So up we went past Bee Rock, Preacher's Creek and Little Looney, past
the mines where high on a “tipple” stood the young engineer looking down
at us, and looking after the Blight as we passed on into a dim rocky
avenue walled on each side with rhododendrons. I waved at him and shook
my head--we would see him coming back. Beyond a deserted log-cabin we
turned up a spur of the mountain. Around a clump of bushes we came on
a gray-bearded mountaineer holding his horse by the bridle and from a
covert high above two more men appeared with Winchesters. The Blight
breathed forth an awed whisper:
“Are they moonshiners?”
I nodded sagely, “Most likely,” and the Blight was thrilled. They might
have been squirrel-hunters most innocent, but the Blight had heard much
talk of moonshine stills and mountain feuds and the men who run them
and I took the risk of denying her nothing. Up and up we went, those
two mules swaying from side to side with a motion little short of
elephantine and, by and by, the Blight called out:
“You ride ahead and don't you DARE look back.”
Accustomed to obeying the Blight's orders, I rode ahead with eyes to
the front. Presently, a shriek made me turn suddenly. It was nothing--my
little sister's mule had gone near a steep cliff--perilously near, as
its rider thought, but I saw why I must not look back; those two little
girls were riding astride on side-saddles, the booted little right foot
of each dangling stirrupless--a posture quite decorous but ludicrous.
“Let us know if anybody comes,” they cried. A mountaineer descended into
sight around a loop of the path above.
“Change cars,” I shouted.
They changed and, passing, were grave, demure--then they changed again,
and thus we climbed.
Such a glory as was below, around and above us; the air like champagne;
the sunlight rich and pouring like a flood on the gold that the beeches
had strewn in the path, on the gold that the poplars still shook high
above and shimmering on the royal scarlet of the maple and the sombre
russet of the oak. From far below us to far above us a deep curving
ravine was slashed into the mountain side as by one stroke of a gigantic
scimitar. The darkness deep down was lighted up with cool green,
interfused with liquid gold. Russet and yellow splashed the mountain
sides beyond and high up the maples were in a shaking blaze. The
Blight's swift eyes took all in and with indrawn breath she drank it all
deep down.
An hour by sun we were near the top, which was bared of trees and
turned into rich farm-land covered with blue-grass. Along these upland
pastures, dotted with grazing cattle, and across them we rode toward the
mountain wildernesses on the other side, down into which a zigzag path
wriggles along the steep front of Benham's spur. At the edge of the
steep was a cabin and a bushy-bearded mountaineer, who looked like
a brigand, answered my hail. He “mought” keep us all night, but he'd
“ruther not, as we could git a place to stay down the spur.” Could we
get down before dark? The mountaineer lifted his eyes to where the sun
was breaking the horizon of the west into streaks and splashes of yellow
and crimson.
“Oh, yes, you can git thar afore dark.”
Now I knew that the mountaineer's idea of distance is vague--but he
knows how long it takes to get from one place to another. So we started
down--dropping at once into thick dark woods, and as we went looping
down, the deeper was the gloom. That sun had suddenly severed all
connection with the laws of gravity and sunk, and it was all the darker
because the stars were not out. The path was steep and coiled downward
like a wounded snake. In one place a tree had fallen across it, and to
reach the next coil of the path below was dangerous. So I had the
girls dismount and I led the gray horse down on his haunches. The mules
refused to follow, which was rather unusual. I went back and from a safe
distance in the rear I belabored them down. They cared neither for gray
horse nor crooked path, but turned of their own devilish wills along the
bushy mountain side. As I ran after them the gray horse started calmly
on down and those two girls shrieked with laughter--they knew no better.
First one way and then the other down the mountain went those mules,
with me after them, through thick bushes, over logs, stumps and bowlders
and holes--crossing the path a dozen times. What that path was there for
never occurred to those long-eared half asses, whole fools, and by and
by, when the girls tried to shoo them down they clambered around and
above them and struck the path back up the mountain. The horse had
gone down one way, the mules up the other, and there was no health in
anything. The girls could not go up--so there was nothing to do but go
down, which, hard as it was, was easier than going up. The path was not
visible now. Once in a while I would stumble from it and crash through
the bushes to the next coil below. Finally I went down, sliding one foot
ahead all the time--knowing that when leaves rustled under that foot I
was on the point of going astray. Sometimes I had to light a match to
make sure of the way, and thus the ridiculous descent was made with
those girls in high spirits behind. Indeed, the darker, rockier, steeper
it got, the more they shrieked from pure joy--but I was anything than
happy. It was dangerous. I didn't know the cliffs and high rocks we
might skirt and an unlucky guidance might land us in the creek-bed far
down. But the blessed stars came out, the moon peered over a farther
mountain and on the last spur there was the gray horse browsing in the
path--and the sound of running water not far below. Fortunately on the
gray horse were the saddle-bags of the chattering infants who thought
the whole thing a mighty lark. We reached the running water, struck a
flock of geese and knew, in consequence, that humanity was somewhere
near. A few turns of the creek and a beacon light shone below. The pales
of a picket fence, the cheering outlines of a log-cabin came in view and
at a peaked gate I shouted:
“Hello!”
