I
“The way to mount a horse”--said the Professor.
“If you have no ladder--put in the Friend of Humanity.”
The Professor had ridden through the war for the Union on the right
side, enjoying a much better view of it than if he had walked, and knew
as much about a horse as a person ought to know for the sake of his
character. The man who can recite the tales of the Canterbury Pilgrims,
on horseback, giving the contemporary pronunciation, never missing an
accent by reason of the trot, and at the same time witch North Carolina
and a strip of East Tennessee with his noble horsemanship, is a kind of
Literary Centaur of whose double instruction any Friend of Humanity may
be glad to avail himself.
“The way to mount a horse is to grasp the mane with the left hand
holding the bridle-rein, put your left foot in the stirrup, with the
right hand on the back of the saddle, and---”
Just then the horse stepped quickly around on his hind feet, and looked
the Professor in the face. The Superintendents of Affairs, who occupy
the flagging in front of the hotel, seated in cane-bottomed chairs
tilted back, smiled. These useful persons appear to have a life-lease
of this portion of the city pavement, and pretty effectually block it up
nearly all day and evening. When a lady wishes to make her way through
the blockade, it is the habit of these observers of life to rise and
make room, touching their hats, while she picks her way through, and
goes down the street with a pretty consciousness of the flutter she
has caused. The war has not changed the Southern habit of sitting
out-of-doors, but has added a new element of street picturesqueness in
groups of colored people lounging about the corners. There appears to be
more leisure than ever.
The scene of this little lesson in horsemanship was the old town of
Abingdon, in southwest Virginia, on the Virginia and East Tennessee
railway; a town of ancient respectability, which gave birth to the
Johnstons and Floyds and other notable people; a town, that still
preserves the flavor of excellent tobacco and, something of the
easy-going habits of the days of slavery, and is a sort of educational
center, where the young ladies of the region add the final graces of
intellectual life in moral philosophy and the use of the globes to their
natural gifts. The mansion of the late and left Floyd is now a seminary,
and not far from it is the Stonewall Jackson Institute, in the midst
of a grove of splendid oaks, whose stately boles and wide-spreading
branches give a dignity to educational life. The distinction of the
region is its superb oak-trees. As it was vacation in these institutions
of learning, the travelers did not see any of the vines that
traditionally cling to the oak.
The Professor and the Friend of Humanity were about starting on a
journey, across country southward, through regions about which the
people of Abingdon could give little useful information. If the
travelers had known the capacities and resources of the country, they
would not have started without a supply train, or the establishment
of bases of provisions in advance. But, as the Professor remarked,
knowledge is something that one acquires when he has no use for it. The
horses were saddled; the riders were equipped with flannel shirts and
leather leggings; the saddle-bags were stuffed with clean linen, and
novels, and sonnets of Shakespeare, and other baggage, it would have
been well if they had been stuffed with hard-tack, for in real life meat
is more than raiment.
The hotel, in front of which there is cultivated so much of what the
Germans call sitzfleisch, is a fair type of the majority of Southern
hotels, and differs from the same class in the North in being left a
little more to run itself. The only information we obtained about it was
from its porter at the station, who replied to the question, “Is it
the best?” “We warrant you perfect satisfaction in every respect.”
This seems to be only a formula of expression, for we found that
the statement was highly colored. It was left to our imagination to
conjecture how the big chambers of the old house, with their gaping
fireplaces, might have looked when furnished and filled with gay
company, and we got what satisfaction we could out of a bygone bustle
and mint-julep hilarity. In our struggles with the porter to obtain the
little items of soap, water, and towels, we were convinced that we had
arrived too late, and that for perfect satisfaction we should have been
here before the war. It was not always as now. In colonial days the
accommodations and prices at inns were regulated by law. In the old
records in the court-house we read that if we had been here in 1777, we
could have had a gallon of good rum for sixteen shillings; a quart bowl
of rum toddy made with loaf sugar for two shillings, or with brown sugar
for one shilling and sixpence. In 1779 prices had risen. Good rum sold
for four pounds a gallon. It was ordered that a warm dinner should cost
twelve shillings, a cold dinner nine shillings, and a good breakfast
twelve shillings. But the item that pleased us most, and made us regret
our late advent, was that for two shillings we could have had a “good
lodging, with clean sheets.” The colonists were fastidious people.
Abingdon, prettily situated on rolling hills, and a couple of thousand
feet above the sea, with views of mountain peaks to the south, is a
cheerful and not too exciting place for a brief sojourn, and hospitable
and helpful to the stranger. We had dined--so much, at least, the public
would expect of us--with a descendant of Pocahontas; we had assisted on
Sunday morning at the dedication of a new brick Methodist church, the
finest edifice in the region--a dedication that took a long time, since
the bishop would not proceed with it until money enough was raised in
open meeting to pay the balance due on it: a religious act, though it
did give a business aspect to the place at the time; and we had been the
light spots in the evening service at the most aristocratic church of
color. The irresponsibility of this amiable race was exhibited in the
tardiness with which they assembled: at the appointed time nobody was
there except the sexton; it was three quarters of an hour before the
congregation began to saunter in, and the sermon was nearly over before
the pews were at all filled. Perhaps the sermon was not new, but it was
fervid, and at times the able preacher roared so that articulate sounds
were lost in the general effect. It was precisely these passages of
cataracts of sound and hard breathing which excited the liveliest
responses,--“Yes, Lord,” and “Glory to God.” Most of these responses
came from the “Amen corner.” The sermon contained the usual vivid
description of the last judgment--ah, and I fancied that the
congregation did not get the ordinary satisfaction out of it. Fashion
had entered the fold, and the singing was mostly executed by a choir in
the dusky gallery, who thinly and harshly warbled the emotional hymns.
