There is no land on earth which has produced such quaint and curious
characters as the great mountainous regions of the South, and yet no
country has produced nobler or brainier men.
When I was a barefooted boy my grandfather's old grist mill was the
Mecca of the mountaineers. They gathered there on the rainy days to
talk politics and religion, and to drink "mountain" dew and fight.
Adam Wheezer was a tall, spindle-shanked old settler as dark as an
Indian, and he wore a broad, hungry grin that always grew broader at the
sight of a fat sheep. The most prominent trait of Adam's character, next
to his love of mutton, was his bravery. He stood in the mill one day
with his empty sack under his arm, as usual, when Bert Lynch, the bully
of the mountains, with an eye like a game rooster's, walked up to him
and said: "Adam, you've bin a-slanderin' of me, an' I'm a-gwine to give
you a thrashin'." He seized Adam by the throat and backed him under
the meal spout. Adam opened his mouth to squall and it spouted meal
like a whale. He made a surge for breath and liberty and tossed Bert
away like a feather. Then he shot out of the mill door like a rocket,
leaving his old battered plug hat and one prong of his coat tail in the
hands of the enemy. He ran through the creek and knocked it dry as he
went. He made a bee line for my grandfather's house, a quarter of a mile
away, on the hill. He burst into the sitting-room, covered with meal and
panting like a bellowsed horse, frightening my grandmother almost into
hysterics. The old lady screamed and shouted: "What in the world is the
matter, Adam?" Adam replied: "That there durned Bert Lynch is down
yander a-tryin' to raise a fuss with me."
But every dog has his day. Brother Billy Patterson preached from the
door of the mill on the following Sunday. It was his first sermon in
that "neck of the woods," and he began his ministrations with a powerful
discourse, hurling his anathemas against Satan and sin and every kind of
wickedness. He denounced whiskey. He branded the bully as a brute and a
moral coward, and personated Bert, having witnessed his battle with Adam.
This was too much for the champion. He resolved to "thrash" Brother
Patterson, and in a few days they met at the mill. Bert squared himself
and said: "Parson, you had your turn last Sunday; it's mine to-day.
Pull off that broadcloth an' take your medicine. I'm a-gwine to suck
the marrow out'n them ole bones o' yourn." The pious preacher plead for
peace, but without avail. At last he said: "Then, if nothing but a fight
will satisfy you, will you allow me to kneel down and say my prayer
before we fight?" "O yes, that's all right parson," said Bert. "But cut
yer prayer short, for I'm a-gwine to give you a good sound thrashin'."
The preacher knelt and thus began to pray: "Oh Lord, Thou knowest that
when I killed Bill Cummings, and John Brown, and Jerry Smith, and Levi
Bottles, that I did it in self defense. Thou knowest, Oh Lord, that when
I cut the heart out of young Sliger, and strewed the ground with the
brains of Paddy Miles, that it was forced upon me, and that I did it in
great agony of soul. And now, Oh Lord, I am about to be forced to put in
his coffin, this poor miserable wretch, who has attacked me here to-day.
Oh Lord, have mercy upon his soul and take care of his helpless widow
and orphans when he is gone!"
And he arose whetting his knife on his shoe-sole, singing:
"Hark, from the tomb a doleful sound,
Mine ears attend the cry."
But when he looked around, Bert was gone. There was nothing in sight but
a little cloud of dust far up the road, following in the wake of the
vanishing champion.
[Illustration]