel walk and called
again, this time a much louder "Hallo!" At once there
came a faint echo from the distance, whereupon I followed
the direction from which the greeting came, along the
footpath through the garden, then through the willows
down to the creek.

74

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

A young woman was stooping over a hollowed log filled
with soapy water, dabbling with clothes. In one hand she
held a wooden paddle with which she beat the wet gar-
ments on a flattened end of the log trough. A battling
trough! A battler of Shakespeare's time, bless you, here
in the heart of the Big Sandy country.

Suddenly the woman looked up. At sight of me she
straightened. Shaking the soapsuds from her hands, having
tossed the garment she was beating into a wooden bowl
filled with indigo-blue water beside the trough, she wiped
her hands on her apron. "Howdy!" she said shyly, while
three little girls, seated on a log that spanned the brook,
looked down at their toes. The woman's glance moved
from my portable typewriter to the brief case and camera
in my other hand. Then a friendly smile lighted her face.
"You're the Traipsin' Woman, I'm satisfied, on account
of you packin' them quare contrapshuns along. Benjamin
and me ketched sight of you once at the courthouse off
yander in Elliott. His folks had a line-fight case with
Twisden's folks. Ricollict?"

I did remember, I told her. I had reported the testimony
in the case. That had been long ago, in my early days of
court reporting. Though years had passed she had not
forgotten the occasion.

"Twisden's folks," the young woman went on, "they're
a techeous race. Fact is, they're plumb contrarious! But
nohow, the case were settled," she paused a second, then
added quickly, "settled, and peaceable like too. Though I
were afear-ed for a time. Old Ephraim Twisden were in a
plumb franzy ginst the trial were over. Ricollict? Him that
had kilt with his own hand all of ninety-and-nine b'ar in
his lifetime and were beggin' the good Lord for to spare

75

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

him to kill anuther'n afore he died. He's got some of the
pelts, has old Ephraim, to this day. That is to say, his folks
has got 'em. Not afear-ed of no livin' critter nor varmint
were old Ephraim. But the line-fight case just putt him in
a franzy and he couldn't go no furder. Jest quiled down
and died all of a suddint."

I was charmed with the quaint speech of the woman
who, here in this isolated pocket of Kentucky, clung to
Elizabethan speech. With Milton she said "contrarious,"
with Lord Bacon she vowed her old neighbor could go no
"furder"; she said "afear-ed" with Lady Macbeth and
"franzy" and "techeous" with other characters of Shake-
speare.

"I'm Benjamin's woman," she explained with quiet dig-
nity, "an' these," her glance included the three little girls
on the log, "are our children. Hester!" she addressed the
eldest, "scrouge over and make room for the Traipsin'
Woman. You're bound to be mannerly to strangers." The
child obeyed eagerly and I sat beside her, putting my
things down on the bank.

"I allow you've made the acquaintance of some of my
folks in your travels in these mountains and on England's
shores when you journeyed acrost the briny deep. We've
hear-ed talk of your travels. How you've sailed the mighty
deep, how you've been a fur piece from home. Iffen I'd
knowed in time I'd a sent some blackberry 'zarves to my
kin folks over there by you. I were a Lovell! Old Jethro's
daughter. Elizabeth Lovell were my maiden name."

While she spoke a spotted cow had come into view,
nibbling at the green grass along the fence row. "Hester!"
the mother spoke sharply to the eldest of the three little
girls, "thar's Twisden's piedy heifer! That cow-brute will

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

ever use whar the grass grows greenest. Take the battler
and drive her on her own side of the fence."

Taking the proffered battling stick the little girl hur-
ried to obey her mother's command. "Begone!" the child
cried contemptuously as she ran after the cow kicking up
its heels as it lumbered along.

"Hit's an antic heifer/' Elizabeth observed and then
offered half apologetically, "I'm satisfied hit's unbeknown
to Twisden's folks that their cow-brute is ever pesterin' us.
Though if we wuz to name it to them they'd be mad as
a sarpint."

When people of the Big Sandy country say "allow"
they are not aware that Hakluyt prefers it to "assume."
Fletcher wrote:

I will give thee for thy food
No fish that useth in the mud,

in the same way that Elizabeth said "use where the grass
grows greenest." Her "mought" for "might" is like Spen-
ser's:

So sound he slept that naught mought him awake.

Milton and Shakespeare's Caliban preceded her with
"pieded" and Hamlet put "an antic disposition on." Even
little Hester shouts contemptuously to the neighbor's cow,
"Begone!" a kingly word of Shakespeare's time. And when
this woman observes that I had been a "fur" piece from
home she uses the same word that Sir Philip Sidney used
to express distance.

"Twisden's folks," Elizabeth repeated, "is a techeous
race, and contrarious, even down to old Granny Twisden,
and her nigh on to a hundred year old, with one foot in

77

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

the grave/' Her voice dropped to a whisper, but the girls
heard. "The talk was in bygone days that old Granny
Twisden were witchy! A heap o' people said as much.
Though I can't rightly say that I ever knowed the old
woman to cast a haynt, or bewitch none of my folks/'

At this the three little girls huddled together, and Hes-
ter, the eldest, who had returned from driving the cow
off their side of the split-rail fence, put a protecting arm
around her small sisters, who sat wide-eyed, fearful. Eliza-
beth Lovell viewed the three with concern. "A body don't
need to be afeared of an old critter like Granny Twisden.
For all she mought a-been witchy in her day and had to
do with haynts and the ways of the devil, for all she
mought a-caused that dog of Blanchard's to turn fittyfied.
The old critter's flighty and drinlin' now. Past goin'. Can't
walk a step. Just sots all day in her cheer. They have to
drag her cheer to the table, have to putt her vittals in her
mouth. Her day for castin' spells on dumb critters and
bewitchin' them she held grudge agin is past and gone."

The three little girls on the log beside me smiled with
contented reassurance and the two smaller ones began to
sing a gay frolic tune:

Froggy in the meadow,
Can't get him out;
Take a little stick
And stir him all about.

"Delinthia! Saphronia!" Hester turned critically upon
the younger two. "That ditty is a heap prettier to sing it
this way:

Sugar in the gourd,
Can't get it out;

78

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

Take a little stick
And stir it all about."

Once more Elizabeth, having picked up the battling
stick where Hester had dropped it, set to her task with a
vim.

"Wouldn't it be easier if you had a washboard?" I ven-
tured. "How can you ever get the clothes clean that way?"

"Clean! You jest wait and see for yourself. Ginst I sob
'em and rensh 'em and rub 'em by hand hure in the
trough and beat 'em with the battler here on the battlin'
bench, there'll not be nary grain o' dirt left in our wearin'
clothes." She viewed the primitive washtub contentedly.
"Hit's handy/' she said, "and nohow, boughten tubs and
store soap and washboards and sech as that costes more'n
a body can pay and they're not nigh as lasty as homemade
things." She worked a moment, then explained: "Of
course you appreciate, Woman, that my grandsir, afore us,
he made a heap bigger battlin' trough than this. He taken
a poplar log about six feet long, split it in half and turned
the flat side up like you see this. Then one end he hollowed
out like this is, and you could soak all the wearin' clothes,
and the bed kivvers, and piller slips, and table kiwers, too,
in it at once. Then on t'other end of the trough he left
the log flat, didn't holler it out; a place nearly four feet
long and two feet wide. But in them days timber was
powerful big. Now it 'pears like they cut down a tree afore
it gets its growth. Have it rafted together and floatin' down
Big Sandy and sawed into planks no wider'n a span.
Time'll come, I reckon, when a body can't find a log big
enough to make a honey stand, let alone a battlin' trough."
As she spoke she pulled out of the end of the primitive

79

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

washtub a corn cob that quite filled the small opening,
and the soapy water ran out quickly. With a gourd dipper
she refilled the battling trough and continued with her
task.

When the washing was finished and hung on the rail
fence to dry, my hostess insisted that I stay and eat with
them. She cooked at the hearth, using an iron pot for
stewing the potatoes, and a skillet with feet, heaping on
its iron lid a shovel of hot coals that made the chicken
fry quickly to a delicious tenderness.

It was amazing and interesting to note that she, who
doubtless never heard of Chaucer, of Beaumont or Nash,
said with these Elizabethan writers "seche" for such,
"agin" for against, "drinlin' " for frail, "lasty" for endur-
ing, "yander" for yonder. And Piers Plowman wrote of a
"heap" of people, even as many old folk in the Big Sandy
country do to this day. Many such words which were good
Elizabethan English sound strange, even awkward, to
those who have not considered their origin. Such words as
"drinlin'," "lasty," "piedy," of Elizabethan England, long
since forgotten elsewhere, I have come upon in usage to-
day only in the Big Sandy country.

In a far corner of Floyd County I stopped at a little log
house hidden between high mountain walls to talk with
an old man and his wife. Uncle Jason and Aunt Polly
were seated on the stoop, each occupied with his own task.
For all it was summer, Aunt Polly's wrinkled hands were
busily occupied with shining knitting needles that glis-
tened in the sunlight as they moved steadily in and out of
the bright red yarn. "A body's got to look ahead," she
said in her slow mountain way, "so's to have stockings to
kiver the feet of the least 'uns ginst the snow flies."

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WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

She swayed slowly to and fro in her chair, turning her
faded eyes now and then toward Uncle Jason. Though
he had greeted me in a most friendly manner it is ever
the way of Kentucky mountain people once the old man
had brought me a chair and also "putt down" my portable
and brief case and camera, he had gone at once to resume
his laborious work of grinding corn in a primitive hand-
mill rigged up on the far end of the stoop. A crude affair
it was: a hollowed log in which rested two round stones,
a small one on top of the other about the size of a grind-
stone. "It's a quern/' Uncle Jason explained when I looked
inquiringly at the handmill. "Leastwise, that's what Scotch
people call it."

In the center of the top stone was a small hole through
which he slowly fed grains of corn with one hand, while
with the other he turned the stone around and around by
means of a limber branch about a yard long, one end of
which was thrust into a small hole near the edge of the
flat stone. The other end of the branch was tied with a
rope suspended from the rafters of the stoop. As he labori-
ously fed the grains of corn and propelled the stone with
a trembling hand, a stream of meal began to trickle from a
spout in the side of the log which held the stones.

To my amazement, as he propelled the old handmill
Uncle Jason began to sing a Scotch "flyting" or "scold-
ing" ballad, an answering back ballad, and at the proper
point, Aunt Polly took it up. The song led her thoughts
back, and Aunt Polly spoke in a quavering voice. "Jason,
you mind in our young day there come your kin folks from
Virginny and one night at the frolic at Aunt Barbary's
house they fell to singin' song ballets and play-game songs?
A hierling of your grandsir was there. It were at the throng

81

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

of harvest your grandsir had a master crop of wheat. And
your Uncle Andrew McKenzie Drew we allus called his
name he sung a ditty called The Sailor and the Shep-
herdess/ But eh, law/ 7 old Aunt Polly sighed contentedly,
"the sailor and the shepherdess, they lived in peace and
pleasure on account/' she leaned forward to confide to
me the reason, "he foresaken the sea and quit rovin'.
Woman/' Aunt Polly fixed me with a searching eye, "ginst
you marry you best take a man that loves the yearth and is
willin' to settle down and raise him some bread and prop-
erty." The old woman waxed enthusiastic. "Why with
property, say a few hogs, a cow-brute and a nag or two, and
a passel o' chickens and a patch o' corn and some sugar
cane, a body can make out first rate. Woman!" warned the
match maker, "don't never cast your eye on no doughty
feller. To be sure, there's no harm in men folks bein' fixy
and havin' a Sunday suit but," she lifted a warning finger,
"choose a man that's got breskit and then he'll have sil'er
in his pocket and won't have to valley no man. Yas," she
mused, a tender glance bestowed on her mate toiling pa-
tiently at the handmill, "stren'th and patience and a willin'
hand like Jason yonder he ain't beholden to no one,
yearns what we eat, got a scope o' land." The faded eyes
swept the far-off meadow and ridge with a look of proud
possession.

When Aunt Polly spoke of the "throng" of harvest and
Uncle Jason told of the "quern," you'd know then and
there the forbears of both had come from Scotland, even
if they hadn't said as much. After the old couple had
passed away their kin folk hauled the quern down to my
"Wee House in the Wood," where it is now a prized addi-
tion to my small museum of Kentucky mountain treasures.

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WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

Sometimes new-fangled ways are thrust upon old folks
much to their dismay, though they may try to instill their
notions into the "least uns" under the roof. It may be a
daughter-in-law who walks rough shod over the old
woman's "fogey ways" and sets up a new and different
order of living within their humble walls.

"There's old Granny Tomlin a-suckin' her pipe. Pore
old critter, all she's fitten for is to mind the babe in its
crib. Awful easy-goin' is Granny. Bless you/' it was Lettie
Clayton who told me as much when I met her on the road
to Tomlin's, "didn't she let Tobe's woman, Hessie Bolin
were her maiden name, wheedle her into havin' the foir-
place plumb dobbed up with bricks, and a new-fangled
mantel shelft putt o'er it? But Ian' sakes, they ain't nary
one of the whole family that sees a bit o' health since. The
babe in its crib is plumb puny with croup. Granny herself
is ever complainin' of a misery in her chist, or a risin' in
her side. And little Mintie is barkin' like a frog, soon as
winter sets in. They're all takin' a course of medicine; keep
the bottles handy on the mantel shelft. They've plumb
give up home cures." That was the talk of the Tomlins'
neighbor, Lettie Clayton, as we stood at the roadside.

"What's more, Hessie up and sent off the little tintype
of her pap and had a great big likeness made off from it
and hung it on the wall above that new-fangled foirboard.
When the babe first clapped eyes on it, and little Mintie,
too, they both screamed like they were bewitched and
Hessie and Granny had all they could do to quile the
youngins down. Hessie is plumb uppity! Nothin's good
enough for her. Wouldn't surprise me nary grain if she
didn't wheedle old Granny Tomlin herself into puttin' off
her breakfast shawl that the pore old critter's been wearin'

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WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

round her shoulders every year, from the very first day the
snow flies twell the robin comes a-hoppin' and a-chirpin'
in the spring time."

When Granny Tomlin was a young girl she didn't wear
her shoes every day. She held back. And when it was a
new pair she carried them all the way to church, to keep
them new and unscuffed, and sat down under a tree when
she got within sight of the church house and put them on.
Dusted off the toes by rubbing them first on one stock-
inged leg, then the other. Goodness, Granny Tomlin could
recollect the same as if 'twas yesterday, her youthful days
and the people she had known then.

"Wimmin in my day/' she observed, "were a friendly
turn. We'd quilt together, pick wool, and pull flax to-
gether. Helped each other at butcherin' time, sorghum
making at corn cuttin'. We'd all pitch in at any task and
help each other out. We didn't give out like folks do now.
Kept right on goin' with our work and many's the time
when we'd all put in the day with the hundred and one
things there are to do at butcherin', we pitched in, cleared
up the mess, and old Clink Turley come along with his
fiddle and, bless you, we danced all night. Healthy and
strong, folks were in my young day, and neighborly. And
we had a knowin' of how to use whatever was at hand;
made rugs out of corn shucks and to make a sieve we taken
a hoop of white oak and stretched over it a piece of bleach
and we shook the bran out of the flour that way. We putt
coffee in a vessel and beat it with a hammer if we lacked
a handmill on the wall to grind it in. Folks was crafty and
had plenty of mother wit in my day."

For a while the old woman jolted to and fro in her chair,
puffing her little clay pipe. When she spoke again it was

WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

slowly, cautiously, as if to make sure of choosing the right
words. "It's not that folks ain't a friendly turn today. They
are! Leastwise some I know not callin' no names."

Mountain folk are often scornful of "new-fangled ways."
"A body darsen get above their raisin', sendin' off to the
level land for liniment and bitters for ailmints," Aunt
Linthie Thacker maintains. "A fidity bag around a
youngin's neck is a heap surer to keep off deezize and
croup than all them new-fangled ways putt together.
Louarkie!" she admonishes her young kinswoman, "putt
that fidity bag around little Ero's neck and keep it thar
till he quits wheezin'." Little Ero's protest against the
foul-smelling asafetida is futile. His mother places the
small lump of gum in a rag and with a string torn from
her worn apron, if no other is at hand, ties it around the
neck of the young sufferer. He wears it day and night.

And again the old woman calls out, "Mind you, Lou-
arkie! You send straightway for Little Bill Bob Nethercutt
him that never set eyes on his own pappy on account
Little Bill Bob bein' bornt all of three month after Big Bill
Bob were laid a corpse in his grave. That youngin can stop
the mouth rash of your baby child, I tell ye! All he's got
to do is to blow his breath in the mouth of the leetle suf-
ferin' babe. The thrash has got to git when the likes of
Little Bill Bob Nethercutt blows in the mouth of the slob-
berin', sufferin' babe."

And forthwith the trusting young mother, not taking
time to send for Little Bill Bob, took her babe in arms
and hurried along the footpath over the mountain to the
hearth of young widder Nethercutt, wishing every step of
the way, you may be sure, for the thrash to be cured. And
there with the babe she sat until Little Bill Bob stepped

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WAYS OF THEIR FORBEARS

up to the baby and looked curiously at it until it opened
wide its flaming little lips. Bill Bob blew his breath into
the baby's mouth with all his might. From that day on,
the young mother and Aunt Linthie will tell you, the rash
left the baby's mouth and never did come back.

"Now if a child is peevish and suffers no end from ear
ache/' Aunt Alice on Troublesome Creek told me one day,
"and there's an old granny woman handy puffin' her pipe,
let her blow smoke in the leetle uns ear. That will ease
the misery. But there's another cure, and a heap more
lasty." Then Aunt Alice goes to the door of her cabin and
brings in a bottle that has been hanging on the outside
wall, a bottle filled with mullein bloom.

"You pick the bloom in the summer month. And make
sure," she added on second thought, "you hang your bot-
tle where it gets the morning sun not the evenin' sun.
Along about blackberry time is best to pick the bloom,
and don't putt too many in the bottle at one time. The
sun draws the oil out of the bloom," she explained, as with
a feather dipped into the bottle she dropped a few drops
of the oil into the ear of the sufferer. "It's a good way to
learn of healin' yarbs and all such," Aunt Alice says, "to
let the least uns see for themselves how sartin is the cure."

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WORK GOES ON IN A PRIMITIVE WAY ALONG THE
lonely creeks and in the quiet hollows. There
are daughters of Big Sandy who, like Lucretia,
prefer to spin, and like Elizabeth prefer to wash at the
battling block, make their own soap with wood ashes, and
lye in the hopper, than to depend upon markets for in-
come, and stores for their needs. They have neglected
time-saving and labor-saving devices of this machine age,
yet they have preserved a precious heritage, and a freedom
from the economic ills of the machine age. They need no
trained experts to advise them how to spend their spare
time. In the philosophy of the mountain woman whose
hours are crowded with toil, "tomorrow is another day
that's not been teched." What is not finished today can
wait until the morrow. There is no need of hurry, no
breathless pursuit of this engagement and that. Women
folk in the Big Sandy country still have time to be neigh-
borly, to take the day to visit and relax.

Men folk share each other's work and fun, and hand
down to their sons the ways of their elders. Both in play
and work they vie with one another to excel. They put
their strength to all sorts of tests; who can chop the fastest,
who can fell the most trees in a given time; who can lift

WORK

the heaviest load; who is cleverest in pitching horseshoes.
Mountain men are resourceful and able to earn a living in
more ways than one. Almost all of them do some farming,
and raise some livestock. They are clever carpenters, and
skillful, if elementary, engineers, and work, when they can
get it, on roads, bridges, buildings, and in lumber camps.
Many of them dig a little coal from a pit on their own
farms. The men of Big Sandy have inherited traits of
making use of everything at hand. They utilize tanbark,
which they ship down the river to tanneries, sawdust,
which is packed between the plank walls of their own ice
houses or used for refrigerator cars; even the dry leaves of
the tree make warm bedding for hogs. Short pieces of wood
are cut to keg lengths and barrel lengths and shipped to
the mill towns down the river for nail kegs and flour bar-
rels; spoke and hub factories, too, down in the mill towns,
get their supply from the Big Sandy country.

They are an ingenious and self-reliant people, capable
of long hours of work which they find less irksome than
that of the paid day laborer, for they are independent.
Whatever they do is upon their own ground and for them-
selves. They are not toiling under set rules, they punch no
time clock, they are not clouding their minds with specu-
lation on overtime nor is theirs the hazard of being late,
docked, or fired. They are spared the anxiety of competi-
tion. The earth is theirs! It will yield the fruits of their
labor. They do not have to depend upon canned food,
canned music, or canned sermons. All these things are
theirs, free as Salvation, if they but utilize the things at
hand. And most of them do.

Co-operative work, so essential in the old frontier days,
is still the custom. A week or two before the event, the

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word is spread around. "Bunyan's son is going to be mar-
ried. Bunyan has give out the word of their house raising."
Bunyan, the father, has given his son the logs with which
to make his house, and a "house seat," a level piece of land
on which to put the stone foundation. It is the way of the
son to settle on the same creek where his father before him
has settled, a little farther up.

The neighbors will even take time "out of the crop" if
necessary to help raise the house. I have seen a log house,
one room with a lean-to kitchen, of freshly cut, unseasoned
planks, chimney and all, completed in one day's time, so
that by the time the infare, which lasts three days, is over,
the happy couple start life under their own roof. And as
the seasons roll around they follow the same pursuits that
have gone on with their neighbors year after year.

Another communal activity is corn shucking, in the
autumn, with all the fun that goes with it: the watchful
lad with his eye peeled for a red ear, so that he may kiss
the blushing girl at his side; and when the husked ears
have been tossed into barrel and bin, the floor of the barn
is swept and Bunyan strikes up a tune on the fiddle and
calls a "set." They dance till crack of dawn.

To this day sorghum makin' is an occasion when all
hands join in. One autumn day when I was wandering
through the country, nothing would do but that I go along
with Jord and Analozie to watch the men makin' sorghum
off on George's Creek.

"Mind the prankin' youngins!" Jord warned, "lest they
tole you off to the skimmin' hole. Hit's aggreevatin' to sot
foot in the gorm and hit sticks tighter'n a leech!" He cast
about a searching eye. "Mind, Woman!" he grabbed my
arm, "you all but sot foot in the hole!" At his warning I

WORK

stepped around the skimming hole, carefully concealed
under stalks of cane and dry leaves.

We looked on for a while as the boys and men fed the
sugar cane to the mill, a portable affair and crudely built.
It was mounted on two iron wheels and in this way hauled
by its owner from place to place wherever there was a
patch of cane. Cane growers paid for the use of the mill
with cash money or with jugs of sorghum, as they were
able, or as the owner chose. Often, during the process of
sorghum makin', town folk journeying through the coun-
try stop to buy a jug or two of the thick syrup. The children
stand about chewing the green sweet sticks of cane and
dipping them into the boiling syrup. Just to be sociable
I too dipped a cane stalk and made a poor pretense of
relishing its sweetness. Even the babies were on hand, and
the young daughters of the house. "Hit is lasty sweetnin',"
said Jord, who was chewing with a relish. I agreed heartily,
with inward reservations, for I had had my fill of sorghum
long years ago when, on father's meager wages in a mill
town, sorghum and biscuit had been our daily fare.

With a perforated tin spoon fastened to a long wood
handle the sorghum maker skims the foam from the top
of the boiling syrup and tosses it into the "skimmin' hole."
There are some eight or ten pens in which the syrup boils
until it reaches the proper stage. Starting as a juice almost
colorless when it is squeezed from the cane stalks, as it
reaches the boiling point in the first pans it begins to take
on a light green shade, then passing from pan to pan it
becomes a light golden brown. In the last stages, when it
has become thick, it is a rich dark brown. It is run off into
jugs, glass jars and even into deep tin lard cans containing
several gallons.

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Sorghum molasses is indispensable on the table of
mountain folk. It is delicious if you like it on corn bread
or hot biscuit. It is good for mixing into gingerbread or
cake and is an excellent substitute for jelly and preserves.
I have often seen men, my own father among them, pour
sorghum into a cup of coffee, and a goodly portion of thick
sorghum over apple pie. It can be kept indefinitely and is
just as welcome on the table in midsummer as in winter,
spring and fall.

Sorghum is matchless for making taffy, and many a
winter evening has been happily spent when the mother
of the household puts on the big iron pot, fills it half way
with sorghum, and boils it till it drops "jest right" from a
spoon into a dipper of cold water. When it begins to
harden at once when it reaches the water, she knows it has
boiled long enough. Then it is poured out into plates, well-
greased to keep it from sticking, and when cool enough to
handle, the girls, having buttered or greased their hands,
pull and pull until the golden brown turns to a snowy
white. Then it is twisted into ropes and placed in coils and
heart designs on buttered plates to harden. It is broken
up into short pieces and passed around to everyone, and
so a pleasant evening passes. Even in taffy pulling there is
a spirit of friendly rivalry, all trying to pull their taffy the
whitest or to coil it into the prettiest designs on the plate.

Now take apple-butter makin' time. Buckleys give out
the word there'll be an apple peeling at their house on a
Friday, and old and young gather to lend a helping hand.
Even the children come to pack wood and corn cobs to
keep the "kittle bilin'." A great iron kettle it is, copper
lined. Jethro and Lizzie wash the jars, and Little Eddie
keeps the crocks filled with big apples as fast as the women

9 1

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peel and core and dump them into the kettle. And there is
a game to lighten the work: this time it is Nancy Ellen
Driffield, "her that Abe Mosby has been makin' eyes at
ever since the play party at Kinsfords last corn-plantin'
time," who tries her fortune by tossing an apple peel over
her left shoulder to see if it will spell out the name of her
own true love. Though the peel did not spell out the name
on the first try, Nancy Ellen vowed it made the letter "A/'
or it would have if the briggity little youngins hadn't
messed it up. So Aunt Ruthie, who had been stirring the
kettle all of an hour, vowed Nancy Ellen "ort to have an-
other chanct," and she did. Aunt Ruthie saw to that. She
kept the briggity, prankin' youngins in their place and at
a distance from the love-lorn Nancy, not by scolding, but
by means of a plate of taffy, made the day before and put
away on the cupboard shelf for this very occasion. On sec-
ond trial Nancy Ellen, undisturbed, had much better luck.
The apple peel, with a little help from Aunt Ruthie, sure
enough spelled out the given name of the girl's true love.
There it was on the ground where all could see, behind
Nancy Ellen's chair.

By the middle of the afternoon Aunt Ruthie vowed she
was tuckered out stirrin', so she passed the long-handled
stirrer on to the eager hands of Sallie Tinsley. Whereupon
the girls began to titter and sing:

Once around and twice in the middle,
That's the way to stir an apple-butter kittle.

While they sang, that fisty Little Bill Ryder tried his level
best to bump Sallie's elbow, so the stirrer would touch the
side of the kettle. Brock Sturges, who had been seen whis-
pering to Little Bill and pressing a penny into his hand,

92

Frank EJam

Sorghum makin'

Frank Elam

The sorghum mill

WORK

was watching his chance to jump from behind the milk
house and claim the forfeit, a kiss from Sallie's luscious
lips. "Mind!" playfully cautioned Aunt Ruthie, "you
darsen tech the side of the kittle with the stirrer, Sallie
Tinsley! You know full well the forfeit!" All the rest knew
too and they knew full well Sallie Tinsley was trying her
level best to do that very thing. Many a long day Brock
had yearned to kiss Sallie, nor did he wait in vain. Sallie
did touch the stirrer against the kettle's side and amid the
gay laughter and good-natured teasing of all the gathering,
Brock claimed the forfeit, Sallie tittering and fluttering her
eyelashes and squirming, to make out she was too surprised
to squeal.

While the apple-butter making continued, Aunt Ruthie,
who was like a cricket, never still a minute, hurried to look
after the churning. "I nigh forgot/ 7 she declared, "that
churn has been standin' yonder by the well shed better of
two hour." At her heels followed Tinie Estep, always ready
to help. Loved to win praise, did Tinie, for being willing.
Soon as the yellow flecks of butter began to come, Tinie
up with a mug of cold water from the well and poured in
"a leetle at a time like Aunt Ruthie said," to make the
flecks stick together, to wash them down into the churn
through the small round opening in the wooden lid,
through which the dasher moved at a lively clip in the sure
hand of Aunt Ruthie.

By the time the butter had "come" and was made into
a neat pat, with a rose impressed on the top by the carved
wood mold, and placed in cellar house, someone who was
stirring the apple butter called out: "Ready to jar!" The
young girls had in the meantime washed and scalded the
earthen jars that held a gallon each; made ready the tin

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lids, scoured clean as a hound's tooth with wood ashes;
brought out the stick of red sealing wax. The jars were
placed in a dishpan of hot water with a towel wrapped
around them to keep the heat even. Then Aunt Ruthie,
with the long-handled spoon, dipped out the reddish-
brown apple butter into each, while other deft hands fol-
lowed, putting on the lid, sealing it fast with melted wax.
"By evening, long before milkin' time," Aunt Ruthie pre-
dicted, "they'll be cool enough to pack into cellar house
and put on the shelves. And don't forget, Tinie, I want you
should take home a jar to old Granny Estep, she's fretted
so because she couldn't come help."

While they wisely rely on themselves as much as they
can, and on "foreign markets" as little as possible, a cash
crop, with a lively market, is as welcome in the Big Sandy
country as elsewhere, and one of the best export crops is
ginseng. Since the earliest settlements there have been
"sang diggers." My earliest recollection of ginseng was
seeing a heap of the dried roots piled high on the counter
of my uncle's general store. The men and women from
whom he bought for money, and "swapped store things"
in exchange for, the medicinal root came from all over to
trade with him. The virtues of the root were first discov-
ered, and highly prized, in China; so great was the demand
for it there, the plant was almost exterminated. When
another variety was discovered in North America, it be-
came, along with furs, one of the principal products ex-
changed for tea and silks in the days of the clipper ships.

Often I have seen patient old men and women and even
little children, with a short-handled, eyed hoe, digging on
mountainside and in deep ravine for precious ginseng
roots. So great was the demand, the American variety is

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now rare in the wild state. The plant is now cultivated, but
it is a difficult crop, since it takes three or four years to
mature. It was only last year that I saw for the first time
a "sang" plot, and Jasper, its owner, was pleased to let me
take his likeness close by his unusual garden. He had made
an arbor of willows, which he had cut down by the river,
and covered it over with boughs so as to shade his crop,
which grows well only in deep shade. And he stood over
it with a long-barreled squirrel rifle, guard not against the
ruthless hand of man, for mountain folk do not willfully
destroy another's possessions, but to be on the lookout for
the "varmint" that might steal down from the mountain-
side and burrow under the roots and lay waste the "sang."
That was Jasper's enemy. The old powder horn that he
wore had served him, like his father before him, many a
long year. "This eye hoe my grandsir fashioned his own
self on the anvil yonder," Jasper indicated the rusty anvil
under a near-by shed, "and he whittled his own hoe han-
dles too. I reckon." Jasper reflected a second. "This hoe
has wore out all of two score handles in its time."

A small hoe it was, no wider than a child's hand. There
was a round eye in the middle through which the handle
was thrust. Both ends of the blade were sharpened. The
handle was about eighteen inches long. "Take you a good
hand holt like this," Jasper showed me, "and honker down
on the ground and dig out the roots. Sangin' is powerful
wearisome on the back and hip j'ints ginst you dig all
day."

On the ridge back of his house Jasper also showed me
his row of "bee gums" hollowed logs that once had been
gum trees set upon slabs of rock and each covered with

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WORK

a slab of stone he had brought from the creek bed. "A
body takes two sticks this way/' he crossed his fingers by
way of explanation, "then you putt the sticks inside the
hollered log; see them holes in the side where they're
stickin' out? Well, the bees make their honeycomb on
them sticks and we lift them out when they're filled." He
had learned that art from his "elders" he told me.

"Colonel Jim" Hatcher, owner and manager of the
Hatcher Hotel, in Pikeville, makes a hobby of collecting
relics and tools of the Big Sandy country, and his hotel
lobby is an amusing and amazing museum of the divers
interests of its host. Here you may find in one corner a
spinning wheel, a flax wheel, a broken bull-tongue plow;
over there an ox yoke, a ponderous wood affair that bowed
the stubborn heads of many an ox that plodded unbeaten
mountain trails. In a glass case in another corner there's a
faded homespun linsey-woolsey dress; elsewhere are Indian
relics, a flint-lock gun of the days of the Revolution and no
end of petrified curiosities. "Colonel Jim" takes a delight
in showing visitors his collection, and giving them the
benefit of his wisdom and information about the region.

"We had silk worms workin' for us hereabout when I
was a boy, just like they worked for the Chinamen in
twenty-six hundred B.C." He squints an eye toward the
ceiling, enumerates with silent motion of the lips. "Let's
see, that's about four thousand, five hundred and forty
years ago." And when the amazed newcomer catches his
breath at this startling observation, he goes on in his quiet
way to tell how mountain folk carefully tended the "seed,"
as the eggs are called. "The female moth or butterfly lays
from two hundred to five hundred bluish eggs, early in the

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spring. The eggs must be kept at an even temperature until
the following spring. That's why we kept ours in a room of
the house. Then, that next spring, the larvae begin to eat,
after you put them on mulberry leaves or some other fit
foliage. They eat till they just naturally bust out of their
hides. Then they start eating all over again/'

This process, Colonel Jim will tell you, is repeated "four
times in six weeks. Then they start spinnin'! Yes, they spin
with a vim. Think of it, from a creature no more than a
fourth of an inch long to begin with, it spins during its
next five days a double filament of silk from two thousand
to three thousand feet long."

Then Colonel Jim proudly displays a pair of silk stock-
ings which his own mother wore at her wedding, made
from cocoons she cultivated herself. "Why, in my young
day," he will tell you, "women made their own silk dresses.
They raised their own silk worms and were a thrifty lot.
They used cotton to keep the top of the stocking from
stretching out of place. See that!" He points to the narrow
cotton band knitted at the top of the faded pair of home-
made silk stockings. "Cotton was once grown in plenty
here, too, and it was used along with wool and silk for
clothing. Kentucky could still produce silk if necessary/'
he declares. "These silk stockings, that my mother wore
at her wedding, once they were the shade of old gold, but
you see now they're faded from time to nearly a straw
color. Judging from their weight I reckon as many as a
half-dozen pairs of the sheer flimsy silk stockings women
folk wear today could be produced from this heavy pair/'

As a boy, he likes to recall, when his folks were raising
silk worms, they placed them upon thickly leafed mulberry

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branches in a vacant room, through which he had to pass
to his own bedroom. He says to this day the memory of
the rustling sound made by the worms eating upon the
mulberry leaves as he, a frightened little boy, hurried
through the dark room, sends a shiver up his spine.

5

DAFFY JOHN

THE GREATEST WEALTH OF THE BIG SANDY HILLS
waited a long time for its proper development. It
was unnoticed, or ignored as of no value, in the
early days when men came for furs, or hurried on toward
the broad, flat, fertile lands to the west. Even the vast
wealth of virgin timber was at first burned as a nuisance,
and although outcroppings of coal may have been known,
pools of oil discovered, and salt licks recognized as indi-
cating salt mines in the vicinity, the use of these minerals
was for a long time purely local, and the industry undevel-
oped, because the commerce of the nation was not yet
ready for it.

In prehistoric times the Big Sandy district was once a
subtropical forest, and it was then that the present beds
of petroleum and coal were laid down. Later the region lay
under an ocean, and great quantities of salt were deposited
with the sediment, which became concentrated in certain
places in almost pure salt beds. Salt mining was one of the
early large-scale industries of the district; oil, natural gas,
and coal, are now much more important.

One winter morning I sat in the dilapidated office of the
county attorney in an isolated county seat of the Big Sandy
country, typing a transcript of evidence in a land suit

99

DAFFY JOHN

which was to be retried at the ensuing term of court. Look-
ing up from my notebook at a sudden sound behind me,
I saw a stalwart fellow in the doorway. His patched and
faded breeches, bagging at the knees, were stuffed into
high-topped boots. His ruddy complexion and startlingly
white teeth seemed not at all to match the squinty eyes
reduced to mere slits behind thick spectacles. His wide-
brimmed felt rested low on a shock of reddish-brown hair.
In the lapel of his coat was a tissue-paper nosegay, the
fringed and gaily colored tissue used in those days for
wrapping the sticks of white chewing gum to be found in
a glass jar on the shelves of every country store. From the
make-believe nosegay my eyes moved to the fellow's
shoulder, for there rested a bulging, hide-covered trunk,
bound around with a well-worn leather strap. He peered at
me, then, tossing the trunk to the floor near the glowing
pot-bellied stove, he doffed his dilapidated felt and bowed
to me in princely fashion.

"Are you a typewriter?" he asked in his slow mountain
way, pointing a short forefinger to my portable.

"I am sometimes called a typewriter," I admitted,
without the vestige of a smile. Being a court stenographer
in the mountains of Kentucky soon teaches one self-
control.

"Well, you are the woman the jedge fetched on, ain't
you?" he asked, replacing his hat and wiping his face with
a bedraggled bandana. "That is to say, you're the woman
that sets down what a body testifies in court, and then
when you have writ it off on that contrapshun you have
yearned a wight o' sil'er?"

"That is how I earn my living," I answered, charmed

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DAFFY JOHN

with the quaint beauty of his speech, the music of his
voice.

"That's what I wanted to git at/' said he. "Now,
Woman/' squatting beside the trunk he unstrapped it
and flung back the lid, "there's a passel of letters writ by
some fellers out in the level land, and I allow to make
answer. I warn't aimin' to go no furder than this office
here. Bein' as you swap the lawyer writin's for the use of
the place" (news travels swiftly, I thought) , "I 'lowed
me and you could strike a deal. That is to say, iffen you're
not too contrarious to put trust in a body's word for your
hire till I git my draw from the county for keepin' school.
Mought be we can get on." He looked earnestly at me.
"I crave to set about the task," he concluded in his charm-
ing mountain fashion.

I flashed a look at the letter-filled trunk, then fixed a
dubious eye upon the little tissue-paper nosegay in the
faded coat lapel. "Poor fellow," I thought, "he's answered
an ad in the old Fireside Weekly: 'Send us your name and
receive big mail.' "

"It's not what you think," he said sternly. It was as if
the fellow had read my very thoughts. He chuckled good
naturedly. "These fellers have all writ me, do you appre-
ciate that, Woman?" He crossed the room and stood be-
side my table, with thumbs hooked in his braided-bark
galluses. "Now, if you're not afeared to confidence me and
write some answers to the letters on this typewritin' con-
trapshun, so's they'll look fit and proper, I'll give you my
note for your hire. And I'll take hit up 'twixt now and
corn plantin' not waitin' for the draw from my school.
Speak your mind, Woman!" He stood with hands clasped
behind him. The earnestness of his voice, his pride in

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DAFFY JOHN

wanting the letters "fit and proper/' his eagerness to be at
the task, brought my quick consent.

"Bring out the letters/' I said, releasing from my port-
able the unfinished document on which I had been work-
ing, and without delay we proceeded to "make answer"
that looked as "fit and proper" as painstaking efforts and
a portable could make them. In a straightforward manner
he replied to the inquiries of various individuals and com-
panies interested in purchasing certain mineral rights and
timber rights on lands upon which he had options.

When the work was finished, with the utmost care he
drew up a note for one dollar and twenty-five cents, to
cover my service for one month in answering letters to the
"fellers out in the level land/' Though I tried to assure
him a note was unnecessary; I'd trust him; he would not
have it that way. "A body's got to be businesslike/' he
declared, handing me the note which I tucked away in the
pocket of my dress. After that he drew his chair closer to
the table and proceeded painstakingly to sign the letters
with the rusty, ink-crusted pen that lay on the table. When
they were folded and sealed he tied the bundle with a
strand of red yarn brought from the depths of his breeches
pocket.

"I allus pack it along/' said he. "Ricollict the story
about the 'Bit of Whipcord' in the McGuffey Reader?"
And without ado he proceeded to recite long passages
from the lesson of "Waste Not, Want Not," and with
growing enthusiasm proceeded to quote from Shakespeare,
poems of Tennyson, of Lord Byron.

"A body that follers school teachin' like me takes de-
light in declaimin'," he offered half apologetically. "When
I get started, 'pears like I don't know when to stop.

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DAFFY JOHN

Woman, do you appreciate/' he leaned forward to con-
fide, "when ma were a-livin' she were in hopes I'd get the
callin' to preach, like Uncle Luke Burris off yonder on
Forsaken; he's dead and gone these ten year or more."
He paused reflectively. "He fit agin preachin', did Uncle
Luke, same as I tried to fight agin this hure," he extended
wide-spread palms toward the bundle of letters. "It's a
callin'!" he declared earnestly, "just the same as preachin'
the Word! And some day folks'll come into the light of
what I'm aimin' to do. And them that confidence me will
be a heap better off. Not in speerit, exactly, I don't mean
to say," he hastened to explain, "though what I crave to
do is not agin the Word. In no wise! It's not contrarious
to the teachin' of Script're. Fact is, it's bound to bring
satisfaction and comfort in a body's way of livin'."

Drawing nearer, he placed a mittened hand upon the
rickety table and whispered confidently, "Woman, do you
appreciate there's a giant a-sleepin' under these mountains?
Been there for a thousand years, I reckon, though there's
some that don't credit it, for all there's the sign! Streaked
along the mountainside plain as the nose on a man's face.
But I darsen name it to some, leastwise to the sheriff.
He makes mock of my notions." For a moment he gazed
steadily at his mud-covered boots, the patched breeches.
His hands hung limply at his sides. "I've hear-ed his flouts
and the taynts of the others, too, when I've passed along
the road when I come here to the county seat," he said
resignedly, "but a body has to lay under a heap when
they've got a callin'! Uncle Luke did." The speaker's
shoulders straightened. "I hear their flouts, but I just turn
a deef ear to their jibes, as if I didn't hear nary word.
There's a fortune in coal in these hills, and it's ready, now,

103

DAFFY JOHN

to be used/' He sighed. "It's a satisfaction to speak a
body's mind when there's a willin' ear."

