Uncle Steve still is known to carry up a tourist’s bag occasionally, and
pocket the tip. He doesn’t do it for a joke either. When the tourists
later find out who he is, they’re rattled about having tipped him. It
doesn’t rattle Uncle Steve though.
They tell how he got appendicitis a few years ago and went to Knoxville
to be operated on. At the hospital, they took down his financial history
before operating. They asked what he did, and he said he worked for an
old widow woman over at Gatlinburg who ran a boarding house. Didn’t get
nothin’ for it, just worked for his room and board. A price, in
accordance, was agreed upon for the operation.
But when Uncle Steve began to convalesce, the doctors began to be
flabbergasted. For here came a stream of the most astounding visitors to
see this old man—Knoxville hotel managers, bank presidents, big
politicians, land owners, Government officials. The doctors began to
smell a mouse, and then they really investigated. But it was too late.
He had already paid his bill.
Often older people bore you to death. But when we’re downstairs we kind
of keep peeking around hoping Uncle Steve will come and sit with us. And
very often he does.