It occupied the minister a long time to give out the notices of the
week, and there was not an evening or afternoon that had not its
meetings, its literary or social gathering, its picnic or fair for the
benefit of the church, its Dorcas society, or some occasion of religious
sociability. The raising of funds appeared to be the burden on the
preacher's mind. Two collections were taken up. At the first, the boxes
appeared to get no supply except from the two white trash present. But
the second was more successful. After the sermon was over, an elder
took his place at a table within the rails, and the real business of the
evening began. Somebody in the Amen corner struck up a tune that had
no end, but a mighty power of setting the congregation in motion. The
leader had a voice like the pleasant droning of a bag-pipe, and the
faculty of emitting a continuous note like that instrument, without
stopping to breathe. It went on and on like a Bach fugue, winding and
whining its way, turning the corners of the lines of the catch without a
break. The effect was soon visible in the emotional crowd: feet began
to move in a regular cadence and voices to join in, with spurts of
ejaculation; and soon, with an air of martyrdom, the members began
to leave their seats and pass before the table and deposit their
contributions. It was a cent contribution, and we found it very
difficult, under the contagious influence of the hum from the Amen
corner, not to rise and go forward and deposit a cent. If anything could
extract the pennies from a reluctant worldling, it would be the buzzing
of this tune. It went on and on, until the house appeared to be drained
dry of its cash; and we inferred by the stopping of the melody that
the preacher's salary was secure for the time being. On inquiring,
we ascertained that the pecuniary flood that evening had risen to the
height of a dollar and sixty cents.
All was ready for the start. It should have been early in the morning,
but it was not; for Virginia is not only one of the blessed regions
where one can get a late breakfast, but where it is almost impossible to
get an early one. At ten A. M. the two horsemen rode away out of sight
of the Abingdon spectators, down the eastern turnpike. The day was warm,
but the air was full of vitality and the spirit of adventure. It was
the 22d of July. The horses were not ambitious, but went on at an easy
fox-trot that permits observation and encourages conversation. It
had been stipulated that the horses should be good walkers, the one
essential thing in a horseback journey. Few horses, even in a country
where riding is general, are trained to walk fast. We hear much of
horses that can walk five miles an hour, but they are as rare as white
elephants. Our horses were only fair walkers. We realized how necessary
this accomplishment is, for between the Tennessee line and Asheville,
North Carolina, there is scarcely a mile of trotting-ground.
We soon turned southward and descended into the Holston River Valley.
Beyond lay the Tennessee hills and conspicuous White-Top Mountain (5530
feet), which has a good deal of local celebrity (standing where the
States of Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina corner), and had been
pointed out to us at Abingdon. We had been urged, personally and
by letter, to ascend this mountain, without fail. People recommend
mountains to their friends as they do patent medicines. As we leisurely
jogged along we discussed this, and endeavored to arrive at some rule of
conduct for the journey. The Professor expressed at once a feeling about
mountain-climbing that amounted to hostility,--he would go nowhere that
he could not ride. Climbing was the most unsatisfactory use to which a
mountain could be put. As to White-Top, it was a small mountain, and
not worth ascending. The Friend of Humanity, who believes in
mountain-climbing as a theory, and for other people, and knows the value
of being able to say, without detection, that he has ascended any high
mountain about which he is questioned,--since this question is the first
one asked about an exploration in a new country,--saw that he should
have to use a good deal of diplomacy to get the Professor over any
considerable elevation on the trip. And he had to confess also that a
view from a mountain is never so satisfactory as a view of a mountain,
from a moderate height. The Professor, however, did not argue the matter
on any such reasonable ground, but took his stand on his right as a
man not to ascend a mountain. With this appeal to first principles,--a
position that could not be confuted on account of its vagueness
(although it might probably be demonstrated that in society man has no
such right), there was no way of agreement except by a compromise. It
was accordingly agreed that no mountain under six thousand feet is worth
ascending; that disposed of White-Top. It was further agreed that any
mountain that is over six thousand feet high is too high to ascend on
foot.
With this amicable adjustment we forded the Holston, crossing it twice
within a few miles. This upper branch of the Tennessee is a noble
stream, broad, with a rocky bed and a swift current. Fording it is
ticklish business except at comparatively low water, and as it
is subject to sudden rises, there must be times when it seriously
interrupts travel. This whole region, full of swift streams, is without
a bridge, and, as a consequence, getting over rivers and brooks and
the dangers of ferries occupy a prominent place in the thoughts of
the inhabitants. The life necessarily had the “frontier” quality all
through, for there can be little solid advance in civilization in the
uncertainties of a bridgeless condition. An open, pleasant valley, the
Holston, but cultivation is more and more negligent and houses are few
and poorer as we advance.