You enter no mountaineer's yard without that announcing cry. It was
mediaeval, the Blight said, positively--two lorn damsels, a benighted
knight partially stripped of his armor by bush and sharp-edged rock,
a gray palfrey (she didn't mention the impatient asses that had turned
homeward) and she wished I had a horn to wind. I wanted a “horn” badly
enough--but it was not the kind men wind. By and by we got a response:
“Hello!” was the answer, as an opened door let out into the yard a broad
band of light. Could we stay all night? The voice replied that the owner
would see “Pap.” “Pap” seemed willing, and the boy opened the gate
and into the house went the Blight and the little sister. Shortly, I
followed.
There, all in one room, lighted by a huge wood-fire, rafters above,
puncheon floor beneath--cane-bottomed chairs and two beds the only
furniture-“pap,” barefooted, the old mother in the chimney-corner with
a pipe, strings of red pepper-pods, beans and herbs hanging around
and above, a married daughter with a child at her breast, two or three
children with yellow hair and bare feet all looking with all their eyes
at the two visitors who had dropped upon them from another world. The
Blight's eyes were brighter than usual--that was the only sign she gave
that she was not in her own drawing-room. Apparently she saw nothing
strange or unusual even, but there was really nothing that she did not
see or hear and absorb, as few others than the Blight can.
Straightway, the old woman knocked the ashes out of her pipe.
“I reckon you hain't had nothin' to eat,” she said and disappeared. The
old man asked questions, the young mother rocked her baby on her knees,
the children got less shy and drew near the fireplace, the Blight and
the little sister exchanged a furtive smile and the contrast of the
extremes in American civilization, as shown in that little cabin,
interested me mightily.
“Yer snack's ready,” said the old woman. The old man carried the chairs
into the kitchen, and when I followed the girls were seated. The chairs
were so low that their chins came barely over their plates, and demure
and serious as they were they surely looked most comical. There was the
usual bacon and corn-bread and potatoes and sour milk, and the two girls
struggled with the rude fare nobly.
After supper I joined the old man and the old woman with a
pipe--exchanging my tobacco for their long green with more satisfaction
probably to me than to them, for the long green was good, and strong and
fragrant.
The old woman asked the Blight and the little sister many questions and
they, in turn, showed great interest in the baby in arms, whereat the
eighteen-year-old mother blushed and looked greatly pleased.
“You got mighty purty black eyes,” said the old woman to the Blight,
and not to slight the little sister she added, “An' you got mighty purty
teeth.”
The Blight showed hers in a radiant smile and the old woman turned back
to her.
“Oh, you've got both,” she said and she shook her head, as though she
were thinking of the damage they had done. It was my time now--to ask
questions.
They didn't have many amusements on that creek, I discovered--and
no dances. Sometimes the boys went coon-hunting and there were
corn-shuckings, house-raisings and quilting-parties.
“Does anybody round here play the banjo?”
“None o' my boys,” said the old woman, “but Tom Green's son down the
creek--he follers pickin' the banjo a leetle.” “Follows pickin' “--the
Blight did not miss that phrase.
“What do you foller fer a livin'?” the old man asked me suddenly.
“I write for a living.” He thought a while.
“Well, it must be purty fine to have a good handwrite.” This nearly
dissolved the Blight and the little sister, but they held on heroically.
“Is there much fighting around here?” I asked presently.
“Not much 'cept when one young feller up the river gets to tearin' up
things. I heerd as how he was over to the Gap last week--raisin'
hell. He comes by here on his way home.” The Blight's eyes opened
wide--apparently we were on his trail. It is not wise for a member of
the police guard at the Gap to show too much curiosity about the lawless
ones of the hills, and I asked no questions.
“They calls him the Wild Dog over here,” he added, and then he yawned
cavernously.
I looked around with divining eye for the sleeping arrangements soon to
come, which sometimes are embarrassing to “furriners” who are unable to
grasp at once the primitive unconsciousness of the mountaineers and, in
consequence, accept a point of view natural to them because enforced by
architectural limitations and a hospitality that turns no one seeking
shelter from any door. They were, however, better prepared than I had
hoped for. They had a spare room on the porch and just outside the door,
and when the old woman led the two girls to it, I followed with their
saddle-bags. The room was about seven feet by six and was windowless.
“You'd better leave your door open a little,” I said, “or you'll smother
in there.”
“Well,” said the old woman, “hit's all right to leave the door open.
Nothin's goin' ter bother ye, but one o' my sons is out a coon-huntin'
and he mought come in, not knowin' you're thar. But you jes' holler an'
he'll move on.” She meant precisely what she said and saw no humor at
all in such a possibility--but when the door closed, I could hear those
girls stifling shrieks of laughter.
Literally, that night, I was a member of the family. I had a bed to
myself (the following night I was not so fortunate)--in one corner;
behind the head of mine the old woman, the daughter-in-law and the
baby had another in the other corner, and the old man with the two boys
spread a pallet on the floor. That is the invariable rule of courtesy
with the mountaineer, to give his bed to the stranger and take to
the floor himself, and, in passing, let me say that never, in a
long experience, have I seen the slightest consciousness--much less
immodesty--in a mountain cabin in my life. The same attitude on the
part of the visitors is taken for granted--any other indeed holds mortal
possibilities of offence--so that if the visitor has common sense, all
embarrassment passes at once. The door was closed, the fire blazed on
uncovered, the smothered talk and laughter of the two girls ceased, the
coon-hunter came not and the night passed in peace.
It must have been near daybreak that I was aroused by the old man
leaving the cabin and I heard voices and the sound of horses' feet
outside. When he came back he was grinning.
“Hit's your mules.”
“Who found them?”
“The Wild Dog had 'em,” he said.