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MICROFICHE REFERENCE LIBRARY of Volunte .Asia+:
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E d i t e d by: E l i o t ,Wig:gint.on
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P u b l i s h e d by : D o u b l e d a y , a n 4 Company, I n c . 501 Franklin-Avenue Garden C i t y , I NY 1 1 5 3 0 USA ,
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Reproduced by p e r m . i s s i o n of Doubleday and .Company, I n c . . . ..
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' R e p r o d u c t i o n of t h i s m i c r o f i c h e 'document i I any i s s u b j e c t t o t h e same r e s t r i c t i . o n s a s t h o s e of t h e o r i g i n p l document. ,:.
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fire dagnzine with his rlilrth- and tenthEliot IVigginton, who s grade Enslish classes in . teacihes high school in the -4,ppalachian hlouiitrCins df Xorth Georgia and, witll his students, guides the activities of I he foifire Firnd, 1nc:His Ptudents now are expanding their efforts to include iror only the production of the Fo.x/ire rliagz~irleand books, but also the creation of televisiori shows for sheir comrnllnity cal~leTV statiorr, a 1 music, a11d n fur~liture-makin5h i seriis of record alhunis o ?. ness. Eliot M ~ggintonis ,
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I of , onzrrss Cntalo Slaiii cntry u n d ~ rt i t l ~ :
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"Portions of thii; hook first nppcared in'Fosfirr maqazine." ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ p.0 4CIO. ~ r ; l ~ ) ~ l ~ : . . Rahun Gw. 2 . Handicraft-Georgia-Rahun xinton, Eliot\:, 11. Foxfire.
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Sjzi.~.G+Fti+~ 9j5.8'1'23 ,\\ r s n s : 0-3>j5-12087.7 , Library of Congreis Catalog Q r d Number 76-50803
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The :Inci~orPress edition is the fir% publication, of F o s f i It is puhlishL,d ji~nultaneouslyin hard and covers. ;Inchor Rooks edition: 197j
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fcci:it /'ho!o courtisy of John IIill Jnri;et and C O ; P T D ~ s i ~ bn yi ]in1 .tfrIl'i!!in~ns ,
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IJnitions of t l ~ i sIjook, first Appcarrd in F i n j r i . r n i q 7 i n ~ . Copyriqht 1973, 1974, y 7 5 , ~ q i G ,rq77 11y T h e Foxfirc Fund, Inc. Ail R i ~ h t sR e s ~ n , e d . Printed in the United States of America
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is drtiicatrd to osjianizntions liKe Patch in the C:ahl,agetown Iici,rrhl,ol-hood of Atl;u~tn,rrin I)? rnrn ancl wornen w h o have consis;ently put thr wt-lf;irr of their ncig1il)or-hoods ;~hencl of personal 9ninLa'nd to those ijlcsscd foundations that support them, !car after )-ear.?
INTRODUC s
:ces in the o f these ' forcrs, despite a i r ~ t h i.,~ iwe q can do to counteract i ~ sees'to , it that certain stnde~rts\r.ill remain inll)edtfrd in our nlenlories. I've llati niy share, so far, ikttuderrts like that. Thry are inde1il)le. One of ~ h r ~ rs.i kid , ri;inied ~ r & s t , . i sone of those extraordinary hurnan I>eings who, while he \
-one of his weekends to help me 1)uild my logr.hopse. He raised logs into place, cut out the windo\\. id duos hbles with . :*-~niv'. chain s ; ~ , set rafters--he was everywhere on that strurtul-e, laughin~>%*id talking. Despite the fact that we were 'cfose rhen, I loz<~mckof him$%iporarily after he Ieft~bur~school, hut I never fori o t him. i4; Sevrral years later, durijig the Septeml)er summer of 1976, I was in the pa~-kil?g)ct~q~.~oU~:.s~hodl oli one of thdse scorchiriy afternoons that hring eve..>.~ .~ erythins to?~h.;tI,t'.'~ . ~ a s ~ l e ~ agairl.qt r r i i i ~the side of my green pickup truck t a l k i n * i ~ 6 i ~ + i o " Brooks , when I gradually I>ec;lrnc'aware of another presover the tailgate and saw t h e r e . a skinny littlk ence. I .~la~ried,l)ackwards four411d-a-half-foot-high kid l o o k i ~ ~u gp at me, srinning out through I>~.;rces . . * ailif frony u l ~ d e rishock of blovd hair, and wearins one of those yellow ,/ . fodt!ja~i jexseys with ljlark stripes around the slrrves, jeans, a n d , ? pair of., teniris shoes'that must have l~eenrescued from the trash at least twice. H e heritated for a secqnd, and then said, ".4re you Wig? I'm Ernest's Iitile lirorher. H e rold me to firid i o u when I got hkl'e: 1'm David r\nd-instantly a wave crashed through me, and I looked into &at appse-' hensive little face and salt., one after t h e other, each. fare replaced by another, an e ~ i d l e s p a r - a d ein whi(11 eacli student I had succeeded with, or failed with. \%.as~ - e ~ l i c . 1,y e d another in a never-endi~rgline-each with new hopes and new neecls and new expectations. ;\nd I felt things snrhhing ,arotlnd inside'of me that I car1 never remer111)er feelins hefore. I t was important that that happen then,, for d u r i ~ gthe same summer, we ~
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at Foxfire cclel~mtedour tenth ijirthday ~vhilL'"'tllcniltion celehr;lted ifs twci2 hundredth. And I spent a lot of time doing-in regard to our organizatio~i --what I nssilrned othel-s were supposcd to 12.e doins in regard to the na- : tion: looking- backward iri ordcr to see f o r ~ s n r d .I saw we had come a long .\v.lv. and i noted, with gratitude, that we had passed through some choppysince I wrote the introductio~ito Fnvjire ~ 7 ,ant1 w c had come out on the othe side relatively unscafhcd--str-en,qhe~~edinstend of ~veakcned. :\t t1ie"tirne I wrote that introduction, quite fr;i~rkly.9 wa.s frightened. T h e outsi \vorld had descended on u s ~ v i t hw c h lot-cc that, from our per. specti\-e, .r{r saw that ~ v o f l das thc greatest sinfile tKt-cit to our sumival-a fbrce that could consume us, and cause us to lose sight of our per-spectivc, t our main goals, a n d 0111- main purposes. .4nd so I\-r huilt a w a l l &ound oulscl\-r*-;lllcl orlr kids. 1.111 convinced that, that was a n appropriate--'even iit;ll -1-c;~ction to-:ill the stran,T fists-beatirlg on our door: It g:rve us time to l>re;rthe, tinie to t-c::roup, tinlc to get o u r . priorities back in ordcc and figul-c out hn\v to keep them there. For scvel-al .yrars wc WCI-c inore introspective th;tli \\:e'h;id been in the past, and,we ex- . . p ~ + i m ' ~ n t ewit11 c i o u r o\vn edltc;~tio~~;ll f o r n ~ u l aill rcl;itivc peace. 1,al-se portions of that defense. still s t ; ~ ~.a1141 ~ d ,;~ppropriately.w. l'hcy will be there for as lorig as our or~;iniz;ition su~-\.ivcs.But fro111 where I stand " no\v. I can Fer that other portions have been broken down, not from without iji:t,f~-on1within, 5 s we've gonc throt~glithe same kind of rnatt~ring process as i i i org;lnizatio~i that we c c I ~ b r ; ~;LY k we 01)serve it in our kids. T h a t matllrii~ghapprned, nlld is I~apprtring,I tliirlh, for tavo re;tsons. ,~-d 'I P-irrt \ ~ ; I Sthc gro\\-i11,qrrnliz;rtion of h o y ni~l(.hour success had depeided . ',. I on that vel-y outside ~vo~-l;l,\ve fc;ired >o gre;rtly. When Foxfire ~ r i a ~ ; l i l n e was yoliii?. most of the si,qiiificant e\.erits a f f e c t i ~ ~our g little project were initiated in our I.)ehalf l?.'othcr-s. Junius Eddy. for es;~mple,who was with the OPiice of Eduratio11 when I hit \\';rshington oltc day I~eggingfor money. H e picked u p a phpne, c;alled Her11 RlcArthul. at the National Endowment for e ;esulted in our i first the Humanities, a n d set u p an appointnlcr~tfor i > ~that ci:nificanlL grant: ,