We had left behind the hotels of “perfect satisfaction,” and expected
to live on the country, trusting to the infrequent but remunerated
hospitality of the widely scattered inhabitants. We were to dine at
Ramsey's. Ramsey's had been recommended to us as a royal place of
entertainment the best in all that region; and as the sun grew hot in
the sandy valley, and the weariness of noon fell upon us, we magnified
Ramsey's in our imagination,--the nobility of its situation, its
cuisine, its inviting restfulness,--and half decided to pass the night
there in the true abandon of plantation life. Long before we reached
it, the Holston River which we followed had become the Laurel, a most
lovely, rocky, winding stream, which we forded continually, for the
valley became too narrow much of the way to accommodate a road and
a river. Eagerly as we were looking out for it, we passed the great
Ramsey's without knowing it, for it was the first of a little settlement
of two houses and a saw-mill and barn. It was a neat log house of two
lower rooms and a summer kitchen, quite the best of the class that we
saw, and the pleasant mistress of it made us welcome. Across the road
and close, to the Laurel was the spring-house, the invariable adjunct
to every well-to-do house in the region, and on the stony margin of
the stream was set up the big caldron for the family washing; and
here, paddling in the shallow stream, while dinner was preparing, we
established an intimacy with the children and exchanged philosophical
observations on life with the old negress who was dabbling the clothes.
What impressed this woman was the inequality in life. She jumped to the
unwarranted conclusion that the Professor and the Friend were very rich,
and spoke with asperity of the difficulty she experienced in getting
shoes and tobacco. It was useless to point out to her that her alfresco
life was singularly blessed and free from care, and the happy lot of
any one who could loiter all day by this laughing stream, undisturbed by
debt or ambition. Everybody about the place was barefooted, except the
mistress, including the comely daughter of eighteen, who served our
dinner in the kitchen. The dinner was abundant, and though it seemed
to us incongruous at the time, we were not twelve hours older when we
looked back upon it with longing. On the table were hot biscuit, ham,
pork, and green beans, apple-sauce, blackberry preserves, cucumbers,
coffee, plenty of milk, honey, and apple and blackberry pie. Here we had
our first experience, and I may say new sensation, of “honey on pie.” It
has a cloying sound as it is written, but the handmaiden recommended it
with enthusiasm, and we evidently fell in her esteem, as persons from
an uncultivated society, when we declared our inexperience of “honey on
pie.” “Where be you from?” It turned out to be very good, and we have
tried to introduce it in families since our return, with indifferent
success. There did not seem to be in this family much curiosity about
the world at large, nor much stir of social life. The gayety of madame
appeared to consist in an occasional visit to paw and maw and grandmaw,
up the river a few miles, where she was raised.
Refreshed by the honey and fodder at Ramsey's, the pilgrims went gayly
along the musical Laurel, in the slanting rays of the afternoon sun,
which played upon the rapids and illumined all the woody way. Inspired
by the misapprehension of the colored philosopher and the dainties of
the dinner, the Professor soliloquized:
“So am I as the rich, whose blessed key
Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,
The which he will not every hour survey,
For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.
Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,
Since seldom coming, in the long year set,
Like stones of wealth they thinly placed are,
Or captain jewels in the carcanet.”
Five miles beyond Ramsey's the Tennessee line was crossed. The Laurel
became more rocky, swift, full of rapids, and the valley narrowed down
to the riverway, with standing room, however, for stately trees along
the banks. The oaks, both black and white, were, as they had been
all day, gigantic in size and splendid in foliage. There is a certain
dignity in riding in such stately company, and the travelers clattered
along over the stony road under the impression of possible high
adventure in a new world of such freshness. Nor was beauty wanting. The
rhododendrons had, perhaps, a week ago reached their climax, and now
began to strew the water and the ground with their brilliant petals,
dashing all the way with color; but they were still matchlessly
beautiful. Great banks of pink and white covered the steep hillsides;
the bending stems, ten to twenty feet high, hung their rich clusters
over the river; avenues of glory opened away in the glade of the stream;
and at every turn of the winding way vistas glowing with the hues
of romance wrenched exclamations of delight and wonder from the
Shakespearean sonneteer and his humble Friend. In the deep recesses of
the forest suddenly flamed to the view, like the splashes of splendor
on the somber canvas of an old Venetian, these wonders of color,--the
glowing summer-heart of the woods.
It was difficult to say, meantime, whether the road was laid out in the
river, or the river in the road. In the few miles to Egger's (this was
the destination of our great expectations for the night) the stream was
crossed twenty-seven times,--or perhaps it would be more proper to say
that the road was crossed twenty-seven times. Where the road did not
run in the river, its bed was washed out and as stony as the bed of the
stream. This is a general and accurate description of all the roads
in this region, which wind along and in the streams, through narrow
valleys, shut in by low and steep hills. The country is full of springs
and streams, and between Abingdon and Egger's is only one (small)
bridge. In a region with scarcely any level land or intervale, farmers
are at a disadvantage. All along the road we saw nothing but mean
shanties, generally of logs, with now and then a decent one-story frame,
and the people looked miserably poor.