He eyed me suspiciously, as if uncertain whether or not
to confide further in me. Finally he did. "You see," he
argued, "the way of it is this. I like to make on, to make
believe that one of these days everything will turn out like
I calculate. That we will dig out the treasures under this
yearth, right here under these mountains. There is a giant
a-sleepin', a giant made of coal! And one of these days,
ginst I get them folks out in the level land satisfied of it,
them that writ the letters, they'll come here with cash
money to holp me open up these mountainsides and turn
that giant free! We'll live to see the day you and me."
Pocketing the yarn-bound letters, he pulled on his mittens,
shouldered the hide-covered trunk, and stalked out.

Scarcely had the strange visitor gone than the sheriff
came swaggering in. Chuckling, he tapped a finger to
forehead, glancing back over his shoulder. "He's quare.
Some say he's crazy as a March hare. Some call him King
Coal!" the sheriff guffawed loudly. "King Coal! fancy
that!" He held his sides and guffawed the louder. "Come
to think of it, he's brought it on his own self. Rovin' over
these mountains and peerin' at the yearth, scratchin' at it
with pick or maddox, whatever he can lay hands to. Mum-
blin' to hisself in his scatter-brained fashion about a giant
that's sleepin' under these mountains. Daffy John! That's
the name he wears mostly around here, though the judge
and some of the lawyers call him big soundin' names
'The Man of Vision!' and 'John the Teacher!' and such as
that," the sheriff scoffed. "But as far as I'm able to see the
name of Daffy John fits him p'int blank!"

I did not trust the sheriff too much, for he belonged to

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DAFFY JOHN

that most loathsome category in the sight of the mountain
folk: to them he was a "hill billy/' His job had gone to his
head, what with a few trips in the exercise of his official
duties to the state capital, and other sojourns in big cities
to bring back offenders of the law who had "escaped be-
yond the bounds of the commonwealth" as he boastfully
put it. Indeed, the sheriff took delight in pokin' fun at his
own people, the mountain people, delighted in holding
them up to ridicule. That made him an out-and-out hill
billy. But I was interested in my recent visitor, so I let the
sheriff talk. Perhaps I led him on a bit.

"Daffy John takes every solitary dollar he draws from
the county for teachin' school and puts it on land options.
Quare notion, too, he's got, o' packin' that old valise
around on his back. If he's bound to pack somethin' he'd
ort to get hisself a new leather telescope." The sheriff
meant a brief case. "If he had a grain o' wits he'd buy his-
self some fitten wearin' clothes too, 'stead of goin' around
lookin' like a scarecrow in patches and plaited-bark gal-
luses." The sheriff took occasion to fling back his coat and
thumb his red suspenders with glistening buckles, making
sure, as he did so, that the finger with the huge red set
ring was crooked just so. "Fact is, he'd better watch his
step. Sarie Fraley says to me, jest t'other day, 'Sheriff,'
says she, 'Sheriff, I don't want to pack no tales, but I seen
Daffy John stop old Tizzie Cardwell on the road t'other
day and the pore old critter jest rubbed her hands one
round t'other and sobbed somethin' pitiful, sayin', "I'll do
what I kin, John. Til try." 'Sheriff,' says Sarie, 'do you
appreciate that Daffy John was skeerin' that old woman
into lettin' him have a option on her land? He'd ort to be
took off,' says Sarie, and I agree with her."

105

DAFFY JOHN

Sometimes, I came to learn, the sheriff even went be-
yond scoffing, and was openly antagonistic.

"Daffy John'll get an option on your land/' he told
some mountain people, "and first thing you know he will
sell you out to them sharp city fellers he's writin' letters
to. Claims he's goin' to make you rich, does he? Fiddle-
sticks! He'll do well if he don't end up a charge on the
commonwealth his own self, in the county poorhouse, or
state lunatic asylum!"

One day after I had finished writing a number of options
for Daffy John, he sat for a while talking of things that
had happened on Lonesome, of commonplace events on
Forsaken, and the doings of this one and that one out on
Peevish, and Possum Trot, on Levisa and far-off Brushy.
He talked of his plans for the future.

"Like I were sayin'," he had a way of beginning abruptly
after a silence, "nigh everybody has a callin' for one thing
or another. And no matter what a body does there are
some who ever doubt their intent." He gazed reflectively
toward the hills. "Like the sheriff and Sarie Fraley. I
reckon," he added philosophically, gathering up his be-
longings and shouldering the hide-covered trunk, "there'll
always be a doubtin' Thomas on this yearth! I vow, iff en
the good Lord Hisself was to set foot in these mountains
of Kentucky, the sheriff would pick a flaw with Him and
throw out flouts against Him! That's the sheriff's callin'.
We've got to bear with one another in this world if" He
stopped abruptly as the sheriff swaggered into the room.

"We've got to bear, I reckon," he snickered, "with that
giant that's sleepin' under the mountains. Nohow, John,
giant or no giant, I've got a warrant for you!" He produced
a paper from an inside coat pocket. "Mistress Tizzie Card-

106

DAFFY JOHN

well appears to have cause for complaint. She seems to be
reasonably sure you are removing, without her knowledge
or consent, quantities of coal from her land, certain parts,
mebbe, on which you've not got a lease. Fact is, John,
Tizzie Cardwell charges you with theft!"

"Theft!" The bespectacled teacher gasped. The hide-
covered trunk fell from his shoulder.

"Pick up your contrapshuns!" commanded the sheriff
authoritatively. "You best come peaceable. . . ."

As the date of the trial drew near, gossip ran high.
"Sarie Fraley's up to her old tricks. Sarie's been talkin' to
Tizzie, to my notion," some argued. "No knowin'," others
countered. "Could be, John's tryin' to get the best of old
Tizzie, cheatin' her maybe. Can't always tell." There were
those who were eager to suspicion "The Man of Vision."

At length the case got under way, with two of the coun-
ty's most promising lawyers engaged by the teacher; the
judge being replaced, because of his avowed friendliness
for the defendant, by a special jurist from another circuit
to sit on the case.

Plaintiff's counsel was belligerent from the outset. "You
have removed coal from a certain portion of the land of
Mistress Tizzie Cardwell without making an accounting
therefor to her," prodded Tizzie's lawyer, kinsman of the
sheriff.

"I have a lease" began the teacher on the witness
stand.

"That's conceded!" snapped the lawyer. "You have a
lease for a certain portion of the land, but you have made
no accounting for coal removed. Is that not the fact?"

"It takes time to make an accurate accounting," replied

107

DAFFY JOHN

the teacher nervously, "but it is my intent to make fitten
and proper accounting"

"You'll oblige the court by making direct answer!"
thundered the special judge.

"Haven't you on several occasions met the plaintiff,
Mistress Tizzie Cardwell, an aged woman, as you gentle-
men of the jury see," plaintiff's counsel flung an impressive
hand toward Tizzie, quaking in her seat on the front
bench. "Have you not answer yes or no," thundered the
lawyer "met this plaintiff on the road and threatened
her?"

"I have not!"

"Did you not, on the night of Friday of last week, go
to the home of one Mistress Sarie Fraley, in the absence
of her husband" the lawyer paused, watching the effect
of his words on the defendant and the jury, "in the ab-
sence of her husband," he repeated carefully, "and attempt
to coerce"

"I never in my life set foot in Sarie Fraley's house.
Never!" cried the amazed teacher, his face bloodless.

"I'll put it this way, then," the sheriff's kinsman glow-
ered at the defendant. "Did you not, on Friday of last
week, come to the door of one Sarie Fraley and standing
there on the stoop attempt to coerce and intimidate the
said Sarie Fraley, avowed friend of the aged plaintiff here,
with regard to the trial of this case?"

Again John answered firmly in the negative.

Plaintiff's counsel continued to "put it this way," and
to "state the question another way," with all sorts of in-
sinuating inflections in his voice. The trial went on for
several days, with new witnesses being introduced from
time to time, whispered bickerings between the old

108

DAFFY JOHN

woman's lawyer and defendant's counsel, murmured sug-
gestions of compromise. But Daffy John would have none
of it. "I'll fight this thing to a finish/' I heard him say to
his lawyers, "though I've not a dollar in my pocket. It
takes all I can lay hands on to pay the miners. But if you'll
take my note," he pleaded, "I'll make it good in time. I
just can't stop the work of gettin' out coal now. Don't you
see I'm bound to make a showin' to the prospectors? If
I'm blocked in my work now, it will plumb ruin every-
thing. If my creditors will just bear with me it's bound to
come out right. And I darsen compromise and plumb ruin
all the future!"

After a ten days' trial, the court was satisfied with John's
accounting, but by the time the next term of court rolled
around, old Tizzie CardwelFs wasn't the only law suit
against him. Law suits continued to multiply with the in-
creased output of coal. At that time he had removed only
wagonloads at a few openings of seams. Despite the law
suits he kept resolutely to his course, even though his law-
yers advised that he quit fooling with the undertaking.
They pointed out to him the cost of the increasing litiga-
tion, the ill feeling among the people on whose land he
held option. It would take capital and a lot of it to develop
a mine worth while, they declared. Still he persisted.

One afternoon, at the close of another wearisome day
in court, seated in the office where he had been dictating
more letters to the prospectors, he remarked in his quiet
way: "Woman, I've been studyin'. Seems like if a body
remains an earthworm, no one takes notice of him, but
the minute he dares lift his head, then something happens.
Them that don't understand a body's intent and don't
want to see his aim, they begin to put all sorts of stumblin'

109

DAFFY JOHN

blocks in the way." He straightened his shoulders. "But
come what will, I don't aim to give up!" For a long time
he pondered in silence while I continued to type letters
to "the fellers out in the level land." Presently he looked
up. "I've got an idee! If I can get a loan from some of
them men out yonder, without lettin' loose of the control
of my options and leases, I could get me some diggin'
machinery. Diggin' machinery that would beat this here
pick-and-shovel business all holler! If I could get as much
as two thousand dollars, I could make a sure-enough start."

But even his good friend, the judge, though he felt cer-
tain there was a future to coal mining on the teacher's
options, advised him not to "bite off more than he could
chew." "Money's scarce," counseled his honor, "and two
thousand dollars is a lot of money for you to hazard on an
undertaking. Besides, you've got all these law suits against
you, and your notes out to this one and that. And remem-
ber, the prospectors you've been dickering with could step
in and swallow you up."

However, that very day, John dictated letter after letter
appealing for loans. As the months went by he kept pa-
tiently at his task, with now and then a small advance from
the men out in the level land. It strained not only his pa-
tience, but his physical endurance, to manipulate the
advances, small though they were, to the best advantage,
and at the same time not surrender his options either to
the "city fellers," or turn them back to those suing him
first on one charge and then another. His clothes became
shabbier as time went on. Even so, every dollar he earned
from teaching went to another option and yet another on
mineral rights of land, the surface of which, hilly and rug-

110

DAFFY JOHN

ged in many instances, could produce no more than a
straggling corn patch.

The judge grew impatient with the "foolhardy carryings
on" of the teacher and told him as much. "You'll come to
downright want, John," he argued. "Give up this pursuit.
It is not that I don't agree with you that there is a fortune
in mineral there under the mountains, but, my friend, it's
just a bigger job than you, one man, ought to tackle. My
good friend," the judge reasoned earnestly, "you could
earn a comfortable living in some other field. You might
even run for county superintendent of schools. You like
educational work." John's look said louder than words,
"You too, losing faith in me!" After that the subject was
rarely mentioned between them, but John plodded on.

The judge declared he could not conscientiously be a
party to seeing his friend go headlong to ruin and dis-
appointment. "Though there is no doubt the giant is sleep-
ing under these mountains, it takes money and lots of it
to realize a vision!" His honor thereupon reiterated for
the hundredth time the story of his friend, down in the
Blue Grass, who rose from struggling clerk to the Supreme
Court bench. We all knew that story of hardship and
heartbreak. "But it took money and pull. My friend of
the Blue Grass was still paying off notes and obligations
at the time of his death and he lived to be eighty-nine!
I'd not want to see our teacher travel that same thorny
path. Sometimes I blame myself for ever having encour-
aged him. I should not have called him a man of vision."
The judge's troubled eyes followed the retreating figure,
far down the road, bearing the hide-covered trunk on
stooped shoulder, the ragged figure trudging the road that

111

DAFFY JOHN

led to the post office and on to Lonesome Creek. "Poor
fellow, he will lose the pittance he's earned at school
teaching. He has put the last dollar of it on options. Going
about in patchesit's a shame. Denying himself even the
meager comforts of life."

Law suits, by those who had given leases, increased
against him with each term of court. Despite them and the
expense incurred, the ever-growing number of notes he was
forced to make again and again to tide himself over, and
above all regardless of the scoffs and jeers of the critical,
he kept on. Sometimes when he dropped in at the office
to answer letters, when the work was over he would get to
talking. Talking more to himself, probably, than to me
seated at the typewriter. He'd bring up things of the past
history of the Big Sandy, speak of its salt mines, and of
the first time prospectors struck petroleum. "Back in
eighteen sixty-five, it was. Diggin' for one thing, found
another. That's how it goes. A man can set out to look
for something, and if he sticks at it long enough he will
find what he's lookin' for and more too." He seemed to be
arguing the point with an unseen group of listeners. "Yes,
siree, back in eighteen eighty-seven there were wise heads
that predicted there was enough gas, naterl gas, in this
Big Sandy country, if they put it to use, to run all the
machinery that was set up between Catlettsburg and
Louisville, with Cincinnati throwed into the bargain."
Suddenly he'd seem to be aware of my presence and would
turn with a startled expression. "There are some like the
men who dwelt on this yearth when the Saviour was
amongst them, who wouldn't believe facts that stared
them in the face. With many a one, seeing is not believ-

112

DAFFY JOHN

ing! But the day will come/' he'd conclude with a vim,
"when the scales will fall off their eyes/' And the next mo-
ment, like a care-free boy, he would take his homemade
recorder, the reed whistle, from his pocket, and play a
gay hornpipe, or a jig tune from the days of Good Queen
Bess. . . .

As the years went by, the letters Daffy John sent forth
to the "fellers out in the level land" had their effect. As
his enterprise grew and began to profit, it became easier
to attract capital, and law suits diminished in number.
Eventually Daffy John had built his own railroad spur to
carry out his fortune in coal. He died a multimillionaire
and many people in the Big Sandy country realized com-
forts and joys undreamed of, through his visionand their
holdings in coal! And many a one, the good judge himself
among them, was impelled to say, "he knew what he was
about." To his dying day, it is said, Daffy John clung to
the "quare" notion of lugging the old hide-covered trunk
with him, even when he took a suite in a palatial hostelry
in New York, where he often went to consult with capital-
ists. To him the old trunk was a treasured reminder of the
struggles of the past, and of a vision realized.

Once, so the story goes, when he wished to negotiate a
gigantic deal involving a fortune in money, he determined
to impress the capitalists whom he meant to approach.
He chartered a private train that bore him from the Big
Sandy's mouth to the metropolis. There he had himself
rigged out in the smartest attire a tailor could conceive,
high silk hat, spats, shining patent leather shoes, and all.
Carrying a silver-headed cane and smoking a cigar the
best in the market he strode into the imposing offices of

"3

DAFFY JOHN

the capitalist. Flicking the ash from his gold-banded cigar,
he casually dropped a comment about his private train on
which he had come to town. The capitalist's eyes flickered.
"But just oncet!" John told afterward.

"Fellers, that shiny hat, and the shiny-headed cane, and
the private train, to say nothing of the vittals I put before
him and the rest on that train, standin' on the siding that
done the trick! Well, we ett till we nigh busted ourselves.
But I was in so much misery before we got through in that
plague-taked starched white shirt I couldn't stand it no
longer. I snuck off in one end of the car and stripped and
come back to the table in my own wearin' clothes, my
patched breeches and my muddy boots. But, men, ginst
then I had all the papers signed up and in my hip pocket.
Then we all pitched in and ett some more. One of the
men, he even ett some sorghum I took along. He whiffed
the corn-cob stopper and just naturally covered his plate
with them molasses. No, sir, men, I never put a drap of
corn whiskey before 'em. I was afear-ed they couldn't
stand it. Nohow, you can get a heap more with sweetninT
than you can with sour mash." He'd chuckle to himself.
"They didn't know what a slippery log I was walkin'. Bless
you, I had blanketed every thing I had in the world to get
the money to hire that private train. But it worked! Would
you believe it, we ended up that night on the private train
with as fine a play party and frolic as ever you saw. Them
men were plumb pleased, like boys at a frolic. I played my
sassafras whistle and I sung 'em a ditty:

Get along down, down Big Sandy
Get along down Big Sandy, boys
That's the place for you
114

DAFFY JOHN

They favored it, no end. I had to sing it plumb through.
And then the old feller, the one I went to see first in his
fine big office, he had as sorry a countenance as I ever
looked on when first I went in that day to talk about the
deal. Well, before I got through singin' that ditty he was
laughin' as hearty and was spry as old Grandpa Boggs
when the Widder Stratton said she'd marry him. A old
man, he was, with one foot in the grave, you might say.
Well, sir, he up and stepped a hornpipe as spry as a boy
in his teens, after Yd sung the ditty. Seemed like before
that, the poor feller had been packin' the cares of the world
on his countenance and on his shoulders. But the frolic
and them sorghum molasses and the ditties I sung and the
hornpipe I played on my whistle all put together just nat-
urally put that old man in good heart. Chipper, he was, as
a jay bird on a fence rail in the springtime/' When John
casually mentioned the man's name the judge slumped in
his chair, for he was none other than a Wall Street mag-
nate whose yes or no made fortunes or wiped them out.
Whereas in its early stages of development, Big Sandy
shipped out its coal in small cars and on flatboats, for the
past quarter century it has gone forth in cars of from fifty
to a thousand tons capacity, upon barges of from one to
three thousand tons. Today, with electrified mines, bug-
gies operated by that power, modern mining machinery,
power houses, and gigantic coal tipples, the Big Sandy
mines produce in one day's time a tonnage equal to a
whole year's production before primitive methods and
back-breaking manual labor gave way to the inventions of
the machine age, adding up now to an annual output of
over thirty million tons. Which would seem fair proof of

"5

DAFFY JOHN

the geologist's statement: "Here in the Big Sandy coun-
try lies the nation's richest individual storehouse of fuel
energy."

All this the Man of Vision must have foreseen, even
though he was not always articulate.

116

6.

MININ' INDEPENDENT

COAL MINING IS NOW THE MAJOR INDUSTRY OF THE
Big Sandy country. There are a number of com-
panies which conduct extensive operations; with
elaborate machinery they bring out millions of tons of
bituminous coal each year, and mile-long trains of loaded
cars wind round the sharp curves along the banks of Big
Sandy each day, their rumbling wheels echoing through
the hills as they carry their freight to centers of industry,
east, north and west.

Because the district is rich in coal, with numerous out-
croppings, there are also many private mining enterprises,
small mines operated by a single man, or by father and son.
Sometimes they serve merely to provide fuel for the domes-
tic stove, sometimes they sell truckloads to the neighbor-
hood. In some cases they are mere holes in the hills, which
would be dangerous were they not so small, but in other
cases one-man coal mines are miniatures of the elaborate
company mines, with roofs shored with timbers, narrow-
gauge railways with little hand-drawn trucks to carry the
coal to the pit, and some even have a coal elevator and
scales, for loading. I visited one where the son does all the
digging with pick and shovel, and his father weighs and
sells the coal to neighbors. The strong timbers which re-
inforce the drift mouth of the mine were felled with their
own axes by grandfather, father and son, and the crude

117

MININ' INDEPENDENT

buggy to carry out the coal they also made and keep in
repair.

Uncle Tom, as the father is known, and Stephen, the
son, leave home long before daylight, taking along their
dinner in a tin bucket. There is a big raw onion cut into
quarters, thick pieces of corn bread, boiled white beans in
a cup inside the bucket, jelly or preserves in a glass. Coffee
would be cold by the time they reached the mine, there-
fore they make it hot in a tin coffee pot on the little iron
stove which is perched up on stones in the shack at the

pit.

"Of late it's got so I have to stay here all night," Uncle
Tom told me, "so I've fixed me up a bunk. The old woman
[his wife] let me have some kivvers and a piller and a cou-
pla old quilts. It's dirty around the bank so I wouldn't
fetch her best beddin' here to this place. How come it I
have to keep watch here of a night time is" he hesitated,
looking off down the road, now this way, now that,
"there's a heap o' thievin' goin' on, Woman. Would you
believe it, a feller was ketched backin' up a truck right here
at the drift mouth where I'd dumped a buggy or two of
coal. He shoveled it up and drove off into the night with
it. It's them blasted vehicles that's run without a nag that's
causin' destruction in this country. With such as that a
man can be here one minute, gone the next! Does his
meanness and thievin' and he can be gone before you
know it. Time was when a man could leave his stuff layin'
out loose. No one ever thought of botherin' it shovel,
sledge, pick, buggy, even a box of squibs that we use for
blastin' out a seam. But now everything has to be put
under lock and key." He hastened to add, "But it's not our
people that does the thievin' and pilferin'." Uncle Tom

118

MININ' INDEPENDENT

was most emphatic. "Our own people pay one way or the
other for every bushel of coal they get from me. Big Sandy
folks and mountain men anywhere in Kentucky are just
nat'erly honest. The thievin' and pilferin' is done by
strangers'/' The old man's eyes narrowed behind thick-
lensed spectacles. "Strangers that come from down yonder
in the mill towns, that have trucks and dollars to where
we've got only coppers. And they're re'chin' out their
greedy hands to take from us."

It was on the tip of my tongue to ask why he didn't take
his grievance to a court of law, when he said resignedly,
"You darsen call the law on such scalawags. They'd serve
me like they did Mose Taulbee over on Bear Creek." He
went on to tell this story. "They'd been workin' the road
over there got it so you could get all the way to the bank
could back a vehicle right up to the entry." Uncle Tom
shook his head disapprovingly. "Got things too handy.
Well, every morning, Mose would come to the bank, he'd
notice the coal pile looked a heap less than the way he'd
left it the night before. At first he thought he could be
mistaken, but it went on to where Mose made some mark-
in's with stakes drove into the ground and covered 'em
over with some big lumps of coal. Next day he come to
the bank sure enough, the big lumps, and more too, had
been stole away. He breshed off the fine coal dust and
saw his markin's and calculated how much had been stole.
He was mad as a hornet! That evenin' when he quit for
the day he found him a clapboard and marked on it with
a charred stick and nailed it up on his shack:

WARNING! QUIT YOUR THIEVING!
119

MININ' INDEPENDENT

"That's how the sign read. Well, the next morning
Mose Taulbee come to the bank, the shack was burned
to the ground, scales and all, and there wasn't nary lump
of coal left outside the bank. A still tongue/' observed
Uncle Tom, "makes a wise head. From then on, since that
happened to Mose Taulbee at his coal bank, I've been
sleepin' here in my bunk so's to keep vigil on what's mine."

He looked down the road. "It's not our people," he re-
peated, "that does the thievin'. It's them smart alecs, them
hill billies down near the mill towns. Think theirselves
above work, want to take off of others. Now look comin'
yonder, see that little feller pullin' that wagon he made
hisself. He's Widder Hatton's boy, Lemuel. Proud as a
king. Wouldn't take a crumb that wasn't his'n."

In a tattered shirt, and breeches that reached to his bare
feet, Lemuel, scarcely seven, trudged up the road, labori-
ously dragging behind him a crude little wagon on wab-
bling iron wheels. His shock of reddish-brown hair stuck
out through a hole in the top of a battered hat. He stopped
now and then to hitch up his galluses, made fast with a
nail to his breeches. In one hand he carried a tin lard
bucket.

"Uncle Tom," he greeted, the moment he halted his
small, ramshackle wagon beside the shack, "ma's wantin'
a bushel o' coalshe's not a copper to her name because
Liz Kazee that's bedfast with her tenth youngin didn't pay
ma for tendin' her and doin' her washin'. But here," the
grimy little hand extended the bucket, "ma sent you these
soup beans right off the stove and" the child's eyes
looked earnestly up to the man's "ma putt in the sow
belly she cooked 'em in!"

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MININ' INDEPENDENT

"Now, Lemuel/' Uncle Tom was embarrassed at the
widow's generosity, "your ma needn't a-done that. A
growin' man like you, he needs to eat fat meat so's to make
him grow. I'll swap you coal for soup beans, I ever crave
soup beans, but I'm wantin' you to take the sow belly back
with you."

With great care Uncle Tom measured out some firm
lumps into a bushel basket from the pile beside the shack
and poured them into the boy's wagon. And having emp-
tied out the beans into an iron pot on the stove Uncle
Tom returned the bucket to the boy. "I left the meat in
there," he explained.

"You're too free hearted, Uncle Tom," said the boy,
never once offering to lift the lid to peek in and make sure
of the fat meat, "and you're gettin' old; you'd ort not be
so ready to give away." The little fellow shifted a marble-
like cud from one cheek to the other and thumbed his
galluses. "You'd ort to a kept the sow belly."

"Tut-tut!" Uncle Tom silenced the words of praise.
"Lemuel, I'm wantin' you to grow off fast. One of these
days you can take my boy's place here at the bank. The
way he's diggin' in the bank every day, Stephen's breakin'
fast. We'll be wantin' you to take his place, ginst you grow

up-"

Small Lemuel grinned a wide, snaggle-toothed grin. "Hi,
jeeminy!" he squirted a stream of amber from the side of
his small mouth, "I can already take my chaw without
pukin' up my vittals. Pa allus claimed, ginst a feller could
do that, he's mought nigh a man!"

It was not until this point that small Lemuel offered to
take notice of my presence, though he did not address me
even now; rather, he spoke to Uncle Tom. "I 'lowed I'd

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wooden arm just outside the window of the shack, near
the scales his son Stephen emerged quickly from the
bank, the small lamp on his miner's cap flickering feebly
in the bright sunlight as he scurried along the hillside to
the chute. He released the wood gate on the front of the
chute by means of a rope, and the coal rumbled down into
the wagon. Again Frew drove onto the platform of the
scales and his load was weighed.

No one was in any hurry, so while Uncle Tom weighed
the coal, Frew went back to talk a few minutes with
Stephen. Down at the scales, Uncle Tom's lips moved
with soundless words. Finally he called out to Frew:
"Twenty bushel at twelve and a half cents a bushel comes
to two fifty. Is that what you make it, Frew?"

"You ort to know, Uncle Tom," Frew chuckled, "long
as you've been figgerin' coal in your head."

"Don't let him cheat you/' Stephen called out loud
enough for his father to hear, then disappeared within the
dark yawning mouth of the coal bank.

"This is the best grade, Frew," Uncle Tom explained
when his customer came back to the shack. "We could
sell you that other you see there at six cents a bushel, but
it's got a lot of slate and slag in it. You can burn every
lump of this. Best grade of bituminous coal, or as good,"
he was careful of facts, "as any in the whole Big Sandy
country. This soft coal can't be beat nowhere."

Frew reached into his breeches pocket, drew out a small
poke, untied the string and counted out the silver. "I've
got nothin' but hard money today nary greenback among
it. Been sellin' eggs for my woman; settin' eggs, and you
know how wimmin folks are that I trade with; they never
have anything but hard money. I reckon they keep the

124

MININ' INDEPENDENT

greenbacks hid away under the hearth till they can get to
the county seat and bank 'em."

But already Uncle Tom's thoughts were away from
greenbacks and coal. "Frew, do you reckon you could
fetch me a settin' o' Plymouth Rocks? Someone was tellin'
my old woman that she got the likes from you, a spell
back."

"Yes, siree!" Frew beamed, "but I'd have to keep you
waitin'. Not for long though. Molly's settin' eggs is all
spoke for, this week, but if her hens keep up like they have
the past month, I'd ort to have a settin' of Plymouth Rocks
for you ginst today two weeks."

"What do you ask for a settin' o' Plymouth Rocks? The
woman's got her heart on raisin' a batch o' biddies gives
her somethin' to tinker with she's near past goin' with
achin' in her j'ints."

"Too bad," Frew sympathized. "Settin' hens will take
her mind off her misery. Can let you have a settin', say,
for thirty or thirty-five cents"

"Here, then," Uncle Tom counted back the amount,
"fetch me the settin' next time you come this way."

The one-man coal mine is a place of barter and trade
and friendly gossip, where men of Big Sandy trust and are
trusted. Frew was scarcely out of sight when a great truck
came lumbering up to the mine.

"Hi, Pop!" The driver, in a gay sweater, cap over one
eye, corduroys stuffed in high-topped laced boots, leaned
over the wheel: "What you askin' for your black diamonds
today?"

"Same as anyone else that's minin' independent," Uncle
Tom answered promptly. There wasn't the friendliness in
his tone that had been there with Frew.

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MININ' INDEPENDENT

"Your stuff's half slate!" scoffed the truck driver from
the side of his mouth. "C'mon, now, none of your beefin'.
What you askin'?"

"Six, or twelve and a half cents a bushel," Uncle Tom
said quietly. "Which do you choose?"

"I don't want none of your slate," answered the truck
driver and backed his truck onto the scales. "Give me the
best biggest lumps cleanest you got!" There was com-
mand in the husky voice.

He jumped off the seat and peered over Uncle Tom's
shoulder as he moved the scale weights to and fro on the
beam. Then he climbed to the wheel again, and backed
the truck around under the chute. Again Uncle Tom gave
the signal on the rusty farm bell and Stephen came out
of the bank. The truck was filled. While Uncle Tom was
weighing the load, the driver watched over his shoulder,
then fidgeted while Uncle Tom figured the price on his
tablet.

"Well, don't be all day," he bellowed at last, by that
time again at his place at the wheel. "I gotta step on it.
How much, Pop?"

Uncle Tom told the amount. The truck driver fumbled
in his pocket, with his free hand tossed down a crumpled
bill. "There you are!" he called, stepped on the gas, and
was off, leaving only a cloud of dust behind.

Uncle Tom stooped to pick up the crumpled greenback.
"Two dollars!" he said as he unfolded it. "The scalawags
do that now and then. But that's the risk a man has to
take when he runs his own mine. Mostly people are hon-
est, and a body has to take the bitter with the sweet in
this world." His eyes followed the cloud of dust. "That
scalawag will take that load and peddle it out to anyone

126

MININ' INDEPENDENT

that will buy it, in some of the factory towns down the
river. The ones that buy it don't know and don't care
where he got it they don't ask no questions."

Presently two young lads came along with a wheelbar-
row, paid for their load and went their way satisfied with
their dealings, which included passing the time of day.
After that a couple of young fellows came over the hill,
one carrying an empty gunny sack over his shoulder.

"Howdy, Uncle Tom," they greeted in chorus, then the
older of the two said, "Gimme a coupla bushel. We'll have
to take whatever we can get today. We ain't had no work
in our house for nearly four weeks."

Without hesitation Uncle Tom filled the measuring
basket with choice lumps and emptied it into the gunny
sack which the young fellows held open. Carefully they
counted out the money, for the most part in pennies. They
talked a while, then went their way, carrying the sack
between them.

"The Ratliffs have seen a hard time. Poor manage-
ment," Uncle Tom said sympathetically. "Sold their land
outright. They're rentin' now, a little piece of land over
the hill yonder. The old woman died soon after her man
was buried, and young fellers don't seem to make on with-
out old folks to ad-vise 'em. That's why I keep on here day
after day, many a time when I don't feel spry a-tall, so's
to learn Stephen all I can."

The old man squinted at the sun. "Woman, it won't be
long till grub time," he said. "You best stay and eat a
snack with me and Stephen." A playful smile lighted the
wrinkled face. "Stephen don't have to be called to grub!
He watches the shadder across the drift mouth. He learnt
that from me, same as I learnt it from pa when he first

127

MININ' INDEPENDENT

taken me into the bank like I taken Stephen. When pa
died I stepped into his boots, and so my son follers me
with pick and shovel and buggy and chute."

While the coffee was boiling on the little iron stove, and
the beans were being "het," Uncle Tom sat outside the
shack talking of coal and of the Big Sandy country.

"If I had plow and team and such/' he said, looking off
at the valley below, "I sometimes fancy I'd like to farm.
A man can make a good livin' at farmin' around here.
Course I'd not be so choosey as to try to own bottom land.
That sells all the way from a hundred to three hundred
dollars a acre. Some of it is overflow land and some of it
is high bottom land; high bottom land is more costly. A
man can make a mighty fine crop on such land. But now
take a place like Lon Tackett's hill land and cove land
you can buy such as that for as little as ten dollars a acre
up to thirty dollars a acre. And a man can raise corn and
tobacco, potatoes and such, nearly as fine as on a bottom
farm, if he works it right. Why, Lon, he's even got him a
fine truck patch, and all told he owns just about twenty
acre. Gets a good livin' off of it. Makes a pretty penny on
his truck patch: beans, tomatoes, sweet corn, cucumbers,
onions, beets. And his woman has more than she needs
for their own table.

"If a man is willin', he can get on first rate with twenty
acre, and his taxes don't amount to much. When I held
deed to forty-two acre here in the Big Sandy country, my
taxes only come to thirteen dollars and fourteen cents a
year, and there was a dwellin' house on it. You under-
stand, if it had been just plain land, no dwellin' house,
the taxes would have been just about half that much.

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MININ' INDEPENDENT

Then we cleared the top of the ridge, a strip as level as a
floor about eight or nine hundred feet wide. We got a
lot of good tie timber off of itsold it to the railroad for
crossties. They're allus havin' to repair their tracks. The
railroad's just about three mile over the hill yonder. Some
of the timber we sold to men who used it for mine posts.
Several have opened their own mine around there in the
hills on their own places. It is a living/' he said matter-of-
factly.

"Nearly any time a man can buy a small farm, say
twenty or thirty acre, around hereabouts, if he wants to
settle down and dig a living or raise it from the earth.
Why, there's no better place in the world to live in." The
faded eyes sparkled behind the thick lenses of the shiny
rimmed spectacles. "The hills are high, the valleys are
wide, there's bottom lands and cove lands, most any sort
that a man would take a fancy to. And streams to fish in
and woods to hunt in rabbits, squirrels, 'possums, and
quail. And a heap o' young fellers have no end of fun
huntin' coons. Why, I know a man on Pigeon that keeps
a full score of hounds for coon huntin'. Tends 'em and
has his woman cookin' their grub same as if they were
humans."

Again Uncle Tom's thoughts looped back to earth, to
the coal mine. "I've roved these hills, pranked in my
young day, say when I was thirteen, loved 'possum and
coon and squirrel huntin'. But pa, he died and left ma with
a houseful of children, so bein' the first born I had to
pitch in and make a livin', or try to. I went into diggin'
when I was just fourteen. But I'd watched pa and knowed
the dangers and the warnin' signs in a coal bank. I ricollict
when I started in at a bank of my own, on our place. That

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MININ' INDEPENDENT

was the year me and Emmie were married. She was skeert
to stay at the house by herself of a night there was no
road through here then and my first bank was way off
up the holler you just can see where them trees of heaven
cast their shadders down over the old tumbled-in drift
mouth, off there half way up the ridge. No roads then,
just barely a cow path.

"Well, Emmie was a-feared to stay at home by herself
of a nighttime, when I was in a big way of workin' days
weren't long enough then. I went back to the bank after
supper when the moon was in the full so's I could see
my way. A man had to be savin' of lamp oil in them
days. Nohow, Emmie would come along, packin' her a
gunny sack and a dry plank to sit on. For that bank was
sorta damp a treeklin' stream from the side walls. She'd
put her plank and gunny sack down in the bottom of
the buggy and honker down and I'd shove the buggy
into the bank. That's when I first started diggin' it
wasn't very high, you see. I was scrouged down on my
side; couldn't stand up, there wasn't enough coal dug out
yet; had to lay low on my side and dig with my pick as
best I could. And her a little girl peerin' over the top of
the buggy, watchin'.

"One night a lump of wet clay fell on my lamp and
put it out. Emmie started to whimper in the pitch dark.
Vowed she heard crackin' overhead, declared the bank
was cavin' in. Directly she screamed somethin' awful. She
vowed a varmint, a catamount, or a panther maybe was
clawin' in her hair. Tut! Tut!' I says, 'nothin's goin' to
harm you in here that couldn't harm you outside the
bank if it was a-mind to.' She screeched the louder and
fit with both hands. I couldn't do a thing with her. I got

130

MININ 9 INDEPENDENT

so upset I was all thumbs. Like never to have found
the leather poke around my neck where I kept my dry
matches. Well, finally I got my lamp lighted again and
there in the buggy lay Emmie, shiverin' and sobbin'. And
a little dead bat with its little shriveled-up wings was there
too. I never did ad-mit it to Emmie, but I was skeert too,
what with her screechin' and sobbin'. I fancied some wild
varmint tearin' her plumb to pieces.

"I never dug nary nuther lump of coal that night. And
never again did I let my woman go into the bank with
me. Td allus hear-ed that it was bad luck to let a woman
set foot in a coal bank." Uncle Tom's voice fell to a
whisper. "They do say at a bank over on Forsaken you
can hear the pitiful sobs of a woman comin' out of it,
if you pass there of a winters night. The story goes that
a man that was jealous of his woman tolled her into the
bank and strangled her to death. Some say she were
jealous of him and follercd him in. Nohow, whichever
way it is, I do know no man has ever tried to work that
mine. Young folks will take to their heels when darkness
gathers round if they have to pass that old abandoned
bank over on Forsaken Creek. Nohow, from that time
when Emmie carried on like she did over a harmless little
bat, I never taken her in the bank with me no more."
Uncle Tom gulped sheepishly. "I never went back to the
bank of a nighttime after that. Emmie allus said a man
should work just from sun to sun, and I reckon Emmie
was right/'

The old man's thoughts traveled over the past. "She
was spry on foot as a patridge in them days. Many a time
we walked over that ridge and the next one to see her folks
of a Sunday. She'd even race me the last mile. Eh, law,

MININ' INDEPENDENT

when a body gets on in years they have to forsake a heap
of pleasures of this life. I'd druther to be in the bank
yonder, where Stephen is, with my pick, 'stead of here,
weighin' up. That was what pa used to say to me, and I
didn't rightly understand it then. A body's got to live
through things to rightly have a knowin' of their meanin'."
He jumped to his feet. "I vow the coffee's burnin', and
yonder comes Stephen out of the bank. I best hurry and
set the table."

He placed knife, fork, and spoon at the head and one
at each side of the table; over them he turned a plate up-
side down. There were three cracked cups, only one of
which had a handle.

"You sit there/' Uncle Tom invited graciously, point-
ing the place where the whole cup was. He sat at the head,
his son opposite me. He also had given me a chair while
they sat on boxes. Stephen, after greeting me, had stopped
to wash his hands with yellow soap in the tin washpan on
the back of the stove. He had washed around his mouth,
leaving the rest of his face covered with coal grime, giving
him a comical, black-face minstrel look. His cap with the
miner's lamp was hung on a wall peg. He bowed his head
and asked a blessing on "this nourishmint of our body,
and Good Lord bless the stranger under our rooft!" He
waited with head uplifted, hands on knees until the father
spoke.

"Here," said Uncle Tom, "have some of the onions."
He had quartered a big onion, placed it on a saucer with
a spoonful of salt, and passed it to me. "Help yourself!"
I did so and passed it over to Stephen.

"Now, here, let me bean you a piece of bread." On my
plate beside the onion Uncle Tom placed a thick slice of

132

Jacumski

The drift mouth

/acumskj

Within the mine

MININ' INDEPENDENT

corn bread and over it spooned a good portion of beans
from the iron pot.

Without the asking he also "beaned" a piece of bread
for Stephen, who smacked his lips in delight after the first
mouthful. He ate it with his tin spoon, for the beans were
soupy, and soaked the bread until it was too soft to be
eaten like a sandwich.

"Widder Hatton's cookin'," said Uncle Tom.

"I 'lowed as much." Stephen gulped another mouthful.
The father reported the details of Little Lemuel's visit to
his son.

"I reckon that hill billy in the yaller sweater got off
without paying?" Stephen remarked.

Uncle Tom looked into his plate. "We'll have to quit
sellin' to strangers," he mumbled. "Here, son." He took
the lid off a jar of chopped green tomatoes. "Have some
of the chowchow. Your ma allus puts a lot of green
pepper, and cabbages, too, in her chowchow. It's mighty
good eatin'." The old man heaped a spoonful on Stephen's
plate and on mine. What with the hearty appetites of the
two men, the table was quickly cleared even the dish of
cold boiled-in-jackets potatoes disappeared.

Stephen was jolting his box back from the table when
he looked up at his father. "No fixins, pa?" he asked like
a disappointed child.

"Why, yes," said Uncle Tom. "I near forgot. Get kinda
flighty; not used to havin' company to eat with us here at
the shack." From his box he reached to the stove, opened
the oven door and brought out a pie. No, not one, but two,
one stacked atop the other. "Dried-apple pie is the best
eatin', nearly, a man could ask for, and there's no better
hand at makin' such than your ma, Stephen." I^e set the

MININ' INDEPENDENT

battered pie pan on the end of the table and cut the thick,
soggy crusts into quarters, placing a double slice on each
of our plates. Stephen took the corn-cob stopper from a
jug, turned its handle toward me. "Help yourself," he in-
vited. "Would you like a little sweetnin' on your pie?"

But catching the whiff of sorghum, I passed the jug on
to Uncle Tom, mumbling some excuse about already hav-
ing more on my plate than I could eat. Uncle Tom poured
a great thick heap of the cane molasses over his two layers
of pie and the son did likewise.

Then came the coffee; thick and dark and bitter, for
it had boiled all of an hour. The meal over, the father
stacked the dishes, and the three of us went outside to a
bench on the far side of the shack.

"We allus like to sit a spell in the shade before Stephen
goes back into the bank. Pa ever said a man should get his
lungs full of good fresh air whenever he could, if he wants
to hold out at diggin'."