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~~.. O r l l i k c Kinney, a good friet~da n d collcge fr;ltcrnity I~rotherturned editor w-kg o t us to put ~ h c ' ~ o r f Book ik together and t a l c k d ~ n c h o rPress .. into. t a k i n ~n chance on it. . . O r this: Shor-tly after o u e ~ o i p o r i l t i o n\vas forn~cd,I \vasein iVashington :iqain t p i n g to reel-uit eome meri and, women t o s c t ~ e o'. tl our advisory 9 I ~ o a r d .Someone s ~ ~ g , < e s tSam r d Stanley of:thc Smithsonian s Center fop the Stlid\- of ll;i~r.-for-;rtfr-mt~iirne~ v ~ ye c l l rr l t e r t i r i n i r l ~ ~ h q ~ n o l that j o n other stucic~itsin other culturcs r~?ight. w ~ n r d a ywant to do the sanie sort of thing \vr were doins in ~ e o r i i a and . since Sam was a n expert in several Indian c i ~ l t u r e;ve ~ . thought he ]night l ~ c;rljlc to IIC hclplul. Sam was visited severai:
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hours ;ifter1 lcfi hi? o h c e by B r i h Beun and .41m Vick of \DM$,a private foundation i l l IVashingtbn that was exploring ways of $ssisting various .. ,..- left with Indian groups. S;un shelved t,hem the copies of Foxfi7-e tbgton ,Game do~;. a n d 1,;riIed me out of the jail 1 h;~dbeen placed ir? I~ecause1 didn't have enough cash with me tojettle a traffic viol;ttion,. I rnade in nortdwest D.C. rushhour traffic on the way.16 the five P . M . appoi~ltme~lt I had with t h a n ; and n t s dozens of that meeting 1ed;ro our eventual' collal,oration as c o n ~ u l t ~ ~for l i e 3 Fosfire-type pul,lications in high schools all oier :he country, and opened up a w h o l ~new sqries of d u ~ a t i o ~ i ao,pl~ortu~lit/es l for students of n ~ i n e,
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i in the selfish ;lccept;lnce of ,.t h a .p r sencrosity \\is our obli,:.
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c of t h a t cncr@;~hd piss it on to 0th in ways that we liad never t&d l~cfnrg~. And down. c.; p c Second \vas a realization, y o w i n g wjTh' , cqu'al Jorcc',,, \ c h e a t i r i g ~ ~ ~ ~ r ~T khiodk. .who Tverc not, xi that point iii thcir' lives, able to F" Set caught tip iri a n d excite?.. ;)lid motivated by t l ~ cproccsse3 in\.olved in pi11jlishi.n~Fo.xfire were cheated l~ecausethat .was all h e had to-offer. ..l'hose who did. -. get c;~u:ht lip in tvh;~t..we Iiad to offer got chc;itccl later for the same reason-we couldstretch the111 no fril.thcr meritall! or rniotiorially. I n addition, 1jy l)eillg fiercely selfish in the es;~niinatio~iof 011s own tiny piece of the ~ l o l ~ toethe escl.x,isidn oiqthcl-s, ivc r;rn the. risk of isol;itini. the. ** student.: from the Ia~.g,el"community61 m a n th,;~ti'iio~tof t h e m wolild one r day-haye to enter. @have learnctl through llitt4r cspcricncc, fgr esanlple, t i ~ n tif is not cnouqh ,~ for my kitis to h;fi.c RIJ intimxtr ~ ~ n t l c r s t ; ~ n d iof n &their g y n Past..soptq and herit;~ge.That'is imnicnsejy ikqpoi-tant, l ~ u tto l)c truly cffecti\.c citizens, the! must nPekt ; ~ c ~ u ~ $an,-cqilall! -e sophisticated knowledse of their ~ c u l t ~ ~ rre1;ltionship c's to othcl:.<. kYc ;Ire ;I n ~ . ~ ~ l t i c ~ t I ivorld, t ~ c r a l an$ \ve are.al1 linked one to a n ~ t h c r ~ f oI~cttcllor 101- 7vo1-se. I n our rigorolis self-esarnitiz$ini~.K C I-;III thc risk of making so~ric.ofour s t u d e n t d l - i n d u l g e n t rind dcirnsi\;c to the paint where they could l~clieve that o ~ i l ythcii- own community'h;td \.alllc; ant1 so sometinics they, as stu: dents, erccted the s a m s kinds of walls that bur o r y n i z a t i o n had earlier erect$. So down c ; l n i e @ t l i & chunk of t h r wall. 0 . .. ; * ' Retaining as our basic c con\:icticin that rrllc cduca-. tion muFt he :?ore esperien 81?~@1i; slowly to ,?dd csrrmpo,. ncnts to 3:1r proxram that ' $ & ~ ~ ~ i y ~ ~ vthmelkids r ; ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ g e 'by*. who wcre not presently escitrd l ~ y , p r i [email protected], it strctcfi"th'nsep&i$s who ,. Lvere in\v;lys thry hntl ncver l,cet~stretched before I)y our program, tal>lish linka.grs that v l i move them rnorr ;irtivcly I~eyond their own 4 . ... .. ,: community in terms of undcrstandl~iga n d sensifivity. ', C)nc step at n tiiiie. M ~ C began to expand, strengthenedvincl en~l~oldened 11) a 11elc. perpcstive on our roles and responsil~ilities a s ap organization; a d d i n 5 each new component slor\vl>, as 'it s c c m c d , a p p r o ~ r i 4 t r and as it ~I,, seemed possil~lefor us to implement, each l~cing;I I I ; I ~ I I ~orSanic%ten.sion of our educational philosophy rather than an artificiAlly imposed new gimmick that could distract ;iiid f r a ~ m e n us. t iVe had allcays knrnvn, fot- r x ; ~ & ~ l cthat , thrrr i. .;r la]-gcr P;ppalachia, . heset \vith staggering.prol)lems to, which we ow& ;rllegi;uice, for: we are all fightiiq the same l)attlcs, h c i ~ ~thcg samr iocs. \Ye arc now activrlr working to Iluild 1ink;rqcs wi'th other App;llachian orfanizations,, arid assist them , '~vhe~~e\.:rposGlrlc i l l the sanic ~ i we~ were y oncc assisted. LYhcn 'Pam Porter' . .#
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o~.~itnizzition. Since it iomplctcly paid for itself in a matter of weeksafter, pul~lic;ition,other I~ooksare being planned:. In addition, ~ve'veworked out a program whereby kids from Cabbage-
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students on such issues as clear-cutting on National Forest land, the ad-
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a ~ ; rcou~lty)versus neighlqrhood schools, and intervic&s wwith one dates for segionnlpolitic:~lofficcs.