As we picked our way along up the Laurel, obliged for the most part to
ride single-file, or as the Professor expressed it,
“Let me confess that we two must be twain,
Although our undivided loves are one,”
we gathered information about Egger's from the infrequent hovels on the
road, which inflamed our imaginations. Egger was the thriving man of
the region, and lived in style in a big brick house. We began to feel
a doubt that Egger would take us in, and so much did his brick
magnificence impress us that we regretted we had not brought apparel fit
for the society we were about to enter.
It was half-past six, and we were tired and hungry, when the domain
of Egger towered in sight,--a gaunt, two-story structure of raw brick,
unfinished, standing in a narrow intervale. We rode up to the gate, and
asked a man who sat in the front-door porch if this was Egger's, and if
we could be accommodated for the night. The man, without moving, allowed
that it was Egger's, and that we could probably stay there. This person,
however, exhibited so much indifference to our company, he was such a
hairy, unkempt man, and carried on face, hands, and clothes so much more
of the soil of the region than a prudent proprietor would divert from
raising corn, that we set him aside as a poor relation, and asked
for Mr. Egger. But the man, still without the least hospitable stir,
admitted that that was the name he went by, and at length advised us to
“lite” and hitch our horses, and sit on the porch with him and enjoy the
cool of the evening. The horses would be put up by and by, and in fact
things generally would come round some time. This turned out to be the
easy way of the country. Mr. Egger was far from being inhospitable, but
was in no hurry, and never had been in a hurry. He was not exactly a
gentleman of the old school. He was better than that. He dated from
the time when there were no schools at all, and he lived in that placid
world which is without information and ideas. Mr. Egger showed his
superiority by a total lack of curiosity about any other world.
This brick house, magnificent by comparison with other dwellings in this
country, seemed to us, on nearer acquaintance, only a thin, crude shell
of a house, half unfinished, with bare rooms, the plastering already
discolored. In point of furnishing it had not yet reached the “God bless
our Home” stage in crewel. In the narrow meadow, a strip of vivid green
south of the house, ran a little stream, fed by a copious spring, and
over it was built the inevitable spring-house. A post, driven into the
bank by the stream, supported a tin wash-basin, and here we performed
our ablutions. The traveler gets to like this freedom and primitive
luxury.
The farm of Egger produces corn, wheat, grass, and sheep; it is a good
enough farm, but most of it lies at an angle of thirty-five to forty
degrees. The ridge back of the house, planted in corn, was as steep as
the roof of his dwelling. It seemed incredible that it ever could have
been plowed, but the proprietor assured us that it was plowed with
mules, and I judged that the harvesting must be done by squirrels. The
soil is good enough, if it would stay in place, but all the hillsides
are seamed with gullies. The discolored state of the streams was
accounted for as soon as we saw this cultivated land. No sooner is the
land cleared of trees and broken up than it begins to wash. We saw more
of this later, especially in North Carolina, where we encountered no
stream of water that was not muddy, and saw no cultivated ground that
was not washed. The process of denudation is going on rapidly wherever
the original forests are girdled (a common way of preparing for crops),
or cut away.
As the time passed and there was no sign of supper, the question became
a burning one, and we went to explore the kitchen. No sign of it there.
No fire in the stove, nothing cooked in the house, of course. Mrs. Egger
and her comely young barefooted daughter had still the milking to attend
to, and supper must wait for the other chores. It seemed easier to be
Mr. Egger, in this state of existence, and sit on the front porch and
meditate on the price of mules and the prospect of a crop, than to be
Mrs. Egger, whose work was not limited from sun to sun; who had, in
fact, a day's work to do after the men-folks had knocked off; whose
chances of neighborhood gossip were scanty, whose amusements were
confined to a religious meeting once a fortnight. Good, honest people
these, not unduly puffed up by the brick house, grubbing away year in
and year out. Yes, the young girl said, there was a neighborhood party,
now and then, in the winter. What a price to pay for mere life!
Long before supper was ready, nearly nine o'clock, we had almost lost
interest in it. Meantime two other guests had arrived, a couple of
drovers from North Carolina, who brought into the circle--by this time
a wood-fire had been kindled in the sitting-room, which contained a bed,
an almanac, and some old copies of a newspaper--a rich flavor of cattle,
and talk of the price of steers. As to politics, although a presidential
campaign was raging, there was scarcely an echo of it here. This was
Johnson County, Tennessee, a strong Republican county but dog-gone it,
says Mr. Egger, it's no use to vote; our votes are overborne by the rest
of the State. Yes, they'd got a Republican member of Congress,--he'd
heard his name, but he'd forgotten it. The drover said he'd heard it
also, but he didn't take much interest in such things, though he wasn't
any Republican. Parties is pretty much all for office, both agreed. Even
the Professor, who was traveling in the interest of Reform, couldn't
wake up a discussion out of such a state of mind.