Presently, to my surprise, the son took from his pocket a
small Testament and began to read, first half to himself,
then quite aloud. When he paused, Uncle Tom remarked,
"You see, Stephen follers preachin' of a Sunday. Some-
times they make mock of a man when he's tryin' to serve

the Lord. They tap a finger to their head when he passes

i f>

by-

The son, holding the place in the book with a grimy
finger, turned serious eyes toward me. "I reckon it will
always be that way, some to mock them that try to live
right, but I don't mind. This here place," his glance swept
the coal bank, the shack, the scales, the chute, "is as much
the Master's vineyard as anywhere, but some don't think
that way. They think you've got to be in a fine temple to

MININ 9 INDEPENDENT

read the Word or to speak on it. I reckon that's why some
think I'm off up here/' he tapped finger to brow. Then
he went on to read aloud a chapter from the book, and
that concluded, he placed the small volume in his vest
pocket.

Father and son were glad to show me about the bank,
on the outside! Nor did I wish to violate their belief in an
old superstition that a woman can bring ill luck to the
mine she enters. It requires, Uncle Tom told me, about
twenty days to dig the opening of a seam, getting it braced
ready for taking out coal.

"That is, it can be done in that time if you don't have
to cut in no more than twenty-five or thirty feet. It depends
whether you are workin' on a slope or a steep hillside/'

The bracing timbers, or posts, slanting toward each
other at the top, are set about three feet apart against the
walls; and across the top, joining two and two, is placed a
"header." The header is notched somewhat like the logs
for building a house, so that the notches make the header
fast to the posts. This is called framing. Another post is
imbedded in the floor of the mine, bracing the upright
posts. This is called the mud sill. After the posts and
header are up, logging is placed behind the uprights.
White oak is usually used for mine posts, because it does
not split easily. Such wooden walls protect the miner from
falling stones and minor cave-ins.

After the opening is made and braced, a narrow-gauge
track is put down to carry a buggy, the iron rails spiked to
crossties as on a regular railroad. The buggy is also home-
made, except the iron wheels, which are made at a foundry
in the mill town. The buggy is of heavy wood, bound by

MININ' INDEPENDENT

an iron strip, like a barrel hoop, to give it stength to hold
the load of coal.

"The average miner can get out two ton a day/' Uncle
Tom told me. "Stephen, yonder, got out twenty-five hun-
dred bushel in a month. Some fellows wouldn't get out
half that/' Here Uncle Tom's thoughts turned backward.
"In my young day I got out four ton a day and maybe an-
other fellow would come within half of that. It depends
on the man hisself. Today a man is paid a dollar'n a
quarter per ton."

The flickering lamp on Stephen's cap looked a mere
speck far back beyond the mouth of the dark mine. I won-
dered just how far back it was.

"This mine is about three hundred yards deep. After
you have cut in, you drive your entry up about thirty feet,
then you turn off with a room. A room is cut out first about
nine feet square, then finally you work it out to where it is
about twenty-five feet square, big enough so you can get
in there and get out the coal. There are rooms on each
side; one like here, you see," he indicated a point on the
ground to the right, "and one over there, opposite. We
don't cut the rooms out straight in a row right 'longside
each other or straight across from each other. Can't put
them too close together. It would weaken the walls and

wouldn't be safe. It's best to make them about twenty feet

,
apart.

The old man's mind went from posts and rooms to
miners' lamps. "In my day the oil I burned in my lamp
was lard oil and cotton-seed oil mixed. Today in big com-
pany mines the men use carbide lamps. The mine is elec-
trified, the buggies are all metal and run by electricity,
with a motorman, and a trolley overhead. In my day we

MININ' INDEPENDENT

always had to pack along an extra supply of oil to make
sure our lamp wouldn't go out. Today the coal company
keeps carbide in big tin drums down in the mine, and they
sell it out to the miners."

Uncle Tom disparaged the dangers of mining. "Forty-
eight year I've been runnin' a mine and never had but one
man to get hurt in all that time. And that was his own
fault. He was workin' in Stephen's place, one day my boy
was sick. That man, it was his own carelessness, and he
ad-mitted to it," Uncle Tom explained. "He put off his
shots he was shotting what we call a head hole. The shot
didn't quite push it all out, and without bracin' it in any
way he knowed better, he should have braced the part
left, and he didn't he started to dig it out, and the whole
thing fell on him. Broke his collar bone, hurt his leg and
ankle. Today, every man that goes in a bank signs up for
workmen's compensation. Protects a man if he's hurt."

Again his thoughts went back to his youth. "We dug
our two load a day, thirty-three-and-a-third bushel to the
load, seventy-six pound to the bushel, me and pa; dug
together our sixty-six-and-two-third bushel, when I was
young. Sometimes they'd come to our mine with a two-
horse wagon, or if they come from a distance over a rough
road, they had four mules pullin' the wagon. And when
charcoal furnaces was in these hills I've seen 'em come to
the bank with a ox cart. Now fine cars drive up. They take
out a gunny sack, ask for two bushel, wrangle and try to
get two for the price of one. That kind of a person gen-
erally winds up cheatin' a man by not givin' him the right
money and drivin' off, like you seen this mornin' in fine
cars, mind you, not in wagons.

"When I was a boy we could wear leather shoes into

MINJN' INDEPENDENT

the mine, even if it was a wet one. We'd just rub our
shoes good with mutton taller and they'd turn water. The
leather was tanned slow in them days and tanned right.
But now they tan it with chemicals. It is just nat'erly
burned up with chemicals and won't last no time and it
won't turn water. Miners have to wear rubber boots if
they're workin' in a wet mine, if they want to keep their
feet dry these days. We're lucky here, this mine is dry.
It's high on the hillside, you see."

He turned from one phase of the miner's work to an-
other. "We use dynamite [he pronounced it dena-mite]
for blasting where it is damp, because our black powder
won't go off in such places. We set it off with a fuse and
then hurry into another room while it goes off. A fuse,"
he showed me, "is fifty to a hundred feet long, done up
in a coil like a clothes line. A little end is left sticking out
after you have tamped the fuse in a groove. You bore the
groove with a auger. On the end of the fuse you wrap this
squib, no bigger'n a writin' pencil. After you light that
end you've got plenty of time to get away to a place of
safety in the mine. Often a room is dug out bigger than
the mouth: this one, you see, is about twenty foot across,
but if we open a room and there's a lot of coal, we don't
leave it till we get all the coal, so long as it is safe for
workin'."

I was wondering how he went about locating a mine,
and was scraping with a stick I'd picked up against the
hillside, to see the nature of the ground under the cluster
of moss and vines.

"Oncet a curious man was doing just what you're do-
ing/' said Uncle Tom, "and that's how come him to find
a rich seam of coal. You see a man knows where coal is by

MININ' INDEPENDENT

a kind of stain, or 'bloom of coal/ we call it. The earth is
sort of striped: some red stripes, and there will be black
streaks runnin' along between the red, and generally you'll
find a seam of coal when it's like that. But to make sure,
you can pick up some of that clay in your hand and if it
feels oily, that's the sign of coal, but if it's gritty, then
you know it's got no coal in it there's too much stone."

Together we walked slowly back to the shack, for
Stephen was long since at his work in the bank and cus-
tomers were coming along now with wagon, mule cart,
pushcart and truck. These were the people who greeted
Uncle Tom with courteous, kindly smiles and paid him
with utmost care and honesty.

"Cold weather makes it good for sellin'," the old man
remarked. "Sold eight thousand bushel in January." We
had resumed our place on the bench outside the shack.

"IVe seen some curious things inside the bank, in the
stone that we sometimes run into. I've seen a formation
that looked p'int blank like an alligator. Oncet I found a
skeleton, even to the skull, and a man I give it to, he had
a sight of book learnin'. He studied on that skeleton a
long time. He said it was the bones of a Cherokee Indian.
You know," Uncle Tom confided naively, "there's differ-
ent kinds of Indians. Some is Cherokees and some is
Mohawks and some is Sioux, but the man I give that car-
cass to said he was confident it was the skeleton of a Chero-
kee because that was the race that roved the Big Sandy
country before the white men fit 'em off.

"I found a petrified toad in that bank yonder, and a
Indian pipe of stone, and several arrowheads in a heap
together. And, curious, ain't it not a month ago, when
we opened another room, there in the stone was the print

MININ' INDEPENDENT

of a automobile tire. Now you know such things were not
made in the red men's time. How you reckon/' he raised
an inquisitive brow, "such as that could be printed in
stone way back under the hill? I can't master such curiosi-
ties as that." He shook his head in perplexity.

"There's a heap o' people workin' around coal mines
that are superstitious about one thing and another. Now
I knowed a man started in one morning, whistlin' as peert
as a jay bird. Well, he ketched a glimpse of a rat scurryin'
acrost the track. He dropped his pick and went jumpin'
out of the place fastern' a rabbit. Said the rat was a warnin'
of danger. The mine boss twitted him about bein' a 'fraid
cat. Well, that very day a chunk of slag fell on the mine
boss's head, him standin' right where that rat run acrost.
They packed the mine boss out stone dead. You see, rats
have keen ears. They can hear the warning sounds when
a mine is crackin' overhead. They hear better than humans.
They run for safety outside, and if a miner has his wits
and knows these things, he'll foller the rats out to safety."

A month or so after my visit to Uncle Tom's mine, I
came around the hill from the opposite direction and
stopped in to see his wife, Emma. To my surprise, he was
at home, seated in a rocker with a flowered calico cushion
behind his head.

In response to my query he said, "No, I didn't get hurt
in the bank. I've got influenzie, and I ain't been fit for
nothin'."

"You're looking fine." I stretched the blanket somewhat,
for the old fellow was actually thin and pale.

"He's fell off around his middlin's till he couldn't keep
up his breeches if it wasn't for his galluses," Emma said
dolefully.

140

MININ' INDEPENDENT

"It's a bright sunny day/' I waxed enthusiastic, "come
along out here in the sunlight and let me make a picture
of you, Uncle Tom. It will be a nice gift for the grand-
children when they grow up/'

I had not noticed his wife behind his back, doing her
best to silence me, until she made a brave effort to cough
and then, attracting my attention, put finger to her lip and
shook her head.

"No," Uncle Tom was saying, and there was fear in his
voice, "I don't want my likeness took when I'm sick."

Later his wife went out to the gate with me. "It's bad
luck," she dropped her voice, keeping an eye on the house
as if Uncle Tom might hear, "he believes it's bad luck for
a body to have their picture took when they're sick. Once
a man makin' tintypes went through this country and he
stopped at old Uncle Lon Tilsford's, over on Possum Trot.
The old man was just kinda ailin'. Well, nothing would
do his daughter but they have a tintype made of her pa.
He'd never had no likeness of hisself in all his life. That
very day before sundown he lay a corpse. They've got his
tintype to this day. And he's not the only one. Same thing
happened to Jeff Smiley's woman, Norie, on Greasy Fork.
She got up one morning with a tumble misery in her side.
Lasted her all week. Well, the tintype man was comin'
'long the road and Norie her own self sent one of the
youngins out to tell him to come in. Said she had a warnin'
of death, did Norie, and wanted to have a likeness of her-
self left behint for her family. The likeness were took, and
so was Norie. She was stark dead before her man got in
from the coal bank."

141

7.

MAKIN'

CROSSING THE FOOT LOG OVER A SMALL STREAM ONE
spring day, trying to balance myself with portable
typewriter in one hand, brief case in the other, I
slipped and fell, sending my possessions helter skelter to
the muddy ground. I pulled myself up on the slippery log,
straightened my wide-brimmed sailor hat, adjusted the
loose hairpins, and tried to stand. A sharp pain struck
through my ankle. I sank back on the log again, dabbing
at my eyes to keep back the tears.

Suddenly I was aware of other eyes watching me. It
could not have been a sound that caused me to look toward
a certain clump of bushes off to one side. There was no
sound; there was a deathlike silence in the woods. But I
felt eyes upon me. I had heard from childhood that snakes
could charm birds; maybe a snake could charm a person
too. I gripped the log and sat transfixed. From the thick
foliage of rhododendron that held my gaze there certainly
was an eye peering at me. A single eye! But it wasn't that
of a snake or wildcat, though it might have been, for the
fear it sent through me, and the goose bumps creeping up
my spine. It was the lone eye of a man, glistening snakelike
at me out of a bewhiskered face.

"Who you lookin' for?" he called in a husky voice.

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MAKIN'

When at last I found my tongue I answered, a-tremble,
"B-b-brother Vinton's f-f-folks."

"Well, you're up the wrong holler!" the one-eyed man
snapped, at the same time stepping out into full view. He
was wearing over his patched shirt and baggy trousers a
long overcoat that fell far below his knees, a coat that
might have been black at one time, though now it was a
faded greenish brown. The flaps of the big pockets were
worn almost to shreds; you'd know the owner had thrust
his hands in and out of those pockets many times. Even
now his hands were deep in them. He stood in a stooping
posture, as if holding heavy weights in both hands, almost
humped over. Now that he had stepped from his hiding
place I took him in from head to foot. I remembered see-
ing him skulk in and out of stores and offices and second-
hand places down in a mill town where I had once been
employed. That was in the days of prohibition. I recalled
vividly once seeing him, quite stooped, hands deep in
pockets, going into a secondhand store and coming out,
a few moments later, much straighter, though his hands
were still in his overcoat pockets. "One-eye's been diggin'
agin!" I heard a sleek-haired lad say, with a wink at his
companion. "Thornie's had a good run!" the other an-
swered and they exchanged knowing looks as the long-
coated figure skulked off up an alley. And now here he
was with his glistening, snakelike eye on me, scarcely a
stone's throw between us.

"Brother Vinton's folks ain't on this creek," he said
deliberately, watching me all the time from where he stood
as I limped painfully about, gathering up my things. It
seemed unusual for a mountain man not to step forward
with courtly manner to lend a helping hand. The one-

MAKIN'

eyed man stood stock still. "Brother Vinton's folks ain't
nowhere near here. If you're lookin' for them/' he paused,
eyeing me suspiciously, "you best pick up your contrap-
shuns and walk that log back the way you come, and turn
off on the footpath on yon side. Ricollict on yon side-
not this a-way, and keep straight ahead on the left-hand
side."

He watched with an unflinching eye while I, pains shoot-
ing like a knife through my ankle, limped slowly back over
the foot log, balancing myself uncertainly with muddy
typewriter in one hand and muddier brief case in the other.
No bedeviled sailor ever walked the plank with greater
fear and trembling than I walked that slippery foot log
with the snakelike eye of the bewhiskered fellow behind
the bush fixed upon me. Once I reached the other side I
limped off as fast as I could along the narrow footpath. But
in my fear and uncertainty again I lost my way. Should I
take this path or that? I pondered a moment, then struck
off on a path that soon led me within sight of a little log
house. I made toward it.

By this time my ankle was so swollen I had to unbutton
my high-top shoe to ease the pain. The stones had cut
through the thin leather and pierced my skin. I could see
the blood oozing. But I dare not stop. As I drew near the
cabin a woman, standing in the door with a baby in her
arms, at sight of me did not keep her place in the doorway,
as mountain women are accustomed to doing to greet the
stranger. She came quickly quickly, bless you down the
lane toward the gate. I stopped, set down my portable and
brief case, and stood empty handed to greet her. I kept my
wits about me that far as to mountain customs. I waited
for her to speak.

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MAKIN'

Pale, she was, with black hair that set off her colorless
face. She coughed an empty cough, hand to chest. The
ravages of consumption were upon her, without doubt.
For all of a full minute she stood silent, eyeing me sus-
piciously. Her black eyes were fairly riveted on my muddy
feet, especially upon the foot with the unbuttoned shoe.

"Set down there on that rock," she indicated a stone
near the split-rail fence, "an' pull off your shoe, an' your
stocking too," she said in a slow voice. I lost no time in
obeying orders, for orders they surely were. The woman
leaned over the rider of tjie rail fence and peered at my
swollen and bleeding ankle.

"Open up them contrapshuns you're packin', if you
don't mind," she said in the same low, even tones. She
looked with keen interest at my opened portable, the glis-
tening keys. My personal things in the brief case, a brush,
a comb, a sleeping garment, papers and erasers, did not
concern her in the least, though she did look with a ques-
tioning eye at the tucking comb that lay among the other
things, which I meant to take to Brother Vinton's wife.
Still on her side of the split-rail fence, she called back
toward the house: "Phoebe! Come hure!"

A little girl appeared instantly in the open door and
darted down the lane toward us. Beside the woman, she
stood stock still, hands behind her back, looking curiously
at me, especially at the bleeding and swollen ankle.
"Phoebe," the woman said, "whilst I holp this strange
woman pack her contrapshuns to the house, you run along
and tell Grandpa to fill up the teakittle and putt it on the
stove."

The child and the woman exchanged a lightninglike
glance of understanding.

MAKIN'

"Best putt on your shoe again," the woman said when
the little girl had hurried off. "Now, hure," she said, pick-
ing up my portable and brief case as though they were
light as feathers, "I'll pack 'em/'

"But you've got the baby," I protested feebly. "Let me
carry the typewriter, at least."

She spurned my offer to help. "You're in misery. Any-
body can see that with one eye. You've turned pale as a
bed sheet. A body would think you'd seen a haynt."

"Maybe it was the fall, and" I faltered.

"And what?" It was the way she halted suddenly, and
the way her arm suddenly gripped her side, that made me
out with it.

"I guess it startled me a little when the old gentleman,
down by the creek, tried to put me on the right path."
With great care I sought the right words, for my long
experience in traveling the mountains had taught me to
answer carefully. Mountain people want no beating around
the bush.

"Did that old man you were namin' have two good
eyes?" the woman asked slowly.

"No." I paused a breathless moment. "He had just one
eye."

The woman gripped the baby till it grunted. Eyes nar-
rowed to a slit, she turned to me. "Which way did he tell
you to go?" she demanded in a frightened voice.

"Not this way, I'm sure of it," I blurted. "He told me
to follow the path to the left yes, I'm sure he said the
left but my ankle pained so, I guess I got confused. I've
turned to the right. I hope you don't mind," I offered
apologetically, "it wasn't his fault. I hope you don't mind."

"No not a-tall," she shook her head as if to clear her

146

MAKIN'

thoughts. "Come along, let's get to the house/' She
stepped with a steady stride, coughing that hollow cough
now and then. I rested a hand lightly as possible on her
arm.

As soon as we crossed the threshold, an old man emerged
from the chimney corner. He was folding a jackknife with
one hand, and with the other brushing shavings from his
breeches. He had kindly eyes; his hair was snow white,
and so was his long beard save where it was tobacco-
stained about the mouth. He bowed graciously to me as
the woman said, "Pa, this woman's come to bad luck.
She's bruised her meat and I'm afear-ed she's sprained her
ankle j'int."

The old man dragged up a chair. "Set!" he invited, and
I sank wearily into the homemade hickory chair before the
hearth. "Pull off your shoe!" he said gently. "Marthie," he
turned to the woman, "let Phoebe mind the baby and you
lend a hand here. Script're speaks of the deeds of the
good Samaritan. We've not got much to do with," he said
in a kindly voice, "but willin' hands mebbe can make up
for what's lackin'."

"Pa's handy with such as this." Martha stood behind
my chair, having bathed my foot in a tin washpan filled
with warm water from the teakettle. Also, at the old man's
direction, Martha had brought a jug of vinegar and put a
few drops into the water. "It will ease down the swellin',"
he said, as he traced a gentle finger over the bleeding ankle.
"We'll wropt it," he decided, and Martha brought from
a drawer of a high chest in the corner a clean piece of
muslin.

A green log sputtered on the andirons in the great fire-
place. Even though it was late spring, there was chill in

M7

MAKIN'

the air, and the heat of the blazing logs felt soothing to
my ankle, swollen now double its size. There was a great
discolored spot near the joint.

"Best draw out that black blood/' the old man said.
"Such as that could turn to blood pizen if it's not tended
to. Mind the time, Marthie," he addressed his daughter,
"when Brother Vinton busted his foot nigh open with a
hoe?"

"His meat turned black as your hat, pa, I ricollict.
Hadn't been that you had a leech or two handy, Brother
Vinton his own self said it, he'd a died of pizen. Blood
pizen!"

"Oh," I managed a smile, "I remember hearing Brother
Vinton tell that, one time when he was preaching over on
Burning Bush. I was on my way to Brother Vinton's today
when I got lost. I meant to take his wifeSister Vinton we
always call herthe tucking comb you saw in my bag."

The old man's eyes lighted with a friendly smile, and
Martha, who had so tenderly bathed my bruised flesh,
and little Phoebe, holding the baby, drew closer in a com-
mon bond of friendship. There was a moment of silence.
The old man looked from the woman to the child, and
they looked back at him.

The old man spoke first. "Vinton's folks, for all they
are a good long piece from here, they've been powerful
kind to us since Marthie's man, Jonathan, my son, were"

"Killed. In cold blood!" Martha's voice cut across the
hush at the fireside.

"Daughter, daughter," the white-haired man chided
softly. "We've got to stand what the Lord sends on us.
'Twere His will, I reckon." And then he urged in a quiet,

148

MAKIN'

gentle voice: "Come, let us give comfort to the wayfarer
at our fireside. Fetch me a leech, Marthie!"

The widow of his son disappeared into the lean-to
kitchen, and returned presently with a small china mug.
The handle was broken off and only the faintest tracing
was left of pink roses and gilt which once had spelled
"Father." The old man took the cup, turned it upside
down on my swollen ankle, tapped it briskly, withdrew it.

When I looked down there was a leech stuck fast to the
discolored flesh. I felt myself swaying. Everything went
black before me.

"Nothin' to be skeert of," Martha was saying as she
patted my shoulder gently. Little Phoebe, shifting the
baby from one arm to the other, looked on in silence.

It was all of three weeks before I was able to go on my
way. Even then, Martha was reluctant to let me go. Nor
did I try to get to Brother Vinton's on that trip. "You're
welcome to what weVe got," she'd say again and again
when I offered a word about imposing upon their hospi-
tality. "It pleasures us to have you around, p'tikler pa.
Likes to sit and make talk with you when he comes in."

The old man must have gotten up before daylight, for
even though Martha and little Phoebe and the baby and I
were at breakfast by sunup, he was never there. "Pa had
to get a soon start this morning," Martha said a time or
two, though she never said where to, nor for what, he had
to get a "soon start." I recalled that afterward.

It was the night of that same day when I had limped
across their doorstep that I had heard Martha and her
white-haired father-in-law talking in low tones in the
kitchen while she was washing the supper dishes. I had

149

MAKIN'

fallen asleep in the chair before the fire and little Phoebe
was at my side, keeping watch. The baby lay asleep on
the bed.

"Pa, I 'lowed Thornie had blabbed when I seen this
strange woman!" Martha was saying in hushed tones.

"Hesh," the old man whispered. "You mustn't be so
quick to jedge. We can confidence Thornie. He don't
want to make trouble for a lorn widder woman with little
uns lookin' to her for their bread. Thornie wouldn't harm
a old man that's nigh past goin', like me."

And again the hushed voice of Martha. "Pa, sometimes
I'm afear-ed he sees more with that one eye than"

"He can't of his own knowin' prove nothin'," the old
man retorted. "And nohow, I'm within my rights, same as
Jonathan were. The law can't"

Perhaps Martha dropped a cup; whatever it was, I was
wide awake, and straightened suddenly. Little Phoebe at
my side was singing forthwith in a high-pitched voice and
rocking to and fro, her small hands clasped about her
knees. Martha and the old man appeared suddenly at the
door which led into the lean-to kitchen. I supposed I had
been dreaming.

"Was this woman wantin' a drink o' water, or some-
thin'?" Martha asked anxiously of little Phoebe.

"Lan' sakes, no!" the little girl answered, with a quick
glance at her elders. "She drapped off to sleep and woke
up of a suddint like."

Grandpa exchanged a glance with Martha. "Dreamin'
of drappin' off the foot log, I reckon."

"I reckon," Martha nodded assent. They withdrew to
the kitchen, where Martha continued the dish washing.
I heard the footfalls of the old man across the back stoop.

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MAKIN'

I supposed he was going to the barn to finish his chores.

I shared one bed in the main room of the log cabin
for many a night with Martha and her two children. The
other bed in the far corner was for the old man, though,
looking back afterward, I could never remember seeing
the old fellow actually asleep upon it. Indeed, as I remem-
bered, the bed never had the appearance of being slept
upon. The coverlids and pillows were always smooth and
in order by the time I was up, just as they had been the
night before. I recalled that too, afterward.

"Us wimmin can dress and undress behint the chist of
drawers," Martha said, that first night, "when pa's around.
Most generally me and Phoebe and the baby are sleepin'
sound as a chick under a hen's wing ginst pa gets through
potherin' around, lookin' after the property, feedin' the
hogs and such," she explained. "We allus jest let pa pick
his own bedtime." Martha took care to make that clear.

I recalled, long after I had left their home, hearing
Martha talking in low tones on more than one occasion to
someone outside in the dark. Once I was sure the voice-
it was a man's was quite insistent, but Martha repeated
firmly, "No, Thornie ain't dug none yet today," and again:
"No, I tell you, Thornie ain't dug none yet today and
pa's not been around all day. Been gone all day." I heard
the man mutter and ride off. That happened on more
than one occasion. At such times, when Martha would
come back into the room where I sat before the fire, I
recalled afterward how strangely, watchfully she would
look at me.

Sometimes a man would drive up the lane with a jolt
wagon, throw the reins over a fence post, and shamble
slowly toward the potato patch where the old father was,

MAKIN'

as I supposed, digging potatoes. The visitor usually had a
gunny sack over his shoulder.

My ankle remained too painful to bear my weight, so I
learned to hobble about on a gnarled staff the old fellow
brought into me from the woods. There was a wide, well-
curved part at the top, that just fitted under my arm, and
a great knot half way down on which I could rest my hand.
How it pleased the old man when I thanked him for it,
calling him ''Grandpa" just as little Phoebe did and as
Martha often did.

One day I ventured to hobble forth from the kitchen
door on my crutch. Grandpa was in the potato patch, hoe
in hand, talking to a man who had just driven up. I
thought I heard the man say: ''Make it a half dozen no,
Til take a dozen." He opened the gunny sack and held it
in front of him. Presently another man came up, on a
mule. He dismounted, flung his bridle over a fence post,
took the saddle bags off the mule's back and, carrying
them over his arm, went to talk with Grandpa in the
potato patch. I turned in the doorway to speak to Martha,
who was cleaning up the kitchen. I had noticed that the
man with the saddle bags was rather bending under his
load as he went back to his mule.

"You must get a lot of potatoes out of that patch," I
said. "That man had all he could carry away in his saddle
bags."

Martha dropped the dish pan where she was trying to
hang it on the wall; dropped it with a resounding bang.
When she turned, seeing me in the doorway, her face went
bloodless.

"Oh, I'm sorry I startled you," I said. "I shouldn't go
prowling around on my crutch"

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MAKIN'

"You'll mebbe aggreevate your ankle fint," she stam-
mered. "Hure, let me holp you back to your cheer. Don't
never, never venture nowhars without you call out to me
or to Phoebe or pa, if he's about." She spoke emphati-
cally.

It could not have been any more than a night or two
after that when something caused me to wake up sud-
denly. I had lain down on the side of the bed, before
undressing, to ease the throbbing in my ankle. I meant to
ask Grandpa if he didn't think the bandage ought to be
taken off and the joint rubbed with goose grease and lini-
ment again. His home remedies never failed to ease the
pain and the swelling. The discoloration, thanks to the
leech, had quite gone, but the throbbing returned again
and again. I napped, and then something startled me into
wakefulness. Little Phoebe was sitting by the fire, holding
the baby. Martha and Grandpa were nowhere to be seen.
There was not a sound, but I caught the glimpse of a
skulking figure pass in the firelight and swiftly disappear
into the kitchen, the. figure of a stooping man, in a long
overcoat, hands deep in the pockets. It was a mere glimpse
and he was gone; only the grotesque shadow moved across
the rough log wall and vanished. I was certain it was the
one-eyed man whom I had encountered at the foot log.

I sat up on the side of the bed. As soon as Phoebe saw
me she started singing in her high-pitched voice. Martha
appeared at the kitchen door, the old gray-haired man at
the front door. Phoebe's song ceased.

"Is your ankle j'int painin' you?" Martha asked solici-
tously as though that were her only concern.

Just then a gun shot, then another, cut across the still-
ness of the night. Grandpa flashed a swift look at Martha,

MAKIN'

then at Phoebe. The baby whimpered. But no word was
spoken.

That night we sat a long time by the fireside. Martha
was sewing on buttons and mending, little Phoebe was
doing her best to piece together some bright patches of
calico her mother had given her. I was still struggling
with crochet needle and thread, under the watchful eye
of Martha, "to loop two, drop one." Grandpa was whit-
tling: not an ax handle, as you might expect, but a long
wooden fork. I tossed aside my hopeless crocheting to
watch him. I could see he was pleased.

Slowly, carefully, he whittled and scraped. The long
fork, tall as the old man's shoulder, had six prongs, each a
foot in length and an inch thick. The prongs were whittled
out of the same piece of wood as the rounded handle. It
must have been a fairly good sized sapling to start with,
with a broad base. I had seen the crude implement stand-
ing in the chimney corner the day I came. Grandpa must
have been whittling on it then, for he was brushing shav-
ings from his clothes when I entered.

Whenever he had a spare moment about the house he
turned to his task of whittling. The rounded handle of
the long fork, now reduced to no more than five inches,
fitted his grasp. He tested it again and again, this evening,
taking off with his knife blade a little more and a little
more until it was right. "Just right!" he said to Martha as
he stood up and went through the motion of scraping the
floor with the long-toothed fork. "Good lasty oak. Last
me my life time." And Martha nodded approval. Phoebe
looked up at her mother, then exchanged knowing looks
with Grandpa. I praised his handicraft, touched caressingly
the smooth handle, praised the skill of the neatly whittled

MAKIN'

fork. But never once did I ask the purpose of the strange-
looking implement. I could see Grandpa was pleased with
my conduct.

A night or so after that, Martha and Phoebe and the
baby and I were in the kitchen. Phoebe held the baby.
Martha was stirring with a long spoon the boiling molasses
in the iron pot on the stove. "We'll have us a plate o'
taffy before we know it," she was saying to Phoebe who
watched with eager young eyes. "Phoebe's deservin' of
some taffy. She's ever prompt to do whatever I ask,"
Martha praised her child and little Phoebe fairly blushed,
patting a hand atop the baby's plump hand. "Woman,"
Martha turned to me, "take you that plate offen the table
and butter it good so's we can pour the taffy on there.
And ginst it cools, you and Phoebe can pull to your heart's
content. See who can pull their taffy the whitest. I'll take
little Jonathan and nuss him to sleep then."

We were all busy at our tasks. The taffy was poured
into buttered plate, and when it cooled sufficiently, little
Phoebe and I each pulled our portion for dear life. Martha
was jolting to and fro in a straight chair, the baby in her
arms. The taffy was coiled into pretty white ropes around
and around on the buttered plate. Martha put the baby
on the bed, tiptoed back to the kitchen so as not to waken
him. Phoebe and I were sitting side by side, waiting till
the taffy would be hard enough to take from the plate.

"Pulled white like that," Martha observed, "I'm satis-
fied it's ready to take up now." Little Phoebe's eyes danced
with delight. Never had I seen such happiness, over so
little, in a child's face.

"Phoebe's deservin' of this treat, taffy with vanilla

MAKIN'

flavorin' in it. Did you know that, Phoebe? Vanilla fla-
vorin'?"

"Oh, mommy, you and Grandpa's done it! Made it up
for a surprise."

"Yes," answered Martha, her eyes shining, "on account
it's your birthday night, Phoebe. You're six year old this
very night, do you appreciate that?"

Two shots rang out in the darkness outside. Martha
dropped the plate, sending the white ropes of taffy skip-
ping in a hundred pieces. Another shot echoed out of the
far-off hollow. Martha looked at Phoebe. Their lips formed
the soundless word: "Grandpa!" A few days after that,
when I saw the old man, his right hand was wrapped, and
there were blood stains on the bandage. I could tell from
the shape of the hand that the first finger was missing.

On that day Martha was hanging out a washing, though
only yesterday she had washed everything on the place, it
seemed to me. I was certain, anyway, that I had seen her
wash Phoebe's little red-flowered calico with the bow
strings on it; I had seen it fluttering on the clothes line
that reached from the kitchen door to a tree at the far
end of the potato patch. But bless you, there she was
hanging it out again on the line, and a towel beside it.
She made the pieces fast with clothes pins, then came
back and stood in the kitchen door a moment, looking
down the road. It was not until then that I looked in the
same direction and saw two men riding toward the house.
Martha mumbled something to me about peeling potatoes
for dinner. "You know where the crock is and the knife-
get you that cheer over there handy to the potato basket,
'longside the sugar barrel." All these things I knew. Some-
times when drying the dishes I'd put them on top of the

MAKIN'

sugar barrel, and Phoebe would carry them on to the cup-
board. Once I saw Martha lift a great bag of sugar from
the barrel, which later I saw Grandpa carrying out toward
the barn. I did know that cattle ate salt, but I was puzzled
about the sugar. I set at my task of peeling potatoes as
Martha suggested.

As she went out the kitchen door she picked up a towel,
clean and dry, that hung on the back of a chair. I won-
dered why she took it and hung it on the line. Over my
shoulder in the cracked looking glass that hung on the
wall I saw the two men come up the lane. One remained
on his horse; the other dismounted, carrying his saddle
bags over his arm, and went to where Martha was hanging
out clothes or, rather, taking them down. She took Phoebe's
little red dress down, dropped it to the ground, and it
seemed to me she fumbled around quite a while before
she arose. When she got up the dress was tucked around
her hands. She reached her covered hands toward the
saddle bags, held open now by the man. Just then, little
Phoebe, who followed my gaze, crept quietly between me
and the door, shutting off the view to the potato patch.
I heard the two horsemen ride off at a lively clip.

One night when the moon was in the full, Martha and
the children and I were seated before the fire. Grandpa
hadn't been anywhere in sight all day. Martha was sew-
ing, and Phoebe, too. "See/' she offered proudly, "I've
nigh pieced two whole blocks/' My praise was unstinted
at the neatness of her stitches, the smoothness of the
patches. Phoebe's eyes danced at a word of praise, and
Martha was more pleased than if the praise were for her.
The baby was fast asleep on the bed; the little fellow had

MAKIN'

romped and tumbled all day; by the time night came he
was tired out. I had put aside my typewriter after tran-
scribing some notes Martha had given me on how to make
"pickle lily," "chowchow," beet pickles, and blackberry
preserves. Always little Phoebe fairly hovered at my side
as long as the typewriter clicked. She meant to be a "short
writer" some day, she declared. She was pleased beyond
words when I let her pick out the letters of her name and
"make it off" on the typewriter. But much as the machine
fascinated her, Phoebe never offered to lift the lid and
touch it. So much regard has the mountain child for the
property of another. It was pleasant, now, sitting with the
little family at their fireside. As contented and home-
loving a little family as you'd ever look in upon.

And then the stillness of the night was broken by the
piteous yelp of a dog in the distant hollow. Martha, with
quick hand to throat, looked fearfully at Phoebe. The
child flashed an understanding, fearful look back to her
mother. Though Grandpa still had not made his appear-
ance, neither of them mentioned him, though somehow I
connected the yelping of the dog with a warning, some-
how, in their minds of danger. Since they never referred
in any way to Grandpa's goings and comings at unusual
times and hours, least of all would I, the stranger within
their gate, venture to do so. We of the level land learn
early in our travels in the mountains of Kentucky to ask
no questions about anything that is said or done by the
people. Yet at times it took all the will power I could
muster to hold my tongue.

As the days of my forced stay under their roof length-
ened into weeks my nerves were getting on edge, what
with the strange, swift looks of frightened eyes; mother to

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MAKIN'

child, daughter to gray-haired grandfather; the murmur-
ings outside the house in the darkness of night; the strange
absences of Grandpa, his reappearances at early morning
hours; the ever-watchful eyes upon me. Never was I left
alone. If it was not little Phoebe close beside me, it was
Martha. Or if I sat at the hearth in the twilight after dishes
were done, if neither of the others were near me, then it
was Grandpa. Though at all times they were kindly and
most friendly, I was aware of suspicion, of being guarded.
One night, when the moon was in the full, I stepped
into the kitchen to get a drink of water. As I lifted the
gourd dipper from the water bucket, I happened to look
off through the open door toward the barn, and saw, not
the stooped figure of the one-eyed Thornie, but Grandpa
himself, with a great gunny sack on his back, coming out
of the barn. He stepped across the barn lot, quickly for an
old man, and disappeared into a thicket a short distance
away. He soon came back; he must have put down his
load, or passed it on to another; disappeared into the barn
and a moment later reappeared carrying the long-handled
wooden fork which he had spent hours in whittling. He
carried it, not over his shoulder as you would a hoe, but
walked with it like a staff. I watched him climb up the
rough mountainside, gripping the long wood fork, his
wide-brimmed felt drawn low on his silver hair, his white
beard pillowed on his bosom. Up the rock path he trudged,
more slowly than he had descended it, till he again dis-
appeared in the thicket. . . .

Another spring came to the mountains. Summer passed,
and the "falling weather" with all its gay garlands of
scarlet-red leaves and russet-brown, goldenrod and brilliant

MAKIN'

vari-colored sumac bedecking mountainside and quiet
ravine. I was passing through a county seat in the Big
Sandy country when the clanging of the courthouse bell
drew me toward the queer little seat of justice down the
dusty road. I had, for a time, abandoned my beloved voca-
tion of court reporting, to pursue the intriguing avocation
of ballad hunting. But even so there was, and will always
be for me, an impelling charm to the clang of the court-
house bell, and I walked down to see what acquaintance I
might chance upon. A group of men stood talking in un-
dertones.

"I told Grandpa he couldn't confidence Thornie. I
know-ed that one-eyed snake would turn him in sooner or
later!" said a gaunt fellow.

"The law killed Marthie's man, and Jonathan were in
his rights. The law had no call to kill him!" said another.
I felt the blood turn to ice in my veins.

"What's a widder woman to do for bread for her
youngins?" asked another. "Grandpa's gettin' on in years.
He can't raise no crop no more, and the law's crippled his
right hand!"

"Finger plumb shot off. Wonder it didn't cause the old
feller to die o' blood pizen." The gaunt fellow spoke again.

"Would have, exceptin' that the old man's got a heap
o' knowin' how to 'tend such things. A knowin' of healin'
yarbs and of how to draw out black blood" the speaker
stopped short as one of the others nudged him. A stranger,
rather well dressed, was passing, headed toward the court-
house. The group of men exchanged knowing looks and
stood silent till he had gone.

"Makin' is no harm for Grandpa, no harm for Marthie
to holp out."

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MAKIN'

A newcomer shambled across the road and joined the
group. 'They ketched Grandpa diggin' in his 'tater patch
oncet too often!" he remarked.

"Thornie couldn't dig no more arter he ketched that
buckshot full in the hand/' the gaunt fellow said.

Now and then one or two of the group looked in my
direction, indifferently. I had sat down on a stone by the
roadside and was fumbling with my shoe; a small pebble
had slipped in over the top. Served me right, I thought,
for giving up the high-topped button shoes for low, heavy-
soled, walking Oxfords.

"How many did they find in the 'tater patch?" the dis-
cussion went on.

"Six half pints and a full dozen quarts, all in one row."

"Some lay it to Marthie's carelessness. Maybe Marthie
were too trusty. She were puttin' out her washin' same as
ever, looked down the road, thought she know-ed the two
fellers ridin' up. They rid in, same as ever, saddle bag on
arm; one come to the patch. Well, Marthie drapped a
garmint off the clothes line, honkered down, same as ever,
scratched in the soft ground, like Grandpa ever kept it
hoed up soft. Marthie slipped the bottles under kiver of
her wropt-up hands into the saddle bags. Money passed."

"The white-livered law warranted Marthie and pore old
Grandpa!" The gaunt fellow's voice trembled with anger.
"That snake of a Thornie was spyin', off in the brush, to
give evidence!"

"From what I hear, 'pears like that fixy hill billy that
bought out Tackett's store down to the crossroads, he
talked too much. Told how many bags of sugar in one
week's time he sold Grandpa, and how many glass jars.
Grandpa's been usin' them quart fruit jars of late, and

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MAKIN'

them big gallon glass jugs. Been runnin' off his liquor in
them big jugs/'

"The upshot of it all is, one of the Mosleys got miffed
at Marthie. He's been makin' his brags he aimed to court
Jonathan's widder. Went to the house a time or two to get
a pint, or a quart mebbe. Marthie told him Thornie hadn't
dug none that day and that Grandpa hadn't been around
all day. Made him mad as a sarpint! 'Lowed Marthie
wasn't speakin' truth. He rode off in a huff. I reckon he
talked too much. Then when that cloven-foot deputy sold
his vote you might say he got his office by buyin' it from
the high sheriff, that had more territory than he could
cover rightly well, this small law, that's what he is, that
cloven-foot deputy small law! he was a-bound to turn in
some arrests. He taken a shot at Thornie, then old one-eye
went stumblin' back under the clift. Stayed there three
days without grub, his hand tore and bleedin'. Thornie
went ragin' mad. Swore he was through packin' jugs for
Grandpa. Said he'd packed jugs till his back was nigh
broke, humpin' over."

"They do say," the newcomer spoke in a low voice,
"that Marthie and little Phoebe had warnin' that Grandpa
and her household were in danger. One night they hear-ed
the pitiful yelp of a hound plumb acrost the mountain.
They know-ed it to be the yelp of old Brother Vinton's
hound dog, and them a-livin' plumb acrost the ride on
t'other fork of the creek."

The whole story was revealed to me now. Each incident
leaped vividly before my mind, stripped of its mystery. I
knew now the explanation for the frightened looks from
man to woman, from woman to child. I knew the meaning
of the hushed, insistent voices outside the house in the

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darkness; the skulking stooped figure past the firelight. But
also I remembered their kindness to me, the stranger under
their humble roof; Grandpa's care and gentleness in re-
storing my twisted ankle, which, except for his skill and
knowin' might have left me a cripple. I remembered the
tenderness in Martha's voice, like a loving sister as she
stood at my side administering to me in suffering. And
then, through brimming eyes, I saw the little family walk-
ing slowly, fearfully, between officers of the law, up the
well-worn steps of the courthouse. At a distance I followed
them. The group of men who had stood huddled by the
roadside already had passed down the dusty road and en-
tered the court room.