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them for use as R lal~o,ratory.
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swallo\\:ed up ir'! oile corner of one sul)urh of any major city---I 111ust con..$tantly ~.cniilldfir\.srlf that it is only t h r o u ~ hrejoicing at the opportunities proviticd 1)stlicsk sxrer~sionsof odr ori$;;ri;ll work that I and the staff I hire can btiild 3 nztrvol-L of experiences and opportunities for- kids that will concomniuni.fy, to their region, necl the111to thcrnselves, to their an endless number of enn11c1 to the ~ u r l d a; n d and I~eliefin trees into tlinr world, th2ir capacity to a i t responsil~lyand sensitiveiy arl4,ni r a t i ~ c rthan 161-eying them naked oiito the w8sld's s blessing than a half-re~nenllmxcfRI-aduationsp,eech. :\ll of us, as teactlers, must have an infinite measure of hope for humanity on this sock ;is it whirls t h r o u ~ hspace: and an infinite nleasure of deler- ~nitiatiolito get I~etterat this job each year and to correct the insaiie mistakesrwe m'ike with such dLstres$~lgfreque fi&t... I.'or-?lways in lock steq,...one ->*.* / . . 4;- I)ihil~d.. the o ! h e r ~ .+-.*:s-.. ~ista~ftly~~~PP I,ehind~$;~~.t$jl@~es e ' ~ r i ~+! ~g of 2ur: $ickup trucks, fresh-fated, ope? 'svarcd, hopeful, shufffiiig In iknnis shoes, and 'grinwhcrc we stand.
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he letter on the opposite page arrived in our office one day, nt us all i11 search of' a e Vilas was. Mr. Hartley sounc!eti like solr~eo~;ewe'd like to meet. \Ve found, to ouridejight, th'at \ X i s \\:is near Sil:;ir Grove, a n d wr: had already I ~ r e nin conimunica$ion with ;L 'Seiir-:i Harmon there "who made Ilanjos arid had agreed to show us Ilo\v . zec Fo.xfile 3 ) . \Ye now had twice ;is much reason for a p i l g r i m a ~ e , . . inlo thiit part o i t h e nlountains. .= \ \ c \\soteel\I~-. Hcirtley back irn;llediately a n d asked pennision to visit ~ v i t hhiin. ~-fc-ci\.cd it, co~lfirnlcdthe dates with 'J'edra, and headed out only . to lic ti1111rdI,,iik.+ tlie xasoliile shoslaie that had closed every r a s station , on our rdute. \Ce'itturned home, tried it again two nlor~thsjater: a n d made <;g-* it. ;p 'The Sreeti~~g%.c received frorli .Chaplie a i d his wife was so warm and genuine t h a t i@&e ii.eek \ve spent upthere, their h o ~ n el ~ e c a q eour l~ilseof. oper-ations. ~ o r g G u f reall! ki~obvhow -it happened. .It just seeks that w e B were ~ o ~ i t a n t l f i a s i rtheir i ~ little home on the way to another serendipi.< ' *? tous iiitenie\v,%'tr~d Yve'd stop in "for :I moment oi1ly;to find that they had anticipated u r , ' a ~ i dhad a pcit of co ee on the stove and pies on the table. . l y e touched l ~ a s ewit11 ttierii se\.era nnes a day. Suljsequerir rr-ips tip that wa). 1i;lve kept the" friendship' open--a friend< . ship \\-e are flartei-cd I)!-, atid y a t e f u l f d / I n the f i r ~ tpair of this chapter, Charlie tomrnerits on the Foxjr~i&ooks, a n d fillsiii tlie holcs he'? fourid as he read carefully throush them. I n the second part, we fo3cusor1 C:harlie'soivn life as a l~uj,lder,mason, contractor, farnily mail. and se~i?ark;il~tr eu111a11I~rin:.
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FOSFIRE q B
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Part I
'l'hey's a lot of this stuff that I ~ e g a nto slip my mind until I s t a r t ~ dread. in$t,hese herc Foxfire p;ers. But all that stuff is the truth. 1 1x3 they rin't a " lvord in thrrr from t h r ~ nold fcllrrs what ain't the t p ~ t h 'There's . so much of it I kno\\-. No\\- I've not tione a11 of it, Imt they's ;i@t-of it I have done. IIxc made e\.ery piece about a' wagon a t one t i m c or anothefiin my life. I'v'e never h i l t chimneys for log--homes, I)ut I've hel-ped patch up one o r two. . , I've Ixen \\-it11a lot of different people. I've wol-ked-nearly everywheft. Now :I, zf thcse old I ~ ~ ~ i l d i ithat t g s yoll'll find,all these log,l)uildin~swas b~iilrI~eforcmy day. I. was horn in a log house over here on Highway I o j . :lnd my I)rothcr was born there., Now we lived ;tt what was known at,' thAt tinlr ;I.- the old 1 l o . s ~place. And \ve livrd irl a lo,? house. I n k t , there + was t\vo lor houses;-and my \vife's mothrr and daddy lived in one, ;~nd.,my ci'ad and me-livrd in theiother. ?$owI;n~ iuRt p i n g td tell you what I can remember. I don't think my daddy'waz ever as poor as I'm going to' tell you alGut, hut my dadd.? was a $or man. i 1b T h e real poor peoFl< thdt f can %irteml>rr used ash cakes. Now that's n~ayt,.'esorne~hinz>-nudon't know. I f ~ q nhappen to have a hearth, you rake your fire con+ or'your ;~shes.or~t on it. If yoii=have your dough ready, you
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ETT$ .%SD C H - i K L I L R ~ S S 'H;\IITLI:Y . .