Alas! the supper, served in a room dimly lighted with a smoky lamp, on
a long table covered with oilcloth, was not of the sort to arouse the
delayed and now gone appetite of a Reformer, and yet it did not
lack variety: cornpone (Indian meal stirred up with water and heated
through), hot biscuit, slack-baked and livid, fried salt-pork swimming
in grease, apple-butter, pickled beets, onions and cucumbers raw, coffee
(so-called), buttermilk, and sweet milk when specially asked for (the
correct taste, however, is for buttermilk), and pie. This was not the
pie of commerce, but the pie of the country,--two thick slabs of
dough, with a squeezing of apple between. The profusion of this supper
staggered the novices, but the drovers attacked it as if such cooking
were a common occurrence and did justice to the weary labors of Mrs.
Egger.
Egger is well prepared to entertain strangers, having several rooms and
several beds in each room. Upon consultation with the drovers, they said
they'd just as soon occupy an apartment by themselves, and we gave up
their society for the night. The beds in our chamber had each one sheet,
and the room otherwise gave evidence of the modern spirit; for in one
corner stood the fashionable aesthetic decoration of our Queen Anne
drawing-rooms,--the spinning-wheel. Soothed by this concession to taste,
we crowded in between the straw and the home-made blanket and sheet, and
soon ceased to hear the barking of dogs and the horned encounters of the
drovers' herd.
We parted with Mr. Egger after breakfast (which was a close copy of
the supper) with more respect than regret. His total charge for
the entertainment of two men and two horses--supper, lodging, and
breakfast--was high or low, as the traveler chose to estimate it. It was
$1.20: that is, thirty cents for each individual, or ten cents for each
meal and lodging.
Our road was a sort of by-way up Gentry Creek and over the Cut Laurel
Gap to Worth's, at Creston Post Office, in North Carolina,--the next
available halting place, said to be fifteen miles distant, and turning
out to be twenty-two, and a rough road. There is a little settlement
about Egger's, and the first half mile of our way we had the company of
the schoolmistress, a modest, pleasant-spoken girl. Neither she nor
any other people we encountered had any dialect or local peculiarity of
speech. Indeed, those we encountered that morning had nothing in manner
or accent to distinguish them. The novelists had led us to expect
something different; and the modest and pretty young lady with frank and
open blue eyes, who wore gloves and used the common English speech, had
never figured in the fiction of the region. Cherished illusions vanish
often on near approach. The day gave no peculiarity of speech to note,
except the occasional use of “hit” for “it.”
The road over Cut Laurel Gap was very steep and stony, the thermometer
mounted up to 80 deg., and, notwithstanding the beauty of the way, the
ride became tedious before we reached the summit. On the summit is the
dwelling and distillery of a colonel famous in these parts. We stopped
at the house for a glass of milk; the colonel was absent, and while the
woman in charge went after it, we sat on the veranda and conversed with
a young lady, tall, gent, well favored, and communicative, who leaned in
the doorway.
“Yes, this house stands on the line. Where you sit, you are in
Tennessee; I'm in North Carolina.”
“Do you live here?”
“Law, no; I'm just staying a little while at the colonel's. I live over
the mountain here, three miles from Taylorsville. I thought I'd be where
I could step into North Carolina easy.”
“How's that?”
“Well, they wanted me to go before the grand jury and testify about
some pistol-shooting down by our house, some friends of mine got into
a little difficulty,--and I did n't want to. I never has no difficulty
with nobody, never says nothing about nobody, has nothing against
nobody, and I reckon nobody has nothing against me.”
“Did you come alone?”
“Why, of course. I come across the mountain by a path through the woods.
That's nothing.”
A discreet, pleasant, pretty girl. This surely must be the Esmeralda who
lives in these mountains, and adorns low life by her virgin purity
and sentiment. As she talked on, she turned from time to time to the
fireplace behind her, and discharged a dark fluid from her pretty lips,
with accuracy of aim, and with a nonchalance that was not assumed, but
belongs to our free-born American girls. I cannot tell why this habit of
hers (which is no worse than the sister habit of “dipping”) should take
her out of the romantic setting that her face and figure had placed her
in; but somehow we felt inclined to ride on farther for our heroine.
“And yet,” said the Professor, as we left the site of the colonel's
thriving distillery, and by a winding, picturesque road through a rough
farming country descended into the valley,--“and yet, why fling aside
so readily a character and situation so full of romance, on account of
a habit of this mountain Helen, which one of our best poets has almost
made poetical, in the case of the pioneer taking his westward way, with
ox-goad pointing to the sky:
“'He's leaving on the pictured rock
His fresh tobacco stain.'
“To my mind the incident has Homeric elements. The Greeks would have
looked at it in a large, legendary way. Here is Helen, strong and lithe
of limb, ox-eyed, courageous, but woman-hearted and love-inspiring,
contended for by all the braves and daring moonshiners of Cut Laurel
Gap, pursued by the gallants of two States, the prize of a border
warfare of bowie knives and revolvers. This Helen, magnanimous as
attractive, is the witness of a pistol difficulty on her behalf, and
when wanted by the areopagus, that she may neither implicate a lover
nor punish an enemy (having nothing, this noble type of her sex against
nobody), skips away to Mount Ida, and there, under the aegis of the flag
of her country, in a Licensed Distillery, stands with one slender foot
in Tennessee and the other in North Carolina...”