When Martha lifted her eyes to be sworn, so white and
drawn was her face framed in the dark hair, so stooped
were the thin shoulders, I thought she had not much
longer to live under the best of circumstances. When her
eyes met mine I wanted to cry out, "Courage, Martha,
courage!" And then her own gentle voice echoed in my
ears, that day when she had put an encouraging arm about
my shoulders when I had fainted dead away in fear.
"Nothin' to be skeert of!" she had whispered tenderly.
Courage, Martha, courage! my heart cried out though my
lips dare not speak. Perhaps she heard the message, for her
dark eyes sought mine and held them.

When Grandpa raised a shattered right hand to take the
oath to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the
truth, I seemed to see not a violator of the law, but a kindly
old man with earnest eyes, snow-white hair, a flowing,
patriarchal beard.

At long last Martha's case was disposed of: "insufficient
evidence." I breathed a sigh of relief. And then Grandpa.

MAKIN'

Had he done this, had he done that; whom had he dealt
with while he was engaged in the "illicit distilling of ...
intoxicating . . . spirits vinous malt . . . liquor . . ."?
A verbose, repetitious preliminary accompanied each ques-
tion.

At length Grandpa, his patience utterly worn out, arose
from the witness box, a section of an old-time church
bench, high of sides, straight of back. Grandpa's firm hand,
the right hand with the missing finger, gripped the side of
the box. "Your honor, Judge!" He bowed his head ever so
slightly to the court. "Men!" His earnest eyes swept the
jury. "There's no need beatin' the devil around the bush
no longer! Dare I speak?" He paused a split second to gaze
at the judge. There was purpose in the deep-lined face of
old Grandpa. The judge nodded assent. The jury, some
twiddling their thumbs, others leaning forward now and
then to let fly a stream of tobacco juice into the sawdust
box inside the railing that separated them from the pris-
oners and lawyers, turned an indifferent ear.

"My granduns, here," said the old man, "ain't got no
pa no more to look arter 'em. Just Marthie, their ma, and
she's frail and drinlin', as you can see, with lung consump-
tion.

"My granduns, little Phoebe yonder, and the baby, and
Marthie, their mother, and me we've got a right to live!"
The stern voice trembled. "We've got a right to live offen
what's ours our land. And now the law" the sturdy arm
shot forward, the hand with its missing finger clenched
into a horny fist "your law taken my boy Jonathan, shot
him down in cold blood," Grandpa's eyes blazed with
fury, "because he were makin'! Makin', of our own corn
we raised on our own land. Jonathan were in his rights!

164

A mountain family: distant kin of Henry Clay

A jolt wagon

MAKIN'

I'm in my rights!" The voice was low and steady once
more. "Yas, I've been makin'!" The grave eyes swept the
jury, fixed now on the judge. "I've been makin'. I own it!
And the good Lord lettin' me live I aim to keep on makin',
from now to my dyin' day! I aim to take keer of Jonathan's
woman, Marthie hure, and the helpless little 'uns, little
Phoebe yonder, and Little Jonathan. Do with me, men,
what you're a-mind to!"

Grandpa sank into his chair. Crimson spots glowed on
his cheeks above the snow-white beard. I saw his hand
tremble on the side of the witness box. Not a word had he
said of his betrayer, one-eyed Thornie, who sat with his
glistening, snakelike eye fixed upon the old man; not once
did he even allude to the creature, much less did Grandpa
offer a glance in that direction. . . .

The snow was flying when next I went to see my
friends. There was a sharp wind blowing through the leaf-
less trees and the frozen ground creaked under foot. I
called "Hallo!" as I drew near the house, but only little
Phoebe came to the door to answer and bid me welcome.
"Mommy's bedfast, but she's been expectin' you," the
child said. Then a frail voice called from within, "Come
along in, Woman." Martha turned a pale face toward me
and reached forth a thin hand from beneath the patchwork
quilt that covered her bed. "I kinda 'lowed you'd come for
the buryin' " the words choked in her throat.

"Grandpa," said little Phoebe, "he died. A naterl
death." There was gladness in the words for all the child's
face was sad. "The law nor Thornie nor none of his crew
didn't kill my Grandpa!"

"He were took with a stroke," Martha offered feebly

MAKIN'

from her pillow. " 'Twarn't long arter we got him sprung!
'Feared like he just naterly pined away down yonder;
'peared like the irons that helt his wrists when they taken
him offpa fit like a barr, he'd ort not to a done that, fit
like a barr and then when they putt him in that thar leetle
cooped-up place with iron bars in front of him like he
were some wild varmint, 'peared like it just plumb broke
his speerit." Martha breathed heavily. When she had
strength she spoke again. "He'd never let me come nigh.
'Peared like he was shamefaced for us, me and Phoebe and
Little Jonathan, for to see him in such a place. But Brother
Vinton, he went a time or two. Brother Vinton holped us
to get Grandpa sprung. It taken the biggest part of our
place, but I'd a give the last acre, me and Phoebe would
'uv, for to have Grandpa back. And we did give it all,
mighty nigh." Martha lifted herself up on her pillow and
pointed a thin, trembling finger to the chair in which I sat.

"Right thar he set, proud as a king, holdin' high his
head. Died right in that very cheer you settin' in, when he
ketched his last breath. Tm home, Marthie, I'm home,
Phoebe, Little Jonathan, I'm home/ he'd say agin and
agin. 'Can't nothin' harm a man under his own rooft. I'm
home.' Them were his last words hure by the fireside."
Martha's eyes were glassy, flaming spots were on the thin
white cheeks. Little Phoebe and Jonathan stood at her
bedside. "Mommy," little Phoebe patted her hand, "don't
take on that way. Don't you know what Brother Vinton
and Sister Vinton said you're a-bound to quile down if
ever you aim to get outten that bed agin!"

It was more than a month before I left them. Martha
was up and about, though scarcely able to drag one foot
after the other. Little Phoebe and the baby, Jonathan, now

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MAKIN'

toddling wherever he was a-mind to go, was peert as a
cricket, now in the kitchen, now out trying to catch the
small chicks around the door. Some days Martha heeded
the advice of older neighbors and lay for an hour or two
upon the bed. Sister Vinton came bringing good things
to eat and Brother Vinton came too, more than once with
a great basket of cooked vittals, for all he had to ride
many a long mile from yon fork of the creek and across
the ridge. He came and offered comfort in unspoken
words. That is the way of Big Sandy folk.

One day the sun was shining warm and cheery. The
snow had melted away, there was even a breath of spring
in the air. Martha put a shawl about her shoulders.
"Come," she said and led the way out of the cabin. Phoebe
and the baby were close behind, and I followed the little
family. Past the double-crib barn Martha proceeded, then
up the stony mountainside, on through the thicket, stop-
ping now and again to get her breath. At last we reached a
great overhanging cliff. Little Phoebe and the baby sat
do'wn on a log. Martha had gone on a few yards farther and
I followed close behind. She stepped lightly now over a
depression in the ground. I hesitated for I was sure it was
giving way under my feet. "Don't be skeert!" she said,
"them planks has helt up heavier people than you. Stand
here on this side/' With a strong stick Martha scraped the
dead leaves away, revealing a covering of rough planks
about a yard and a half in length. She lifted one at a time
and tossed them aside. There before us was a great sunken
barrel. "That's where Jonathan and Grandpa mixed their
mash," she said, as casually as though she were telling of
mixing corn bread.

It was a crude wooden barrel she had uncovered, sunk

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MAKIN'

well into the ground. "Helt sixty gallon/' Martha ex-
plained. "In makin', Grandpa and Jonathan ever used,
well, say, twenty-five pound o' chop that's cracked corn-
to twenty-five pound o' sugar. I've knowed 'em to use
honey instead of sugar. Time was when we had a full score
of bee stands. But it got so we couldn't keep a one. There
was thievin' goin' on. We didn't know who takin' our
honey, nor we didn't know who fetched back the empty
stands. Some of them triflin' hill billies that come in from
the level land, them whose folks oncet was good, honest
people on these creeks. It's their youngins growed up that
go down to the level land, git above their raisin', learn a
lot of meanness, and come back here to carry on their
thievin'. Well, nohow, we couldn't keep no bee stands no
more. So Jonathan and Grandpa, they had to begin to use
sugar.

"Now in making" she went on in a quiet voice, "it de-
pends on the weather, the nat're of the weather, how long
it takes to work off." Martha left me for a few moments.
She disappeared under the overhanging cliff and emerged
with a long wooden fork. I knew it to be the one which I
had seen Grandpa whittle with such pride and care.

"Here's the fork that he stirred [Martha said steered]
the mash with." She showed me how it was done, as we
stood together beside the sunken barrel. "You see it had
to be steered every few days when it started workin'."

Again she went to the cliff, bringing back this time a
copper-lined wash boiler and lid. "Grandpa got the word
of the law comin', so he hid the biler and such back under
the clift "

With deft hands Martha reconstructed for me the whole
process of "makin'!"

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MAKIN'

The copper-lined, oval-shaped wash boiler she set up on
a crude foundation of stones, like an open oven, a few feet
from the sunken barrel. "We built the fire under here.
I've helped pack wood for the foir." There was neither
boasting nor shame in her voice. "We put biscuit dough
around it to make the lid fast on the biler. Now you see
this hole punched in the lid," Martha explained, "about
as big as a woman's finger ring, see?" She put into it the
tip of her finger on which she wore a gold wedding ring.
"Through this hole we pass the worm. The worm," she
said, in answer to my unspoken question, "is made of cop-
per and it coils round and round. I ever said to Jonathan,
'it coils around like a snake, ready to strike,' and he'd just
laugh soft and gentlelike and tell me not to be skeert. The
copper worm re'ches from here over to the thumpin' keg."

She had come to say "we" now, though at first the story
had been of Jonathan and Grandpa. "A woman's a right
to holp her men folks in their work. It's her bounden duty,
same as in the field and with the milkin', at butcherin'
time and sorghum makin'. Us people, we work hand-in-
hand with our household." Again she hurried off to the
cliff, returning this time with a sawed-off barrel, much
smaller than that which was sunk in the ground.

"This is the thumpin' keg," she said. "We set it up like
this." She placed the half keg on a stone slab. "The coil
lays in it, and the end comes out the bung hole here at the
side. We put a cover over this thumpin' keg; place the coil
in it and cover it with cold water. The other end of the
coil, you see, is over here in the bilin' kittle. Now, when
the brine that we've bailed off of the mash in yonder
sunken barrel begins to bile in the copper wash biler, the
steam off of it passes through this copper coil. Comes on

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MAKIN'

down through here/' she traced the process with a slender
finger, "into the thumpin' keg. The cold water agin that
coil 'stills that brine and it begins to drap out the end of
the worm here stickin' out through the bung hole. It's
clair as water and we have a jug there for it to drap in, or
a cook vessel or a bucket. We run it off half at a time
that's called singlin's the first time." Martha paused for
breath. There was a glow on her cheek and a bright sparkle
in her eye.

"We take the singlin's and pour 'em back again over the
other half of sour mash in the kittle. That we call doublin'
back. The second time it's run off, down through the worm
and all, that is whiskey!"

She was perfectly willing to answer my questions, and
went on to tell me many things.

"A body can run it off in one night after it's boiled, you
understand. I have seen a man drink of the singlin's, but
it is a tarryin' drunk. I know-ed a man to get drunk that
a-way and he stayed drunk all that day and it was still
tarryin' the next morning.

"A man that is crafty and is makin' in a big way, he sets
some mash here and some there, some today and some a
few days after, to have it runnin' off at different times.
Mostly, the big barrel you see yonder sunken in the ground
is made of oak wood about a inch thick. The mash don't
ooze out 'twixt the staves because the sugar, or whatever
sweetnin', melts and water oozes out of the chop, and that
causes the wood to swell, so there's no cracks 'twixt the
staves. In Grandpa's day, and Jonathan's, men made good,
pure corn whiskey. It wouldn't harm a babe! They give
their mash proper and fit time to work, say seven to fifteen
days, dependin' on the nat're of the weather. And they

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MAKIN'

used good, clean planks for to make their barrels, covered
over the big barrel like you see yonder with a clean piece
of bleach, and over that they laid their planks. Kept their
mash clean." Martha did not add that they also covered
the mash barrel with planks and leaves to hide it from
spying eyes.

"We were ever careful to have the biler clean as a
hound's tooth. And we kept a slow fire under the biler.
A slow fire!" she repeated carefully and emphatically, "so's
it could take its naterl time to 'still. But nowadays, scala-
wags don't keer. They 'still for gold and devilmint!"
Martha's eyes kindled. "They don't keer. They use carbide,
mind you, that makes light for miners' lamps. They putt
that carbide into the brine to hurry it up. They just can't
make pizen liquor fast enough!" She took a long breath.
"Woman, would you believe it, them scalawags and
triflin' hill billies use dirty gasoline drums for to 'still in.
They don't use clean wood no more. There's Widcler
Bailey's man lived down in the mill town his stummick
was ett out with pizen liquor made with carbide. He got to
foolin' around with the small law," Martha said contemp-
tuously. "That's a man that sells hisself for money; that is
to say, he buys his job and spies on people makin', then
takes hesh money offen them and gits pay for this from
t'other side too. Hill billies does such as that. It's mostly
a scalawag, like Thornie, afflicted somehow, that takes such
a job; one eye out, or mebbe one leg or a arm missin'. And
a heap o' times nowadays you'll find men makin', 'stead
of goin' on charity. And there are people," her voice fell
to a whisper, "that stands 'twixt them and the law. Fact is,
you might say such as that is the law, its own self, but I'm
not callin' no names."

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MAKIN'

Martha sat down on the log beside little Phoebe and
the baby, who sat all the while looking on with never a
word.

"Woman/' she said earnestly, "do you appreciate it is
the law, that ain't rightly carried on, that causes good men
like Jonathan and Grandpa to be forced to do like they
did? Forced, mind you. Time was when Grandpa and
Jonathan never snuck around when they were makin'.
Why?" she asked, and a bewildered look crept into the
great dark eyes, "why shouldn't a man make liquor from
his corn, same as bread?"

How often had I heard that same honest argument from
the lips of good, honest mountain people. "The land's
mine, the crop is mine. Why can't I make whiskey same
as bread?" It was the argument of the Whiskey Rebels of
1794, and it has been defended and contested ever since.

"It is the law," Martha said heavily, "and the carryin's
on of the law, by them that ain't a spark of honor in their
hearts, hill billies that have got above their raisin' that
scrouge in on good men like Grandpa and Jonathan and
force 'em to ways that 'pear to be dishonest."

For a moment she brooded on her troubles, then, seizing
the long fork, she crossed in a fury to the sunken barrel
where Jonathan and Grandpa had stirred their mash. She
thumped it savagely with strange, sudden strength, till the
staves clattered in a heap. She stepped swiftly to the cop-
per-lined boiler. Again and again she beat it with the fork,
bringing down heavy ringing blows one after the other till
the boiler lay battered and worthless. She turned and bat-
tered the thumping keg to splinters, paused and looked at
the copper coil. "Can't destroy copper," she said, "but it
shall be putt where no hand shall find it. Phoebe," she

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MAKIN'

spoke to the little girl for the first time, "come along, with
Little Jonathan, and, Woman, you come too/'

Along the stony footpath she led the way to the over-
hanging cliff. I stood at the brink, fearful to enter the dark
chasm. But little Phoebe and Jonathan walked on un-
afraid.

"Come along, Woman!" Martha called over her shoul-
der as she stepped within its darkness. I could hear the
echo of her footsteps in the great cavern. "Come along,"
she called again sharply over her shoulder, and I obeyed.
Hands in front of me I felt my way to where the children
stood. I put a hand on Phoebe's small shoulder, reached
down and held Little Jonathan's chubby, warm hand. No
word was spoken. Then came a strange echo, the sound of
a heavy object striking water far, far down in a well.
Martha drew near us in the darkness. Her hand trembled
on my shoulder. Without a word she led the way back out
of the dark cave. A few moments later we blinked in the
sunlight under the edge of the overhanging cliff.

"Now let 'em sarch for the coil," Martha's lips quiv-
ered, "and them that took Jonathan, them that took
Grandpa too, let 'em drap to depths in that bottomless
well."

Phoebe gripped her mother's hand hanging limp at her
side. Little Jonathan snuggled close, looking up into her
face with wide, wondering eyes. The little family trudged
slowly back to where the thumping keg and the mash bar-
rel lay in heaps of battered staves and the copper boiler
lay battered to destruction.

"We've laid waste everything," said Martha in a calm
voice, "everything, same as the law laid waste my family,
my men folks. We're through makin', me and mine! It's

MAKIN'

an uneasy way of yearnin' a living but now, I'm sartin the
good Lord will take keer of me and my helpless little 'uns."
Picking up the wood fork to which still clung evidence of
sour mash, she handed it to me. "Grandpa aimed for you
to have this mash fork/' she said. "He named it more than
once afore he died. Couldn't speak so's a body could
understand, but he pointed to it last time I were up here
with him. He would come/' she offered with conscientious
wistfulness, "though I knowed he were liable to drap dead
in his tracks any minute. He sunk down here on this log
Alongside the thumpin' keg and helt the fork in his pore,
quiverin' hand, his fingers a-thumpin' palsiedlike on the
handle. It fell from his grasp, but he p'inted to it. Tor that
woman/ he mumbled. I knowed who he meant. He made
the sign like on his ankle j'int I knowed he meant you.
Tor that woman/ he come over it again. Woman" her
voice was steady now, "we confidence you, me and
Grandpa. We did then we do now. You know why we
ever kept watch on you. We didn't aim for Thornie to
ketch sight of you in our house. He'd a had you warranted
to swear agin us, mebbe. It was to save you, Woman
and us."

Slowly we made our way down the mountainside over
the stony path, Martha in the lead, Phoebe and Little
Jonathan stumbling with small steps at her side, while I
followed, forked staff in hand. I was proud of that sign of
trust Grandpa had bequeathed to me, the wayfarer who
had found friend and comforter at his humble hearth. I
still have it.

In the height of prohibition days, when it was daring
and intriguing to buy what the outside world calls "moon-
shine/' it fetched as much as twenty dollars a gallon.

MAKIN'

Today a dollar is a high price for a quart of "pizen" liquor.
Out of sixty gallons of mash, probably fifty gallons of
liquid or brine would be produced. By the time the
"singlin's" are run and "doubled back/' no more than
twenty-five gallons of corn whiskey result. It passes through
many hands, sometimes, before it reaches the consumer,
and each man who handles it takes his toll, so that the
man who actually is "makin' " realizes the least profit of
all, and runs the greatest risk with the law and the small
law. It is, indeed, an "uneasy way of yearnin' a livin'."

Some fair summer day, when the foot log is not slippery,
cross it, turn to the right, and make your way to where
Martha and Grandpa and Jonathan once lived. I'm sure
Phoebe and Little Jonathan will welcome you. They are
both "growed up" and married off. Phoebe lives in the
old house, young Jonathan close by. Old Brother Vinton
and his wife watched over them to their dyin' day, for
Martha, the mother, passed away that same winter after
she laid waste what was left of their "makinY'

8

ROMEO AND JULIET

Two households, both alike in dignity . . .
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny . . .
A pair of star-cross'd lovers . . .

IN THE MOUNTAINS OF KENTUCKY THE WORD "FEUD" IS
in disrepute. There, a vendetta is called "war" or "the
troubles/' as troublous, indeed, it is. With changing
conditions, such outbreaks become less and less probable;
that they were ever possible is less attributable to the par-
ticipants themselves than to the nature of the country in
which they lived. Law enforcement was difficult, slow,
often ineffective, sometimes impossible. Families had to
take upon themselves the responsibility of protecting their
lives and their property, and avenging wrongs that had
been inflicted upon them.

It is a paradox not to be reconciled by me that a fasci-
nation remains in war, in its revelation of strong personali-
ties in unrestrained action. Reports of recurrent outbreaks
of vendettas in the mountains of Kentucky were always
read with interest elsewhere, like reports of war in any land
at any time, but they were indeed troubles, containing all
the anguish of war, to the participants, and especially to
the women of the families involved, who, though loyal to

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their men folk, intuitively preferred peace and security to
the excitement and possible gains of rivalry.

The most famous of all the "wars" was the one between
the Hatfields and the McCoys. It is over now. Members
of the two families have intermarried; one descendant of
the rival leaders was named Randall McCoy Hatfield;
direct descendants of both can now sit quietly and discuss
the troubles of the past without animosity. Even if a new
outbreak should occur, which is not likely, it would be-
come another rivalry, not a revival of the old one. The
mountain people have had enough of that sort of thing,
and know well the futility of it. The original cause of the
animosity between Hatfields and McCoys is not even
known, now, nor are the issues of the war clearly defined.
Some say that it grew out of, and was in a way an exten-
sion of, the Civil War.

Big Sandy country was the scene of many a skirmish
during the War between the States, and although both
West Virginia and Kentucky remained in the Union,
many of their stalwart sons got together a company of
neighbors and joined the Confederate forces. One young
fellow, Anderson Hatfield, shouldered his musket and
joined the "Logan Wildcats," a regiment in which he
became a captain. A neighbor, Randall McCoy, joined the
Union forces, and though he never rose to commissioned
rank, he had the satisfaction of being on the victorious
side. The war ended, two tattered and weary soldiers rode
back into the wilderness whence they had come, and their
paths crossed when they drew near Tug Fork. When two
of the opposite side met, a Rebel and a Union soldier, the
very sight of the blue and the gray aroused animosity. It
was so this day.

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"Anderson/* said Randall, the man in blue to the man
in gray, "you're actin' uppity. I reckon you think yourself
bigger'n me. I ain't carin' nothin' about callin' you 'cap-
tain/ I'll have you know me nor mine don't lick nobody's
boots. And don't you be forgettin' who won this war. A
Johnny captain ain't worth a Union drummer boy. You
ain't got no more sand in your craw than me and mine.
Now you can putt that in your pipe and smoke it!" Randall
dug his knees into the sides of his mule and rode off, and
the least that can be said for the encounter is that it
effected nothing toward reconciliation.

The nearest railroad was three days' journey away by
horseback. High mountain walls and bridgeless streams
shut off the Hatfields and McCoys from the outside world.
No warring clans of Scotland ever had a wilder, fiercer
scene in which to hold their hatred and slay their sworn
enemy than had these clans of the southern highlands.
They quarreled over real or fancied wrongs, families joined
with families; there were tale bearers, traitors, and, to make
the story complete, lovers. There was a small schoolhouse
on Mate Creek, not far from either house, but neither of
the leaders of their clan paid any attention to "book
1'arninY' Neither Devil Anse Hatfield nor Randall McCoy
could read or write.

Devil Anse came of a sturdy race. His grandfather,
Ephraim Hatfield, back in 1795 had crossed the moun-
tains and settled on Big Sandy. He prospered, was a peace-
loving man, tilled the soil, hunted wild game. When he
died Ephraim left his lands to his son George, father of
Devil Anse, and to his other children, ten in number;
Madison, Polly, Ransom, James, Alexis, Johnson (for
whom Devil Anse's oldest son, Jonse, was named), Bazell,

ROMEO AND JULIET

Wallace, Elias, Floyd. The place where the first Hatfield
settled is today known as part of Pike County. At the same
time, some of Ephraim's brothers and cousins settled in
the territory which is now included in Logan County,
West Virginia. The Hatfields 7 descendants are numerous.

The young captain loved hunting above all else in the
world. His mother used to say proudly of him, "Anse ain't
afeared of the devil. Why, I've knowed him to fight a b'ar
with his naked fists. I've seed him ketch a wildcat and squz
it to death. And come to takin' aim with his rifle gun,
'pon my honor, I've seed Anse sit right thar on the step-
rock, take aim at a wild turkey off yonder on the ridge,
drap it! Jest as easy as you'd whistle to a dog. And oncet
Anse went huntin' all by his lorn self. Come draggin' in
at nightfall a painter! A painter, mind you, nigh as long as
hisself when he hung it up head fo'most from the tree
yonder. Not afeared of no kind of varmint nor of the devil
hisself!" "Devil Anse" the old mother proudly called her
son, so apt was he with the gun and so fearless. So Devil
Anse he became to neighbor folk far and near.

A young man of twenty-seven when the Civil War
ended, and already married, Devil Anse Hatfield built a
home on Peter Creek. Tall, more than six feet he stood in
sock feet, he was of strong build, his long black hair reached
to his shoulders, and he wore a stubby beard. His eyes were
black, piercing. With the lands he had before joining the
Confederate army, and the acres acquired afterward, by the
year 1878, when the Hatfield-McCoy war really started,
he was lord over seven thousand acres. Land in those days
meant power. And rugged mountain lands and virgin for-
ests meant also protection, safety against intrusion un-
awares upon the likes of Devil Anse. He farmed some,

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raised hogs and a big family. He was the father of thirteen
children, nine boys who grew to manhood, and four girls.

Randall McCoy, who had stopped on the narrow trail
over the mountain that day "to give Anse a piece of his
mind/' as he told afterward, was more than twenty years
older than young Hatfield. Randall was a man of strong
physique, dark hair, and sullen gray eyes. He built his
house on Pond Creek of Blackberry Fork, just a few miles
away from Anse at the mouth of Peter Creek.

Devil Anse continued to hunt, proud always of his skill
and strength. And the country was aware that he had al-
ready made the first notch on his gun, for it was said that
he had killed Harmon McCoy in 1863, in one of the skir-
mishes of the War. Perhaps that was what made Randall
McCoy so contentious in 1865.

News passed swiftly by word of mouth, up one creek,
down another, so when there was a quarrel, Devil Anse,
the leader of his family, always heard of it. He gave com-
mands, the rest obeyed. Hatfields followed their leader to
a man. They trusted Devil Anse, relied absolutely upon
him. His brother Ellison married a Staton, and they lived
on Mate Creek, not far off. When she quarreled with the
McCoys and went to law about it, naturally the Hatfields
took sides with her. It was Devil Anse who told them what
to do. But that quarrel was disposed of. Another soon
followed.

In those days men didn't bother much about keeping
up their stock. They had crude pens, however, and split-
rail fences here and there marked a boundary line between
neighbors. But hogs could root their way out of a pen, and
a persistent old sow or a boar had been known to uproot
a split-rail fence, so owners took to branding their hogs

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with a hot iron: a brand under the right or left eye; or
again, they slit the right or left ear, so as to identify their
property. When a man's hogs roved too far, he went into
the woods to round them up.

One day in 1878, Floyd Hatfield, living near Stringtown
in Pike County, Kentucky, set out to round up his hogs.
He had them safely in the pen at last and was leaning over
the rail shelling corn into their trough when Randall
McCoy rode up. Some of his hogs were missing and he
meant to find them. He reined in close to the pen and,
leaning from his nag, pointed with his whip, a small switch
he had broken from a papaw bush as he rode along the
creek, to a fat hog crunching a nubbin of corn.

"Floyd, that thar hog is mine," said Randall McCoy.
"It's got two slits in the left ear. That's my brand! And
I'm aimin' to get back my property." With that he
wheeled about and headed his nag toward Raccoon Hol-
low where Deacon Hatfield, Floyd's kinsman, was justice
of the peace, and made complaint. Having stated the case,
he started civil action to get back the hog.

On the day set for the trial many of both factions rode
forth for the occasion. With the Hatfields were Chafins
(Devil Anse's wife was Levicy Chafin) , Mahons, Vances,
Farrells, Statons, all kin by blood or marriage to the
Hatfields. They forded Tug to reach Raccoon Hollow,
which was in Pike County. The McCoys had with them
Normans, Stuarts, Smiths, Colemans, Gateses, Sowardses.
They crowded into the blacksmith shop where the trial was
to be held, some grumbling in an undertone, others jesting
over the affair. The hog had been brought into court too.
It grunted and blinked stupidly at the gathering, and nosed
around on the dirt floor after an ear of corn someone threw

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down. The justice of the peace, Deacon Hatfield, spat into
the forge, then, thumping a horny hand on the anvil,
called for order. "Men! Let's get to this trial. Did you ever
see this here hog afore?" he asked of Bill Staton, a
brother-in-law of Ellison Hatfield.

"Yas," answered Staton, "and to my notion it's Floyd's
hog. What's more, I seed it branded under the right eye.
See, the brand is still thar in the hog's meat, for all it's
covered with gorm. It's Floyd's hog!"

At this Tolbert McCoy, son of Randall, made a rush
for Staton, shouting, "That's a lie, Bill Staton, and you
know it!"

"Hure now, men," Deacon Hatfield thumped the anvil
for order. "I'm wantin' to get to the bottom of this busi-
ness. Quile down thar, Tolbert, whilst I call for another
witness."

With the aid of a couple of deputies Tolbert McCoy
and Bill Staton were pried apart and the trial continued.

"Jasper Coleman!" called the court, "did you ever see
this hog afore?"

Jasper looked uncertainly now at McCoys, now at Hat-
fields, lined up around the wall. "Yas, I seed the hog
afore," he squinted at the grunting hog. "Hit belongs to
Randall McCoy. I taken notice of them thar two slits in
the left ear right after Randall cut 'em thar! That's Ran-
dall's mark two slits in the left ear."

The justice of the peace turned to Dave Mahon. "Have
you seen the hog afore and who does it belong to, to the
best of your knowin' and belief?"

"The hog belongs to Floyd Hatfield," Dave Mahon an-
swered without batting an eye.

"Selkirk McCoy," the court addressed the next witness,

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a gaunt fellow who stood with hands in pockets leaning
against the wall.

"Well, sir, bein' as you axed me, the hog belongs to
Floyd Hatfield." Selkirk McCoy shrugged his shoulders
and looked down at the hog still crunching the ear of corn.
With the answer of Selkirk in their favor the Hatfields
then and there adopted this McCoy as one of their own.
But they felt disgruntled toward Deacon Hatfield, because
the verdict finally went to Randall McCoy, giving him the
hog with the two slits in the left ear. Randall and his son
Tolbert bound the hog with a piece of bark, front and back
feet, and carried it squealing from the improvised court
room, hung it over the back of their waiting nag and rode
home with their property.

Some contend the hog really started the trouble between
the Hatfields and McCoys which led to a war that lasted
more than a quarter of a century and cost more than a
score of lives. But, although undoubtedly there was already
bad feeling between the two leaders and their families,
others say it was really "a pair of star-crossed lovers/' the
love of a young Hatfield for a pretty McCoy, that caused
the trouble. Jonse Hatfield, eldest son of Devil Anse, loved
Rosanna, the daughter of Randall McCoy, whatever he
may have done later to the contrary. Much of the story
I had from Devil Anse himself, and the look in Jonse's
eyes, long years after Rosanna lay in the little burying
ground on Tug, even at the mention of her name, makes
me know he loved her. Jonse, I am afraid, made a rather
poor figure of a Romeo, but in his way, he loved Rosanna.

Two years after the trial which gave Randall McCoy
back his hog, there was an election. That was the spring

ROMEO AND JULIET

of 1880. At sunup, members of both families rode out for
the polling place on Blackberry Creek. With Devil Anse
Hatfield were Tom Chambers, Mose Christian, his broth-
ers Ellison and Elias Hatfield, and his son, Cap Hatfield,
just fourteen years old. At home, Devil Anse had left his
wife, Levicy Chafin Hatfield, and two of his daughters,
Rosy and Nancy.

But long before the others started, Jonse, the oldest of
Devil Anse's boys, eighteen and handsome, was on his
way, his wide-brimmed felt set far back on his head, his
light-brown hair falling in ringlets over his forehead.
Jonse's dark eyes had an alluring light in them and the
sound of his voice, his boyish smile, somehow melted the
hearts of fair maidens wherever he went. Jonse rode on
ahead, singing a love ditty, or again, whistling a gay tune.
He was young, it was spring, there'd be pretty girls to say
things to to make them "fidget." Jonse delighted to say
things to girls to make them fidget. "Can't rest till he gets
every new girl he sets eyes on plumb frantic over him/'
Devil Anse said many a time.

So this bright spring morning Jonse rode forth, thinking,
to be sure, of girls, pretty girls, he meant to caress and kiss.
On the way he met his great-uncle, Jim Vance, and they
tipped the jug. Not that Jonse needed corn whiskey to
make him gay or in a loving mood. Jonse was eighteen and
handsome.

There were others at the polling place when Jonse and
Jim arrived. All the men had rifles, many had a jug of
whiskey. They stacked their rifles against trees, mingled,
and drank together.

"Who you drinkin' for?" a McCoy asked a Hatfield.

"The winner," answered the Hatfield. And they tipped

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the jug, pulling out the corn-cob stopper, passing the jug
from hand to hand.

Randall McCoy, who was all of sixty by this time and
the father of a pretty daughter, Rosanna, mingled with the
others. His young son, Little Randall, thirteen, in home-
spun jeans and knitted galluses, felt himself quite a man
among them as he sauntered around through the crowd.
Many of the women folk were there. Though women had
not the slightest interest in politics and voting they went
along, for occasions for a gathering were few in the moun-
tains. So women folk made the most of this occasion to
visit together, to talk over canning and butter making,
weaving and spinning; to exchange with each other quilt
patterns and things they had tried for making dyes, various
combinations of herbs and juices.

"You, Jonse," one of the older women, shifting a nurs-
ing baby from one hip to the other, called out to young
Hatfield, "who you courtin' now? Reckon you and Mel-
vinie is on the outs ginst now/' "Or is it Sarie?" "Or Mol-
lie?" one after the other teased good naturedly. For every-
one knew young Jonse Hatfield and liked him. They all
knew Jonse, with his pretty eyes and pleasant way, was
fickle. "Courtin' first one then t'other/' Devil Anse him-
self admitted as much smilingly.

"I'm aimin' to look in new pastures," answered Jonse,
who by this time was a bit unsteady on his feet, "and if
my eyesight serves me right, 'pears like she's comin' right
yonder/' He braced himself by one hand against a sapling
as he leaned forward, his eyes fixed boldly* on a pretty girl,
scarce out of her teens, with golden curls and blue eyes,
who rode into view. She rode behind a young fellow on a
bay mare, her arms tight about his waist. Her bonnet, of

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pink calico like her dress, had slipped from her head. Her
new store shoes, high-topped and buttoned, did not quite
reach to the hem of her frock, leaving much of her bare
legs to view. Stockings were expensive in those days and
young girls often wore shoes without them.

"Pretty as a posey," grinned young Hatfield, straighten-
ing his shoulders as best he could, considering the corn
whiskey he had drunk. He stared openly at the girl. "Who
is she?" he asked eagerly of a fellow who sauntered by.

"Don't you know a McCoy when you see one?" twitted
his informant. "That's Rosanna McCoy!"

"God Almighty!" Jonse hooked his thumbs in his gal-
luses to steady himself. "Rosanna McCoy! You are plumb
pretty as a posey. I'm bound to have you, Rosanna! I'm
just plumb bound to!" he murmured as his eyes swept
lustfully the pretty face, the rounded breasts, the pretty
plump legs which Rosanna now displayed as she jumped
from the nag and the pink calico dress, full skirted, bil-
lowed about her. Tolbert McCoy, the brother with whom
she rode, led the nag to one side and tied the bridle to a
papaw bush, stacked his rifle with the rest, took a nip from
his jug of whiskey and hung it on the pommel of his
saddle.

From beyond a clump of bushes, Cap Hatfield, Jonse's
younger brother, was watching with fascination the prog-
ress of Jonse. "Jonse ort not to lust after that pretty girl,"
Cap thought to himself. "There's plenty of wimmin for
him to lay with, let alone a McCoy. He can't stay away
from wimmin. Just plumb hog wild when he sets eyes on
a pretty one." Jonse, eighteen, handsome and impetuous,
made rapid progress with Rosanna, twenty, blue-eyed,
pretty, and blushing.

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Before sundown the older men, what with passing their
jugs again and again, were gloriously drunk. Some slept
heavily under the wide-spreading trees, or crawled into the
bushes. Randall McCoy, an old man of sixty, had gone
home, and Tolbert, his son, had quite forgotten to look
after Rosanna as he had promised their mother. Devil
Anse, satisfied that the election was going satisfactorily,
had gotten his crowd together and gone his way. Everyone
seemed to have forgotten Jonse and Rosanna.

The two had found a secluded spot by a little stream
quite hidden from view. With arms entwined about each
other they sat, a Hatfield and a McCoy. Once or twice
Jonse had left Rosanna's side to make sure there would be
no intrusion from any quarter. Each time he came back to
report to Rosanna. "Them that ain't plumb drunk and
sleepin' around in the bushes has rode off home. I don't
see spyin' Cap, even. He's not dry behint the ears yit,"
Jonse smiled. "Cap don't know no woman yit, Rosanna.
He's not old enough yit, jest fourteen. He don't know
nothin' what it's like to love a woman I mean sure enough
love her." Jonse's eyes lingered on Rosanna's lovely throat,
her tempting lips, her breasts. "We ain't nothin' or no one
to be afeared of, Rosanna. I've got to have you," Jonse
coaxed. From his place behind a clump of papaw bushes
young Cap watched the lovers.

Jonse drew Rosanna close in his arms. Her head with
the golden curls lay back upon a mossy pillow. Jonse
pressed her closer, his lips met hers. And Rosanna, quite
beside herself with love for the handsome lad, "came to
her wits" a little while later realizing her weakness, her
transgression. "Pa will kill me," she sobbed in Jonse's arms,
"or worse yit, he will disown me."

ROMEO AND JULIET

"Don't be troubled, Rosanna," Jonse patted her cheek,
kissed her again and again. "I love you, Rosanna. I swear
before God Almighty I love you. You are my woman."

"Jonse," Rosanna looked into his dark eyes, "I'm older'n
you, all of two year, and a woman ort not give herself to
a man that's younger"

"What's two year 'twixt them that love each other like
me and you, Rosanna? I aim to hold you for my very own.
Come along." He lifted her up in his arms, steadied himself
against a tree. "You're goin' back to my home! With me,
Rosanna."

Levicy, Devil Anse's wife, flung wide the cabin door,
holding high above her head a blazing pine stick. In its
circle of light she caught the outline of a girl, her hand
in Jonse's. "Come in, Rosanna," said Levicy Hatfield in
her motherly way, "you can sleep in the bed yonder in the
corner with my girls."

The Hatfield girls blinked at their visitor and said,
"Howdy, Rosanna. Git in."

"Scrouge over, Rosy," Nancy said to her sister, "and
make room for Rosanna. I'm just plumb on the edge of
the bed myself."

Jonse, with a lingering look at Rosanna, went into the
kitchen. Rosanna unbuttoned her shoes, dropped them
under the bed, and climbed under the coverlid with Rosy
and Nancy. She unbuttoned her dress after she got in,
slipped it off and dropped it on the floor. Jonse's two sis-
ters were asleep again in a few moments, but Rosanna
McCoy lay quiet, staring wide-eyed into the darkness, for
Levicy Hatfield had carried the candle into the kitchen,
where she talked with her son. Rosanna could hear them

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ROMEO AND JULIET

talking, now in an undertone and again their voices trailed
off to whispers.

"Ma, I've got to have Rosanna," she could hear Jonse
arguing.

"Mesh," said Levicy Hatfield, "the Good Book says 'tis
better to wed than to lust, and when you're fined in wed-
lock, Jonse Hatfield, I'm not wantin' it to be with a
McCoy. Not that I've ary thing in the world ginst Ro-
sanna. She is plumb pretty as a posey, and fair to look
upon, but what will your pa say ginst he comes to know
this in the mornin'?"

Presently Levicy spoke again. "Cap's asleep," she lifted
her eyes to the loft above the rafters. "He named it to me
the minute he got home, about you and Rosanna."

Jonse flashed a swift, guilty look at his mother. "Cap
nor no one else ain't no call to go snoopin' around in my
business. I'm a man, and if what me and Rosanna's done
suits us, I reckon hit'll have to suit the rest."

"Hit'll have to be 'twixt you and your pa in the mornin',
son. Whatever your pa says we'll all abide by. Anderson
Hatfield never was one to be contraried."

Rosanna McCoy stayed on under the roof of Devil Anse
with Jonse, though they were never married. Devil Anse
would not consent to his eighteen-year-old son marrying
old Randall McCoy's daughter, but since they loved each
other he did not object to them living together at his
house. It wasn't long, however, until Jonse was looking
into other pastures. This time his lustful eye turned upon
Mary Stafford, who was also courted by Rosanna's brother,
Tolbert McCoy.

"You ain't content, Jonse," Tolbert told young Hatfield

ROMEO AND JULIET

one day when they met on the road, "with takin' Rosanna
and a-breakin' her heart and speerit, you got to go castin'
lustful eyes in t'other direction. But I'm warnin' you. You
keep your pretty smiles and your kisses for someone else
'stead of Mary Stafford."

Later Tolbert tried to persuade their mother to allow
Rosanna to return home.

"Whatever your pa says, Tolbert, I'm willin' for/' Sarah
McCoy said submissively, "but I ain't one to name it to
him."

When Tolbert spoke of Rosanna to his father, old
Randall sat silent, brooding. "She's turned agin her own,"
he said after a long time. " 'Pears like she favors the Hat-
fields to her own people."

The younger girls drew near the fireside where old Ran-
dall sat. "It's not that Rosanna has shunned us, pa," young
Allifair pleaded for her sister. "Can't you find it in your
heart, pa, to forgive her? Her speerit is plumb crushed."

The next day Rosanna's sisters, Allifair, Josephine, and
Adelaide, took matters in their own hands and set out to
see their sister. They met under a great beech by the road-
side, the three sisters on one horse. Rosanna spied them
coming down the road, eagerly ran to greet them.

"Pa, does he brood and trouble over me, Allifair? Did
he ever ax for me. Did ever he wisht I were back home?"
Rosanna begged for a word from her father, but the three
sisters looked helplessly at each other.

"Jonse don't love you, Rosanna," Allifair argued. "Can't
no livin' woman, no one woman, satisfy Jonse Hatfield.
He's wantin' every woman his eyes look upon. Jonse is a
lustful man, Rosanna, and you are fair and young."