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laid it d a v n on thiit, and foil cmverrd that \\-it11 coals or ih poncs iitq to s h o ~rts kids how to hake them. .\nd the t t - i ~ hk. I~"help,ecl 1i;ike them iiry>ell for the curiosit? to see if I .could'liake rheni. .$ridold mati Hicks- told me hi.; po'ot- little l ~ o ylived on ash cakrs \%hen he first come to thii counct-v..%Butriow I)! the time I was it1 there, they had ;i'.qooti li\.ii!ic>. So\\- Fovlirc st;y-t4 i t with 1 I l i c l I o t . S thcy \\;is alkol~rtrl! T I ( , \v;~ihpot>;it ~ i i ykrro\vinx for quite ;I few ycit,. \Ve ~1.5cd;i hr;~ssk~,[tlc.I t ~ v o i ~ lIrolii. tl I \vorrI~ls;~):.a l ~ o r ~ t two l~u.;hels. Pretty i o o d sizeti one\. X(pv th;it kcttlc W;LS hirtig 011' t\co forked stake,. O n e iet u p on uric sidc ;rt~tltrrlr (11-cr tlirl-e. O n e was sort21 loose and 1o11\vot.rId pi<.kL I the ~ (~ros~l>;ir oti this i ~ i d;itid c;irry it ;trortridT I set it on the :round ii you wanted to, or rmpty.it. Ko\v that kettle^--with the whole ibriini~r~rity. that kettle 1v;x.s \vli;it thcy donc ;rll their wash-irig in. They cooked in it. T h e y d o n e c\.rrythirig the\ \v;intcd i t i ~ t h a tl)r;iss,kettlc. ., -411d thr \v;i.~lrirl:, r~o\v.they al\viiyi 11;itI'tc~ go to a I ~ ~ . ; t r l c .us l ~ ;I creekseen15 to me it \v;i, m r ~ c t ;Il ~ht-anch iinrc it h;itl more rv;iter at it. The)' gor ready to wash therl~tloti~c..~ :irrd thcy'ti l ~ ~ ttrrrtr ~ i l 0111. iri (hat kettlc with lye uo;ip. 'l'hat. ; ~ l l \ve,Lrir~prdi r i thrllr d;i\.,. I i ; r r i i cvrr r e r n r m l ~ r seeiri:' ~a c;ikr nf ~ t ~ ~ l c - l , o i r?;~;xp. yhr t i t l " -I thr (-lothcs to thc'l)ralich ,in ' . . I . I'hcrc 11ir15t h i I ;it t h ; i t t i I ~ I I I I ~n:ikers. 11%fact, 11iy d;tddy tould rn;xhc trcl~s.H e h.id ;ill rile tools: I l l i t I nr\.cr- ; i \ v hini makc 11i1t
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o ~ 'i . t , r l i ; ~ c l;i\\uoti Liuiket. Now % I I ; I ~ ' S \\.li;it \ i c h;id a t that time. You put you1 t r I I i t ~ 1irt.r now t to tlir 11ranc.h a n d . , I I!: !l;i,i . i 'Ljii~: 1 0 k lligl~ clrougli Sol. i~attliilg.1';itty-(.;ike with r h c I i I I I 1 i 1 1t i x c l l , l guess I've sern a ~.~ i;ls tiii~(Ic*of r c ~ jI ~ I ; I ~ I L , .KO\\; y o [ ~iliiglit \vo~~(lt-r why ,, . rccl I ~ I ; I G I \\-c!l> & ? red I I I ; ~ ~ , isI ~ ;I I I I I ~ ,$ I . ~ I ~ I ; I L~I > ~ill Igciti1~gCIII tIlc111 clothes, th. NO\< y h ~ it;ikr o;iL, popjiir ;>I. cl~csr~~ut-it'ss o i a u rzniriiiI)cr, If yorl Ilci~t~ r i t hthat kir~di'itgcts so that t t - ~ ~ h rhrrc .: ;old bciits youl- clothrs ;ill to pieces: , S o \ \ tli:ir \~;irex.yc1u (;111't riilsc ):our, i-lotlles in a punti. You've got to i i r x . '$1~ .il\v;~ys11-ictito c;itcll ;I p!atc \).hrre-the water \\:IS f < ~ ~ i h ii,:er i u ~ t h e sho;ils or winethiiig h o l d \-our cleihes y n d e r that. t i r e I I I I ~ I ~ if I y . o i 1 1 t I t i I 1 1 I I : get yoii I I k I r o l l 1 1 1 1 i11to tllr 1 1 c 1 i I W ~ C I I the w;itcr canie rl~zhii~:o\-c.r i t . \ U L I rilisc t21e1-c. ~ e to r t h e - p l l ~ iilcxt \ \ l i e ~ - ryou 11;1\-c\\,;~terr111111ingthrougli 'I'lic!i notchrd II-OI~I the top t o tlic l1c;ir.t of :I loq. S o w the first lug that I cvrl. ~ 3 1 . 1 - Y~ \ ; i t c r I. 111adcit.1 'e qot to ;I place tIi;rt \ v : h too Irvc.1 to wash in, a n d nu I'icr for watrl:. S I \ tilother, shc \valked u p to this say almut eight inches ill d i a ~ i i c t r r and she. said, ~'C:h:iilir,i l,iiie\,c you call c111 this d o i i n nnci Iir*\i m e out :I lox to r u n Iny .. \ir?rrr thr,ouqli so l i e call poul. i t olf." . ,a* .. I s i i c i . ".~lIl. S 1 0 t h r r ~I ~ ; t i l ' t . Shc'c! scen one some\vhe~-es,of course: "Yeah. C h o p it down, f l u a r e it .. 1 i ; ~ n dI'll show you horn it's tior~e. . . I , sc~~1.1ttx1 hiiii off, antlJ just ht~~.tecl chopijinp nl&g ? tile ;we. (:hopped ;I lkilc notch dowii into it-what.; ...* .. 111;1t's111cfir.~to11c 1 cv$:. S'I\\,, : I I I L ~ I tii:iclc 'it l i i ~ ~ s e l f . ~ . r yccn l ~ r ~ r ~ t l tofr ~Irct';i!~C;,i ls thcni. ". Kc,\,- th;ir l;e;itini, c l o t l i ~ stm tile r[ltk, i t dries wc:ii. t h r m ; I I L I ~tiiem oldtimers hab to do ~ ( i l ~ l r t l ~ i\ltil~h. c, ~\ : ~ n dkhcit. t h e T i ; , , \\.r ticllie th'tt. " Boil rhhiii. rinse thenr, lizat thel;i, go I ~ a c k;uld rinse them a y i r i to get t h e ' \\rinkles out of thrnl. and t h r n drv them. H a l l s their1 on the fence. yC:ours% . rhry h;id t r i 11;rni:t h & i i l i S L I ~ I Eences, I~ushrs,pole'---. stuff like rhat. S o ~ i 1lirn. that \\;lsri'c just my tl;id.alid I that Iind to livc that ?':I)'. It \<;IS ;ill of tli.?111 I I L~I I I ~ I(Io\,.t~ t11c 1l';it:ii1g~Rivvr. ..411d :ill of the111 fellers oiit>itir id n1y d a d owned their f;trms. ' ( : ( I L I ~ S C thc I ; I I - ~ IW;IS S h;~lideddown to t 1 1 ~ 1 ! i ~ I . C I I ItI1 i t . i ~( J \ V I I f o ~ . r f ~ ~ t l ~ ~ : r s . I clo!~.tl,t~i)\v\+II;II r\.rr wc11t \\it11 ~ I I V I I I .l~rasskcttlcs. I.\,<: 110 k~~ovidrdge s y k(~t;tlcthrce lret deep. of tilerii :oi~lg. -4 1);utof tile folks h a d ;I sis-