“Like the figure of the Republic itself, superior to state sovereignty,”
interposed the Friend.
“I beg your pardon,” said the Professor, urging up Laura Matilda (for
so he called the nervous mare, who fretted herself into a fever in the
stony path), “I was quite able to get the woman out of that position
without the aid of a metaphor. It is a large and Greek idea, that of
standing in two mighty States, superior to the law, looking east and
looking west, ready to transfer her agile body to either State on the
approach of messengers of the court; and I'll be hanged if I didn't
think that her nonchalant rumination of the weed, combined with her
lofty moral attitude, added something to the picture.”
The Friend said that he was quite willing to join in the extremest
defense of the privileges of beauty,--that he even held in abeyance
judgment on the practice of dipping; but when it came to chewing, gum
was as far as he could go as an allowance for the fair sex.
“When I consider everything that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment...”
The rest of the stanza was lost, for the Professor was splashing through
the stream. No sooner had we descended than the fording of streams
began again. The Friend had been obliged to stipulate that the Professor
should go ahead at these crossings, to keep the impetuous nag of the
latter from throwing half the contents of the stream upon his slower and
uncomplaining companion.
What a lovely country, but for the heat of noon and the long
wearisomeness of the way!--not that the distance was great, but miles
and miles more than expected. How charming the open glades of the
river, how refreshing the great forests of oak and chestnut, and what a
panorama of beauty the banks of rhododendrons, now intermingled with the
lighter pink and white of the laurel! In this region the rhododendron is
called laurel and the laurel (the sheep-laurel of New England) is called
ivy.
At Worth's, well on in the afternoon, we emerged into a wide, open
farming intervale, a pleasant place of meadows and streams and decent
dwellings. Worth's is the trading center of the region, has a post
office and a saw-mill and a big country store; and the dwelling of the
proprietor is not unlike a roomy New England country house. Worth's
has been immemorially a stopping-place in a region where places of
accommodation are few. The proprietor, now an elderly man, whose
reminiscences are long ante bellum, has seen the world grow up about
him, he the honored, just center of it, and a family come up into the
modern notions of life, with a boarding-school education and glimpses of
city life and foreign travel. I fancy that nothing but tradition and
a remaining Southern hospitality could induce this private family to
suffer the incursions of this wayfaring man. Our travelers are not apt
to be surprised at anything in American life, but they did not expect to
find a house in this region with two pianos and a bevy of young ladies,
whose clothes were certainly not made on Cut Laurel Gap, and to read
in the books scattered about the house the evidences of the finishing
schools with which our country is blessed, nor to find here pupils
of the Stonewall Jackson Institute at Abingdon. With a flush of local
pride, the Professor took up, in the roomy, pleasant chamber set apart
for the guests, a copy of Porter's “Elements of Moral Science.”
“Where you see the 'Elements of Moral Science,'” the Friend generalized,
“there'll be plenty of water and towels;” and the sign did not fail. The
friends intended to read this book in the cool of the day; but as they
sat on the long veranda, the voice of a maiden reading the latest novel
to a sewing group behind the blinds in the drawing-room; and the antics
of a mule and a boy in front of the store opposite; and the arrival of
a spruce young man, who had just ridden over from somewhere, a matter
of ten miles' gallop, to get a medicinal potion for his sick mother, and
lingered chatting with the young ladies until we began to fear that his
mother would recover before his return; the coming and going of lean
women in shackly wagons to trade at the store; the coming home of the
cows, splashing through the stream, hooking right and left, and lowing
for the hand of the milker,--all these interruptions, together with the
generally drowsy quiet of the approach of evening, interfered with the
study of the Elements. And when the travelers, after a refreshing rest,
went on their way next morning, considering the Elements and the pianos
and the refinement, to say nothing of the cuisine, which is not treated
of in the text-book referred to, they were content with a bill double
that of brother Egger, in his brick magnificence.
The simple truth is, that the traveler in this region must be content
to feed on natural beauties. And it is an unfortunate truth in natural
history that the appetite for this sort of diet fails after a time,
if the inner man is not supplied with other sort of food. There is no
landscape in the world that is agreeable after two days of rusty-bacon
and slack biscuit.
“How lovely this would be,” exclaimed the Professor, if it had a
background of beefsteak and coffee!
We were riding along the west fork of the Laurel, distinguished locally
as Three Top Creek,--or, rather, we were riding in it, crossing it
thirty-one times within six miles; a charming wood (and water) road,
under the shade of fine trees with the rhododendron illuminating the
way, gleaming in the forest and reflected in the stream, all the ten
miles to Elk Cross Roads, our next destination. We had heard a great
deal about Elk Cross Roads; it was on the map, it was down in the
itinerary furnished by a member of the Coast Survey. We looked forward
to it as a sweet place of repose from the noontide heat. Alas! Elk
Cross Roads is a dirty grocery store, encumbered with dry-goods boxes,
fly-blown goods, flies, loafers. In reply to our inquiry we were told
that they had nothing to eat, for us, and not a grain of feed for the
horses. But there was a man a mile farther on, who was well to do and
had stores of food,--old man Tatern would treat us in bang-up style. The
difficulty of getting feed for the horses was chronic all through the
journey. The last corn crop had failed, the new oats and corn had not
come in, and the country was literally barren. We had noticed all along
that the hens were taking a vacation, and that chickens were not put
forward as an article of diet.