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"You best come home with us, Rosanna," said Jose-
phine*

"I darsen," said Rosanna, forlorn now. "Pa couldn't
bide the sight of me, I'm afeared." And she told her sisters
she was going to have a child.

"Pa's bound to tender his heart to you/' Allifair was
more earnest than ever. "You ain't committed deep-dyed
sin, Rosanna, 'cause in your heart you love Jonse, for all
he is unworthy. You ain't sinned, nor him nuther, if he
will do right by you. The Book says, so I hearn Preacher
Garret say, and old Brother Dyke Garret knows Script're,
he says 'tis writ that him that taketh his virgin, there is no
wrong if the two be fined in wedlock."

Rosanna went home. But again Jonse lured her away.
Even in the short time she was home, more trouble was
brewing. Bud McCoy, a relative of old Randall's, tried to
kill Bob Hatfield, Devil Anse's cousin, and when Bob tried
to get a warrant for his arrest he failed. There were Mc-
Coys in office as well as Hatfields. Her sisters and mother
had kept Rosanna's secret from old Randall. They feared
their men folks would waylay Jonse and kill him, and that
would only add to Rosanna's grief and sorrow. In the mean-
time, Jonse was casting lustful eyes in pastures new. This
time he was openly courting Nancy McCoy, pretty, high
tempered, quick tongued. And Rosanna was fading day
by day. "I can't 'bide it here no more," she confided to
the motherly Levicy Hatfield. 'Pears like bein' like I am,
I crave to be among my own. I'm goin' to Aunt Betty
McCoy's. She'll take me in."

"No matter where you go, Rosanna, it won't ease your
heart none. You love Jonse, and in his way he loves you,
Rosanna. But Jonse ain't natured to love just one woman.

ROMEO AND JULIET

It takes a heap o' women to satisfy my boy. Hit's his curse.
He can't holp hisself. You had as well stay here with us,
Rosanna, and content yourself with what love Jonse gives
you. He don't aim to be unkind to you. He can't holp bein'
natured like he is."

But Rosanna, carrying her shoes to save them from the
muddy road, set out for her Aunt Betty McCoy's, at
Stringtown. The girl found a welcome with Aunt Betty,
who tried every way to keep her pacified and contented.

"You are deservin' of a heap o' things that's pretty and
nice, and you're deservin' of all of Jonse Hatfield's love.
He ain't no call to forsake you and run after other wim-

mm."

"Don't fault Jonse-" The girl burst into tears. "He can't
holp hisself bein' natured like he is."

After that, whenever Jonse came riding up the road,
Aunt Betty McCoy didn't interfere when he tossed his
bridle over a picket of the fence and came in to talk a
spell with Rosanna. One night he lingered too long. Ro-
sanna's brothers, Tolbert, Phemar, and Little Randall, rode
up. The moon was hidden behind dark clouds so that
Jonse didn't see the men coming. They tethered their
horses a distance from the house and crept up stealthily
toward the stoop where Rosanna and Jonse were talking.
Before Jonse was aware of them they had seized him, tied
his hands behind him, and hurried him away to the wait-
ing horses, leaving Rosanna like a figure of stone, hands
helpless at her sides. Her youngest brother, Randall,
snatched the bridle of Jonse's horse from the picket and
led it swiftly behind his own galloping nag.

"Aunt Betty!" Rosanna cried, stumbling into the
house, "they've took Jonse!"

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ROMEO AND JULIET

The old woman straightened up in bed. "This ain't no
time to sit there a-clinchin' your hands and sobbin'. YouVe
got to go tell Anse! Git a nag and ride like you never rid
afore in all your born days, Rosanna."

Half wild with fear, Rosanna McCoy rode down the
creek-bed road. When she fell breathless in Levicy' s arms,
Devil Anse snatched his gun from the wall hooks, shouted
for Cap, for Elias, for Ellison, and furiously they rode off,
gathering their clan as they went. Uncle Jim Vance headed
one group, Devil Anse the other. "You take your men and
cut across to Pikeville road!" commanded Devil Anse.
"And you, Cap, Ellison, Elias, Tom Chambers, come
along with me!"

In the meantime Levicy Hatfield with motherly tender-
ness had turned to look after Rosanna. "You're liable to
lose your babe, a-ridin' like this. You ain't to say strong
built nohow. There, now," she unbuttoned Rosanna's
dress, for the girl's hands were trembling and cold, "you
git into bed thar, hure in this corner in my bed. No need
gittin' Rosy and Nancy stirred up in the nighttime." But
Jonse's sisters in their bed across the narrow dog-trot of
the double-crib cabin were already wide-eyed. They sat up,
hands clasped about their knees. "It's Jonse agin," they
said. "We best quile down," said Nancy, "and let ma and
pore Rosanna worry along together."

Rosanna wept bitterly. "Jonse will think allus that I be-
trayed him. I know, Levicy, I know from the look in his
eyes when Phemar and Tolbert and Randall ketched him
from the back. But they tuck him off, hands bound behint
him, and never oncet did he turn to look back at me. He
thinks I done it, Levicy."

"We'll make him know different, me and Anse. You

ROMEO AND JULIET

seen how proud Anse were of you tonight when you
fetched the word. Anse and me won't never forsake you,
Rosanna McCoy. Nothin' can't never turn us agin you."

Along the road that crossed a rocky ridge rode a group
of horsemen, jeering and taunting the hatless one in their
midst who sat his saddle easily for all his hands were
bound behind him.

"You'll steal off Rosanna, will you?" taunted Tolbert
McCoy. Phemar, his brother, and Little Randall laughed
mockingly.

"Jonse, weVe got you this time," said Phemar.

"And we aim to make you toe the mark!" scoffed Little
Randall.

But Jonse Hatfield offered no retort. That was what the
McCoys wanted. Not even when Old Randall looked back
over his shoulder and scoffed, "Jonse, you over-re'ched
yourself this time. You'd ort to a-stayed away from Ro-
sanna when she left you. We warned you."

"We'll larn you a lesson," jeered Tolbert.

Phemar nosed his horse closer to Jonse and poked him in
the ribs with his elbow. "Pretty Jonse we'll soon make a
sorry sight of you, if you give us any back talk."

Jonse Hatfield kept silent, his thoughts on Rosanna.
He was seething with anger and plans for revenge. She had
betrayed him into the hands of her brothers. Jonse was
certain of it. He's never forgive her. He'd crush the heart
of her if ever he lived through this night. Jonse's dark
brooding was suddenly cut short, for, riding swiftly toward
them came a galloping horseman, gun held high above the
head of his nag.

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Devil Anse Hatfield halted not an arm's length from
Old Randall McCoy.

"What you think you're a-doin', Ran'l?" Devil Anse
lowered his gun to the level of his enemy's heart, and fif-
teen of the Hatfield clan closed about their leader. Fifteen
more closed in behind Tolbert, Phemar and Little Randall.
"Untie Jonse's hands!" commanded Devil Anse, "and be
spry about it!" Rosanna's brothers obeyed swiftly.

"And whar's Jonse's hat?" Devil Anse meant that his
son should ride like a man along the mountain road. Little
Randall McCoy produced the hat from the horn of his
own saddle.

"Dust it off!" commanded Devil Anse, never shifting
his gun, while the Hatfield clan, all of thirty strong, kept
their guns on the other McCoys. Without a word Jonse
sat in his saddle, took the proffered hat from the hands of
Little Randall, put it on.

"And now you take your hanksher," Devil Anse shifted
his eyes to Tolbert, "and rub the dirt offen Jonse's boots!"

The McCoys straightened in their saddles. But what
with Devil Anse's gun level with Old Randall's heart, and
the guns of the Hatfields, thirty strong, aimed at the
McCoys from all sides, Tolbert did as he was told.

"And now, Ran'l!" Devil Anse, gun in hand, the other
gripping his bridle, gave orders: "You turn your nag's nose
back to where you come from. And from now on you let
me and mine alone let my boy be! Hear me, and there
won't be any trouble."

After that there were times when Jonse seemed recon-
ciled to Rosanna, trusted and believed that she was inno-
cent of his betrayal to her brothers, what with the word

ROMEO AND JULIET

of Devil Anse and Levicy. But soon Jonse was again
courtin' other wimmin; the night Rosanna's baby was
born, Jonse was off "galavantin' with a harlot/' Devil
Anse complained, and Rosanna faded day by day.

"Hit's not lung consumption/' old Aunt Betty McCoy
and granny women along the creek declared. "Hit's be-
cause Rosanna is pinin' in her heart for the love of Jonse
Hatfield. And look how her babe is witherin'."

Word of Rosanna's failing health reached the McCoys,
and one day young Calvin, her younger brother, rode down
Peter Creek to persuade her to go home.

"Oncet I snuck back from Aunt Betty's, unbeknownst
to Jonse," Rosanna explained, "and seemed like I could
a-bore hit a heap easier if pa had a-flogged me, as for to
see him sittin' thar lookin' so sorryful like at me. Sayin'
nary word.

"I'm goin' to die, Calvin, because I want to die. I can't
lay under all this no longer. We're both goin' to die, me
and the baby."

"Rosanna!" cried Calvin, "you wouldn't kill yourself?"

"No," Rosanna answered. "McCoy wimmin folks ain't
chicken livered, like that pore Lorie Wilton that killed
herself in Tug, and pore Molly Burton that dove to her
death off en Castle Rock. I've done brought misery enough
on Randall McCoy, on account of lovin' Jonse Hatfield
with all my heart and speerit. But, Calvin, I'm goin' to
die because I want to." Before she could say more, Ro-
sanna saw Jonse riding over the ridge. At her pleading,
fearful glance, Calvin turned his nag and rode back home,
alone.

That fall Rosanna's baby died, and a few months later
she herself was dead. After her death Jonse vowed he was

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through with whiskey and women. But it wasn't long till
he married Nancy McCoy, a cousin of Rosanna's, whom
he had been courting even before Rosanna's baby was
born. Nancy even declared that she and Jonse had been
secretly married before Rosanna's death, and many be-
lieved it. "He done it to spite Rosanna," Nancy loved to
boast; "he tantalized that pore girl plumb out of her wits.
But Jonse Hatfield won't never get the best of me/' Nancy
jowered from daylight till dark. Often Jonse left the house
altogether to escape her tongue.

Neighbors quarreled with neighbors, and it followed as
the day the night, when any quarrel or trouble arose, kin
stood with kin, like the clans of Scotland. Captain Ander-
son Hatfield could boast of the blood of Scots in his veins,
though he had kin in Hatfield, England, and Durham, too.
So stick together the Hatfields did, through thick and
thin, with the ferocity of the warring clans of Scotland.
And like their ancestors across the sea, they loved the wild
ruggedness of the country, loved the deep forests and cliffs,
loved to hunt.

One morning Bill Staton, brother-in-law of Ellison Hat-
field, went out hunting for squirrels, tramping the hills
that sloped upward from Tug. On the same day two of
the McCoys also went hunting for squirrels, Sam and
Paris, brothers, each with a gun over his shoulder, trudg-
ing the same hills. Bill Staton heard the crackling of twigs,
certain that the sound was not caused by the small, scam-
pering feet of squirrels, and a moment later his fears were
confirmed as he looked into the barrels of two guns leveled
at his chest. Turning his disadvantage to his own account,
Staton leaped toward his enemies, with his own gun

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ROMEO AND JULIET

knocked theirs from their grasp, and began to strike pow-
erful blows upon their heads. He got Paris down and bit
his hands till they spurted blood. He slugged Sam with
another blow that stunned him, then almost bit his ear
off. While the two were still pounding each other, Paris
staggered to his feet, picked up his gun and fired, but in
his effort to avoid hitting his brother, his bullets went
wild altogether, missing Bill as well. Finally Sam got to his
feet, stumbled to his gun, bleeding and torn as he was by
the powerful fists, and teeth, of Staton, braced himself
against a tree, and fired. Bill Staton fell to the earth.

The two brothers hid out in the woods for some time.
Not until the finding of Staton's body, some days after he
had gone hunting never to return, was the absence of the
McCoys noticed. Then suspicion naturally turned at once
to them. Val Hatfield, a justice of the peace, issued a sum-
mons, and Ellison Hatfield was commissioned a deputy to
bring in the brothers, dead or alive.

After a day of cautious stalking in the woods he found
a cave in which to take shelter at nightfall. The rock-lined
ravine was safe. He had explored it before dusk to make
sure there was no one crouching there. He lighted a fire
of sticks and leaves back under the overhanging rock and
sat, gun upon knees, a pistol in his belt, in a night-long
vigil. The fire kept him awake. He had built it more for
that purpose than for warmth, for Ellison didn't aim to
run the risk of falling asleep and giving the McCoys a
chance to kill him in cold blood. The next morning he
crept cautiously to the rim of his cave. And there, only a
few feet away, he spied the figure of Paris McCoy, half
crouching, creeping cautiously through the bushes. Seeing
that he was discovered, Paris tried to run, stumbled, and

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ROMEO AND JULIET

his gun fell from his hands. Ellison Hatfield leaped for-
ward and made him his prisoner.

Paris was enraged and swore that he had not killed Bill
Staton, that he had seen the whole fight and that it was
Sam, his brother, who had done the actual killing. Paris
even offered to tell Ellison just about where he could find
Sam, if the deputy would free him. At length, using Paris
as hostage, an arrangement was made to bring both broth-
ers to trial. In summary proceedings, Paris accused Sam,
and Sam accused Paris, but finally the evidence showed
that Sam McCoy had killed Staton. He was delivered to
Val Hatfield, the justice of the peace, who ordered four
deputies to confine him in jail. However, in the ultimate
trial, Sam McCoy was acquitted on grounds of self-
defense, and ready to pick up his gun once more.

At the time of the elections of August, 1882, Ellison
and Elias Hatfield rode to the polling place on Blackberry
Creek, where two years before young Jonse had met and
loved and carried away pretty Rosanna McCoy. Already
Ellison had incurred disfavor with the McCoys for trying
to punish Paris and Sam for the killing of Staton. On the
way, the brothers caught up with Mary Stafford, with
whom young Jonse had also flirted a couple of years before
and of whom Tolbert McCoy had been jealous.

"Come along!" Ellison invited, as they overtook Mary.
And Mary needed no urging.

"You, Elias," she twitted Ellison's brother, "git outten
the wrong side of the bed this mornin'? You ain't so much
as give me a smile."

"I'm just a-studyin'," Elias answered indifferently and
clapping the bridle on the neck of his nag, rode on ahead.

It had been the plan of Devil Anse that the brothers,

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Ellison and Elias, should go to the polling place at Black-
berry Creek, while he and his family stayed at Peter Creek
for their own county election.

By the time Ellison and Elias, with Mary Stafford, ar-
rived at their destination, old Randall McCoy was already
there, as well as his sons, Tolbert, Phemar and Little Ran-
dall. They all spoke casually to each other, but Tolbert
leered at Ellison, who had his hand on Mary's shoulder,
remembering how Jonse Hatfield had flirted with the
woman to tantalize him. Mary was vain over her conquests.
McCoys and Hatfields tipped the jug and Tolbert took a
long swig. Then, replacing the corn-cob stopper and wip-
ing his mouth with the back of his hand, he swaggered up
to Elias.

"Elias," he drawled, setting down his jug, "when do you
aim to pay me that dollar and seventy-five cents I loaned
you a spell back?"

Elias Hatfield turned in amazement. "Why, Tolbert, I
paid that back to you three year ago and you know it."

"That's a p'int-blank lie!" Tolbert wanted to fight.

"Mind your tongue!" warned Elias. "I'm hell on two
feet when I git started!"

Then Tolbert struck Elias and knocked him sprawling
on the ground. Ellison leaped at Tolbert, threw his head
backward and tried to break his neck. Distorted though
his body was, Tolbert pulled his knife and stabbed Ellison,
who, bleeding and moaning in agony, still gripped Tolbert
until the latter 's younger brother, Little Randall, fifteen
years old, rushed at Ellison and thrust his knife into his
side again and again. He drew forth the blade dripping
with Hatfield's blood and swaggered off to one side. At the
sight of blood and the moans and curses of the struggling

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ROMEO AND JULIET

men, Mary Stafford took to her heels. The rest of the on-
lookers fell back in horror.

As Elias tried to separate Tolbert McCoy and Ellison,
Floyd, another of the McCoys, drew his knife and ad-
vanced on him. About this time, Matthew Hatfield, a
constable, fired several shots into the air, but the fight
continued without abating while Matthew took a revolver
in each hand and fired till there wasn't a bullet left in
either gun. But Floyd McCoy didn't know that, and when
Matthew commanded: "Drap your knife, Floyd!" he
obeyed and looked into the barrel of an empty gun!

When Mary Stafford ran terrified from the scene she
bumped into Joe Hatfield, another constable. "For God-
A'mighty's sake!" she screamed, "Tolbert and Little Ran-
dall and Floyd has stobbed the guts plumb out of Ellison
Hatfield!" she caught her breath, "and Matthew is tryin'
to blow the brains out of all of 'em. For God-A'mighty's
sake, hurry!"

Joe Hatfield plunged into the fray and disarmed Tolbert
and Phemar McCoy. On the ground lay Ellison Hatfield
in a pool of blood, gasping for breath. Little Randall was
seen taking to the bushes, but Elias hurried after him and
brought him back. Then he turned to Ellison, who looked
up at him. "Anse had ort to be here," Elias said.

"What shall we do?" asked Matthew.

Elias answered quickly. "You, Matthew, I'll keep guard
here and you go get your horse and go tell Anse. He's on
Peter Creek!" Matthew rode off at a lively clip and Elias
knelt beside his brother.

"They've kilt me, Elias," Ellison murmured.

"Don't you worry," Elias reassured him, "we've got the
McCoys. Joe's guardin' 'em yonder can you see?" But

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Ellison's eyes were covered with blood that streamed from
his forehead. The McCoys had stabbed him more than a
score of times.

"Where's Anse?" Ellison gasped feebly.

"We've sent for him/' again Elias assured his brother.
"He'll be here tirectly. Matthew's gone for Anse. Don't
worry, Ellison. Just quile down. Anse is comin'."

"Hit's gittin' plumb dark" Ellison murmured, "and
Anse ain't come yit where's Anse?" he pleaded feebly.

They did not know then what had delayed Devil Anse;
they could not know that Matthew's horse had fallen and
broken a leg and that he had had to go on foot the rest
of the weary miles to fetch the leader of the Hatfield clan.
Weary and breathless, Matthew finally stumbled up the
slope to the cabin and Devil Anse, seeing his haste, rushed
out to meet him.

"What's the trouble?" Devil Anse's eyes blazed.
"There's trouble somewhars I know it!"

"Ellison's stobbed plumb to death, I'm afeared. But
we're holdin' the McCoys, Old Ran'll's boys, prisoners,"
gasped Matthew, who had run all of the last mile.

Swiftly Devil Anse called his clan together. Some of
them were still lingering at the polling place on Peter
Creek, and those who had gone home soon got the word
and returned. Together they galloped off to the scene of
the trouble, Matthew returning with them on a fresh horse.
Forty-two of his kin and followers rode with the leader of
the Hatfields, for the word passed swiftly along the creek
in the grapevine fashion of the mountains. "Ellison Hat-
field's stobbed!" they muttered one to the other, and the
word echoed along the creeks, through the hollows: "Elli-
son Hatfield's stobbed!"

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The word was being carried, too, along other creeks.
Mary Stafford kept going after reporting to Joe Hatfield,
spreading the news as she went. Mary Stafford was already
looked upon as a spy by the McCoys. Had she not flirted
with Jonse and Tolbert at the same time? Had she not
ridden to the polling place this very day with two Hatfields,
Ellison and Elias? Now she carried the word of the trou-
ble: "Ellison Hatfield's stobbed!" she said to whoever she
met on the road: "Stobbed! And bleedin' like a stuck
hog! Nigh the schoolhouse on Blackberry Creek!"

When Devil Anse arrived on the scene he tossed the
bridle of his nag to "Cotton Top" Mounts, one of his
followers, and knelt down beside his dying brother. With
steady fingers he pulled back the bleeding man's shirt.
"God-A'mighty, Ellison," he muttered, "the McCoys
have stobbed you aplenty! And for every stob I aim to ax
a life, if you don't revive up after this!" He took off his
coat, rolled it up, and placed it under Ellison's head. Then
wiping the blood from his brother's lips with a grimy hand-
kerchief, he whispered encouragingly, "Ellison, you've got
to pull through, but if you don't, I ain't sayin' what
mought happen to the McCoys." Then Devil Anse arose
and called to his followers. "Men! take the kiverlid," he
removed it from under his saddle, "and make a slide quick
and pack Ellison to Anderson Farrell's house."

Grimly, swiftly, they toiled. Cutting two strong saplings
they tied the quilt to the poles at four corners. Tenderly
they lifted the dying Ellison to the improvised stretcher
and bore him off toward Warm Hollow. This was across
Tug, near where the three McCoy brothers were to die
later.

As the Hatfields bore Ellison away, Devil Anse turned

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to Joe Hatfield, the constable. "Where wuz you aimin' to
take the McCoys?"

"To Pikeville," Joe answered.

Devil Anse's eyes followed for a moment the group
bearing away the dying Ellison. "I'm takin' charge of the
McCoys/' he said resolutely, "and I aim to hold 'em till
we see how Ellison comes out."

The three, Tolbert, Phemar, and Little Randall, stood
with their hands tied behind them, under guard of Joe,
Matthew, and several others. Devil Anse, with jaws set,
surveyed them with a cold, sure eye.

Old Randall McCoy, one hand atop the other gripping
the barrel of his gun, spoke quietly. "Boys," he said to his
sons, "keep quiet, don't make no back talk. I'm goin' to
Pikeville to git a lawyer to defend you." He turned to
Devil Anse. "I take it you aim to fetch my boys, prisoners,
to the county seat to stand trial, if Ellison dies?"

Devil Anse made answer with a cold stare.

Old Randall rode off.

Scarcely had he turned the bend in the road until Devil
Anse motioned a group of his men to draw closer. More
than a score remained on the scene; the rest had gone with
Ellison to Warm Hollow. There was a murmured confer-
ence.

Old Randall had gone, so he said, to get a lawyer to
defend his boys, but Devil Anse had another notion about
it. "Ran'l's went to round up his crew," the leader said to
Val Hatfield, "and I don't aim to let these boys out from
under guard, not for nary second, till we see how Ellison
comes out." There was more whispering. "We'll not hold
Floyd McCoy," Devil Anse decided, "on account he
drapped his knife afore he stobbed Ellison. Chicken-

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livered petticoat, that's what Floyd McCoy is. Look at
him, standin' off yonder, not guts enough to break and
run to the woods. Didn't know he was starin' into the
bar'l of a empty gun. Nohow, we'll put these three, Phe-
mar, Tolbert, and Little Randall, where they won't cause
no trouble." He gave a meaning nod to Val Hatfield and
Cotton Top Mounts, who would have turned his own
gun upon himself had Devil Anse commanded.

With their leader riding before them, the clansmen
closed in around the three McCoy brothers, who had been
placed each on a horse in front of an armed guard. Seeing
the direction in which they were headed, Tolbert ventured
to speak. "You're not takin' us to Pikeville. Where?"

"We'll return you to Pikeville!" snapped Devil Anse,
"if you act pretty and don't try to escape."

They rode on, saying little even to each other, the Mc-
Coys keeping a stoic silence. They forded Tug and pro-
ceeded to a rarely used schoolhouse on Mate Creek. Here
they bound the three McCoy brothers, hand and foot,
and stood them against the wall. Standing guard over
them were Val Hatfield, Selkirk McCoy, who had been
ostracized by the McCoys ever since the trial over the hog,
when he had testified in favor of the Hatfields; Alex
Messer, Joseph Murphy, Doc Mayhorn, Lark Varne,
Dan Whitt, Cotton Top Mounts, Charlie Carpenter, and
others.

Devil Anse stood before the prisoners. "If Ellison dies,
you die!" he said in a low, steady voice. "And now, men,"
his eyes shifted to the guards, "I'm ridin' off to see how
Ellison is gettin' on."

In the meantime the word had reached Pond Creek,
where Randall McCoy lived. Sarah McCoy, his wife, was

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stooping over the stove, stirring fried potatoes, when Tol-
bert's wife rushed in. "Sarie, come quick!" she screamed,
"Tolbert, Phemar, and Little Randall has stobbed Ellison
Hatfield! And they're helt prisoners in the schoolhouse on
Mate Creek." Sarah dropped the spoon with which she
was stirring the potatoes and turned to her younger son,
Calvin.-"Mind the Waters and the youngins and the house,
whilst I strike out to sarch for your pa he's nigh Logan
somewhars, said somethin' about swappin' a nag"

A heavy downpour of rain made the road a sea of mud,
so that her horse slipped and stumbled again and again,
but the frantic mother urged it on. When she reached the
shack of a schoolhouse, she saw Cotton Top Mounts sit-
ting on the doorstep, gun across his knees. Beside him
stood Elias Hatfield with a gun in his hand, a pistol in his
belt. Val Hatfield was standing behind the two inside the
door. Sarah could see the heads of others inside the school-
house. She jumped from the saddle and rushed up to the
door, but the guard halted her.

"Are my boys here?" she asked fearfully.

"They are," answered Val.

"Could I see 'em?" begged the mother. "I just want to
see my boys afore you" There was apprehension in her
trembling voice.

"No harm for their mammy to say howdy to her boys, I
reckon," scoffed Cotton Top Mounts, and they made way
for Sarah to enter the schoolhouse. At the sight of her
three boys bound like cattle ready for slaughter, she lifted
her apron to cover her face and sobbed pitiably.

"Ma," said Little Randall, "don't take on that way.
Don't give 'em the satisfaction o' seein' your misery."

The mother tried to speak, but the words choked in her

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throat and she stumbled out of the room, past the jeering
Cotton Top, past Elias and Val. She tottered toward a
log and sank there, face cupped in the vice of her hands.
Only a moment was she there when a rider came dashing
up the road, his horse mud-spattered, nostrils distended.
Behind him followed quickly Jonse Hatfield and his
brother Cap.

"Ellison is dead!" the fellow gasped.

By this time Jonse and Cap were at his side. They
jumped from their horses and made toward the door of
the schoolhouse. They did not enter, but waited until
Devil Anse arrived, for already he had turned the bend
and was galloping up the muddy road at full speed. He
tossed his bridle over the saddle horn and slid to the
ground.

"Ellison is dead," he said stoically. "Now, we'll take the
prisoners"

Val Hatfield, Alex Messer and Cotton Top Mounts
dashed into the schoolhouse where the three McCoy
brothers, still bound, stared at them helplessly. They had
heard the voice of Devil Anse.

At the sight of her three boys being rushed past her to
waiting horses, Sarah McCoy sank to her knees before
Devil Anse. "For God's sake, Anse," she pleaded wildly,
"spare my boys! Oh, spare them, let them stand trial"

"Don't beg no Hatfield for mercy, ma," Little Randall,
who had been lifted to a saddle, his back to the rider,
hands still bound behind him, looked down upon his
mother. "Git up offen your knees, ma," he said bravely,
"I'd ruther to die as to see you humble yourself afore a
Hatfield!"

"This ain't no place for wimmin folks," said Devil Anse.

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He flashed a look at Val, Cap, Jonse, Cotton Top, Selkirk
McCoy. They rode off toward Tug, the prisoners hemmed
in by an escort of some twenty-three guards. Sarah Mc-
Coy did not ride after them. She knew that defiance of
Devil Anse's word would mean instant death for her boys.
She pulled herself to her feet, stumbled to her nag, and
rode back to give the word to Calvin and the rest. He
would have to ride on to find his father.

"Where you takin' us?" Tolbert McCoy ventured to
ask at last.

"Back to Kentucky," answered Cotton Top.

"For trial?" asked Little Randall, eagerly.

"Wait and see," taunted Cotton Top.

Devil Anse rode on ahead in silence. They forded Tug
and when they stood on Kentucky soil the Hatfields held
a whispered argument. Devil Anse muttered something
and shook his head. There was more muttering and quiet
argument. They were now about three hundred yards
from Tug. Alex Messer asked, "Where is Val?"

"He turned off back yonder. He's gone to Logan," some-
one answered.

Cotton Top and Alex Messer untied the prisoners one
at a time. Without words they took Tolbert first and
bound him to a papaw bush. The blood drained from his
face. He lifted his eyes to the hills; fearful and wide they
swept the canopy of heaven as if searching for help. But
no word escaped his blanched, parted lips. Then Phemar:
his hat had been lost on the ride, his dark-brown hair lay
damp upon his forehead. His face was colorless, his eyes
wide, unseeing. Little Randall, just fifteen, and the small-

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est of the three, was bound last. The brothers did not
speak, nor did they look one toward the other.

Cotton Top tipped a jug of whiskey to his lips and
tauntingly invited the three brothers to have a drink. Tol-
bert, Phemar and Little Randall uttered no word. Cotton
Top put down the jug, picked up his gun, looked at Devil
Anse. The others lifted their guns, leveled them at the
McCoys.

Little Randall saw his brothers shot to death. Saw their
bound bodies slump to the earth, heads drooping upon
their breasts. Still he did not cry out in fear.

"Beg!" jeered the half-drunk Cotton Top. "Beg, Little
Randall, and we'll spare your life!"

But Little Randall McCoy lifted his young head proudly
and hurled back defiantly at his tormentors: "Go to hell!"

Guns answered the lad's defiant cry. He slumped life-
less beside his slain brothers.

Old Randall McCoy and his son Calvin reached the
scene too late. The three brothers lay dead in pools of
blood. The Hatfields had gone.

At the inquest later that day, Tolbert's wife, who had
carried the word of the capture of Phemar, Tolbert and
Little Randall to Sarah, was present. Joe and Matthew
Hatfield, officers of the law, were also there.

" Tears to have been some killin' goin' on" drawled
the coroner.

Brief formalities of the law ended, the bodies were
turned over to the father. After they had buried their dead
the McCoys huddled together about the hearth.

"Pa," young Calvin argued, seething with anger, "we
ain't no call to lay under all this."

"Let the law take its course," answered old Randall

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McCoy. "My house is nigh destroyed. Three of my boys
took at once. Rosanna and her pore babe gone. Just me
and you and Jim left of the men folks here, Calvin. We're
a-bound to take keer of your ma and the wimmin folks
and Tolbert's boy. We'll wait the course of the law," he
said with finality.

Old Randall went next day to the county seat to see
what could be done about the slaying of his boys. Over
his shoulder he carried a rifle, in his belt a pistol. "I'm
plumb sorely tried/' he said to the lawyer, "waitin' for
jestice. I'm here to get six foot of devil and a hundred and
eighty pound o' hell! You know who I mean without callin'

no names."

The lawyer offered suggestions, and old Randall, half
pacified, decided to follow the course directed.

Calvin had been brooding endlessly over the killing of
his brothers. "I'd not grumble, ma," he said to Sarah,
"I'd not raise a word iffen they'd a-give Little Randall a
chanct. Pore little feller, him so proud." Seizing the gun
that lay in the wall hooks over the mantle shelf he cried
out: "To hell with the Hatfields! I aim to kill the last one
of 'em in this whole country!"

Sarah calmed him, but when old Randall came back
that night, and young Calvin was sleeping, she told what
had happened. " 'Pears like, Ran'l," the wife said, "we'd
ort to have some rights in this world."

"Mebbe the governor'll do something. He'd ort to," an-
swered the father of the slain boys. "I'll talk to some of
the law at the county seat in a day or so."

Governor Knott of Kentucky issued summonses for
twenty-three members of the Hatfield clan indicted for the
murder of Tolbert, Phemar and Little Randall McCoy. He

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forwarded the papers to Governor Jacob B. Jackson at
Charleston, West Virginia. The papers were forgotten.

The McCoys were angered. By this time there were
political leaders among them and that was something to
be reckoned with. So to pacify them, to retain their vote,
Governor Knott offered a reward of five hundred dollars
for Devil Anse, dead or alive. The printed notice of the
reward, with a full description of Devil Anse, was posted
on all the highways, in post offices, and other public places.
When Devil Anse heard this he called together fifty of
his clan.

"No one shall take you, Pap!" Cap, the second son,
reassured his father.

Devil Anse stroked his long beard, and his keen black
eyes swept the mountainside, surveyed the creek, the road.
"Boys," he spoke at last, "I aim to set a guard around this
place. Half of you fellows keepin' watch by day, t'other
half at night. And I aim you shall cut down all the trees
on the top of the ridge yonder/' indicating the highest
peak behind the house. "And what's more, we'll build a
drawbridge spannin' the creek right in front of the place
here, so's no one can cross without we first make sartin
who they are then we'll let down the bridge!"

Murmurs of proud approval rippled over the gathering
assembled under the roof of Devil Anse. That very day
they set to work. Huge beams were bolted together that
safely spanned the creek, strong crosspieces nailed fast,
and great chains that lifted the bridge and lowered it. The
bridge was kept up safely on Devil Anse's side of the creek,
and guards stood there day and night. The house of the
Hatfield leader was two stories high and weatherboarded.
There was a double porch in front of the door, but not

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extending the length of the place. It was the type of house
familiar in Civil War days; identical, incidentally, with
that in Pikeville which once served as General Garfield's
headquarters.

There were rumors again and again that officers were
seen prowling in the woods in the vicinity of Devil Anse's
place, but so well was it guarded, the sleuths did not get
near enough to seize the leader and claim the reward. The
Hatfields, some fifty strong, kept their eyes open, and their
ears to the ground, for news traveled then, and still does,
by word of mouth in the southern highlands.

Devil Anse got word that his son Jonse's sister-in-law,
wife of Bill Daniels, was a spy; that she was carrying into
the McCoy camp things that went on and things that were
said among the Hatfields.

"I'll tell you what we ort to do with that triflin' critter,
Devil Anse/' said Tom Wallace, who worked for Cap
Hatfield on his farm. "We'd ort to maul the everlastin'
daylights outten her." Tom had a streak of reddish brown
through his black hair that gave him a strange look at first
glimpse, but those who knew him were quite accustomed
to the unusual marking of his foretop. "Well, fellers, we'd
ort to flog that McCoy critter. A good sound peltin' would
do her good. And what's more/' he added with a chuckle,
"it might be a lesson to her sister Nancy, for the way she
is ever jowerin' at Jonse."

Devil Anse nodded silent approval, and further plans
were made for the beating of Jonse's sister-in-law. The next
day passers-by noticed that the Hatfields had slaughtered
a cow. "The heifer was givin' bloody milk/' Devil Anse
observed casually. One night late in the fall of 1886, a

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number of Hatfields, Tom Wallace among them, de-
scended upon Bill Daniels' house.

"Hallo!" shouted Tom Wallace.

"Hallo!" came the answer and the door opened wide,
but it wasn't Bill Daniels who stood on the threshold. It
was Bill's wife, the suspected spy. Before she was aware
of what was going on they seized her and dragged her into
the foreyard. One of the men drew from under his coat a
whip. A whip not of plaited bark, but of leather, made of
a long cow's tail! So unmercifully did they beat the alleged
spy, lashing her across the face, the abdomen and back,
that the woman died. "Spare me, my God, men, spare
me!" she shrieked in pain. But the lash only fell the heavier
on the defenseless creature. Nor did they stop when she
fell limp to the ground, but rushed into the house, where
they found her aged mother and beat her so that she was
a helpless cripple from that day on. The men had care-
fully chosen a night when they knew Bill Daniels was
away from home.

When the McCoys heard of this they sent out word
that they would give "cash money and plenty of it" for the
scalp of Tom Wallace. For the old woman, when she re-
gained consciousness, declared it was Wallace who had
beaten her daughter to death and crippled her for life. "I
seen Tom Wallace pelt my girl with the cow's tail agin
and agin, his hat fell off and I ketched sight of his reddish-
brown streak in that black head of his'n. I knowed it were
Tom Wallace that done the meanness. And I hear-ed my
pore girl beg for mercy. No one in this whole country has
got a head of harr like Tom Wallace, with that thar
reddish-brown streak through the top, t'other harr of his

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head black as a crow's wing. I seen him with my own
eyes," declared the old woman.

When the McCoys got word of the death of Nancy's
sister, they struck out to find Tom Wallace at Cap's house,
choosing a time when Devil Anse's son was not at home.
"Come out and show yourself, Tom Wallace!" Jeff
McCoy, Nancy's brother, shouted. "We know you're in
there."

"Best come on out," Joe Hurley, Jeff's companion,
yelled, at the same time firing at the door.

Cap's wife, who was sick in bed, called out feebly, "I
tell you, men, Tom's not here, nor Cap nuther." The
McCoys kept pouring bullets into the house, but the walls
were thick, and the door too, and so none of the shot
struck Tom, crouching in the chimney corner, nor Cap's
wife, who lay in the bed. The McCoys continued to pour
bullets into the house until their ammunition was gone,
and then they went away.

That evening when Cap came home, his wife told him
what had happened and he flew into a rage. "If they'd a
teched a harr of your head," Cap raged, "I'd kill Jeff
McCoy afore he could beg for mercy!"

"Don't harm Jeff," the sick woman pleaded. "He's not
hurt me nor Tom nuther. See for yourself," she waved a
feeble hand toward the hired man still huddled in the
corner. "Don't go nigh Jeff McCoy," Cap's wife pleaded,
"it will only start trouble again." Cap made no reply. He
bided his time.

In the meantime things were growing worse between
Jonse and his wife, Nancy McCoy. They lived on Lick
Fork of Peter Creek, not far from Devil Anse.
"Jonse, you knowed about what Tom Wallace and the

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rest of the crew was aimin' to do to Bill Daniels' woman,
my pore sister. You knowed it, Jonse Hatfield, and you
holped 'em to plot their meanness. Wisht someone would
pelt the 'tarnal liver out of you!" Nancy jowered.

"Now, Nancy," argued her husband, "you know in rea-
son I were home right here with you when the Hoggin' was
goin' on."

"Don't give me none of your back talk, Jonse Hatfield!"
railed Nancy. "You ain't got no little cry baby like Ro-
sanna to deal with when you're facin' me. You helped kill
Rosanna's three brothers and you know it. For half a
copper cent I'd bust your brains right out your head with
this foir poker for all the devilmint you've done" she
lifted high the heavy iron poker and leaned forward.

"Nancy," gasped Jonse, jumping from his chair and
lumbering toward his enraged wife, "you ain't no call to
kill me. I ain't never harmed you, and you know I never
had no hand in the Hoggin' "

"Don't purge [perjure] yourself no furder, Jonse!" she
pulled loose from him and backed again toward the stove.
"You're ever out of the fryin' pan into the foir. You know
full well that heifer your pa had Tom Wallace to slaugh-
ter," Nancy had something else to quarrel about, "never
give no bloody milk. You knowed when that cow was
clubbed dead what 'twas for."

" 'Twarn't a heifer, 'twere a cow and 'twere old and
couldn't drap nary nuther calf," Jonse offered lamely.
"You know that, Nancy."

"You holped Tom Wallace and the rest of 'em to skin
the hide offen that cow," Nancy shouted, "and you with
your own hands cut off that cow's tail, knowin' full well
what that crew aimed to use it for."

ROMEO AND JULIET

Jonse slumped back in his chair, for of all the people in
the world, Jonse Hatfield did fear Nancy; her tongue
above all else.

"Don't give me none of your lies! You could handle
sich talk to pore little Rosanna, you could ta'nt her with
your runnin' after other wimmin, ta'nt her with bein' the
mother of a woods colt. But me, Jonse Hatfield, I ain't
never birthed no babe out of wedlock by you nor no other
man. You can't throw out no sich flouts at me."

Jonse sat silent, brooding.

"And what's more," Nancy leered tantalizingly at him,
threw back her pretty dark head, "I'll have you know
there's plenty of men folks that have told me I'm pretty!"
She had put down the poker and stood now, hands coquet-
tishly on her hips. "There's plenty of men folks I could
have by the turn of my head, if I'm a-mind to leave you,
Jonse Hatfield!"

"Nancy," said Jonse at last, "whatever makes you tor-
ment me this way? You know I love you better'n every-
thing and everybody in the whole world."

Nancy laughed scornfully. "That's why you keep grov-
elin' under Devil Anse's thumb, holpin' him to carry on
his meanness. Act like a suckin' babe, a babe that ain't dry
behint the ears yit. When your pap says jump, you jump.
If Devil Anse says, 'Jonse, little boy, go flog one of them
McCoy wimmin folks plumb to a pulp,' 'All right, pappy/
you make answer and trot fast as your two feet can pack
you to do his biddin'. That's Jonse Hatfield! All of six
foot in his sock feet like Devil Anse, and not guts enough
to say, 'See here, pa! I'm through with this war! I aim to
quit this fightin'! I aim to live my own life, in peace!' You
ain't the guts, nor the sand in your craw, to speak your

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mind, Jonse Hatfield, to throw that in the teeth of Devil
Anse!"

"Nancy, honey/' he arose and moved slowly toward her,
arms outstretched. The next moment he seized her in his
strong arms, kissed her lips, her throat and breast. "Nancy,
you know I love you my God, Nancy, you set me plumb
on foir when I tech you/' He held her closer, pressed his
lips to hers. He caressed her cheeks, her throat and bosom.
"Seems like I can't never kiss you enough, Nancy seems
like you just keep me plumb stirred up all the time I'm
nigh you"

Nancy wriggled from his embrace, shoved him from her.
She stood gasping. "And you, Jonse Hatfield, you make
my breath choke me right in hure," she pressed a hand
to her throbbing breast, "whenever you kiss me that a-way.
When you hold me so clost, my head plumb whirls
around"

"Nancy my God Almighty" Jonse seized her again,
held her tight. "Don't shove me away. You're my woman.
I got a right" he drew her down upon the cot beside
him. "I aim to love you till I die, and you do too, Nancy,
right hure, in my arms"

Devil Anse always knew the signs when Jonse and
Nancy had kissed and made up again. Jonse stayed away
from his father's house for a while. "He's shamefaced over
bein' so weak, for lettin' his woman wrop him around her
finger," Devil Anse told Levicy on such occasions.