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. r' ,,".. , , . ., I,&\\-nh:l,i~iii u~ 1vith.r cks and hlucla;\vonderfiil job done wiih i i ~ u dYou . jol,'of that. . O,l d D a d d s Beard---of caii t a i c ~ . c di$;ij,!- a1 make :r \\-ol~dcrfi~l, F c I ~ I his I - ~d:ihtiv.i%s ~ .. sick; he'd hccn shot 1,). ;I i.at~he&-nod; he had ;i six-' foot \\-ashpot. -:light to i;cf ;i\va)-. IVrIl, i~atur;illywhen they g a t alvay, and then1 l~roke, that l,igfai-lri-~s~methinS , .o\.er . four hui~ill-cd. ' . a c h in it l ~ u it, t w;rsn't worth o1:es i ~ i i i hqf fiir~enoi. t\yi;s taken nwa? from him * :[alo~;~.withi - \sl>;~tlittle st;lff'lic had. ; S o ~. ,. : l call I - ~ ~ C I ~ I I C I - : ~ T V O had ; I ~ ~t Sh .a~t ~ ~ , ~dacl y took, care of for him. 0 1 1 e was GIIC of.thece I]la(.I<pots, a n d thrl-c W;IS a tub. ,MY daddy saved ~ i h r n tinti1 i ? h ~ G , . o n e.of ,. . t,hr Iloys; gotsorta stl-aigl~tcncdout. They ilc\:er did , . set this place 1,ark &I-?? 11nSk.-l'herc wny~i'tno IISC 'c;lrrse thc people had al'ready to.ok';;l.l they hail. \-&I c~uldn't~l,l;lnic t h c n ~iol' not tonling 11:1ck a n d . .i>a)inx off after I111 th;rt they'd . , ha4;lrad l,ec;l t o o k ' i r o i ~them. ~ Rut T o m daddy,,ind h a d d y took hini out there and showed come l)aclh.td \-isit..,~~~y hi111 M;h5t he had saved for him'. ' 4 n d h e looked around a n d szrid, "Tlrcll, v h a t good are th$? to me? I c ; l ~ i get t them hon~e."H e wid, "You just take c+?of them." , + . Piof\, riy dad, t11;it's h o ~ r . l got,hls ~e first hi2rck pot. \ l e used that pot r111ril we 1)urned one l e o~f f - o n e leg off and a hole U through it. X o w that sounds like that pot w:is ruined don't it? But my dadd? w e r ~ tto the l>lackskith's shop a n d made h i ~ na' piece.'of l,ar to fit down through thel-e and put a bolt a n d a 1ittl.e washer on there and tightened herrisht upar,d v\-c'?:e used;th;it thing for ycal-s a n d y e a r s now with a hoiiic~n;itielcg on it. S o y then; \Ccco01e to the skillet. I think that 11iy d a d had skillet when , I first 1.e11iern11er. .I)ilt*l'nr not positivc of that. All of t.hese folks ~ ~ that o w I knbrved at+har time had skillet that < o u , l ~ a k e yolirt~read d in. When I was
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ridit s111al1kid I can rerneniljer 11s 1)akirig pies ill one-what we called beef pies. Nd\i that'was up rill I was PI-ettymuch 3rown. I cion't think that -. I ;;ve~. had :LIjiscuit to e + t until after we ljouyht a li~tlef;~rm.\Ye fi~i;\lly, ..'after all~th;it~ z o \ j j i g;~rogici,got a-Jttlefa~nn~)to>: ownv.,l'hen we raised . . -. ~. .. our own \\-heat. These old-riniersf notv, staying up and down' \\Tataug;i 'River-l~eautiful c o u n t r ~ ~. ~. o o dliving'in there--:they Gas faringjust like the rest of us. They wer-e eritin: c(1rnIxead I~akedin the skillet.' 411 o f then1 ddne th&tYiTrhat's 11ow hard y liied Ilack then. It+s just liarj, and that's all there.&& ib There was ;lo stol-es when I can first re~iie~ril~er. The first o n 6 l : ~ ~ a . n r e ~ n e ~ r ~\\.as b e r a little storc a t \7~itlc~ruci.;.~ I t was I-iglit st]-iight acsoss fro<$ where Frank laylor'.: is now. But he didn't sell very niuCh. H e dijn't have n o t h i n g m ~ ~ You ~ h . niight say lie hati the 1)uilding. You didn't sell nothin6 1iiuc.h tli~n,'i.ausenol>ody l~oughtnothing much. Now they didn't l ~ u fcoffee d shorte~iingi~ac-ki l l .then1 days. You know what they used? Spicewood -4nd red sassafr-ak rea. Ntj?v that's what they used. I.ne\:er didsee axy ?till I xva.s :-ro\vli. , ley didn't know w h a t suxsr \vas. Tliey used mol;w.as. ~ v h e n . 1 first m l w , they was a lot of n~;tpIe~tree.;, and the!. rriade lots of. tree sugjr; t h r ~ nold-tim~rsdid. Xo\c . Iwouldii't I).: surprised when they w:inted some s\vcetcnir~: that the) ditl~i'tuse that maple suqar-. 'l'liey ~ p a d ea lut of it. That's the first sweeteniik tgat I can ev6r remember ~nyselfwas that.~naple ' s ~ ~ s a1'31~111 r. Old sages l<~io\vedmore than ljoth'x,you and nic.put together. y o u got to ~ i v ethe111credit for that. I\vis!i you could go witb rn s o ~ n cof the stuff t b i t tliev \vorkcd out' I don't know y h y i t is, Ilut they's a lot of people in this countl-y'kiereI'm t;ilLinx ;ll?oi~t, educated folks---tii:rt:wii~its some old-timey younx stuff. ,Just n \vorlcl of tlir111. 1' had so much 8f .it t l ~ a tI wasn't interested iri . old-ti~ricystuff. 1 iicver paid I attention [until recently];...> [h-I\,wife] ,. )?ought \vh;~il~ouks1 got. ,?'hen we got that F o x..:.f i e rid we'? sei u p there 'and we'd forget ourselves. Set upthere. . a d talk 'al~oiltold times. We'd set.' .allout olti rimes, and she loved up and set up and t d k tiire? hoursat a tirl~e ,. to talk a l m i ~ tthein. Aritl s l i c ' g ~ ~a ip i a t kick o_ut of me telling her ahout. .that old-tinic liusiness becauic I$no\v it. Trike *nun;lrr one Fosfiti'tlicre. : ~ I'm telling you the truth. 7'lint was so ~riuchword for word lik,eceIknowcdever.?. \vord through thataway. Iintil nulnt,ertwo. JU$~' for fun 1.wanted to see how, murh [those kids had] ~ ~ r i s s s e d ~ [ t l ~ ~But t r ~they ~ t l ~didn:t. ]. 1f you^ put-t~vorocks outlir& t o ~ e t h e you r co~ildn'tmake:it:llo. c l e a ~ e rthan that is. T le board ~-riaking,w:~s true. 'l'lic log ciljins was true; so trtjthful. Them old I o c 1i t t r o a~ I Except 1 n w e r have n t t i I seen a tilacksnake kill a poison snake. I've heard that -talk all my life. I did talk to one man in ,\iaryl:lnd, and.1 gurss he t.old.mc the trith..He said he 3
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\\.;is out in oirr ol rhcili old ficlcls: ; ~ n dhc wcrit ihto ;I finc l~l;~ckl)erl-y ficld. 0 ~ l ; dtticy iv;i> s c iiicc ; ~ n ds\v~,rtlir siopI)ril i n tlrit-c to e;lt somc i~crrics; ~ n d he lic:~rdsomctliirig conling do\?r~ throu$-h thr l)ri:~rs.'llir~t'sthe way he ookirrg d o w n t o see what it was, and it was a'rsttle.~ lil-acksri;rkt: i21id lie said not-~ itfte; they got I~1acksn;rkccaught, the rattlcsriake: and he had to ' killed it. I licvcr h ; ~ \ - cs;i\v thathafipen, hut I'ye c)'d tio that. ;%11d I 1)elicvc there's one or t\vo men t mid thc.y'd seeii th;it happen. 1'111 not sr11-e-I never saw that i I'll-tell you one thing. \\'c lived near ;I copperhead den. We hundreds of chpperhca& around. But j.ou t&e a summer where'we 1ncksn;rkes and \cc didn'tiscc I ~ u very t little copper-heads. Now , orlest fact. But ;IS f;ir as sccing ;I l~lacl.rsnakckil-l a poiyon snake, ~