We were unable, when we reached the residence of old man Tatem, to
imagine how the local superstition of his wealth arose. His house is
of logs, with two rooms, a kitchen and a spare room, with a low loft
accessible by a ladder at the side of the chimney. The chimney is a huge
construction of stone, separating the two parts of the house; in fact,
the chimney was built first, apparently, and the two rooms were then
built against it. The proprietor sat in a little railed veranda. These
Southern verandas give an air to the meanest dwelling, and they are much
used; the family sit here, and here are the washbasin and pail (which is
filled from the neighboring spring-house), and the row of milk-pans.
The old man Tatern did not welcome us with enthusiasm; he had no
corn,--these were hard times. He looked like hard times, grizzled times,
dirty times. It seemed time out of mind since he had seen comb or razor,
and although the lovely New River, along which we had ridden to his
house,--a broad, inviting stream,--was in sight across the meadow, there
was no evidence that he had ever made acquaintance with its cleansing
waters. As to corn, the necessities of the case and pay being dwelt on,
perhaps he could find a dozen ears. A dozen small cars he did find, and
we trust that the horses found them.
We took a family dinner with old man Tatern in the kitchen, where there
was a bed and a stove,--a meal that the host seemed to enjoy, but which
we could not make much of, except the milk; that was good. A painful
meal, on the whole, owing to the presence in the room of a grown-up
daughter with a graveyard cough, without physician or medicine, or
comforts. Poor girl! just dying of “a misery.”
In the spare room were two beds; the walls were decorated with the
gay-colored pictures of patent-medicine advertisements--a favorite art
adornment of the region; and a pile of ancient illustrated papers with
the usual patent-office report, the thoughtful gift of the member for
the district. The old man takes in the “Blue Ridge Baptist,” a journal
which we found largely taken up with the experiences of its editor on
his journeys roundabout in search of subscribers. This newspaper was the
sole communication of the family with the world at large, but the old
man thought he should stop it,--he did n't seem to get the worth of his
money out of it. And old man Tatem was a thrifty and provident man. On
the hearth in this best room--as ornaments or memento mori were a couple
of marble gravestones, a short headstone and foot-stone, mounted on
bases and ready for use, except the lettering. These may not have been
so mournful and significant as they looked, nor the evidence of simple,
humble faith; they may have been taken for debt. But as parlor ornaments
they had a fascination which we could not escape.
It was while we were bathing in the New River, that afternoon, and
meditating on the grim, unrelieved sort of life of our host, that the
Professor said, “judging by the face of the 'Blue Ridge Baptist,' he
will charge us smartly for the few nubbins of corn and the milk.” The
face did not deceive us; the charge was one dollar. At this rate it
would have broken us to have tarried with old man Tatem (perhaps he is
not old, but that is the name he goes by) over night.
It was a hot afternoon, and it needed some courage to mount and climb
the sandy hill leading us away from the corn-crib of Tatem. But we
entered almost immediately into fine stretches of forest, and rode under
the shade of great oaks. The way, which began by the New River, soon led
us over the hills to the higher levels of Watauga County. So far on our
journey we had been hemmed in by low hills, and without any distant
or mountain outlooks. The excessive heat seemed out of place at the
elevation of over two thousand feet, on which we were traveling. Boone,
the county seat of Watauga County, was our destination, and, ever since
morning, the guideboards and the trend of the roads had notified us that
everything in this region tends towards Boone as a center of interest.
The simple ingenuity of some of the guide-boards impressed us. If, on
coming to a fork, the traveler was to turn to the right, the sign read,
To BOONE 10 M.
If he was to go to the left, it read, .M 01 ENOOB oT
A short ride of nine miles, on an ascending road, through an open,
unfenced forest region, brought us long before sundown to this capital.
When we had ridden into its single street, which wanders over gentle
hills, and landed at the most promising of the taverns, the Friend
informed his comrade that Boone was 3250 feet above Albemarle Sound, and
believed by its inhabitants to be the highest village east of the
Rocky Mountains. The Professor said that it might be so, but it was a
God-forsaken place. Its inhabitants numbered perhaps two hundred and
fifty, a few of them colored. It had a gaunt, shaky court-house and
jail, a store or two, and two taverns. The two taverns are needed to
accommodate the judges and lawyers and their clients during the session
of the court. The court is the only excitement and the only amusement.
It is the event from which other events date. Everybody in the county
knows exactly when court sits, and when court breaks. During the session
the whole county is practically in Boone, men, women, and children.