Then, one day when Jonse came in from the fields he
found Nancy's brother, Jeff McCoy, sitting in the cabin.
"Howdy," young Hatfield greeted the younger McCoy.
Jonse tossed his hat on the floor beside his chair and sat

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down, waited for Jeff to speak, certain that the mission
which had brought his brother-in-law to his house was to
talk about the flogging of Jeff's sister. But today the young
McCoy had something else upon his mind. After he had
eaten a hearty supper of cabbage, ham, corn bread, and
blackberry preserves, the three "jolted back" their chairs
from the table and Jeff spoke.

"Jonse, you and Nancy, I've got somethin' to tell you/'
He hooked his thumbs in his galluses and looked at his
brother-in-law. "Bein' as Nancy hure is on the Hatfield
side now, bein' as she is Mistress Jonse Hatfield, I'm not
afeared to tell you what I'm studyin' about." He paused
for Jonse to speak, but that wasn't the way of Devil Anse
Hatfield's folks. They waited for the other fellow to speak
first, unless it was in giving orders, then they had the first
say. "Well," Jeff McCoy still stared at Jonse, "I've done
kilt Fred Woolford, the mail carrier over in Pike, and I've
come here for shelter."

Jonse settled back in his chair, a look of relief upon his
face. Then Jeff hadn't come to quarrel about his sister
being flogged to death.

"You and Nancy will shelter me, I know," Jeff's fingers
twitched on his galluses. "Dud and Lark said I best lay
out of Pike for a while till the talk quiles down about the
killin'."

He stayed that night. But even while he confessed to
Jonse and Nancy, a few miles away Cap Hatfield heard of
the killing, and heard too that Jeff was being protected
under Jonse's roof. So Cap went to Logan and had himself
sworn in as a constable and set out for Jonse's house to
arrest Jeff. Cap Hatfield was chafing at the bit to get even
with Jeff McCoy, who had come to his house to get Tom

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Wallace, his hired man, while Cap's woman was bedfast.
Cap was ever a quarrelsome man, sullen at times, and
always ready for a fight. He had made up his mind that
at the first chance that came he would go after Jeff McCoy.
And now the time had come. As soon as Cap was sworn
in as constable he buckled on his gun and set out to get
his man.

"Jeffs not here," Jonse told his brother when he called
outside the door.

"Jest foller your pug nose, Cap/' Nancy jeered, stand-
ing behind her husband, "and mebbe you'll find Jeff/'

Cap wheeled on his horse and struck out for the moun-
tains. For twenty-four hours he trekked through the woods,
up one ridge, down another, into a hollow, down another
creek, and into a deep ravine. Finally he spied a fellow
warming his hands at a twig fire. Even from the back, Cap
knew it was Jeff, and he crept up as stealthily as a panther
and pounced on McCoy. "And you, Hurley!" Cap shouted
to Jeff's companion, "stand right where you are and don't
budge or I'll blow your brains out." Both prisoners were
bound and led down the mountainside, Jeff stumbling
along a few feet in front of Cap, who kept his gun pointed
at the back of his prisoner's head. "We will meet Tom
Wallace on the way," Cap said tauntingly to Jeff, as they
walked along.

They did, and Tom took occasion to say jestingly,
"Well, Jeff, your aim ain't what it used to be. You never
grazed a harr of my head. I were inside Cap's house all the
time. You surely did bust that door with your bullets, but
me and Cap here would druther it wuz the door than me
that tuck your bullets!" Then Cap and Tom Wallace
roared.

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When the party reached a cornfield near the bank of
Tug, Cap suggested that they rest a spell. So they sat
down, Jeff with his hands tied behind him on one rock,
and his companion Hurley a few feet away. "Boys," Cap
spoke casually, "I'm goin' to gather up some chips. You
boys just make yourselves at home. I'll be back directly
and we'll have a nice warm little fire to gather round." He
sauntered off leisurely in one direction and Tom Wallace,
with equal unconcern, rambled off in another. When they
were out of sight, Jeff whispered to Hurley, "Let's make
a break for Tug!"

"Don't be a fool," answered Hurley. "Don't you know
Cap's just givin' us the chance to get our heads shot off?"

"I can make it to the willers down yonder by Tug,"
Jeff answered daringly, "and I aim to try it." He wriggled
and twisted until he had frayed the bindings on his wrists,
then, with desperate effort, he snapped his bonds.

"For God's sake, Jeff," pleaded the frightened Hurley
when McCoy straightened up, his hands free at his sides,
"you're lookin' death straight in the face. Don't you know
Cap Hatfield has left us here by ourselves just so's we'll
both do what you've done thar? Don't be a fool, Jeff, for
God-A'mighty's sake" But Jeff dashed swift as a cata-
mount through the corn patch to the river. He leaped into
the water, swam swiftly across. And Cap Hatfield and
Tom Wallace snickered in glee from where they stood
concealed behind a clump of bushes. Cap waited until he
saw Jeff reach the other side of Tug, saw him scramble to
his feet and dash off through straggling bushes. Only a
few feet had he gone when a bullet followed straight to its
mark, and he fell dead.

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"A prisoner darsen try to escape the law/' said Cap Hat-
field when he reported the killing. "I was doin' my duty!"

Jeff's brothers Lark and Jake determined to have revenge
on Cap Hatfield and Tom Wallace for the death of their
brother. "And what's more, Cap," the two brothers met
the constable on the road one day, "you keep away from
Nancy and Jonse. Nancy will shoot you on sight. Keep
away we're warnin' you." But constable Cap Hatfield
laughed in their faces and rode on.

Over in Pike County, Jeff McCoy's uncle, Perry Kline,
a lawyer, went down to Frankfort to see the governor, to
ask for protection and justice to the McCoy family. Perry
Kline controlled the McCoy vote, which at that time was a
big one in Pike County, Kentucky. The governor gave him
assurances that his request would be seen to, Perry re-
ported on his return, assurances that the law would give
justice to the injured McCoy family. But Lark and Jake
McCoy had little faith in the law. They took matters in
their own hands. They crossed Tug into West Virginia to
hunt Cap Hatfield and Tom Wallace. They found Tom;
caught him unawares and clapped a paper in his hand.
"You're under arrest," said Lark, "now you best come
peaceable."

"This is no warrant," Tom protested, "and you ain't no
right to take me."

"We're takin' you, ain't we?" jeered Lark and Jake Mc-
Coy in chorus, and off they bore their prisoner. They put
him in the jail at Pikeville, the county seat of Pike County.

Soon Cap Hatfield was missed from his old haunts, and
at the same time Tom Wallace disappeared from the Pike-
ville jail.

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When Perry Kline went to Frankfort to talk to the gov-
ernor he had the McCoy vote in the palm of his hand.
The governor knew the power of the McCoy vote so, to
win Kline's favor, he had awards posted for several of the
Hatfields, including Devil Anse. Thousands of dollars in
awards were offered, but no one collected on them. Over
in West Virginia, Governor "Windy" Wilson knew the
power of the Hatfield vote, and did not intend to weaken
his own strength in that quarter and add to the Kentucky
governor's cause by playing into his hands through helping
to apprehend the Hatfields. So the law was powerless in
the face of the power of political intrigue. Everyone knew
it, even though the words were unspoken. The McCoys
offered another reward in "cash money and plenty of it"
on their own.

Some time after the killing of Jeff McCoy, a stalwart
stranger swaggered into Pikeville. He had a pistol on his
hip, and something else on his belt, hidden under his
coat.

"Is that Lark and Jake McCoy a-standin' over yonder
by the blacksmith shop?" he asked of a bystander.

" 'Tain't no one else," came the quick reply. The stran-
ger strolled over to the McCoys.

"Lark, you, and Jake!" he addressed the brothers, "is
that there reward you offered for Tom Wallace's sculp still
a-holdin' good?"

"McCoys keep their word!" the two answered.

At this the stranger threw back his coat. On his belt
hung a human scalp. "I couldn't pack Tom Wallace's
whole carcass, but I fetched enough so's you can be sartin
he ain't goin' to beat no more wimmin to death with a
cow's tail!" The eyes of the McCoys narrowed to slits.

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Snakelike they riveted their gaze upon the gruesome evi-
dence that dangled from the stranger's belt.

"Hit's Tom Wallace's sculp, all right!" said Jake Mc-
Coy, fingering the blood-soaked hair.

"No doubt about it!" echoed Lark. "There's the reddish
brown streak runnin' through his black foretop."

They repaired to a near-by saloon and there, with several
men looking on in dumb amazement, the stranger deliv-
ered to the McCoys Tom Wallace's scalp. Tom had
escaped into Virginia after Jeff McCoy had been killed
by Cap Hatfield. The stranger got his reward and went
merrily on his way, and no one asked whither.

It was New Year's Eve in the year 1887. Devil Anse, still
embittered by the slaying of Ellison, angered at Nancy's
power over his son Jonse, and still further enraged by the
price on his own head which Randall McCoy and his clan
had power to force from the governor of Kentucky, deter-
mined to put an end to his foe once and for all. He called
his clan together. "We're goin' up on Pond Creek to-
night!" he said, "and we'll drap Old Ran'll and putt an
end to all this!"

With guns over shoulders the Hatfields rode forth si-
lently in the moonlight, Devil Anse astride his blaze-faced
nag in the lead, headed for Pond Fork of Blackberry Creek.
With them was Cotton Top Mounts, his flaxen head, for
he had shoved back his wide-brimmed felt, showing clearly
in the moonlight. At his side rode Tom Mitchell. They
surrounded Randall McCoy's house.

"Hallo, Randall! Come out hure!" shouted Cotton Top.
The crew had their guns leveled at the door.

Slowly, cautiously, the door opened. Young Allifair, just

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fifteen, stood on the threshold. She lifted her hands ever
so slightly in supplication. "Pa ain't here/' she said in a
trembling voice. "Just us wimmin folks, me and ma and
Josephine and Little Adelaide, and the grandun, Tolbert's
little boy."

Behind the door stood Old Randall and his son Calvin,
guns leveled at Cotton Top. Sarah with the two girls and
her grandchild huddled in the chimney corner. She peeped
above the jam rock, and could see the grim circle of Hat-
fields out in the foreyard.

"You're tellin' a lie, Allifair!" shouted Cotton Top,
and pulling the trigger of his gun he shot the fifteen-year-
old girl dead. Swift hands dragged the lifeless body inside,
shut the door, barred it.

"You might as well come on out!" shouted a Hatfield.
"Don't hide behint the petticoats of your wimmin, Ran'll!"
they taunted.

Indoors, Old Randall McCoy and his son Calvin, Jim
being away from home at the time, stood shoulder to
shoulder, guns cocked. Like men of stone they stood look-
ing helplessly at Allifair, dead at their feet. Suddenly
glancing upward at a sound they saw a shingle being torn
from the roof. Swiftly a hand thrust into the opening a
lighted pine torch. The flame lapped the dry roof like
paper. Old Randall leaped to the wall ladder and tried
desperately to beat out the flame with the butt of his
gun. Calvin, passing his gun to Josephine, reached for the
gourd dipper that stood in the water bucket on a table
close by. He dashed another and another dipper of water
on the flames, but the fire was gaining headway. The
water bucket empty, he turned to a barrel which had been
filled to tide them over long winter days in case of an

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ROMEO AND JULIET

attack, for they lived in dread and uncertainty. "Never
can tell when Devil Anse will break loose/' Old Randall
had warned his family. "We've got to have water indoors
for cookin' and drinkin'."

But before the barrel was half emptied, in their confu-
sion and the agonized sobs of his mother and the other
children, Calvin upset the barrel and the water covered the
floor, soaking the dress of the dead Allifair.

"The water's all gone," Calvin moaned, "what shall we
do, pap?"

"Get the churn. It's full of buttermilk standing ginst
the chimney rock." Randall was still beating at the flames
from his perilous position on the wall ladder.

Frantic with fear, what with the shooting from the out-
side and the cursing of Cotton Top and the rest of Devil
Anse's crew, young Calvin McCoy was making little head-
way against the flames on the roof. Sometimes he'd man-
age to dash a dipper of buttermilk on the fire but more
often he missed the mark, sending the thick white stream
over the walls, or to the floor where Allifair lay dead.
However, old Randall, peeping through a chink hole where
the mud had fallen from between the logs, got a line on
one of Devil Anse's men. Tom Mitchell, with gun up-
lifted, was about to fire at the door. Randall leveled his
gun, pulled the trigger and shot Tom Mitchell's hand off.
At the shriek of pain from Tom, who sank stunned to the
ground, the Hatfields charged the door, broke it to splin-
ters, and burst inside. Cotton Top lifted his gun and struck
Sarah McCoy a terrific blow across the head. She crumpled
to the floor. He stumbled over her body, left her for dead,
walked headlong over the lifeless body of young Allifair,
and took after Old Randall and Calvin, who had dashed out

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through the kitchen headed for a thicket. From their point
of safety the two McCoys poured bullets into the Hatfield
crew, but most of them went wild of their mark. Father
and son were saved only by crouching behind a great
boulder, the bullets of the Hatfields passing over their
heads. At length Devil Anse helped Cotton Top bind
Tom Mitchell's bleeding stub of a wrist, and mounting
their horses, they rode back to Peter Creek.

Old Randall and Calvin saw them turn the bend in the
road, for the moon was high. Then father and son crept
cautiously back to the house, or what was left of it. Sarah,
whom the Hatfields had left for dead, had regained con-
sciousness and dragged herself to her feet. She had lifted
the lifeless body of young Allifair, and with the aid of
Josephine and Adelaide, the frightened sisters, had placed
it upon the bed. The seven-year-old grandchild of the Mc-
Coys, in his terror, had crawled back under the old four
poster. For a time they were terrified, thinking the Hat-
fields had carried the child off to be murdered as were
Little Randall, Phemar and Tolbert. "Son! Son!" Old Ran-
dall cried in agony, "have they tuck you off to destroy your
young life?" Then the little fellow crawled out from his
hiding place and clung to his grandfather's knee. "Pappy,"
he sobbed, "I seen Cotton Top kill pore little Allifair. I
seen him beat granny with the butt of his gun. And ginst
I grow off a man," the child clenched his small fists, "I
aim to shoot the heart outten that towheaded Mounts,
sure as you're bornt, pappy. I aim to kill Cotton Top!"

Again the McCoys carried their dead to the burying
ground atop the ridge overlooking Pond Creek. In a home-
made box of pine they laid young Allifair in a grave beside
her three brothers, Tolbert, Phemar and Little Randall

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Once more the McCoys sought interference by Ken-
tucky's governor to protect themselves and to bring the
Hatfields to trial. Accordingly, in January, 1888, Governor
Buckner demanded the surrender of Devil Anse. The
Huntington, West Virginia, newspapers, under date of
January 28, 1888, published a story of the governor's ac-
tion, with a reproduction of the official printed reward of
five hundred dollars for "Capt Anderson Hatfield" in-
cluded in the thrilling account under scare heads that
streamed across the front page of the daily.

When officers and detectives approached the house of
Devil Anse he said it annoyed him. He went after one of
the detectives and had him jailed. He told others, who
were glad enough to get away whole, "Men, when you
want to come after me again, let me know and I'll meet
you half way atop the ridge, with a pine torch in one hand
and a gun in the other." Others tried to get the old clans-
man, but they too went away empty handed. Finally Devil
Anse said boldly, "I want the next detective that comes
snoopin' around this place."

One day, before noon, four men came riding up Peter
Creek. A man hoeing on the hillside spied them in the
distance. Leaning on his hoe he asked in his slow moun-
tain fashion, "Are you lookin' for Devil Anse?"

"We are on our way to Tug," one of the men answered.

"If you ain't a-lookin' for Devil Anse, he is lookin' for
you/' the man with the hoe answered, and at that moment
four horsemen closed in behind the strangers, as swiftly,
almost as silently as if they had sprung from the ground.
"Come along," they said, "we'll take you to see Devil
Anse Hatfield."

The bearded leader of the Hatfield clan, gun across his

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ROMEO AND JULIET

knees, sat waiting on the stoop of his house to welcome
the visitors. "Come over, men/' he called across the creek,
and then, as if they had sprung up out of the earth like the
other four, armed men, at the sound of Devil Anse's voice,
appeared from behind the house. They let down the draw-
bridge and the four strangers, preceded and followed by
more of Devil Anse's men, who by this time numbered
a score or more, rode into the foreyard of his house. When
they had dismounted, and the Hatfield clan stood in a
semicircle about the visitors, Devil Anse called to his wife:
"Levicy, we got company! Fetch out some vittals!"

Food was brought out on the stoop. Hot corn bread,
pitchers of cold buttermilk, a great platter of fried ham and
stewed dried apples, of Levicy's own making. But the
Hatfields did not invite the strangers under their roof to
break bread at their table!

While they ate, and Devil Anse and Levicy urged them
to have more "there's allus grub aplenty in my house,"
the old man said the clan to a man laid down their guns.
It was an unbreakable law with Devil Anse Hatfield.

"Have you ett your fill, men?" he asked the four stran-
gers.

They nodded assent and praised Levicy's fine cooking.

"Now!" Devil Anse had the four step before him,
"what's your business here?" The four looked confusedly
at each other; one mumbled something about riding to
Tug. At that Devil Anse jumped to his feet, hand grip-
ping the barrel of his gun.

"You fellers snoopin' around tryin* to get me, and
you've not even got the guts to tell the truth. A lot of
chicken-livered petticoats, that's what you are, the last one
of you that call yourself the law!" At the sound of his

228

Huntingdon Publishing Company

The Hatfield clan: Devil Anse seated second from left. Elias seated
right. Jonse standing third from left, Cap standing fourth from left.

Huntington Publishing Company

The Hatfield clan: Devil Anse seated second from left. Elias seated
right. Jonse standing third from left, Cap standing fourth from left.

/acumski

Linin' a hymn

ROMEO AND JULIET

father's voice raised now in anger, Cap Hatfield came out
of the house and stood beside him. "A brave lot of detec-
tives you are!" Devil Anse jeered. "Not guts enough to
tell the truth!"

One of the four detectives, for such they were, mum-
bled a sort of apology; something about doing their duty.
At this Devil Anse chuckled merrily. Seeing the sudden
good humor of the man whom they mortally feared, one
of the strangers ventured to ask, "Captain Hatfield, if the
governor would send a requisition for you, would you
come?"

Devil Anse stroked his long beard and arched a shaggy
brow. "I would never surrender!" Then he chuckled again
as if it were indeed a great joke. "I would go to the moun-
tains. No one would ketch me then." With that he let fly
a stream of tobacco juice from the side of his bewhiskered
mouth. "Tom, Mose, Floyd, John," he called the four
men who had escorted the strangers to his door. "You
take these men two mile down the road, or to wherever
they want to go. And if they want to come back here, let
'em!" He reflected a moment, then added quite casually:
"Men, if you come snoopin' around here agin, I'm not
promisin' that Levicy, the woman, will putt sich a nice
mess o' vittals afore you. Fact is, I'm not promisin' what I
will do!"

The detectives rode with their guards across the draw-
bridge, and out of sight down the road along which they
had come. They lost no time in clambering on the train
for Huntington, and from there took the first east-bound
train that bore them safely to their destination.

It was not long until Devil Anse's brother, Elias, de-
serted his cabin on Tug and went to settle on Main Island

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ROMEO AND JULIET

Creek. "I want peace/' the old fellow said. Finally Devil
Anse himself left Tug and went twenty miles inland, set-
tling near his brother on Main Island Creek in Logan
County, West Virginia. Time after time fantastic rumors
were afloat. "They've got Devil Anse!" "Devil Anse has
surrendered at last!" There came a day, too, when detec-
tives came all the way from Chicago and St. Louis and
Philadelphia to get the Hatfields and claim the rich reward
in cash that had been offered for their capture. And all the
time Devil Anse, his sons Jonse and Cap, and their uncle,
Jim Vance, were going in and out of the town of Logan
unmolested.

In a measure the wrath of the McCoys had been ap-
peased, for Val Hatfield, once a justice of the peace, had
been sent to prison. The McCoys claimed Val had used
his office to cloak his own meanness; some said Val pulled
the trigger of his gun unnecessarily and without sufficient
cause. But prison bars didn't agree with the wild and rov-
ing nature of this mountain warrior. He worried himself
to death. Confinement in his cell killed Val Hatfield as
surely as though a bullet had been sent through his heart.
When Devil Anse got the word he said to Cap: "Get
your Uncle Jim Vance and Jonse, I want to talk to 'em!"

The two factions kept watch on each other's move-
ments. Now and then some braggadocio fellow declared
he could "get the Hatfields." Such a one was Frank
Phillips. Frank had lived all of his twenty-seven years in
Pikeville. He knew both sides Hatfields and McCoys. He
swaggered around the town boasting, "I'll get the Hatfields
yet!" at the same time displaying a couple of pistols in his
belt.

"Look, Jeems!" cried Uncle Jim Vance's old woman

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ROMEO AND JULIET

one morning, " 'pon my soul there are a hundred men
comin' up the hill."

And sure enough there were.

"Hello, Jim!" called the leader. He was young Frank
Phillips.

Old Uncle Jim Vance grabbed his gun.

And from their mountainside, Devil Anse's household
got the alarm. "Pa!" shouted Cap Hatfield, "the Phillips
crowd are coming down Thacker Mountain!"

Devil Anse called his clan. He had already warned Jim
Vance to be on the lookout for trouble when they had
talked that day after word had come of Val Hatfield's
death in prison. Old Uncle Jim Vance kept on the look-
out. But before Devil Anse rode into view the fight had
started. Vance had mauled, chewed and clawed like a
wild cat.

"Come," urged Devil Anse, "the last one of you that
can pack a gun," he cried as he rode along the creek. "Ten
of you men foller behind Cap, and the others of you get
your horses and come with me to Thacker Mountain!"

On they rode, gaining in numbers as they went. Along
the creek-bed road the horses plunged, Devil Anse, gun
over shoulder, dashing on ahead.

"Are you bad hurt, Jim?" Devil Anse lumbered off his
horse and hovered over Jim Vance. But the man was too
far gone to speak. For all he was bleeding and shotone
bullet had all but disemboweled the old fellow he had,
with a bullet-shattered foot, tripped one of the McCoys
who plunged at him. Then old Jim Vance got the McCoy
ear in his mouth and chewed it to shreds. He had reached
up a clenched and bloody fist and thrust it into a McCoy
mouth. But Frank Phillips, who was years younger than

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ROMEO AND JULIET

Jim Vance, came up with his gun and finished the fighter
as he lay mortally wounded. Jim Vance had gasped his
last when Devil Anse stooped to comfort him.

With all their craftiness and fearlessness, the Hatfields
did not succeed in capturing or finishing the McCoys. So
they now turned to the law. They sent word to J. M. Jack-
son, a Logan magistrate, asking for indictments for the
murder of Jim Vance.

Some time after this, Tom Mitchell, who had lost a
hand in the raid on old Randall McCoy's house when
young Allifair was shot that New Year's Eve, was walking
through the woods near Grapevine Creek. With him were
Devil Anse, Cap Hatfield, "Indian" Hatfield, "French"
Ellis and Lee White. And in order to give a legal aspect to
any killing that might happen, the Hatfields were accom-
panied by William Dempsey, a constable of Logan
County. Suddenly the underbrush seemed alive, as they
were attacked by some forty-two men, all told, in ambush;
another crew led by Frank Phillips, the braggadocio from
Pikeville.

They fought for two hours. Cap Hatfield shot Bud Mc-
Coy. "Indian" Hatfield got shot in the head and died a
few minutes later. They dragged him into the woods and
continued the fray. By this time three other Hatfields had
been wounded. Then, for the first time, Devil Anse showed
alarm. "We've got to retreat, boys," he said to his son
Cap and "French" Ellis. "We've fit nigh onto two hours
and we'll be bound to retreat for a spell." Cap lifted Lee
White to his shoulders and started off. Tom Mitchell
not much of a fighter any more with but one hand was
bleeding at the neck and side, though he was still able
to crawl. They found shelter under a cliff.

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Out of the forty-two attackers, only seventeen were still
able to shoot. Frank Phillips, who had started out so
boldly, vowing he'd "drap the last one of the Hatfields,"
called the survivors of his crew about him. The helpless
McCoys were strapped to saddles and so they left Grape-
vine Creek on their long journey back to Kentucky.

There were indictments, threats, warnings from both
sides. It was about this time that an agent of Governor
Buckner's crossed Tug and arrested Wall Hatfield.

Again Jonse vowed he was through with the war. "I
aim to go to Washington State, pa," he told the old man.
"I'm plumb tuckered out with this war. I aim to quile
down. I've fit my last fight!" Jonse sold out his lands in
Logan County for cash and tried to coax Nancy to go
along with him. "Here's the money, Nancy honey," he
wheedled, laying the greenbacks in her outstretched hand.
"Come along. Let's leave this country. I'm plumb sick of
this war!"

Nancy stuffed the money into the bosom of her dress.
"Jonse, honey," she gave him a Judas kiss, "you go along
and I'll come after you get a house for us to live in."

So Jonse Hatfield went away, but Nancy never fol-
lowed him. Pretty Nancy had met Frank Phillips at a
dance in Pikeville. She frizzed her hair and painted her
cheeks with an artificial rose from her last summer's hat.
She had a string of beads around her pretty throat and
new store shoes and a new lawn dress. Nancy had many
things from the money Jonse gave her. She and Phillips
danced one set after another. It wasn't long after that until
Nancy and Phillips set up housekeeping together.

With Jonse gone, his brother Cap took his place at
Devil Anse's side. Cap was stocky, with a pug nose at

ROMEO AND JULIET

which Nancy delighted to poke fun. His hair was dark and
his eyes a watery blue; one eye had been injured by a cap
explosion and didn't "set just right/' Indeed, it gave Cap
a wall-eyed look. This second son of Devil Anse was not at
all like Jonse, who was, in his sober moments, of a lovable
nature, while Cap was vindictive, quarrelsome.

The call of the blood was too strong for Jonse. It wasn't
long until he came back to be among his own people, and
it wasn't long until he was again drinking and getting into
trouble. He was sent to prison.

Doc Ellis boasted of how he had captured Jonse Hat-
field and turned him in. The fact was that Doc had come
upon Jonse asleep in the woods, an empty whiskey jug at
his side, and had hurried off to get a constable. The two
had had to lift the limp Jonse into the saddle and take
him to jail.

A few days later, as Doc rode along a lonely road, he
looked into the barrel of Elias Hatfield's gun. Doc died of
gun-shot wounds then and there.

Though Jonse was sent up to Moundsville for twelve
years, he was later pardoned. His father, Devil Anse, had
in the meantime been learning another way to fight. Capt.
Anderson Hatfield had become a political leader in Logan
County. There was an election in Logan town. John B.
Floyd was running for state senator. David Straton
planned to elect Floyd's opponent, Simon B. Altizer.

Devil Anse heard of it. Next morning, coming from
behind a bend in the road on Island Creek, one hundred
horsemen headed toward Logan town. Devil Anse, his
long beard pillowed on his chest, the wide-brimmed felt
low on his brow, was in the lead. To a man the riders
carried guns.

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Upon reaching the courthouse in Logan, Devil Anse
flung his bony leg over the nag's back and landed on two
steady feet, for all he was old and his joints did creak. He
stalked up the courthouse steps, gun over shoulder.
"Men!" he shouted, facing the gathering which by this
time had increased to twice the number of those who had
ridden with him to the county seat: "Men! All in favor
of John B. Floyd for state senator step this way!"

The riders to a man leaped from their horses and
stepped toward their leader. Others in the crowd, thinking
fast, did likewise.

"I reckon Floyd's elected," said Devil Anse matter-of-
factly. Whereupon he flung a leg over the saddle, shifted
his gun to place under arm, and rode off at the head of his
clan.

It was not until 1890 that Cotton Top Mounts who
had slain Allifair McCoy without a word of warning as
she stood in the doorway of her home that New Year's
Eve, who had tipped the jug and shot down helpless Little
Randall while he tauntingly jeered, "Beg and we'll spare
you" himself was led to the gallows, on the nineteenth
day of February, to pay for his life of crime. Six thousand
people gathered in Pikeville for the hanging. And Cotton
Top remained bold and fearless to the last. Even when the
black hood was about to be fitted over his head he called
out jokingly to the crowd, "I'll see you in heaven!" The
trap was sprung and Mounts dangled in the air. He was
pronounced dead in a few moments, and his people ad-
vanced, claimed the body, and gave it decent burial.

By this time the war seemed about over. Both leaders
had invested in coal lands. Devil Anse was living quietly.

ROMEO AND JULIET

He was becoming more and more interested in politics.
Indeed he had a friend, W. A. McCorkle, an attorney,
who had become governor of West Virginia, with the help
of the Hatfield vote which the one-time Confederate cap-
tain controlled.

And Jonse, a shattered remnant of a once handsome
and fascinating fellow, traveled a lonely road on a mud-
spattered, unkempt nag. Whiskey-soaked, his eyes dulled,
his shaggy hair streaked with gray, now and then he stag-
gered into a saloon in Logan town to drown his troubles
with whiskey. Life had grown irksome for Devil Anse's
son. Rosanna, whom he truly loved, and their illegitimate
child, lay side by side in the Hatfield burying ground, and
at the very mention of her name his spirits sank. He took
it as a jibe if anyone so much as spoke of her beauty, her
early death. Jonse grieved little over the passing of Nancy,
and concerned himself less over their two daughters.

For a long time there was no stir in Devil Anse's clan.
The old warrior looked after his coal interests and strength-
ened his political connections. Then, on November 3,
1896, his son Cap, an officer of the law, with his little step-
son, Joseph Glenn, went to Thacker to celebrate the Presi-
dential election. A quarrel flared. Cap killed John Ruther-
ford, and when the latter's friend, Elliott, opened fire on
Hatfield, little Joseph Glenn pulled his gun and shot the
man dead. Cap was sent to the jail at Huntington, West
Virginia.

It was said that this killing annoyed Devil Anse for
the war between his family and the McCoys had about
died out. Even so, the father went to the aid of his son.
The old man himself was arrested by Sheriff Keadle and
taken to jail, but he was released on his promise to help

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keep peace. Little Joe Glenn was paroled. And Cap, with
the aid of tools provided by friends, cut his way out of
jail. The boldness of the man incensed the populace of
the surrounding country. Even though Cap had been a
model prisoner during his confinement, his escape didn't
set well with the people generally. Furthermore, it was
conceded that the Hatfields' "high-handedness and law-
lessness" was distasteful, and it was recognized that even
Devil Anse was losing power. Eventually the old leader's
friend, McCorkle, went out as governor of West Virginia
and George W. Atkinson came in.

From time to time detectives from various cities, lured
by the big cash rewards still out for Devil Anse and his
crew, ventured into the West Virginia hills to apprehend
them. Once "Wild Bill" Napier came from the west, but
Devil Anse scoffed in his face. "Now that you ax me,"
he looked Wild Bill in the eye, "I'll tell you what I've
told t'others. I won't never surrender! I'd go out in the
mountains and no one would ketch me there." The old
warrior's eyes glistened with cunning.

Finally Devil Anse "got religion," and with his lifelong
friend, "Uncle" Dyke Garrett, who had been with him in
the Confederate army, led a silent procession one Sabbath
down to the waters of Main Island Creek. Behind the old
preacher and Devil Anse followed his nine sons, including
Jonse and Cap. One at a time Brother Garrett baptized
the Hatfields and the countryside breathed a sigh of relief.
"The Hatfields have got religion. They've been baptized!"
the glad news echoed up and down the Guyan Valley, it
re-echoed across Tug, where so many of the clansmen had
met death.

And now other troubles began to arise, troubles new to

ROMEO AND JULIET

both Hatfields and McCoys: strife between capital and
labor. The unions sought to enter the Logan coal fields,
to organize the miners. For once the Hatfields and the
McCoys stood together, as coal operators and miners.
They did not want the miners organizedat least not ac-
cording to the dictation of the union. And what with
Cap Hatfield being an officer of the law, with a right to
carry guns, and Don Chafin, kinsman of the Hatfields, a
sheriff patroling the mine operations in the Logan field,
organizers, agitators, scab miners and strike breakers all
had a tough time of it. "If we organize," Devil Anse and
Don Chafin and Cap Hatfield said, even to the governor,
"we will do it in our own way/'

Troubles flared again long after Devil Anse and old
Randall were through. One of the McCoys became an
organizer. There were coal diggers who were the descend-
ants of both McCoys and Hatfields who were lined up
against McCoys and Hatfields who were operators. Some
of both families had joined the union; others had not.

As late as 1920, another uprising in which the Hatfield
family was involved stirred the whole country, but it was
not in any way connected with the Hatfield-McCoy war.
On May 20, 1920, Albert and Lee Felts, two of the three
brothers who operated the Baldwin-Felts Detective
Agency, came to Tug to evict miners who had joined the
union from company-owned houses. With the detectives
was Dan Cunningham, to lend a hand. Sid Hatfield, not
yet thirty, slender and wiry, with deep-set, somber eyes,
was a coal miner. Sid was not prosperous, like some of his
kin who owned and operated coal mines. He was, however,
chief of police of the village of Matewan.

When the detectives arrived they found Sid standing in

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the doorway of the commissary, sunning himself; not one
hundred yards from Warm Hollow, where his kinsman
Ellison Hatfield had been stabbed to death by the Mc-
Coys, and just across Tug near by was the woods where
the three McCoy brothers, Phemar, Tolbert, and Little
Randall, had been riddled with Hatfield bullets. When
the detectives approached Sid after the eviction of the
minersone said: "I have a warrant for your arrest, Sid!"
Hatfield took the paper offered him by detective Albert
Felts and went inside to read it.

When the word was brought to Mayor Testerman in
his drug store down the street that Sid was under arrest,
he shouted angrily, "Why, they can't arrest Sid, he is my
chief of police!" He had been drawing a soda at the time
and he dropped the glass and ran to Sid's rescue. Without
a word of warning, so some eye witnesses testified, when
the mayor protested: "Sid has done nothing you can't
arrest him," Felts shot Testerman dead. Sid pulled his gun
and killed Felts. When the smoke cleared away, nine men
lay dead on the sidewalks of Matewan. Dan Cunningham
had seventeen bullets in his body. Sid shot three of the
detectives, and was himself only wounded. Some of the
detectives plunged into Tug, swimming for the Kentucky
shore.

A year later, Sid Hatfield was summoned to Welch,
West Virginia, to stand trial. Assured that there would be
no violence, Sid and Ed Chambers, who had also been
involved in the trouble at Matewan the previous May,
went unarmed. But as Sid Hatfield walked up the court-
house steps on August i, 1921, several men leaped from
behind the pillars near the doorway and shot him to death.

Twenty days after Sid's death, troubles in Logan County

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and at other West Virginia mines reached a dangerous
peak. Forty persons were killed in Logan, and Don
Chafin's men held vigil over a twenty-mile area, with
special reinforcements at Crooked Creek, Mill Creek, and
Blair Mountain. Battles ensued equal to those of Civil
War days.

And so the Hatfield-McCoy troubles ended in an indus-
trial war!

Hatfields and McCoys did make peace. They worked
together as coal operators. The coal troubles were even-
tually adjusted. Devil Anse's son Elliott, who never en-
gaged in any of the strife, became a successful doctor in
Charleston, West Virginia. Joe was a respected officer of
the law and man of public affairs in Logan County. Cap,
who once told me, facetiously, "I have only one machine
gun and half a dozen rifles now. I am a man of peace/'
later died in a Baltimore hospital of some organic trouble.
Jonse, a pitiable figure, broken in health and in spirit,
while riding a lonely trail through the mountains "to court
another pretty woman/' so it was told to me, was stricken
with a heart attack and tumbled dead from the saddle.
" Tears like the war kinda turned the pore feller's wits,"
old Aunt Mary Downs used to say. No, Jonse was not a
gallant enough figure to deserve comparison with Romeo,
although Rosanna remains for me a pathetic Juliet of the
mountains.

"Oncet Devil Anse come to our house/' Bud McCoy,
who had been a child at the time, told me. "I ricollict it
well. Pa and ma was in the kitchen. Ma was churnin' and
pa was mendin' a piece of harness.

" 'Lark/ says Devil Anse as he stepped up to the
open door, 'I jest thought I'd set a spell if you and your

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old woman don't mind/ Pa was surprised, but calm.

" 'Make yourself easy/ says pa, and drug him up a chair.
Devil Anse set down and begun to talk on religion, and on
baptizin' a-savin' the souls of them that repented. But pa
knowed full well the crafty ways of the Hatfields, so he
never set down his own self. He stood up ginst the door
jamb. There was a gun in the wall hooks over the door
and pa 'laowd if Devil Anse started trouble he could grab
his gun. Then Devil Anse went on talkin' about his boys.

" 'Jonse and Cap blame me for leadin' 'em into all this
trouble! Why, a man's boys ain't no right to blame their
pa. Boys has a right to obey their parents/ he argued for
hisself. But pa never made no answer. He didn't know
what Hatfield might be plottin' right then in his mind.

"Nohow, ma asked Devil Anse to stay and eat dinner
with us. But seemed like he was on-easy and tirectly he
picked up his hat where he had drapped it on the floor
Alongside his chair and went away.

"I reckon," Bud McCoy looked thoughtfully into the
fire, "I reckon there is a chance for such as him, for all
he done an awful lot of stuff; there's mercy, I reckon."

One hot summer day, a few years before the Matewan
troubles, when I was living on Main Island Creek, I spied,
coming up the dusty road, an old man with a flowing gray
beard, wearing a wide-brimmed felt. He walked with a
faltering step for all his shoulders were straight. It was the
height of the man he was all of six feet tall that caught
my attention, rather than the slowness of his step. I stood
watching him come along the road. As he drew nearer I
saw my neighbor, a miner's wife, run out into her yard to
gather in her children. "You, Rosannie," she cautioned the

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little girl, "git in this house and stay in." She dragged
golden-haired Rosannie in by one hand, the baby brother
by the other, looking back a time or two fearfully over her
shoulder at the old man coming up the road.

When the old man reached the great oak that stood
across the road opposite my gate he stopped. He put a
hand against the gnarled trunk. Then he sat down wearily
on the grass and began to fan himself with his wide-
brimmed hat. Beside him was a clump of papaw bushes.
He plucked a handful of the leaves and began to fasten
them together with twigs until he had formed them into
a leafy cap which he placed inside the crown of his hat. I
had often seen old mountain men do this "to keep off sun-
stroke." At the sight of the weary traveler filling his hat
crown with green leaves I hurried down to the gate.
"Uncle," I called to the old man, knowing the way of
mountain folk, "this is too hot a day for a man of your
years to be out on the road on foot."

He looked at me a bit bewildered but he did not speak.
I unlatched the gate and crossed the road for it seemed
to me the old man was about overcome with heat. "Let
me get you a drink of water," I said.

With a brave effort he pulled himself together. "I'll be
all right tirectly," he murmured.

I was about to call my neighbor, the miner's wife, to
help me lead the old man to my house, when glancing in
her direction I saw her standing in her kitchen door mo-
tioning wildly to me. Her face was drawn with concern,
which, I took it, had something to do with the old traveler.
But here was an old man suffering from being out in the
hot sun. I turned my back to her warning gestures and led
the old fellow up the gravel walk to my front stoop. He

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slumped into a chair. "Uncle," I coaxed, "I'm going to
get you a glass of cold buttermilk and some bread and
butter. Maybe a snack would do you good/'

" 'Pon my word," he said feebly, and a friendly light
came to his faded eyes, when I brought out the tray, "this
putts me in mind of Levicy, that time when them smart-
alec detectives come to our place on Tug."

The miner's wife next door was again at the kitchen door
calling frantically to her little girl, who had slipped out
and was now peeping around the corner of my house, eye-
ing my old visitor curiously. "Rosannie! hure me? Come in
hure this minnit!"

"Rosannie!" echoed the old man. "Rosannie" he re-
peated slowly. "Woman," he turned to me, "I knowed a
fair lass one day that wore that name. My boy Jonse loved
her. Fd ort not to a-stood in their way. Levicy named it
to me a time or two but I were headstrong, wouldn't heed
her warnin'. 'Anse,' Levicy says to me, 'there's no harm
in Rosannie. She's pretty as a posey. Jonse loves her. Mebbe
if you give consent and let 'em be j'ined in wedlock there'll
be peace.' But I were proud."

I dropped the pitcher of buttermilk from my trembling
hand. The wayfarer at my threshold was Devil Anse Hat-
field!

While I lived in Logan County I came to know Captain
Anderson Hatfield and his wife Levicy quite well; I talked
with them many times. The last time I saw the old man
was on an autumn day. The mountainsides were beautiful
and we stopped along the path by the creek; he was headed
toward Logan town, I in the opposite direction. "Howdy,
Woman!" he greeted. " 'Tis for a fact a pretty day for a
body to be out. Look at them leaves yonder on the trees,

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ROMEO AND JULIET

scarlet red, and golden brown. Wisht I could rove these
mountains oncet agin. I have tracked many a b'ar and deer
in my young day when all this was mostly a wilderness."
He rambled on, as old men will: "A body gets to studyin'
as they git nigher the grave. I've made my peace. I've been
down into the waters of baptism, me and all my boys.
Nohow, me nor none of mine never hurt no one first."

Fate decreed that Devil Anse should die a natural death,
and that his nine boys should escape the guns of the
McCoys, though two of his sons were slain, in manhood,
in 1911, by some Italian "brought-on" miners in a bar-
room squabble, which had no bearing on the Hatfield-
McCoy war.

Devil Anse died in 1921, and Levicy ended her troubles
not long afterward. She, with a mother's love, must have
suffered a thousand deaths in those days of fear and terror
and killing on Peter Creek, on Blackberry and Grapevine.
She, like Sarah, the wife of Old Randall McCoy, whose
boys were slain by Levicy Hatfield's men folk, had known
the anguish of all of them.