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late thirig. You hiow iv1i;rt Foxfire saysabaut the way s the truth i s straight $"you can go. It's' going to der man than I a n 1 to.sho+ me something in t h a t o l d book.that I -er):thinS3s there" that I ;know about. '4 lot bf them old me tell you somethink: There \?as eleven children i n &stone. A rnidwif{iook cafe of all of us5 bu; two. We ;rl,solutel>. had.ta deperid on the bld aiidwife. That e out here arid wait on !-du when you were sick pr having a l?xal,y.'They W;LS wonder-fui h o n ~ c n . *4nd they ;odd,alw;l!s find tea. 1'1.c heard doctors argue that that tea ut in nif opinion, them niidwives nine times act of ten were pretty \\-e'll right with that tea stuff cs. h a d . I was raised when that's all the stuff wc el-er had. Made the.'td;r ni)'self, PVc had no doctors. It was {iy-eor die. You got pneumonia feverhack in them days and inost of ' them died. & L I ~ a few old midwives lots :of times soui id pull them thrdugh 'even with the pneumonia fever. Them ~ $ people 4 deicn.,~a lot of credit for what the?- done. The you~lgdoctors today, if they had to qet o. u t and do . . what the othcrs did, they'd,sure enoughbc up against a stump. I\-e l a d a lot giving the old-timer credit for ivhat he done. H e done pretty doggorie well. But one thing t h a t I can't understand: what sort of home did them people from England and Germany have that [made them] come here to develop this countr)-? a i o i r my ancestors-the head of my .nan~e-conic from England. t\-hat sort of home was in Engl;t,nd [to make them leave] .fox. thisold rug-ged country? Two hundred vears q o , and we can't imagine what a wilderness this way. :It least I can't, even if I 'have been here eighty-seven years. I t ' s . ~mystery to me. But moth$ hungred .ears from now thex'll be someboayealong here wondering w h l i he were
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... ,. . . .P* l'.'frst olii-ti~i?c~.s t@t. conit, IICSV, tli~y'Ii\~t;cl111; < ; ~ n ~ c . * ' l . l ~di(111't ey l~itve . . ', \\-Ile:it : i ~ a < lc C ; ~ , e e n , ~llo~g ~ h o ~ ~ , sIens .fact, I \?as r?is?d "in one ( . . . t h i t w:li two ' : r 1 1 ~ @ had, ~ e y and thry knowed that was:+l* . . the!- had. a n d chert .I<-hir\.rcli h c iici;isr> th;it rhey Ijuilt rvoi~dcsii~l. houses. . , And th;jr's :!I1 ihcy h;id. ;irld-they iiiadc illeril. ' XIy'clnii ~viis;I yood l~liick.;i!iith, and 1 s a u -hi111lay a head o n nn n i e . I", lic\.er- s:i\\. Iiin~-iir,~he ;I l)soad;ixe. I n ~ rall thrm ha2l~lionier~;itir axes now tllat \ ' ( i o ~ i,the r \io;:k. Tire\ were ~ l i ~ l( ~ n i r n i a ~..\ncl i c : ?c;ii rtiuld' g r j ~ l dthem akes :inti. I\-liittlc r h c n ~i i < n \ l ~\vhci-e yuii ( o i ~ l t sh:rvqtlie i hais off y o r ~ rle,$, aiid ,* Iio\v iii the tiiikir.: .rlirli~'old-ti~iiyrs could e\.er teir1per:so good. But t1iejr ziiadr rhem u p ill the c o u ~ ~ t ~There - y . .\\.;is I)lacks~nithing.~P.hcy .. kept their \vosh goin?. Ir ~ i > i ~l)el ~poq.qiltle t that u p in oiir. ~ e t t l r n i p r tthey'd have one' * or two l ~ l a ~ ~ h . s ~ i i i t l ~ s ... .*. : . ~ ,: . .. .. No\v >i~herl,itcanie to I - ~ I S I ~aX house-old folks has told me this-when. old fo!h ?or I-eady to l)uild a l i o u s ~( a new m;in (.onling into the settlement , or a nc\v man ?or rn4r1-ied'ith'ey'ti pitch ill these, gct all tt'rim log* mut, and yet all them losb rosether enough to liuild the house.=l'hen they wyuld have a log roliini. and set that house raised uraylie in d ~ i cday: l ' v e talked to feller.: who did then^, $0 I sucsl I've sot .it pretty straight."I'vr heard one rri;tri s;iy th;it.hr hrlpcd n ~ a k e:I I~I:III.a house r ~ u tc ~ fpupliu- logs, a n d he said he split tlieni: Iie\vcii t h e i ~ ioil[; got r .\ . e.. ~lo% - ~ rracly 116[l~rouglit h 6 rafters, atid then fiit!, iil& got i l l tt1ci.e :111d thev !:lid that house u p in 611e day. -After the log. is split a n d cut out, there .till is a-lot of worl< to d o 'cause you . -. have fo n o r ~ t11~rn. l~ Therri rrotclirs \\;;~scut with ;i axe, a n d that w:ir partic. . u1:ir \vo~.k1 1 z i ~k tIlr11, .\nd I w,nir ta tell you son,ething that I've had'a doze11 peol;lc ask me, I guess. H o w did thern old-tin~eysget theii- house leiel and sqitare? You know . there lvns nci le~.eis.H o w rvoulil you get that 10% le\.ei? It's t,es!, si~nple,IWW. T a k e a l~ucketof \ v a t u a n d .set-it on these a r ~ d . s t a n dand look. a t that water . rvith your eye till it s o t pi-acticirlly the same all ;isou~~ri and you lii~dit I~vel. It'll work just as good as my fo$i,-foot lcvel. Now suic enoush, 7hat:s the .& way they did i t . . ) -4rrti a g r e a t m a n v of them old log Iluiidings ir~o~;th of hesr] w;is 'actu;~lly co\.ered wit11 1;ite. 111 f'ai t, I covesctl ;I I I ~ I ~ I111;it I I l ) l ~ i i t l111 thel-e, Built :I., I I I feet \\-itit. arid eighty I'rrt long ant1 colceg.cd.,it.wit,h the sl;ite that '. conie off the old flint,miIl these. You elrel- read allhiit tliit cjf6 flirit'n~illt h a t :. va.s in llasyland? IVell, they said the old Riiit mill \\,as ;I h t ~ n d r e dyears old . . ,,