They camp there, they attend the trials, they take sides; half of
them, perhaps, are witnesses, for the region is litigious, and the
neighborhood quarrels are entered into with spirit. To be fond of
lawsuits seems a characteristic of an isolated people in new conditions.
The early settlers of New England were.
Notwithstanding the elevation of Boone, which insured a pure air, the
thermometer that afternoon stood at from 85 to 89 deg. The flies enjoyed
it. How they swarmed in this tavern! They would have carried off all
the food from the dining-room table (for flies do not mind eating
off oilcloth, and are not particular how food is cooked), but for the
machine with hanging flappers that swept the length of it; and they
destroy all possibility of sleep except in the dark. The mountain
regions of North Carolina are free from mosquitoes, but the fly has
settled there, and is the universal scourge. This tavern, one end of
which was a store, had a veranda in front, and a back gallery, where
there were evidences of female refinement in pots of plants and flowers.
The landlord himself kept tavern very much as a hostler would, but we
had to make a note in his favor that he had never heard of a milk punch.
And it might as well be said here, for it will have to be insisted on
later, that the traveler, who has read about the illicit stills till
his imagination dwells upon the indulgence of his vitiated tastes in the
mountains of North Carolina, is doomed to disappointment. If he wants
to make himself an exception to the sober people whose cooking will make
him long for the maddening bowl, he must bring his poison with him.
We had found no bread since we left Virginia; we had seen cornmeal and
water, slack-baked; we had seen potatoes fried in grease, and bacon
incrusted with salt (all thirst-provokers), but nothing to drink
stronger than buttermilk. And we can say that, so far as our example
is concerned, we left the country as temperate as we found it. How can
there be mint juleps (to go into details) without ice? and in the summer
there is probably not a pound of ice in all the State north of Buncombe
County.
There is nothing special to be said about Boone. We were anxious to
reach it, we were glad to leave it; we note as to all these places
that our joy at departing always exceeds that on arriving, which is
a merciful provision of nature for people who must keep moving. This
country is settled by genuine Americans, who have the aboriginal
primitive traits of the universal Yankee nation. The front porch in the
morning resembled a carpenter's shop; it was literally covered with the
whittlings of the row of natives who had spent the evening there in the
sedative occupation of whittling.
We took that morning a forest road to Valle Crusis, seven miles, through
noble growths of oaks, chestnuts, hemlocks, rhododendrons,--a charming
wood road, leading to a place that, as usual, did not keep the promise
of its name. Valle Crusis has a blacksmith shop and a dirty, flyblown
store. While the Professor consulted the blacksmith about a loose shoe,
the Friend carried his weariness of life without provisions up to a
white house on the hill, and negotiated for boiled milk. This house was
occupied by flies. They must have numbered millions, settled in black
swarms, covering tables, beds, walls, the veranda; the kitchen was
simply a hive of them. The only book in sight, Whewell's--“Elements of
Morality,” seemed to attract flies. Query, Why should this have such a
different effect from Porter's? A white house,--a pleasant-looking
house at a distance,--amiable, kindly people in it,--why should we have
arrived there on its dirty day? Alas! if we had been starving, Valle
Crusis had nothing to offer us.
So we rode away, in the blazing heat, no poetry exuding from the
Professor, eight miles to Banner's Elk, crossing a mountain and passing
under Hanging Rock, a conspicuous feature in the landscape, and the only
outcropping of rock we had seen: the face of a ledge, rounded up into
the sky, with a green hood on it. From the summit we had the first
extensive prospect during our journey. The road can be described as
awful,--steep, stony, the horses unable to make two miles an hour on it.
Now and then we encountered a rude log cabin without barns or outhouses,
and a little patch of feeble corn. The women who regarded the passers
from their cabin doors were frowzy and looked tired. What with the heat
and the road and this discouraged appearance of humanity, we reached
the residence of Dugger, at Banner's Elk, to which we had been directed,
nearly exhausted. It is no use to represent this as a dash across
country on impatient steeds. It was not so. The love of truth is
stronger than the desire of display. And for this reason it is
impossible to say that Mr. Dugger, who is an excellent man, lives in
a clean and attractive house, or that he offers much that the pampered
child of civilization can eat. But we shall not forget the two eggs,
fresh from the hens, whose temperature must have been above the normal,
nor the spring-house in the glen, where we found a refuge from the flies
and the heat. The higher we go, the hotter it is. Banner's Elk boasts an
elevation of thirty-five to thirty-seven hundred feet.
We were not sorry, towards sunset, to descend along the Elk River
towards Cranberry Forge. The Elk is a lovely stream, and, though not
very clear, has a reputation for trout; but all this region was under
operation of a three-years game law, to give the trout a chance to
multiply, and we had no opportunity to test the value of its reputation.
Yet a boy whom we encountered had a good string of quarter-pound trout,
which he had taken out with a hook and a feather rudely tied on it, to
resemble a fly. The road, though not to be commended, was much better
than that of the morning, the forests grew charming in the cool of the
evening, the whippoorwill sang, and as night fell the wanderers, in
want of nearly everything that makes life desirable, stopped at the Iron
Company's hotel, under the impression that it was the only comfortable
hotel in North Carolina.