As for the leader of the McCoys, Old Randall died at
the age of ninety, many years before Devil Anse, since Old
Randall was twenty years the elder, although his sworn foe
passed at eighty-three. Old Randall nursed his bitter grief
to the last. "They had no call to shoot down my three
boys, Tolbert, Phemar, and Little Randall, without givin'
'em a chanct. Bound hand and foot wuz my boys, with no
chanct to save theirselves." In desperation and wild with
grief Old Randall once seized his long-barreled gun and
struck out to "sarch for Devil Anse. I'm sarchin'," he
declared, "for to get six foot of devil and one hundred and
eighty pound of hell/'

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ON A HOT SUMMER DAY WE WERE RIDING IN A JOLT
wagon along a winding road on Levisa Fork, a
lawyer from the county seat, his young assistant,
Curt Walker, just through law school, a deputy clerk,
and myself. We were to take statements of land owners
concerning a certain right of way through that part of the
Big Sandy country. When our wagon wasn't bumping in
and out of ruts in the creek-bed, we were enveloped in
clouds of dust on the high rocky road that skirted the
mountainside. The men muttered, mopped their faces,
fanned with their wide-brimmed felts. Curt, "the young
limb of the law" (that was the name the judge jestingly
gave him) more than once would have lost his new straw
hat when we jolted along except for the black silk cord
that circled its crown and terminated in a small black
knob slipped through the buttonhole in the lapel of his
striped coat. "Hell of a rough road," I heard him mutter
now and again as we jolted laboriously on our way. Curt,
we all knew, had "got above his raisin' " since he had been
away to school in the Blue Grass; was ashamed to own
down there that he was born of the Kentucky mountains.
He had become an out-and-out hill billy, ready to jeer at
his own mountain people.

CLERGY, LAW, AND MEDICINE

As we jolted along the road he'd try to make light of such
fogey ways of travel. And holding fast to both sides of the
hickory chair in which he sat beside me in the wagon bed,
he'd whistle a gay popular air. We all knew the words even
though it was long before the days of enlightening radio.
Suddenly the shrill notes of his jaunty tune were cut
short as, off in the distance, he saw ride into view an un-
usual figure. Seated on a sure-footed mule, it was an old
man, silver-haired. He wore the usual wide-brimmed felt,
but an uncommon feature of his costume was a white col-
lar turned backward above his somber coat of black. Most
distinctive feature of all, however, was the serene blue of
the friendly eyes that looked out of the silver-fringed face.
"Hey!" said Curt, "look out, boys! Here comes the par-
son! Best have on your Sunday-go-to-meetin' manners!"
Tongue in cheek he smirked.

"That's Brother Zepheniah Meek!" said the driver, a
rugged mountain man, flashing a disapproving look at
Curt. "No better Christian than Brother Zepheniah Meek
ever sat foot in a meetin' house." By this time the rider
was close enough to lean from his saddle and lay a gentle,
detaining hand upon the rein of the "nigh nag" of our
team.

"Brothers! Did I hear someone say something about
meeting?" he asked with a kindly smile. "Why not? Was
not God's first temple the forest?" Then and there he
drew up by the roadside, dismounted, and took from the
dusty saddle bags a Bible. "Come!" he invited, leading the
way to the shade of two giant trees, with far-reaching
limbs, that stood side by side on the ridge as if waiting
to welcome us. "Here under these trees of heaven," he

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said solemnly, "let us stop by the wayside for a word with
the Master."

Brother Zepheniah Meek had not looked backward to
see if we were following. He seemed to know that we
would. The last one of us, even to Curt, had climbed out
of the wagon and were now gathered about our leader. The
men, all but Curt, stood with heads bared, waiting rever-
ently. Curt stood on the fringe of the circle, in an indiffer-
ent, half-mocking pose, until the driver nudged him with
his elbow, and the young hill billy hastily removed his new
straw sailor.

Then Brother Zepheniah Meek spoke. "I'll take my text
from Revelation the twenty-second chapter, first to seven-
teenth verses. For," he added, "there are sermons no end
from there on to the end of Revelation." He raised his eyes
from the book to the waters of Levisa Fork flowing below.
" 'And he showed me a river of water of life/ " the deep,
musical voice intoned the words, " 'bright as crystal, pro-
ceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the
midst of the street thereof. And on this side of the river
and on that was the tree of life, bearing twelve manner of
fruits . . . and the leaves of the tree were for the heal-
ing of the nations. . . / "

Earnestly he read of how there should be peace and
understanding among people . . . how there should one
day be no night nor need of candle, neither the light of the
sun: " 'for the Lord God shall give them light/ " And then
he spoke of the beauty of the land about, of the blessings
that had been heaped upon "this Big Sandy country in
every tree and rock, and its riches under the earth." Again
he read from the Book: " 'Behold, I come quickly; and my
reward is with me, to render to each man according as his

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work is/ " Softly he spoke now, dwelling upon the task
of this one, the labors of that one, the one duty of all of
us. " 'Blessed are they that wash their robes/ " he read in
a firm, an eloquent voice, " 'that they may have right to
come to the tree of life, and may enter in by the gates into
the city/ " He closed the Book, held it reverently upon his
breast, " Without are the dogs, and the sorcerers . . .
and everyone that loveth and maketh a lie/ "

Though I could not be sure, I thought I saw a new ex-
pression in Curt's face, scoffing Curt who was trying to be
something he really wasn't. I'm sure I saw the rugged
mountain man, the driver of our jolt wagon, look far down
on Levisa Fork with pride as Brother Zepheniah Meek
said in a voice rich and resonant, "My brothers, have you
ever stopped to think of our abundant blessings here in the
Big Sandy country? The river," he too looked off at the
stream, and we followed his gaze as we stood there under
the far-reaching branches of the trees of heaven, "the river,
and the hills and the forests and the land," he cried ex-
ultantly. He lifted his hand as if in benediction. "Majesti-
cal is the Big Sandy! A mighty river that has brought us
out of the wilderness into a land that's wide and fertile
and bright and abundant. . . ."

On the rest of our journey Curt offered not another word
of mockery or scoffing. And long afterward I learned that
the "young limb of the law" forsook that vocation alto-
gether to become like Brother Zepheniah Meek an
apostle of the Book. Curt told it himself when he was or-
dained that it was because of the "meetin' " at the wayside
and Brother Meek's sermon as he stood, Book in hand,
under the trees of heaven. The trees are still standing high
on the ridge overlooking Levisa Fork, though Brother

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Zepheniah Meek is no longer among us. His influence lives
on among the men and women who knew him. "It is
faith like Zepheniah Meek's that has brought peace, and
burial of hatred and vengeance in the mountains," they
who knew him will tell you.

He was born in Johnson County in 1833. He married
Mary Jane Davis of Floyd County, and was the father of
eight children. He died in 1908, and his wife survived him
only four years. Such are the short and simple annals of
this humble man.

Zepheniah Meek rode the unbeaten trail with his Bible
in his saddle bags, staying the night wherever darkness
overtook him. He always found a welcome. His resonant
voice intoned in many a windowless cabin the songs of
David, the assurance of forgiveness, the promise of eternal
life he read from the books of John and Luke to his eager
listeners.

"From his father he inherited a fine mentality, from his
mother the deep religious spirit which influenced his whole
life. Zepheniah Meek was a man of religious independence
which manifested itself early in his life," said his friend
William Ely.

"For in his youth he passed by the door of his own
church to unite himself with another creed of broader
views." In his early married life he lived in Paintsville,
Johnson County. He taught school, was circuit court clerk,
and always laid by something of his earnings which he in-
vested in land. Always fond of books, so well had he ap-
plied himself to them, the limited number available in the
country then, by the time he reached manhood he was
licensed to preach as a "local or lay preacher in the Metho-
dist Episcopal Church, South; the only organization of

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Methodism above Louisa, from the separation in 1844 to
the time of the war in 1864."

Meantime, the land in which he had invested brought
him good returns in oil, and when he decided to move
farther down Big Sandy he chose Catlettsburg, the county
seat, for his dwelling. It was there, in the spring of 1867,
that he started the Christian Observer. To assist him in
the work of publication he engaged the Reverend Sha-
drach Hargiss. Shadrach had ability and culture, Brother
Meek often told me long afterward in speaking of his
earlier days, but he was penniless and also "broken in
health." Many obstacles which faced the young editor
seem to have been surmounted, however, for Zepheniah
was zealous, Shadrach was faithful, and what with the aid
of the good editor's daughter, Miss Hessie Meek, the re-
ligious messenger flourished. But there were still draw-
backs. Having no equipment of his own, Zepheniah had
to print his paper in the Herald office, a Democratic weekly
that held forth at the county seat. There was always some-
thing going wrong to delay the weekly issue of the Chris-
tian Observer.

"We need equipment and need it badly/' observed
Zepheniah Meek one day, "and I need a hand in this
Herald." Forthwith he got a hand in the Herald by in-
vesting some money in it, and at once he installed a power
press and other equipment.

From then on-that was in i868-under its new name,
the Central Methodist pressed forward. Indeed, it was
the good and far-reaching influence of that valiant weekly
which "strengthened the cause of Southern Methodism in
many conferences where it circulated," that won for its

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editor in 1885 the degree of Doctor of Divinity from the
Kentucky Military Institute at Farmdale, Kentucky.

Though the cause nearest his heart was that of religion,
and writing upon religion, Zepheniah Meek was no laggard
when it came to expressing his political views. Though it
was not definitely known until sometime afterward, he was
the contributor to the Herald in 1874 of many a cryptic
line on matters political.

What with his editorial duties, business affairsfor he
had engaged in mercantile interests, operating a feed store
in Catlettsburg and the attention required for his oil in-
vestments, Zepheniah Meek no longer held a regular pul-
pit. He preferred to serve as a traveling elder in his confer-
ence. This gave him the opportunity he liked best, of
preaching always in a new field. In 1885 he was elected
the leading delegate to the General Conference by the
West Virginia Conference, which met in Richmond, Vir-
ginia, in May, 1886.

Conservative and regular in his dogma, Zepheniah was
original in his expression of his views and his methods of
presentation, and being, besides, a kindly, generous man,
he was welcomed and loved wherever he went.

"The gospel and music go hand-in-hand/' I heard him
say. "I used to know of an old fellow by the name of
Henry Dixon. He was a Baptist not a Hardshell, I sup-
pose, for many a time he carried his fiddle under one arm,
his Bible under the other to meeting. He opened the meet-
ing with a fiddle tune, not a hornpipe or a jig, but with a
hymn tune. And he closed meeting the same way. Between
the opening and the closing he took occasion to preach
good advice to his listeners, among them many a young
courting couple. Henry Dixon/' observed Zepheniah Meek

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CLERGY, LAW, AND MEDICINE

with a twinkle in his eye, "was a half century ahead of his
time. He used music to bring in his hearers, drove home
his sermon, and held his flock through that discourse with
the assurance that it would be followed up by a fiddle
tune. That fiddle tune was the tantalizing morsel at the
end of the sermon. Music, of the right sort," he concluded,
"has the power of a sermon, say what you will, and I'm
glad Henry Dixon had the wits and the courage to take his
fiddle to meeting."

Another old preacher whom I remember was Uncle
Bobby Callihan the Reverend R. D. Callihan. Many a
time I received from that trembling hand a religious tract
when the octogenarian had come to live in our town, since
he could no longer travel the Big Sandy preaching the
Word. I remember well the first time I encountered the
old fellow. Stooped of shoulder, with thin gray hair that
hung nearly to his shoulders, in a wide-brimmed felt and a
long black cape, Uncle Bobby, with stern eyes and smooth-
shaven face, reminded me of the pictures of Benjamin
Franklin in our history book. I saw him the first time at the
post office, where mother had sent me to ask for letters;
it was long before the days of free delivery in our little mill
town. He thrust into my hand a religious leaflet: "Take it
to your father. Go quickly!" He commanded in a quavering
voice: "Take it to your father, before it is too late!" I burst
into tears then and there, for thoughtless children had
taunted me with the cruel words, "Your father is an Infidel!
When he dies he will burn in hell's fire!"

"Go quickly to your father!" Uncle Bobby fixed me
with a sad, stern eye as he commanded, "hasten to your
father!" He kept repeating the word "father"; he didn't say
"mother." "Hasten to your father!" Then Uncle Bobby

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knew; he had heard about my father! He was urging me
to save him from hell's fire! Or perhaps, I thought as I
stumbled along, blinded by tears, perhaps, so insistent had
been Uncle Bobby's voice, so terrible the look in his deep-
set eyes, some bodily harm had overtaken my father? I did
haste away, sobbing the louder as I went. . . .

Long afterward I told the kindly, understanding Zephe-
niah Meek the story. "You need not have been troubled,
you need have had no fear," he said in his genuinely Chris-
tian way. "I know your father. He isall right within!"
Reverend Meek had placed a hand upon his breast. "In
the heart, your father is all right I'm certain of it!"

Not all judges sit in stern judgment upon the prisoner
at the bar of justice, nor do they all scowl down on trem-
bling, fearful children who for one reason or another are
brought into court. When Judge George G. Bell of the
County Court of Boyd County passes sentence upon an
offender, even if it chances to be a gray-haired man, so
concerned is the judge that the accused shall leave his
court room in the right frame of mind, he removes the lid
from a glass jar which he always keeps upon the bench,
takes out a red-striped stick of candy, and hands it to the
accused with the words: "Eat this, my friend, so you will
leave with a sweet taste in your mouth/' Whether he is of
a mind to or not, the sentenced person invariably smiles.
It may be a wry smile, slow to spread over a grim face, but
it is a smile after a fashion.

Before going on the bench, Judge Bell was a practicing
dentist. He made his rounds through the hills, carrying his
instruments in a leather bag, until he had earned enough
to set up an office. More than once a sufferer from tooth-

CLERGY, LAW, AND MEDICINE

ache came hurrying down a lane, holding a swollen jaw.
"Doc! Doc!" the man would shout, "have you fetched
your drawers?" And then and there, by the roadside, Doc
Bell would open the leather bag, take out his forceps,
and extract a tooth. The patients paid him with whatever
they had: a couple of frying chickens, eggs, a pat of butter;
sometimes they gave Doc rare treasures: petrified flowers,
arrowheads, a tomahawk dug from an Indian mound; once
a grateful patient gave him a flint-lock gun.

Through his wanderings in the hills, George G. Bell
built up a wide acquaintance, which he maintained after
he had successfully established his office. When he an-
nounced himself a candidate for county judge, it came as
a great surprise particularly to Democrats, for Judge Bell
is the first Republican county judge in more than a quarter
of a century in Boyd County but his friends were numer-
ous enough to elect him. His campaign was as original as
the rest of his career. He capitalized on his name: on cut-
outs in the shape of a bell he had lettered the words:

DR. BELL

THE DENTIST

REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE

FOR

COUNTY
JUDGE

These arresting paper bells dangled from thousands of
trees all over Boyd County. Doc himself admits he "clanged
his clapper till he was hoarse as a frog." He won, and his
terms have been distinguished enough, not only to gain
him re-election, but to win him invitations to appear on
radio programs. He admits that when he faced the micro-

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CLERGY, LAW, AND MEDICINE

phone for the first time in his life, on "We the People"
in New York City, he could not have been more frightened
had he been before a judge on trial for his life. "Fellows,"
he told his cronies at the courthouse afteward, "my knees
knocked together and my tongue clicked against the roof
of my mouth, but no words would come out, till Gabriel
Heatter smiled at me like an indulgent father. That loosed
my tongue." Later he also appeared on the "Hobby Lobby"
program.

His decisions are often as unusual as the cases he tries.
One I recall was the case of an eleven-year-old haled into
court on a delinquency charge.

"Willie," the judge leaned over the bench and asked in
a kindly voice, "what made you drive your ma's calf to
the county seat and sell it for fifty cents?"

"Judge," the little fellow replied earnestly, "I needed
strings for my banjer."

"Let's see your banjer, Willie."

Exhibit number one was produced and admitted as evi-
dence. It was a homemade, hand-made instrument, the
frame whittled out of a solid piece of white oak. The judge
examined it himself.

"Where'd you get the sounding head, Willie?"

"I ketched me a polecat." Laughter in the court embar-
rassed the boy and he explained hurriedly: "I tanned his
hide myself with lye, and seasoned it a mite with salt."

The judge sniffed and smiled. "A polecat hide it is,
Willie, and I think you might have added another pinch
of salt. But it is a nice instrument, and naturally you
wanted strings for it." He dismissed Willie temporarily,
and called a man before him.

"You bought a calf from this lad for fifty cents?"

CLERGY, LAW, AND MEDICINE

"I did/' the new defendant answered sullenly.

4 Were you aware/' there was a touch of sarcasm now in
the judge's voice, "that the boy was a minor?"

The defendant shrugged uneasily. "Lots of kids has
calves of their own. Their pas give 'em to 'em. I've
boughten others."

"And did you think fifty cents a fair price?"

Again the man shrugged. "He named it hisself."

"Did you consider it a fair price?"

"I thought mebbe it was kind of a bargain."

"Are you prepared now to pay full value to the boy's
mother for her calf?"

"Yes, sir."

The business was transacted then and there, a high price
fixed by the judge and paid for the calf, and then the judge
called the three parties, mother, son, and dealer, before
him.

"Your 'bargain/ " he said to the dealer, "has now be-
come a rather expensive one. Let it be a lesson to you not
to take advantage of minors. Play a shrewd game, since you
must, but play fair." He turned to Willie. "You're not the
first person to sell what he never owned, Willie. But you
see, such deals never bring a fair price and, besides, they're
mighty risky. However, since this one is now satisfactory
to both sides, this gentleman" indicating the dealer "is
going to make you a present of your banjer strings as your
commission." He turned to Willie's mother. "If I were
you, I'd try to find a way for Willie to earn a bit of cash
money in his spare time. A growing boy needs cash not
much, but a little nowadays." The judge held out the
candy jar to each in turn. "Take one," he said, "that you
may know the taste of sweet in your life. Case dismissed."

CLERGY, LAW, AND MEDICINE

Judge Bell is a deeply religious man, and believes that
only a minister of the gospel, regularly ordained and of
dignified standing, should perform weddings. The "marry-
in' parsons" and others with legal power to officiate at
weddings took advantage of his self-adopted rule of not
performing marriage ceremonies. It came to his attention
that when cars with out-of-state licenses parked in the
courthouse square and young couples emerged and made
their way to the county clerk's office, street urchins lay in
wait for their return. As the couple came out of the court-
house the urchins made a bee line for them, and the noisi-
est and most importunate would be seen leading the couple
off to the parson who gave him a commission for each
prospective bride and groom he could bring around. It
was beyond the judge's jurisdiction to do anything about
the "marryin' parsons," but it did not take him long to
put a stop to the young runners who were commercializing
what the judge considered solely a religious rite.

Another famous decision of the judge's was his punish-
ment of a drunkard. The fellow was compelled to wear a
whiskey bottle suspended from his neck by a string, but
filled with harmless, and slightly bitter, tea. Under threat
of a sentence at hard labor, he was obliged to drink of the
tea whenever anyone looked at him, and he was required
to remain in fairly public places. When the period of pun-
ishment was over, the man admitted he had been so
"plagued" that whiskey had permanently lost its allure.

Though mountain folk clung to simple home remedies,
of necessity, but let a child "get to ailin' bad" and away
they'd go for the Old Doctor. "Ridin' fifty year up one
creek and down another, winter and summer, rain or shine.

2 57

CLERGY, LAW, AND MEDICINE

Never was the night too dark, the snow too deep, the wind
too wild nor the creek too high to keep Old Doctor from
the bedside of a sick child/' Many were the times he
forded a creek when the surging waters were up to his nag's
belly, and when no living soul could cross the turbulent
stream Old Doctor had been known to devise means to get
medicine to the sick, ingeniously, sometimes, as when he
tied a long string to a bottle, and, on the other end, a stone
which he flung across the raging creek to waiting, eager
hands which drew the bottle after.

The Old Doctor was a real doctor; he had stood for his
examination. In those days, however, state requirements
were quite unlike what they are now; that was before it
became customary for doctors to serve an apprenticeship
as internes in hospitals; even hospitals and medical schools
were rare by modern comparison. Then, it was the practice
for an applicant to appear before an examining board of
licensed doctors. The board was self-constituted, and the
number of its personnel varied from time to time and place
to place. Its questions, likewise, were of its own choosing,
or even at the whim of individual members. If the candi-
date answered to the satisfaction of the board, upon pay-
ment of a fee which might be anywhere from one dollar
to ten dollars to each of the members, a license to practice
was issued then and there, and with "no guv'mint inte'fer-

ence."

That was how Old Doctor began. His first knowledge
was gained in private study of borrowed books; after his
examination he did attend a medical school for a while for
a kind of post-graduate study. After fifty years, how much
of his diagnosis and treatment followed what he had
learned from his instructors, how much depended upon

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CLERGY, LAW, AND MEDICINE

local remedies learned from, and beloved to, his patients,
or how much of his success was owing to his understand-
ing of the people among whom he worked, no man could
say. Often his efforts were hampered by faith in old nos-
trums, or failure to obey his instructions, yet he worked
with his people until he understood them and they trusted
him. Patient, he was, always, beyond words, and especially
with children, and he knew well, although he may never
have studied it, the therapeutic importance of the mind,
and the values of sunshine and of rest.

Taking little Emmy's hand little Emmy wide-eyed, half
delirious with fever he began to tell her about another
little girl, one he had known "long ago. Her name was
Emmy, too, and she had been in a big way of play the live-
long day. In door and out she kept running, though the
snow was deep, and her mammy chided a time or two:
'Child, you best not romp in the snow you might get
croup, might even get fevers and have to take some of Old
Doctor's medicine/ But little Emmy, she just kept run-
nin' and rompin' in and out. Bless you, her feet got soakin'
wet and before night she had a ragin' fever. Her mother
was troubled and her little brothers gathered round. 'Will
Emmy get better? Will she be all right?' they asked. And
their mother told them, 'Yes, Emmy will soon be all right,
and she can eat gingerbread and sit by the fire and pop
corn and play with her corn-shuck poppet/ (All little girls
like their make-believe doll, and this little girl did too.)
'But she has to get well before she can play; we'll have to
send for Old Doctor/ "

The little child stared up with wide eyes, half curious,
half fearful, as the kindly Old Doctor stroked her brow.

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CLERGY, LAW, AND MEDICINE

"We'll be bound to fix her a dose of medicine," he said
gently.

"Is it bad?" asked Emmy in a thin voice.

Her brothers had been standing shyly in the doorway,
fascinated by Old Doctor's procedure, and while he told
his story they sidled cautiously into the room, a step at a
time so that Old Doctor wouldn't notice and send them
flying, until Bobby was seated on a little stool beside
Emmy's bed and thoughtful, serious Johnny stood at Old
Doctor's knee. Old Doctor took no notice of them until
Johnny asked, "You'll make my sister well, won't you, Old
Doctor, and the medicine is not so awful bad, is it?"

"Course I'll make her well," Old Doctor spoke confi-
dently to Johnny and turned to Emmy. " 'Tain't bad at
all," he told her. "You'll like it." He was squinting at the
label on a blue bottle, and before she could think to protest
he had poured some of the fluid into a large spoon and was
holding it up for her to swallow. She took it silently, her
eyes on Old Doctor's face, while her brothers watched as
if they expected her to rise forthwith in an instantaneous
cure. But Old Doctor knew better.

"Now just you take a bit of rest," he said, "and, come
another day or two, you'll be up and about."

Such a doctor was Nelson Tatum Rice on Little Blaine
Fork of Big Sandy River, and so it was that he won his
way into the hearts of young and old. To the youthful his
powers were mysterious and absolute, and his stories a
double delight, and to their elders he was comforter, ad-
viser and friend. Often he sat long at a bedside and, to help
his patient forget his misery, told stories from history, or
recollections of his pioneer days, or quoted from Shake-
speare and the Bible.

260

Reverend Zepheniah Meek

Doctor Nelson Tatum Rice

CLERGY, LAW, AND MEDICINE

Often in the days of my early travels through the Big
Sandy country I glimpsed the mustachioed doctor riding
on his mud-spattered mule, Selam, with his saddle bags
bulging with medicine. He always "tarried to ask after a
body's health/' or to report that Turley's folk were down
with "jandis," or Simpson's were "bad off with chills and
agger," and he was glad to linger while I jotted down in
my notebook some of the simple cures he had collected
in a lifetime of healing. For croup, he said, "use a flax-seed
poultice on the chestloosen it when nothing else well.
Black silk string dipped in grease and tied around the neck
is a cure an old Indian doctor told ma. I was by and heard
him tell Uncle Marsh the same thing."

"You must have plenty of minor accidents to attend,"
I suggested. "What's good for burns and cuts and such
like?"

"White liniment: that's white of eggs and hartshorn.
Red liniment's cayenne pepper"

"For burns and cuts?" I interrupted.

"God-a-mighty no! To stop pain or a hurtin' in the stum-
mick!" roared the doctor as he let fly a stream of tobacco
juice toward the underbrush.

For "ailments in the inners," Old Doctor recommended
sarsaparilla, or "yellow root, May apple and wild-cherry-
tree bark take a span of all three. A span is like you hold
between thumb and finger but of the May apple only take
three roots four inches long, for it's pizen as a sarpint. Bile
'em all together and guzzle aplenty." Not always, how-
ever, did he depend upon such complicated formulas.
"Pure water is a heap o' times a healin' balm," I have heard
him say.

"He's follered doctorin' this fifty-odd year on this same

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CLERGY, LAW, AND MEDICINE

creek/' his wife told me one day when I "lighted down" at
her gate. "He's off somewhars now in a granny case it's
Zachariah Kinsford's womanher sixteenth." The doctor's
wife sighed, "My maa tended her in her first birthin' told
her then it ort to be her last. But wimmin folk is a quare
turn. 'Pears like they crave misery and sufferin'."

But a twinkle came into her eye as other recollections
came to mind. "In his early days, when cash money was
scarce, folk paid the doctor with all sorts of things; a dulci-
mer, a hand-made broom, chairs. There used to be a sayin'
when neighbors would spy Zachariah Kinsford comin' up
the creek with a broom in his hand, 'There's another Kins-
ford on the way.' Folks knowed the signs!" The old lady
paused a moment. "I vow there was a time when the doctor
had all of a score of brooms in the chimney corner that had
never teched the floor. Couldn't wear one out before the
likes of Zachariah Kinsford was comin' along with an-
other'n brooms and babies 'peared to plumb outdo each
other."

I heard the same testimony from his patients. "He never
scrouged folks for money," one of them told me. "He
didn't complain if a body had no sil'er. Why, I've knowed
him to refuse pay, p'int blank! Refuse, mind you, when a
man's crop had failed, or his property had strayed off or
died. And in his time he accepted of a broom, or chair,
or poke of feathers, the promise even of the makin's of a
flock tick, for his hire in fever cases and such. Though he'd
just as freely a-spurned it. But Old Doctor was ever mind-
ful of a body's feelin's. The feelin's of them that were too
proud to take unless they could give."

It troubled Old Doctor to find patients who still clung
to superstitions, others who feared the medical profession

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CLERGY, LAW, AND MEDICINE

and surgery. "The time has passed," he said to me one
winter day when I was snowbound in his home on Elaine,
"for old granny women to put an ax under the bed to cut
the pains of childbirth for a young mother." But on an-
other occasion I wondered where he drew the line himself.

"Superstition is a destructuous thing in a body's nature.
Why, I've known women whose men worked in the coal
mines who have lived in anguish just because of supersti-
tions. They ever had dread of accident. One morning
Clem Owen's woman came running down to the roadside
after Clem had gone to the mine. 'I had a token plain as
day, Old Doctor!' she called to me. 'No sooner's Clem left
the house. I saw four men all in white working in a coal
bank, but the coal was not black, it were white as snow.
It is a token of death, Old Doctor, I'm sartin of it/ Try as
I would I couldn't pacify Clem's woman. Well, strange
as it seems, it so happened that Clem and three of his
mine buddies were crushed to death that very day in the
mine. No one on earth could make his woman believe
anything else but that the token was a forewarning. She
might have had the same token in her fancy a hundred
times before when nothing happened. But this time
tragedy did come." Old Doctor shook his head sadly.
"Another token among some of the miners is that of the
flickering light of their mine-cap torches. But there is rea-
son and logic to that. When the flame does not burn well
it is often an indication that the air is bad, that there
might even be black damp in the mine. That is deadly in
a mine and the miners are wise to hurry out."

In his later years, Dr. Rice marveled how they had ever
got along in the old days without hospitals. "I've seen a
heap o' sufferin' that'd be avoided now," he would say.

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CLERGY, LAW, AND MEDICINE

"Childbirths and sech. And accidents don't amount to
shucks, until something like blood pizen sets in; then you
need hospitals and all their instruments and serums. I've
knowed of some lives that could have been saved, in the
old days, and weren't. Today, with good roads, and hos-
pitals not far off, they would be."

Old Doctor's homemade hickory chair is now one of the
exhibits in my museum of Kentucky mountain pieces. "He
got that cheer in payment for his first grannyin' scrape,"
his wife told me when she gave it to me. "You taken no-
tice, Woman, how that nubbin is wore down? He ever
stood there with one hand on that nubbin, a-twistin' his
hand around it, when he were in a wilderness over a case
that puzzled and troubled him." Apparently Old Doctor
had been "in a wilderness" many times in his long career,
anxious over the suffering of his patients, for one of the
knobs was worn down to half the size of the other.

Another story about a mountain doctor, and an amusing
one because of its reference to the Hatfield-McCoy war,
was told to me by Bud McCoy. "One time I recollict
when one of my sisters, I don't rightly recall whether it
was Nancy or Vicy, was taken bad sick. Pa was troubled
plumb frantic, for ma had done all she could with home
yarbs and sich, but nothin' seemed to holp the child. Pa
was hurryin' out to saddle his mare and ride over the
mountain to the county seat to get a medical doctor. Old
Doc Slusher, the yarb doctor, was past goin', and his eye-
sight played out. But before pa got the saddle on his mare
he saw Elliott Hatfield come ridin' up the creek. Elliott,
you see, was a medical doctor. So pa called to him to light.
At first Elliott kinda faltered. 'Lark,' says he, 'you don't

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CLERGY, LAW, AND MEDICINE

aim to serve me like they served Jeff, do you?' Him and pa
both knowed full well how Jeff McCoy had ben 'ticed into
escapin' into the woods after Cap Hatfield, a deputy-
Elliott's brother-had tied Uncle Jeff's wrists. Elliott and
pa both knowed how Elliott's folks had shot Jeff McCoy
down, helpless. So pa called back to Elliott, still sittin' in
the saddle in front of our house. 'Ell't,' says pa, 'I wouldn't
harm a harr of your head. I've got nothin' in this world
agin you. You never harmed me nor mine and you can't
holp what your folks has done to mine. Come in and see
what you can do to holp my pore little sick girl.' "

And Dr. Elliott Hatfield, son of Devil Anse Hatfield,
administered to the suffering child of Lark McCoy. She
was soon well, and the father never forgot the doctor's
kindness and help in his hour of need.

265

10,

TALL TALES

A CULTURE IS KNOWN BY THE STORIES IT TELLS. AT
present, the greatest of American legends seems
to be the collection of Paul Bunyan fables. The
southern equivalent of this giant lumberjack of the north
woods is known as John Henry, and he appears in various
times and places as river roustabout, miner, and lumber-
man. In the Big Sandy version, he was a workman on the
railroad tunnels, specifically either the Matewan or Big
Bend tunnel. In the telling of the tale, the hero's color has
changed from its original black to white, and he has be-
come, of course, a native of the Big Sandy. It is only nat-
ural that when navigation of the packets on the Big Sandy
River gave way to the building of the railroad and tunnels
in that region, mountain folk who forsook farmin' and
loggin' would, in their singing at their new-found work,
transplant the figure of the earlier black John Henry into
their own song, and make one of their own stalwart num-
ber the hero of their verse.

In making a tunnel on the railroad between West Vir-
ginia and Kentucky in the days before the steam drill, a
mountaineer named John Henry, so big that he could hold
his son in the palm of his hand, was the champion wielder
of the sledge hammer. One man held the chisel while he

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TALL TALES

did the hammering. At last came the steam drill, and John
Henry vowed he could beat it. He took a sledge hammer
in each hand and had a man turning the iron chisel while
he kept both hammers going, one in each hand; he
pounded so fast and furiously that he did go faster than
the steam drill, but in the effort he burst a blood vessel
and died.

Mountain folk who sing the ballad will tell you too they
knew John Henry well. "He were born on Big Sandy, fol-
lered workin' on a push boat till them new contrapshuns
'ticed him off." And with that they'll sing the ballad
through to the end:

When John Henry was a baby
Sittin' on his daddy's knee,
He said, "O the Big Bend tunnel
Will be the death of me."

John Henry told his captain,

"Lawd, a man ain't nothin' but a man,

But before I'll be driv' by your old steam drill,

Lawd, I'll die with the hammer in my hand."

John Henry walked in the tunnel
With his captain by his side,
But the rock so tall, John Henry so small,
Lawd, he laid down his hammer and cried.

John Henry's captain sat on a rock,
Says, "I believe my mountain's fallin' in."
John Henry turned around and said,
"It's my hammer fallin' in the wind."

John Henry said as he took his stand,
"This will be the end of me."
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TALL TALES

But every foot this steam drill drove
John Henry's hammer drove three.

John Henry had a little woman,
Her name was Polly Ann.
When John Henry lay on his dyin' bed,
Polly drove steel like a man.

John Henry had just one only son
He could stand in the palm of his hand;
The last words that John Henry said:
"Son, don't be a steel drivin' man."

Whatever reality Paul Bunyan and John Henry may
once have had has now been obscured in the improve-
ments made upon the stories of their careers. But another
character, whose historical authenticity is very well at-
tested, has become the figure of legend: that is Davy
Crockett. He was a frontiersman of the Daniel Boone type,
and at first glance it is surprising that his legend should
be richer than Boone's. The explanation probably lies in
that Boone was a solitary, taciturn man, whereas Crockett
was convivial, and always getting into scrapes which pro-
vided anecdotes for his friends. When someone suggested
that he run for Congress, Crockett took the joke seriously,
and ultimately was elected in the wave of democracy that
swept the United States during the Jackson administra-
tions. His autobiography, written in his words as he dic-
tated it, is one of the most fascinating of source books on
American frontier life. The man later went to Texas, and
died there in the heroic defense of the Alamo.

"There are some folks, that is to say men folks, who
claim they had acquaintance with Davy Crockett, was
with him on his travels, hear-ed him fiddle many a tune

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TALL TALES

when he was amongst the Indians," a mountain man told
me. "Could a-happened," he added, careful to give every-
one his due, "for Davy Crockett was for a fact a rovin'
nature. This is just a prankin' ditty, you might say/' He
threw back his head and sang:

Sing a song, and sing it concernin'.

Til tell you where I came from

And where I got my learnin'.

Came from old Virginia:

There I saw great men, prince of all statesmen,

Second here to none;

God, I thought my head weighed

A least a half a ton.

Went a little further

And I met Davy Crockett.

I asked him where he came from

And where he was a-goin'.

I asked him for his gun:

He said he was goin' gunnin';

I asked for his knife:

And he said he had none.

Gunned on a while,

Creatures didn't seem to mind him.

He stopped, stopped still,

And never looked behind him.

"Well/' he said, "the creatures all must be dead/'

When he saw the bark a-fallin'

All around about his head.

I pulled out my knife
And whetted it on a dollar.
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TALL TALES

"Now, my Colonel Davy,
111 have your hide and taller."
He pulled off his gun,
Then off his ammunition.
"Now, my Colonel Davy,
Til cool your ambition/'

Then we locked horns,
I thought my breath was gone;
Never had such a fight
Since the day I was born.
Then he spied a knot
About the size of a pumpkin.
"Now, my Colonel Davy,
Do you call that a-skunkin7"

He pinned back his ears
And puffed like a steamer.
Now my Colonel Davy
Screamed like a wild Injun.
When we came to examine
We found somethin' missing
He'd bit off my head
And I had swallowed his'n.

Full a half a day,

About agreed to stop it;

I was badly whipped

And so was Davy Crockett.

Aye, aye, you little black calf,

You need not to laugh.

Pin back your ears

And I'll swallow you in half.

"That Davy Crockett song ballet I heard first from old
John Oldfield, who claimed to be part Cherokee he

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TALL TALES

looked it," said the singer. "And this lorn verse, too, he
sung for me a heap o' times when he had tipped the jug:

I will tell you of a little fight I had with Davy Crockett:

Half horse, half coon and half sky rocket;

We fit a half a day and agreed for to stop it;

I was pretty bad hurt and so was Davy Crockett/'

The singer reflected a moment. "You know he was apt
at fiddlin' a tune hisself and some claim that 'Tennessee
Wagoner' was his favorite tune, that he fiddled it a heap
o' times for the Indians. Left his fiddle, did Davy Crockett,
to his son. His race lived in Tennessee for a time." The
singer obviously knew much of the history of the colorful
frontiersman and exulted in his heroic deeds. "Davy
Crockett didn't fear man nor beast. Old John Oldfield said
once a painter crept up behind Davy. He turned around
quick as a wink, leapt on the painter's back, ketched it by
both ears, jabbed his knees into the varmint's side, and it
dove over a high clift, him astride. The clift was so high
the painter was killed stark dead, but Davy Crockett!
Didn't harm a hair of his head. He jumped up and down
on that varmint's carcass, same as if 'twere a feather tick,
and then went whistlin' on his way. I have seen the clift
Davy and that painter leapt off of. There's a heap o' com-
ical tales told of things that took place here in these
mountains."

The source of a very fine legend was living in the sum-
mer of 1939 over in Elliott County, near New Foundland,
in the person of Archibald Bishop, who was said to have
been born in 1821, and was therefore all of a hundred and
eighteen years old. Old Arch preferred the life of a hermit;

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TALL TALES

winter and summer he roamed the hills, taking shelter in
a cave, and maintained that living in the open like Daniel
Boone was what kept him young. Not so very long ago
some kindly neighbors wanted to provide a warm house
for the old fellow, but Arch resisted their proposal vigor-
ously, and Judge Redwine, himself past ninety, so the story
goes, championed the old hermit's cause.

"Archibald Bishop can't stand being cooped up in a
house of wood. You'll kill him if you put him indoors!"
And Judge Redwine carried the day.

There are love legends attached to almost every little
cliff along the creek beds, just as there are everywhere else
in the world; legends usually about a broken-hearted girl
who plunged her body down into the wide, surging stream
because of a "false true love," but sometimes about a des-
perate maiden seeking escape from a pursuer. "There were
such a girl," Elias declares, "right hereabout. See that
clifty rock away off yonder? That's Castle Rock, where
Lulie Vires, pore lovelorn lass, leapt down and drowned
in the waters below."

I remember a tale which fascinated me in my childhood,
of how a woman over on John's Creek had fought off a
marauder. Alone in her crude log cabin, she was bending
over the fire on her clay-and-wattle hearth when she caught
the gleam of an Indian's eye spying upon her through a
chink. Concealing her terror, she pretended not to see
him, but instead of dropping into the kettle of boiling
water the piece of venison she held in her hand, she let it
fall to the hearth, as if by accident; then, stooping, she
picked up instead the kettle itself, and dashed the boiling
water toward the chink. Staggering backward, blinded and
in pain, the Indian fell over a precipice to the rocky bed of

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John's Creek, below. So, at least, the story goes; I won't
vouch for the end of it, which is just the romantic em-
broidery one would expect, but children will still point out
the ledge, and say that it is called "Indian Rock."

Such tales are often elaborated; details, both spurious
and authentic, are included in the telling, and often the
legends are made into ballads. Some day they will be
full-stature myths. But I have been even closer to the
source of folklore many times, when a mountain man told
me a story which had come down from the past in his
family, or in the neighborhood, by word of mouth. Indian
Joab, cook at one of the lumber camps along Big Sandy,
told me one on the best authority his own giving names
and dates.

"Many a year ago it was a fall day in the year seven-
teen-ninety, before frost had come to strip bushes and trees
two brothers, Charles and Emla Millard, that lived up
on Clinch River, hearin' how thick wild game was down
here on Tug, come down to hunt. In them days they didn't
wear garments such as these/' Joab surveyed his patched
wool breeches, over which he wore a tattered pair of blue
overalls; his faded coat was out at the elbows and his shirt
in need of buttons. "The Millards, when you come to
think of it, garbed like they were in deerskin breeches and
fur caps, and packin' guns and shot pokes and powder
horns, looks like they had load enough without tryin' to
burden theirselves with more. Been better off Charlie
would have, anyway if they'd left part of their load
behind.

"Well, nohow, they had a big time: killed a couple bear
and a deer or two, and set to strippin' the big carcasses.
They were crafty hunter, the Millards. They found a safe

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place, all closed in with thick underbrush and pea vines,
to set to their tasks. Emla was tieing the pelts into bundles,
kinda dividin' up the load, one for Charlie to pack and
the other for hisself, when tirectly he ketched a glimpse
of a band of Indians. Well, sech men were fearless, but
they had to be crafty, too, to save their own lives. Emla
hushed his fingers to his lips so Charlie wouldn't let out
no yells, and pointed to his brother to look off yonder to
see the same that he sawthe Indians. One Indian come
crawlin' from behint a bush on his all fours, slow and cau-
tious like. The minute Emla clapped eyes on him, he up
with his gun, fired! The Indian fell back stark dead. Scared
the rest of the band off. They took to their heels fast as
they could stumble over vines and fallen trees.

When the brothers felt secure from attack, they began
their laborious journey back to Clinch, each carrying on
his shoulders a huge pack of pelts. Their step wasn't as
light, as when they had come down on Tug to hunt, for
their load was heavier going back. When they reached a
spur of John's Creek it was overflowing its banks.

"Best not try it!" Emla grabbed Charles's arm when
that daring fellow, with pelts and all, was about to plunge
into the water. "You can't swim with all that load you're
packin'." Charles dared Emla to follow him, and in he
plunged, deer and bear hides with him. Emla wasn't to be
outdone. He followed the other's lead.