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it i s I C niltcli. accui-;tic. \nd.tli;rt sl;~tci-obf,:nuw, was he!,$ on with pole.<. 0lti;tiniers called it \\.right pl.es+*&o\vthat fhirig, h a d stood on tt;e~-c 3 htrjiil!-.i~l) c a r . uot~,~ v i t h\\eight poles 011 it.t.lnd t h a t m a n bought . . i c . atid the I-ca=i,l: 1 know is $hat I ' n i the fin11 t h a t . p ~ ?it t l ~ a c kon. ~ o w ' t h a t ' rodf ;ie\er ii.id i !i;iil li.ole in it. 1 c'ut the+!iole myself. 1:irst s l a t P 1 ever pyt, * rcguiat sbtrs--to come opt there and ; " t i , The? cot ft1 old feller"?her,c ibho\( nit ! I C \ ~ I(; put it 011. '[:he tiin,i I lvorked with tried to beg hini tnktay ;itid h ~ , l pnlr tio the job. h u t he \ i o l ~ d ~ id' k t it.. H e ilio\ved me:hpw to 'put it t111 2nd [hen h; left. I .\vouldn't Say t h a t all of them log'l,uildinjis~\vas -ci.'\virli sl;itr. l ) l i t ;I gt-c;lt nlarLy of then1 \vas. -. So\?lIir.! \\-.IS a st-cat m;iny \ ~ c i ~ l i r . ~ oused l r s d,,o~\r-here in North C:aroiii:i. 'l'hqc:h.:~ll .: ', ihcy had..gut thoce \ve&ht p o l e ~ h e i dI ~ o a ~ on. d s H a d I~oard s then. 11-c tie\-el- had no .late 'here. I.:\-ery so\\-'of Irbards, ).ou had to ;lbole. I \\;!. ;! Imat-ti ni;lti myself. d;dtl>. \ v a r a board m a i . T h e first Imartii \$;c r.1 er 11exa11r n i k ~ i g\\-as th.rcel.foot,ljoal.+rr , + A n d a tthat time thc! hiid old i i i r ~l;iils,\fv . d. a d llnd h e f&xrtlierhecided it would be:l>est to ? ni.,ike athirry-ini.h \>oar$,so \ye cut it tb*t:).rit-t)-.I'm the last man that v a s a I ~ o a r d11i;ibet- l i \ i i i c . in \\;ltfluga C:ounty. hI! d a d learned in?, a i i d n i y {ad \y;is'cine oi rh? l,c.>r I~oar-drn;iE?rs here; I got p~.e& close t o him [in skill], ' 11ut taLiilq hite oak I never did get as good as h e was. I t a i n ' t niuch fun nlahiat. bdartis. K'LI~' !;oil t a k e \vhite odk 'or chestnut oal,, you can split a . . 11A;ii-d tio\vti pi-ctt\ i t 1 ,got to wherr I co~tltl.iplit a half-inch hoardi i h nI ; I It h i 1 d a d was so good hc could take that a n d cli\+icir i r i ~ q ; ~\Ial\c. 7 ~ ~ . two I ~ o a r dout ol half-inch. llut that, of course, \va5 jtiit to .how yhu i16oilld I)e dotic. \Toit don't {vatit a quarter-inch board , . for ;I roof. Th;it'.tick ;111dniitd c h i t .~ i t ,..i c ~hcre. s Now t i t I ~ I l i i i tI ~ Ir ., vr~ttt-icrv,.: . lip xncl p;iik your m u d in thctii, I h r j :i(t~t,ill!1i;itl a fit.<, it1 , t l i t ~ ~ 't I. ' l i ~ ~>v;\s r , ~ I I O ~ I ~I I$I L I ~i r i tlierc so,yoit <:ric~ltl i~itilcl!o,;r fire &\ui tlcrc alid.it went rigtit on. '1'ht.r;~ i. '-yre;it rn:uny 4 . of tileni. and I tlotr-t knob< why i t :an't Ije done today. I I r h i . first Ijrich tha? I e\,er'renie<~hcrI ~ e i nm~a d e in Ii'atauga I
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\v:~::' I I I ; I ~ C of 111iid.red ' ~ ~ l a y . - ~ hhad e y :r-~iiacl~ine mlidc, they called it the miid ii,achiiic. 'l'hi"\v t h ; ~ tred clay in thert;, ;111dadd watcr in it. &th a d ;I l x ~ p p r rtooi iia~icrsiand.H a d a yoke of % little old creek we call CI-ab Orchard ~ & e k i. n d why it d < i s ' c a l l c d~.- .. Orchar-c! i:rrek, it cbnie down bff the mountain and there.. must . have heen a :paic cleal-cd 11y the Indians--a\little space in there almut two a c r e s . T h a t ' {ins the thickest place of crahapp'les give it the.^. .. . . . I cver seen, and..;. that's ..what * name. - i. G . Tlrc, w:isrcd a good l i t of t i n ~ l ~ at e r those.n~ilis]I ~ u tti~irlierw i ~ ~ : ~ i l l i o r i s a n d miliioi~soi feet:\Vhat did they care?~Go-out in the ~ n o u h t i i n sand cut ... . , :I poplar dirn.n to iii;~kesomething outof.hIa!.l)& it&s two feet through. If. it didn't mit i h e i l i , . ~ nu p ; I I I ~cut a n o t h k and throw the other'out. e ever in our co4pty: B u t that's tile finst sawrniil that -to m y . ] t n o w ~ e d ~was \\-hen the niodtrn rnills:co~r~e o u t , ' ~ e n r )'raylor put him a modernc'inill right 11)- the side that one. T h i t sash saw was with water tl-iouzh. T h e water came down in the f l u r i ~ ~ a npoured d into the buckets on the o \ . ~ n h o t~ * - h ~ eItl .ivas'geared 'up with wooden cogs to puM your logs I)ack~.;iidsrid forwards. You didn't pull that. I dorl't rlluch believe.they cut a lo: ovrr tkvelve feet long on theni, hut that's t h e way it. was. And \\-nod c n q made of hick&y.& hlack walnut. .411d for a drive shaft niost of rhtiii tried to get red 1ii;lple. I'd say the first one I ever saw was red n~aple. I s;iw si,liik r,l oak once. In fact, [nry wife's] g l i i t ~ d ~ on l a her rr~othei'sside 1i:rd n r i ~ i l l 111;it he run for yc;Irs. T h a t was with n tul:~)indwheel. That's \\.lirrr I 1i1.t s;i\\. t h r turl)ine whrcl. I t h;td :I overshot .wheel first, \+'ell, \\-hc~ithc ~ i ~ ~ l e ,-. : c o nand l e t1,e water wheel give out-tleril'old-time- wheels . ..~ bvould p v e out, understand; they didn't last a lifetime-so~nel~od!, came -
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PL-4TE 3 Etta Hartley holding a coverlet woven by Charlie's gr&ndrnother. ------- -