"Fearless they were," Indian Joab declared, "but their
loads were too heavy. Charlie lost his life, though Emla
was saved. They never found Charlie's body. The pelts
and his heavy wearin' clothes and the shot pouch and such
weighted him down to the bottom of the creek. And that's
why the creek off yonder, that i'ins John's Creek, wears

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TALL TALES

his name, though some don't call it rightly. They're keer-
less of their speech, sayin' Miller's Creek when they rightly
should say Millard's Creek, for poor Charlie that it swol-
lered up."

Joab was a gay soul, for all the troubles he had had with
his wife, who had left him. "But I've always made on.
'Lowed I'd not have no other woman throwin' out her
flouts to me, about drammin' [drinking], and bein' part
Indian from bein' descended from Jennie Wylie. That
ain't no disgrace, I reckon, somethin' that happened long,
long ago. As I usen to tell Corie, 'You've no right to dis-
praise Jennie Wylie. She had more guts than you'd have,
Corie,' I says. 'She escaped from her captors and swum a
creek to get back to her man.' 'I wouldn't swim no creek
for no man,' Corie 'ud taynt me, 'and you mind how you
speak short to me, Joab, or one of these days you'll come
in from loggin' and they won't be no Corie for to jower
at.' Never could hardly keep that woman pacified, not even
when I'd fetch her a bough ten dress from down at Cat-
lettsburg. Time was when wimmin were pleased with lit-
tle." And that reminded him of a story.

"I ricollict hearin' Granny Wylie tell of her first store
dress of calicker. She and her sister were decked out in
their new frocks of bright red calicker and set off to
meetin'. Meetin' in a neighbor's home, for they had no
church house. It was a hot summer day and the girls were
packin' their new store shoes to keep them from getting
dusty. They wanted to show out in their finery before the
other girls and wimmin who had only frocks of linsey. On
their way they passed a herd of cattle grazing, and all of
a sudden one of the steers lifted its head and ketched sight
of the two girls in their bright red calicker. That steer let

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TALL TALES

out a beller that was heard plumb up to the head of the
holler. That steer pawed the earth, throwed dirt clean up
over its back, and then snortin' and roarin' it run like a
nest of hornets had lit on its hind quarters, the whole herd
roarin' and pawin' after the leader. That steer and the herd
had never set eyes on a bright red calicker frock before.
They were usen to see the wimmin folks in dark garmints
of black or brown homespun linsey-woolsey. The sight of
them bright red calicker dresses just nat'erly scared the
linin* out of that steer and the herd/' Old Joab chuckled
at the memory.

"The two girls, they dumb a tree and screamed their-
selves hoarse. Meetin' had already started, but it broke up,
what with the steer bellerin' and the wimmin screamin'.
And old Brother Lindsay led his flock to the rescue.
Thought the girls was bein' gored to death. But when they
got there there wasn't hide nor hair to be seen of steer and
herd. The two girls was tremblin' and snivelin' up the tree.
And old Brother Lindsay, there he was, standin' with the
Good Book spread out in his palm right under the tree
with them two poor girls quaverin' up on the limbs,
preachin' 'em a sermon. A sermon, mind you, on the sin
and punishment of self-adornment. He talked some, too,
on pride goin' before a fall, and the girls trembled till they
nigh fell out of the branches. He said they had a right to
be content with plain and somber apparel, that they had
no call to deck theirselves out in gay finery. Red calicker
frocks! Said he didn't blame the steer and the herd nary
bit!

"After that there was prayer, and them that were safet
on ground fined in singin' a hymn, and then the girls
dumb down the tree, their store shoes hangin' over their

TALL TALES

arms, and stood before Brother Lindsay, humble as a
sheep-killin' dog, and they told Brother Lindsay if he
would but say the word they'd cast off their gay raiment
when they got home. And never wear such finery again.
"I reckon old Brother Lindsay calculated they'd learnt
their lesson from bein' so bad skeert by the steer. Nohow,
the girls kept their calicker frocks. But from then on they
waz mindful not to pass no steers. It took all the men folks
at meetin' that day to round in the herd and that plumb
frantic steer. Brother Lindsay had to put off meetin' till
the next Sunday, everybody was so upset. I told Corie, my
woman, about bein' prideful and wantin' fine feathers. But
she stomped her broom on the floor and said she didn't
want to hear no yarns about a bull and a calicker frock.
Said she didn't credit nary word of it. I 'lowed right then,
me and Corie would come to the partin' of the ways."

Zepheniah Meek never tired telling of his early days in
the Big Sandy country. Once he had looked after the
"Master's work" that always came first with Zepheniah
he never failed to gather a group about him at the fireside
wherever he happened to be, and he always found a wel-
come wherever he went. Indeed the families in Big Sandy
vied with each other to "keep the preacher." No Peter
Pindar ever drew more eager listeners than this "great
story teller" of the Big Sandy country.

Once when he was staying at a home on Paint Creek,
after meeting was over at the church, neighbor folk gath-
ered in after supper. They came till there wasn't a chair
left around the great fireside, and the general conversation
soon led around to Zepheniah's recollections of the old
days.

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"I've heard mother tell of how one winter night, long
ago it was colder by far than we have it now there was
a deep snow, but that didn't keep folks from gathering at
the home of their neighbor, Absalom Reeves, who had a
good-sized log house over on Brushy. He was a pious man,
and pious people in that day and time set aside one room
of their house for the worship of God. You see they had
not yet raised a church house on that creek. But now and
then a preacher came through the country and held service
at the home. So zealous were they to hear the Word,
mothers walked for miles, carrying babes in arms, the older
children following at their heels through the snow. They
bundled their babes up in a blanket and placed them on
the great feather bed in the corner, and sat down to enjoy
the service through and through. They sang a hymn or
two, then the preacher read from the Scriptures and ex-
plained many passages. If they chose, his hearers might
ask questions which he explained to the best of his knowl-
edge.

"This had been an unusually good meeting. It started
early in the evening and it was all of nine o'clock before
it broke up. The fire had died low, the children were rub-
bing their eyes with small fists to get awake; some had
dozed off completely, sleepy heads upon mothers' laps.
The women folk, mother among them, bestirred them-
selves. They wrapped up their children in the dim light
of the log fire, gathered up their bundled babies asleep on
the great feather bed, and with many a cheery 'good night'
and 'God bless you' they all went their way.

"It was not until my mother got home that she discov-
ered she had picked up a red-headed baby instead of her
own towhead. But she was many miles away from her

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TALL TALES

neighbor. Nor did she know just which had taken her tow-
head by mistake. People had to use their wits and good
judgment in those days, and they trusted each other.
Mother knew that the other mother would take just as
tender care of the wrong baby as she would take of her
own.

"The home at which the meeting had been held was the
last up the hollow, and there was but one path leading oE
from it. Just one path to travel. So at the crack of dawn
mother set out with the red-headed baby wrapped snugly
in a shawl. She and the other mother met on the narrow
footpath halfway over the ridge and exchanged babies!
They laughed merrily over the mistake and then retraced
their steps. In those days/' Zepheniah Meek made the
point, "people lived near, in thought, and spirit, and
understanding. Each mother knew what the other would
do. She would start at daybreak and meet the other half-
way, to save a long journey through the snow."

Brother Meek rambled easily from one story to another,
and he knew no Hollywood urge for the happy ending.
"One late autumn day Mark and Rufus we'll call these
brothers by such names, for this same thing happened in
other families who pioneered in this country went into
the forest to fell trees. They needed logs for a barn and
for a stockade around the cabin against Indian attack.
Mark's son, a little boy about the size of young Tildon
here, decided he would follow the men and watch them
at their work. Children didn't have many amusements or
playthings in those days; they found their delight in every-
day events, simple though they were, like the felling of
trees by the ax in their father's hand. So it was with Mark's
boy. His mother gave her consent for the child to go.

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TALL TALES

'Mind/ she warned, 'follow the path through the cane
brake just like the men folks took/ She watched from the
door until the child reached the cane brake, caught a last
fleeting glimpse of his little curly head above the trampled
stalks as he pressed on and disappeared into the forest,
then she returned to the spinning wheel, singing now and
then as she tapped the wheel and stepped to and fro, spin-
ning contentedly. Toward sunset the father and his brother
returned.

" 'Where's our boy?' the mother exclaimed. The two
brothers stood open-mouthed.

" 'Why!' gasped Mark, 'he started back at midday.' All
that time mother and father each had thought the child
safe with the other.

"The word passed swiftly from neighbor to neighbor,
though they were long miles apart, and each quit his task,
without being asked, no matter what he was doing, gath-
ered up gun and powder horn and shot pouch and has-
tened to help their neighbor find his lost child. But their
search was in vain. All that night they continued as best
they could, some carrying lighted pine torches held aloft
as they struggled through tangled vines and underbrush.
But no sign did they see of the little lost child. Now and
then there would be a strange sound or cry: the men stood
like stone, listening anxiously. But the strange cry was
only that of a wild creature, a catamount, or the far-off
call of a fox.

"The parents were distracted with grief and anxiety.
Long nights they lay in sleepless anguish, listening for
every sound.

" 'We'll hear our child if he calls. He will come back to
us,' they said again and again hopefully." All the time the

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TALL TALES

story went on, I kept hoping for, even expecting, some
miraculous rescue. But Zepheniah was pitiless.

''Long months afterward they found the bones of the
little fellow under a cliff. A wild beast had seized the child,
the bent and broken ribs evidenced that, and dragged the
helpless little one off to its den, devoured it completely,
leaving only a heap of bones to lie there in the great dark

cave."

Zepheniah Meek made a point of every story he told.
"Children today should appreciate all their blessings.
There are cleared roads and paths to travel upon, and wild
beasts no longer prowl the forest to terrorize them and
their parents."

And now his story turned to that of a little girl. "Her
name was Sally, let us say, for many little girls have borne
that name and many, no doubt, have done as this child
did, or perhaps something similar, through lack of knowl-
edge. Sally's father had come to the Big Sandy from the
east, preceding her and her mother by some long months.
But at last he sent for them to join him. It took many a
day from the time they left their home in Pennsylvania to
arrive at the mouth of Big Sandy. There they stayed at the
old Catlett House, a famous old inn where in his time
Henry Clay and other noted statesmen tarried when the
stage coach in which they traveled from the Blue Grass
had halted, on the way to Virginia, to change horses.
Weary travelers were refreshed with good food which
Horatio Catlett put before his guests at the inn of which
he was the genial keeper. So here Sally and her mother
stayed until a packet should arrive along the river to carry
them on up the Big Sandy. That very first evening for
supper they passed around the table hot roast venison and

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TALL TALES

wild honey. This delighted little Sally, but when they
passed to her a plate of hot corn bread the child cried
petulantly, 'No! no! I don't eat chicken feed/ Her mother
blushed in embarrassment, and the servant who stood be-
side the little miss, offering the tempting dish, gaped in
perplexity. You see/' Brother Meek laughed at the thought
of the child's ignorance, "the little visitor from the east
had never before seen corn bread, and did not know what
a grand treat she had missed/'

"Corn bread," put in young Tildon, "is the finest grub
they are corn bread and honey and sorghum."

Next, Brother Meek told about the man who made a
plowshare from a broken iron kettle and how, one day
when he was plowing on a plot of land which a neighbor
had helped him to clear, the plow struck a snag. "Tug as
he would he could not move the thing, whatever it was,
so he proceeded to examine it. John began to dig, and
what do you suppose he found? An Indian stone vessel.
In it was buried a tomahawk, a flesher that's a blunt, two-
edged knife that the Indians used to scrape the flesh from
hides of bear, deer, panther and buffalo they killed in the
hunt. All such once roved these mountains, and wild
turkey, too, were plentiful. Well, with these old relics
there was something else in the deep stone vessel: a wedge!
A golden wedge! But John was much more concerned with
planting corn than he was with the golden wedge, so he
gave it to the blacksmith in exchange for a new plowshare.
The blacksmith, who was just as innocent as John of the
worth of the golden wedge, used it," Brother Meek
laughed heartily, "for brazing metal in his shop. Ha! ha!"
the good man held his sides, " 'Where ignorance is bliss,
'tis folly to be wise!' "

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TALL TALES

There was another story of the frontier which he recalled
this night. "Rachel, a beautiful girl just turned fifteen, was
one day digging ginseng on a wooded mountainside. It was
in the fall of the year, for that is the best season to hunt
this valuable root from which learned men make medicine.
Rachel was so elated at her good fortune in finding sud-
denly an unusually big bunch of roots, she put down the
little short-handled hoe with which she had unearthed the
treasure and began to dig aside the soft earth with both
hands. So bent was she upon her happy task she was not
aware of the glistening black eyes of an Indian watching
her from a thicket. His moccasined feet quite silenced the
red man's stealthy steps. He crouched low, sneaking up
on her slyly, soft-footed, and pounced upon her swift as a
panther. With one big hand over her mouth to stifle her
screams, the Indian bore Rachel swiftly away through the
forest.

"For eight long years the parents searched for their
daughter. But finally they gave up in despair. 'Let us think
that she is dead that our fair Rachel rests where nothing
can harm her/ they said at last. But even so, the father
continued to search when he went hunting with his neigh-
bors for fox and catamount, for it was by the pelts of fur-
bearing animals that he earned a living.

"It was early autumn, and Rachel's father had set out
again on the hunt with several of his neighbors. Somehow,
he never knew what it was that led him on, he became
separated from the rest. He even crossed a wide fork of
Paint Creek, a fork which he had never remembered seeing
before. He plunged on and on deep into the forest. Some-
times he would have to cut his way through a tangle of
underbrush and vines with the strong, sharp knife which

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TALL TALES

he carried in his leather belt, a long knife it was, the blade
being all of a hand's length.

"Well, after wandering through the forest, Rachel's
father," continued this "great story teller," "found himself
upon the banks of a beautiful stream. There were clusters
of wild honeysuckle and beautiful lacy fern, and brilliant
leafed wahoo bushes all about. Bright scarlet were the
leaves of the wahoo that is the Indian's way of saying
'burning bush' and indeed the foliage of these bushes
was as bright and gay and varicolored as the feathers of an
Indian chieftain's headdress. Bright scarlet and golden
brown were the leaves of the bushes all about. The hunter,
with one hand upon the sharp knife in his belt, the other
clutching the flintlock gun over his shoulder, stood gazing
upon the beauty around him when suddenly, off in the
distance, he was sure he saw moving between the bright
bushes a figure. No, not one, but two. They emerged from
the forest and made their way swiftly to the stream. 'They
are Indian lasses!' he murmured under his breath as he
appraised their gaily beaded doeskin dress, the brightly
beaded moccasins that covered shapely feet, the bright red
feathers that topped their dark braids. 'And their cheeks,
how bright with paint!' There was much colored clay in
the soil of the country; it was from this colored clay that
Paint Creek got its name," Zepheniah explained to us,
"and the Indians reveled in painting their bodies with it.
They even painted cliffs and tree trunks. If you go deep
into the forest, the uncut forest around here, you can still
find traces of the Indians' picture language on many a
mighty oak! But now, to get back to the two pretty Indian
maidens down at the water's edge in their gaily colored
attire. Between them they carried an earthen pitcher. They

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TALL TALES

stooped and filled it with water from the clear stream.
Then one, the taller, more slender, arose while the other
still knelt with the pitcher. The taller lass stood now with
arms uplifted, breathing deeply the sweet fragrance of
honeysuckle and laurel about her.

" 'It is Rachel!' the father gasped, and for a moment
he stood as if he had been turned to stone. But there was
no time to lose. He leaped from his hiding place, pulled
the short knife from his belt, stabbed the kneeling girl
the Indianand seizing his own dear daughter for it was
Rachel, indeed he bore her off swiftly to a place of safety.
Only a few moments did they tarry while she snatched the
gay feathers from her hair, coiled her long braids up about
her head and wiped the paint from her face. The paint
which her Indian captors had compelled her to wear so
that she would appear like one of their tribe."

If Brother Meek pointed this tale with a moral, I cannot
now think what it could have been. Certainly the father
treated the Indian lass more harshly than his own daughter
had fared at the hands of her captors. I am convinced that
the story had a basis in truth; there were numerous cases
of such captivity in frontier days, although some of the
details of this one seem to be inaccurate. It was the custom
for warriors to paint themselves when on the warpath, but
they were not always painted, and Indian women never.
But that was a detail which added interest to the story for
his hearers, and if the story were to continue to be retold,
repetitions would delete such unsatisfactory details, add
others, and change the shape of the tale until it became a
fable of heroism, devotion, or revenge.

285

11

FESTIVAL

IN JUNE, WHEN SKIES ARE FAIR AND WOODLANDS GREEN,
follow the winding Mayo Trail through the foothills of
Kentucky to a tiny, windowless cabin in a quiet hollow
on Four Mile Fork of Garner. For here, on the second
Sunday in June, mountain minstrels gather to re-create the
centuries-old tradition of the mountains of the Singin'
Gathering to sing the simple song of their fathers handed
down by word of mouth from generation to generation.
On a great rustic stage, with the crude log cabin for a back-
ground, the minstrels old and young sit grouped on primi-
tive, backless benches; above is the canopy of heaven, and
around about, high hills rise that give back the echo of
warning and wassail song, winders, sea chanteys, frolic and
lonesome tunes, play-game songs and gay ditties to the
muted strain of fiddle and dulcimer, of harp and flute. A
Singin' Gathering bless you, just as I came upon it years
ago at Uncle Abner's cabin on Brushy Fork of Lonesome
Creek, when I was traipsin' through the mountains with
the judge and a passel of lawyers from one courthouse to
another in the capacity of court stenographer. The Singin'
Gatherin' is reproduced year after year just as I came upon
it that first time in Uncle Abner's foreyard in front of his
log cabin.

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FESTIVAL

Promptly at the hour of two, a mountain man, tall, loose-
limbed, appears in the cabin door and, lifting a fox horn
to his lips, blows a lusty call. Then slowly over the brow
of the hill a covered wagon comes into view. On the high
seat beneath the flapping canvas top sits a descendant of
the first settler who, in like manner, rode into the wilder-
ness years ago. Beside him, dressed in somber frock of
linsey-woolsey sits his wife, hands clasped in lap, her dark
eyes peering apprehensively from beneath a dilapidated
slat bonnet. Following the covered wagon is a later-day
coach from which alight ladies in hoop skirts, stays, and
headdress of Civil War days. As they make their way to-
ward the cabin, suddenly down the opposite hillside comes
an Indian lass singing in native tongue the Cherokee
harvest song, a bit early in the season, perhaps, but typi-
fying the red man's welcome to the white. When her last
note dies away, a piper, in plumed hat and velvet tunic,
wends his way along the wooded path, a bevy of children
in traditional dress of old Lincolnshire trooping at his
heels. At length they reach the rustic stage and here they
step to the piper's tune a folk dance which survives to this
very day in the Kentucky mountains and in rural England
alike. In gaily colored dresses and bright ribbons, with
bells at wrists and knees, the children dance while the
piper leans carelessly against a great oak near the center
of the stage. To and fro they trip and sway, forming many
a pretty pattern and at last, with hands over head and a
lusty "Hurrah!" just as the pioneers danced the selfsame
tune, the children and the piper disappear within the
cabin.

And now come the "ladies-in-waiting" in full-skirted,
tight-bodiced frocks of black with ruff of white at neck

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FESTIVAL

and sleeve. They form a semicircle about the stage and
curtsy low as the speaker of the prologue enters. She is
dressed in a rich velvet costume of scarlet with heavy bro-
cade of gold and silver; her golden coiffure is topped by a
Tudor hat with flowing veil of crimson hue. About her the
ladies-in-waiting form a fitting background while she
speaks the prologue, recounting the origin of mountain
minstrels and their song, of how they came into the wilder-
ness of the new world to seek freedom when they grew
weary of the tyranny of their kings across the sea, bringing
hope in their hearts and song on their lips; ballads that
their forbears had gathered from the wandering minstrels
of Shakespeare's time and handed down without book or
manuscript from parent to child, a treasure that would
have been lost with the onward march of civilization ex-
cept that these sturdy pioneers were shut off from the out-
side world by high mountain walls and bridgeless streams.

It is to safeguard this precious heritage that the Amer-
ican Folk Song Society was organized. It is to perpetuate
the authentic interpretation of the song of our Anglo-
Saxon forbears that the American Folk Song Festival is
presented each year, a festival in which only those singers
to whom the ballad has been handed down by word of
mouth take part, and only those fiddlers and banjo players
who have learned their art from their elders participate:
men and women, boys and girls of the mountains who set
forth the episodes of the traditional Singin' Gatherin' in
proper sequence, beginning with the time when dancers
stepped the tune at the Infare-wedding to the singing of a
ballad in the absence of fiddle or flute.

Episode follows episode; scene follows scene, until
finally a somber note is struck in the Singin' Gatherin'.

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FESTIVAL

Brother Dawson, or another mountain preacher, in an
imposing voice, book in hand, rises and "lines" a hymn:
"Will the Circle Be Unbroken?" and his brethren from
Floyd, Lawrence, Johnson, Morgan, Knott, Elliott and
Rowan Counties, sing in true mountain fashion the sacred
words in their rich, resonant tones that blend like the notes
of a giant organ.

Like a lovely flashback on the screen, a bevy of children
in gay costumes of colonial days, satin and lace and pow-
dered wigs, troop out on the stage, dancing the Virginia
reel while Jilson Setters fiddles the tune and the youngsters
sing "A Penny for a Spool of Thread." With the dancers
holding the last figure of the Virginia reel and the ladies-
in-waiting forming a semicircle across the back of the great
stage, the whole gathering sings with muted accompani-
ment of fiddle and accordion, harp and flute, that best
loved of lonesome tunes of the mountains:

Down in the valley, the valley so low,
Hang your head over, hear the winds blow

And tens of thousands who pack the wooded hillsides
join in filling the wide valley with song.

Each year at our Singin' Gatherin' the stage is peopled
with the living characters of whom I write, all mountain
born and most of them from the Big Sandy. Jilson Setters,
the singin' fiddler of Lost Hope Hollow, the first primitive,
unlettered Kentucky mountain minstrel to cross the sea to
fiddle and sing his own and Elizabethan ballads in the
Royal Albert Hall in London he went to England at the
invitation of the English Folk Song Society, an organiza-
tion similar to our own has not appeared in this story

FESTIVAL

because I have written of him before. He is always at our
festival, and we have Blanche Preston, who sings sea
chanteys handed down by her sea-going ancestors, Eliza-
beth Lovell and her three little daughters, Walter Scott,
with wide-brimmed felt and flowing beard who claims
kin with Sir Walter Scott, and many others. Little Bud
McCoy comes to sing a ballad. He is the great-great-grand-
son of Harmon McCoy, who was slain far back in '63 by
Devil Anse Hatfield. And beside Little Bud sits Melissa
Hatfield, great-great-grandchild of the leader of the Hat-
field clan, singing as lovely a Scottish answering-back
ballad as you'd ever wish to hear.

Side-by-side they sit, a Hatfield and a McCoy, "peace-
able-like as chicks under a hen's wing/' Jilson Setters will
tell you, "for when singin' comes in, fightin' goes out!"
He knows full well, does this aged mountain minstrel, for
he has "lived under the war of both Hatfields and McCoys
and Martins and Tollivers, off yonder in Dark Rowan."
And he will tell you, too: "Our Singin' Gatherin' is a peace
maker. Singin' putts folks in good heart."

From this American Folk Song Festival have grown
many splendid things: music centers like that conducted
by a mountain-born girl, who has participated in our
Singin' Gatherin' and now conducts a music center of her
own at Prestonsburg, in Floyd County, where she teaches
the children not only folk songs and dances, but classical
compositions as well. And recently the federal government
has sponsored folk singing and dancing centers and recrea-
tional centers throughout the mountain regions.

Nor is this all that has "cropped out" of the Singin'
Gatherin'. While traipsin' through the mountains in quest
of minstrels and folklore I came upon a young lad one day

290

FESTIVAL

at the head of Levisa Fork. Seated on a log near the water's
edge he was painting the scene about him, the mountains,
a crude log cabin, high, jagged rocks. He had no pallet:
tin buckets contained the leavings of house and barn paint.
He had just a common brush of the five-and-ten variety,
which he had reduced to workable size with his pocket
knife. He used sparingly of the turpentine that was in a
can close by, and his canvas was a carton that had con-
tained canned milk.

"Lackin' a canvas," he remarked good-naturedly, "I
coaxed Bud Hatfield, that runs the coal commissary, to
give me this paper box. I didn't rightly have to coax him/'
the boy was careful of the truth. "The minnit I named it
to Bud what I was wantin' it for he up and emptied out
every can and set 'em on the shelft so's I could have the
box. A mighty accommodatin' man is Bud Hatfield."

In silence I looked on while he added the finishing
touches to his painting. "This log house you see yonder
on the ridge that I've tried to paint here, they do say is
where Rosanna oncet stole off to meet Jonse Hatfield, her
own true love." The boy's voice fell to a whisper. "And
they do say if you pass along here in the dead of night
you can hear Rosanna's voice, low and sorry like, singin'
a lonesome tune. Though I can't rightly say from my own
knowin'. I never travel this road here of a nighttime."
With great care he lettered in the lower corner of his
painting: "Rosanna's Tryst," by Randall McCoy Hatfield.
At sight of this I was silent for a moment as scenes of
heartbroken women, slain men, leaped before my eyes.
Then suddenly more pleasant thoughts crowded my mind.
The Singin' Gatherin', and how it had brought Hatfields
and McCoys together.

291

FESTIVAL

"Randall!" I cried excitedly, for in all my years of
traipsin' through the mountains I have not yet learned the
priceless art of mountain folk self-control. "Randall!
What would you say to bringing this painting down to the
Singin' Gatherin' on the second Sunday in June, where
folks can see what a mountain boy can do?"

For a moment he gaped at me in perplexity; finally he
found his voice. "Woman, I darsen," he faltered. "I don't
know the first thing about paintin' pictures. Though I've
everly had a cravin' to do it." He looked critically at his
handiwork. "I'm afeared they'd make mock of it down
yonder at the Singin' Gatherin'. I've never set foot in a
high school, let alone a school where they learn scholars
to paint pictures. Though I've read of such. Bud's got a
book about it; it's from a college. Ma aimed for me to go
to college some day, but" he looked wistfully into the
distance, "she were tuck with lung consumption when
I were just turned twelve; a month to the day after pa
were killed in the coal bank. Fallin' slate. Pore old Granny,
she done the best by me she knowed how, but the pore old
critter never favored book 1'arnin' and I didn't want to
contrary her. So I quit school and looked after the place
and her, long as she lived. I'm nigh on to twenty year old
and I've not been to the eighth grade." He lifted his eyes
apprehensively to the picture. "I darsen try to show out.
I don't know the first thing about paintin' pictures."

"That's just it!" I jumped up from the log where I had
been sitting while he put the finishing touches on the
sketch. "That's just the point," I argued excitedly, "to
show what a boy can do without any training. Think,
Randall," I found myself pleading, "what you could do if
you had the opportunity to study with an art teacher!"

292

FESTIVAL

Nor did I pause for any protest from Randall McCoy Hat-
field. "We'll start a native art exhibit! At the Singin'
Gathering What do you say to that? No need to hide your
light under a bushel. Bring your painting down to the
Singin' Gatherin' on the second Sunday in June that's
less than a month off. You'll come, won't you? And we'll
have a shelter built against the hillside where we'll show
the paintings. And you must tell othersan exhibit of
native art! Right out in the open against the hillside with
the trees all about there's lots of them at Traipsin'
Woman Cabin!" I paused for breath. I could see the great,
earnest eyes of Randall McCoy Hatfield widen with eager
delight, and I felt hopeful my words had not fallen upon
the desert air.

One day late in May that year it was 1935 I was out at
Traipsin' Woman Cabin making ready for our fifth annual
Singin' Gather in'. Suddenly I looked up from my work of
planting wild flowers and fern close by the chimney rocks
when I saw a young fellow coming slowly over the hill.
Now and then he paused to rest. Under his arm he carried
a large parcel tied up in brown wrapping paper.

As he drew nearer, slowly, with weary steps, I could see
that he was pale and stooped. I could hear the tell-tale
cough that comes only from the ravages of consumption.

"It's Randall McCoy Hatfield!" I cried aloud, "and he's
brought 'Rosanna's Tryst!' That's what he's carrying under
his arm." Remembering the ways of mountain folk I hur-
ried to the door of my cabin and stood waiting to greet
my visitor.

"Howdy!" said Randall, doffing his wide-brimmed felt
and bowing with courtly manner. "You see, I've fetched

293

FESTIVAL

'Rosannie's Tryst/ I was aimin' for you to have it, bein'
as you taken such a fancy to what I were tryin' to do."

"Randall/' I tried to show him how pleased I was, "I
can never, never thank you enough for starting here at our
Singin' Gatherin' our first showing of native art, by un-
trained artists!"

How proudly he worked that day, cutting saplings for
the shelter, though he had to stop time and again to rest.
The ravages of consumption had made appalling inroads
on his strength. Again and again he went farther into the
woodland beyond the cabin to bring out posts for the sides
and roof, and when a neighbor came to lend a helping
hand it took all the tact the two of us could muster to spare
the feelings of Randall.

"Let me hold up this here post," urged my neighbor.
"I'm no hand at drivin' nails, Ran'll. Let me set the posts!"
And he heaved the heavy posts to place, lifted the ax with
giant strength to shape the roof. Then Randall nailed fast
the rived-oak shingles which he himself fashioned from a
tree trunk with wedge and hammer. He stood to one side,
surveying the finished work.

"I chose this place here for the shelter of 'Rosannie's
Tryst/ and the pictures the others have promised to bring,
like you said, for the whole back of the hillside here is
rock with pretty moss coverin' it over. And there's a pretty
bunch of ferns clingin' to the bank yonder, and pine trees
clost by. It looks plumb pretty and naterl."

That year "Rosanna's Tryst" by Randall McCoy Hat-
field started the first native art exhibit by untrained artists
of the mountains. In a few short years, though Randall
was not spared to see it, the exhibit has grown to unbeliev-
able proportions. Young mountain-born artists from Ken-

294

FESTIVAL

tucky, Tennessee and West Virginia-for we encourage
them especially bring their canvases of mountain folk
and mountain scenes each year to the Singin' Gathering
where under the shelter which Randall's eager hands
fashioned, they are viewed, and often purchased, by admir-
ing visitors. Since our first exhibit, which began with
Randall's painting of "Rosanna's Tryst," several of our
exhibiting artists have shown in a national art exhibit at
Rockefeller Center, and another has won a national award
in recognition of his work.

It is through our annual American Folk Song Festival
at Traipsin' Woman Cabin on the Mayo Trail that we
hope to preserve part, at least, of the unique society which
is gradually disappearing under pressure of modern living
and progress, and to present to visitors a true picture of
this antique culture. Instead of whiskey-soaked ruffians,
crouching behind bushes and trees, peering from beneath
wide-brimmed felts, ruffians with blood-shot eyes and
tobacco-stained beards, guns in hand, which unfair writers
have pictured to the outside world for too many moons,
travelers today through the Big Sandy country will find a
transformed land. Giant mountains, to be sure, but crossed
and recrossed now by modern highways; concrete pillars
and steel girders spanning rivers and creeks.

What part of the civilization which was Big Sandy can
survive modern changes is a question which is perhaps not
important. Certainly many of the changes are for the bet-
ter: county schools with modern equipment and trained
teachers; hospitals with capable doctors and nurses, better
roads, electricity.

Visitors return with enthusiastic memories of the ma-

295

FESTIVAL

jestic beauty of living walls of rhododendron, pink, white
and purple, of hillsides and ravines festooned with wild
honeysuckle, waysides and winding trails hedged with
blooming roses, scarlet-red and fair-pink, mountainsides
covered with delicately tinted laurel and shell-pink moss in
rounded clusters, and giant trees of heaven extending their
branches of delicate blooms wide over the earth.

Spring comes just a little earlier to Kentucky than it does
north of the Ohio River, and always I recommend to visi-
tors, you may be sure, that they choose May or June to
visit us, when the country is at its loveliest. When spring
has come to the mountains, laurel and May apple, redbud
and dogwood burst into "full blowth." Bobwhite and robin
redbreast are calling to their mates from the thicket.
Spring's in the air!

"Folks are hoverin' like bees around Trivitt's store. It
bein' Sattiddy, they've come to do their tradin'. Men folks
going in with a passel of seng roots and coming out with a
poke of meal or a plowshare; the women, basket on arm,
swappin' eggs for calico and bluin', sodie and coffee.
Yonder comes Aunt Rimithie, follerin' behint old Uncle
Dave meek as a lamb. He's made her bridle her tongue
since he taken her that trip down to the level land on the
railroad cars. Uncle Dave ain't wantin' his old woman to
'pear boastful and braggity."

Barefoot boys perch like crows on the railing around the
store, while young Jeff Barber and Asa Kegley with guitar
and banjo pick a tune and sing ballads.

296

INDEX

INDEX

area, Big Sandy district, 5
Atkinson, Governor George W,

2 37
apple-butter making 91-94

Association meeting, 62
Aunt Ailsie, 50-1
Aunt Rachel, 62

Baptist Association, 60

battle, of Blackberry Creek,
200-01; of Grapevine Creek,
232-3; of Logan County, 240;
of Matewan, 239; of New
Year's Eve, 223-6; of Peter
Creek, 230-1

battler, 75, 79

Bell, Judge George G., 253-7

bee gums, 95-6

Big Sandy River, navigation, 6;
tributaries, 5, 10

Bishop, Archibald, 271-2

Blackberry Creek polling place,
184, 199

books, 24

Boydville, 23, 25, 28, 30

Brother Dawson, 61, 289

Brother Dyke Garret, see Gar-
ret

Brother Joshua, 64 S.

Brother Lindsay, 276-7

Brother Marbry, 45, 47-9, 52 ff.

Buckner, Governor, 227, 233

Burning Spring Association, 60,
62

Callihan, Reverend R. D., 252-3

Cardwell, Tizzie, 105-9

Catlett, Horatio, 9, 281

churning, 93

clothing, 11-12, 63, 137-8

coal, 7, 99 ff., 117 ff.; price, 124,
126; production, 115, 136-7;
theft of, 118-120, 126

coal mine, buggy, 135; dangers,
137; description, 135-6; dis-
covery, 138-9; lamps, 136; one-
man, ii7ff.; relics, 139-40;
small, 117, 129; women in,
130-1, 135

consumption, lung, 122, 145,

165-7, X 9 6 > 2 9 2H ?4
Crockett, Davy, 268-71
customs, 8-13, 15-18, 24, 44,

59 ff, 69-73, 144,158,167

Daniels, Bill, 212-13

Devil Anse, see Hatfield, Ander-
son

dialect, 73 ff, 176

diet, 14, 18, 20, 62, 71-2, 80,
132-4, 228

dumb bull, 21

Ebenezer, 16 ff.

election, of 1880, meeting of

299

INDEX

Jonse and Rosanna, 183; of
1882, murder of Ellison Hat-
field, 199; of John B. Floyd,

2 34'5
Ellis, Doc, 234

farm land, 13, 128

feud, 176

flora, Big Sandy district, 7

Floyd, John B., election of,

2 34-5
foot washin', 66 ff .

fork, wooden, 154, 159, 168,

Fraley, Sarie, 47, 105-8
Freeburg's scrap yard, 33 ff.
funeralizin', 45, 47, 59; Alliefair
Pridemore Mullan, 50 ff.

games, 11,69-71,92

Garret, Brother Dyke, 191, 237

ginseng, 7, 94-5

Grandpa, 147 ff .; in court, 163-5;

death, 165-6
Granny Twisden, 77-8
grapevine, 59, 180, 202-3
Grapevine Creek, battle of,

232-3

handicrafts, 10, 19 ff., 51
Hatcher, Col. Jim, museum, 96
Hatfield, Anderson, i77ff.; an-
cestry, 178; baptized, 237; and
detectives, 227-30; fortifies
house, 211; leadership, 180;
named "Devil Anse," 179; old
age and death, 24044; prow-
ess, 179-80; rewards for, 211,

222, 227, 237

Hatfield, Cap, 186, 189, 207-8,

211-14, 218, 229-34, 236-8,

240

Hatfield, Deacon, 181 ff.
Hatfield, Elias, 199-207, 229,

234

Hatfield, Dr. Elliott, 240, 264-5
Hatfield, Ellison, 180, 182, 198;

murder of, 199-207
Hatfield family, 178, 197
Hatfield, Floyd, 181 ff.
Hatfield, Joe, 201-4, 209
Hatfield, Jonse, 183 ff., 207-8,

214-19, 230, 233-4, 236, 240;

captured by McCoys, 192 ff.
Hatfield, Levicy Chafin, 181,

184, i88ff., 228-9, 243-4
Hatfield, Matthew, 201, 209
Hatfield-McCoy war, 1778?.
Hatfield, Nancy, 184, 188 ff.,

*93
Hatfield, Randall McCoy, 177,

291-5

Hatfield, Rosy, 184, i88ff., 193
Hatfield, Sid, 238-9
Hatfield, Val, 198, 204-8, 230
Hatton, Lemuel, 120-2
health, 83, 85
Henry, John, 266-8
Hewitt, Ellen, see Lark and

Ellen
hill billy, 15, 28, 32, 105, 120,

133, 161, 171-2
hog, dispute over, 181 ff.
house raising, 89
Hurley, Joe, 214, 219-20

Jackson, Governor Jacob B., 211
Joab, Indian, 273-7

Keeton, Brack, 22, 25-7, 30, 31,
33

300

INDEX

Keetons, 15
Kline, Perry, 221-2
Knott, Governor, 210-11

labor troubles, 237-240

Lark and Ellen, 22 ff .

law, the, 150, 161-2, 164, 171-2,
176, 181 ff., 199, 204, 209-
11, 221, 227-30, 232, 234-5,

i "I 3 " 7
leech, 149

Logan County, battle of, 240
log cabin, 13-14
Lovell, Elizabeth, 74
Lucretia, 16 ff.

marriage customs, 20, 68

"marryin' parsons," 257

Martha, 144 ff.

Matewan, battle of, 239

mash, 167-8, 170

Mate Creek schoolhouse, 178,

205 ff.
McCorkle, Governor W. A.,

236

McCoy, Adelaide, 190, 226
McCoy, Allifair, 190, 223-6
McCoy, Aunt Betty, 191-3
McCoy, Bud, 240-1, 264-5
McCoy, Calvin, 196, 206, 208-

10, 223-6

McCoy, Floyd, 201-5
McCoy, Harmon, 180, 290
McCoy, Jake, 221-3
McCoy, Jeff, 214, 217-220
McCoy, Josephine, 190-1, 224-6
McCoy, Lark, 221-3
McCoy, Little Randall, 185,

192 ff.; death, 200-209
McCoy, Nancy, 191 ff., 212 ff.;

deserts Jonse, 233-4; jowering,

197, 214-19; marriage to

Jonse, 197
McCoy, Old Randall, 177, 180,

190, 200 ff.; claim to hog,

181 ff.; death, 244; New

Year's Eve, 223-6
McCoy, Paris, 197 ff.
McCoy, Phemar, 192 ff.; death,

200-209
McCoy, Rosanna, 183, 186 ff.;

death, 196
McCoy, Sam, 197 ff.
McCoy, Sarah, 190, 205-208,

224-6

McCoy, Selkirk, 182-3, 205, 208
McCoy, Tolbert, 182, 187, 189-

90, 192 ff.; death, 200-209
medical treatment, 85-6, 257-65;

ankle sprain, 147-9, 153
Meek, Zepheniah, 246-53, 277-

85
"meeting," 60, 63-4, 278

Messer, Alex, 205-8

Millard, Charles and Emla,

2 73'5
Mitchell, Tom, 223-6, 232

moonshine, 174-5

Mounts, Cotton Top, 203-9,

223-6; death, 235
Mullan, Alliefair Pridemore,

45 ff.; deed, 49; funeralizin',

50 ff.

Mullan, Elvirie, 45 ff.
Mullan, Hezekiah, 53-4
Mullan, Missippi Tuchin, 46,

48-9, 50, 52, 56
mullein, 86
museum, of Col. Jim Hatcher,

96; of Jean Thomas, 82, 264

301

INDEX

Nethercutt, Little Bill Bob, 85-6
New Year's Eve massacre, 223 ff.

people of Big Sandy, character-

istics, 8

Peter Creek, battle of, 230-1
Phillips, Frank, 230-33
Phoebe, 1458?.
popping the candle, 61
potato patch, 151-2, 156-7, 161
primitive ways, 10, 19 ff., 62-3,

69, 72 ff., 81 ff.; battler, 75;

medicine, 85-6; speech, 73 ff .,

80 ff.

Quern, 81-2

religion, 60 ff., 134-5, M 6 "^
Hatfields get, 237; "marryin'
parsons," 257

Regular Primitive Baptists,
60 ff.

Rice, Dr. Nelson Tatum, 257-64

"Rosanna's Tryst," 291 ff.

salt mining, 99

scenery, 159, 296

silk worms, 96-8

Singin' Gathering 25, 286

singling 170

Sippi, see Mullan, Missippi

sorghum, 89-91, 134; taffy, 91,

"speaking," 60

sports, 87, 129; see also games

Stafford, Mary, 199-203

Staton,Bill, 182, 197 ff.
superstition, 140-1, 162; woman

in mine, 135; see also medical

treatment

taxes, 128

Thomas, Jean, museum, 82, 264

Thornie, One-eye, 142-4, 146,

150-1, 153, 160-2, 165, 171
timber, 7, 99, 129
topography, Big Sandy district,

trade, 124-5
Traipsin' Woman, 122
Traipsin' Woman cabin, 61, 286
trial, by Judge Bell, 253, 255-6;

of Daffy John, 107-9; over

hog, 181-3; of Sam and Paris

McCoy, 199
troubles, the, 176
tuberculosis, see consumption,

lung
Twisden case, 75 ff.

Vance, Jim, 184, 230-2
Vinton family, 143-5, X 4^ 166-7;

case, 49
vocations, Daffy John, 103;

Stephen, 134

Walker, Curt, 245-8
Wallace, Tom, 212-15,
war, 176
War, Civil, 177
wash block, 18
whiskey still, 167 ff.
Wilson, Governor, 222

302

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