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a l o n ~with suCh and all allout this turbine wheel at14 he rcgomniended it putkone in. Now 1 and tolcl Iiiiii how it workeddown in there, an$'&s;u~'d~>i ciici~i'tsr,: hi111put it in, I I U ~ ,I ' c ; ~ tell ~ i yo11 w l ~ i k see ;ilrtl know. T\'e ~uo\.edo\.rr$l)out t ~ v onriles froni thc mill, mid c it ;I prxctice to go that' ~ i i i l l .=\nd wher~rne x ~ i dTIr;llter, niy I)rothes, first started packing' c-..o ~ rnvcl~ thr mountain to it, we took a peck apiece. h e w;is sorta grouchy, ~ ~ - . ~. arid !ou'ti r h k k he was ;I old hellcat till' ymhlgit used to hi~ii.Rut he \?as fl-ientilv. That was just his way. I went up thes'e onk time with somt'coni gfter his tui-I~ine\+-heel had heen put in there, and he had olrerrun the thing and 1ie:d got some tl-'ish lodged right down in that wheel. And when I \\';ilke5j up. there \v;u gritrrdpa down irl there cleaning that wheel out. I .ket hi\.- l,&:r.l d o w ~ on i rhe floor, w;llkr.cl dowrr therk, a n d I said, "C:ould I help . ,r you o m e cleanin: that out?" I.Ies;~id,"(';oti;tnjixhty yes you c-ould." I raid, "-411 right, where do you want me to work?" He snitl, '+You stand over there right close to the water there and .I'll oXrer to you and you ,pitch it.,over' on the I)akk there, ,and " . , dry, we'll use it for wood. .. him get it clea~ledout 'good; a
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FTTi \ D ~ H ~ ~ R L ROSS I E H.AKTLI
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Yoit had your 1i;nidle lmck liere, and you collie u p with it a n d - t h m . come o w r i t i ~ c i d o ~ v ~oni the Yiheat with one whonip. ']'he fl-ails Gas ~ s u a l l ya lli~kor) ~vitllew.I-rlils :tround and around [at the joint] so the end would flip. ~ e n tl;c t old stack of whe.at with *hat end tili y ) u got it done. T h e n take a cloth and takr your wheat u p and clean it in tho wind. That's what they first done I understinid. Rut later on they got to Il1e n srnall-like windmil'l lade ~ v i t hwbod and cogs. 'I'here was a n old one that set u p here. - . on't know \vh;it ever went with it. But that w;ls kranked I,y h a n d ~ h a da in it-arid you could-rfin a I~ushelof wheat through that a n 4 clean it " k. It liad a - h o p p e r j u s t like a ~ n i l lhopper. You just pour your t in and there you go. A11 of th'at now! was hnndwork u n h the achine. ~hendt,akethat.wheat to-the 13ii11. ne I1efor.e big rnills onie in, they was a right smart of hammer * Kortli Chrolina. ou have to have.w,ater I to flip that [ha-imer nd do~vti.But ?o" s o to all that espehse to have. water to run * e.to pull it u p and down that way, wh; not have the wheel? . '11 say this: .. I seriously doubt if they's a thing that they -. can ever oyr in the old-time? I)usiness that's actually never heen here, e inan thar k~iowsa l ~ o u it t . . . Now this old ~ 0 r t . hcarol in;^'^ '
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1 Charlie on the ranrp"he built leading from the porch ,of their home to on the h i ~ h w a y Borh . he and Etta nolv have trouble neqoiiatinq steps.
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lot of this stuff I'm telling you nl)out tonight.'.i s been set u p a ion:: time. way back yonder, and,,it's I-en1survivi~l.' .3 Now they had turning 1;lthes t h ; ~ t\r.c.rr w i ~ t e r - ~ ~ o w ctoo. ~ & l l,Ye.-had. :llmust nothiflg llnrk ill t l..l r ~ n ~ d : ~ ~ r ~ I y , M was . l isun i ~ t li? wiitsi. '1'11e~w;~s-a few lathes t u b e d 1y, hand too- -;i-l~rg ten-foot wood wheel hooked to^ n spindle. Yo\v I,cnr~'rrerne~~ll,cr too n11;ch. nl)out that I j i g wl!eel, ,l,ut I (':ill emeniber that grandpa rurl it uutil---have you heard talk of the '40 flood r i North C:aiolina? l4'ell; he run it up till then. S\'e h a d a flood here that cleaned this whole couptryout. LVatcr stooti u p on the porch ree inches of the floor, and us on a little creek, too. T h a t flood e\:erythirigout, now. 'l'ook eierythiilg. all of that-stuff come along u p to where we hit Foxfire. I arid , which is just so accurate there's no use to talk nhout that.
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the ~ e c o n dsection of this chhpter, w e t r y to r o 7 ~ 7Charlie's career as juilifer-a tulenf he leurned ?o;in school ( h e 11271er went t o college) but by esperiencealcine. , t l i n y of the buildings he huilt are still used con' stantly today, though jrw of the people i n his surroGnding communit?) cot1111point i h e ~ iout ~ t o yoiri i l e i did his w o ~ kquielly u n d t h e n stepped . . .. asirie. T l ~ o s eb u i l d i n ~ she.is prouriest uf h e superviseil d,hrin,? :WPA days, . , T . b u f his career spannee/ m o w than fifty years. T h e r e are nluh;1' t h i n ~ thnt s make this couple n o t e w o r t ' h ~~zot-theleest of z'hich i s t h e dumbility of their partnership (th&'r~e bken married sixty-ft$e years) and their large, cloie-knit,fnmily ( t h e y have foui children,twelve .. . , g~andchilrlren,'anii twenty-three grebt:grandchildI:en), &he+ they marTie&, Charlie was twenty-Lwo a n 2 Etta was sixteen. T h e y were introduce( b y T r o l ~D n n ~ ! e rone , the kni/< tr~akersfeatured in this book.,"I robbed the ci:adle jo,- lie;," s t ~ y s C h e ~ r l i "e T. l ~ n l ' skind of a joke, hut it's the t-rutl~. I'd2:d take h'er aut ht $;.;"teen. I- reckon fhpf'svthe worrt , m i s t a k i s h e @zl:r C made-listening to me!" Equally .an~ii:ing is ti?? amount that Charlie accon~plished despite his lack of /orma1 s c t t o o l i n ~ ;ant[ more anzazirig still is the /act t h a t 16. ?lid all - of his firlest work after lo sin^ one lek i n a lop,@irrg c~ccidentfift,;-fiz!e years i ;go. H e ~ e t ctround s o n a fie,? le,? made b y hand out o/ (I two-by-six. E t t a w,arnpii us that if i e encoura&(i him: he'd b r ~ g .W P encouraged hinq and 1'v-n.glarl*we .die1,..becaure their story ir orre that'r worth tell in,^.^ rlnd thou,?h the pride is there, it is tempered by Y ~ cilnzost I cltilcllike awe at x. ~. h a twa.r accompiisXed, a n 0 a h-een sense of,.rlishppointment n o w that the , ' work is done. '4s (;harlie s a g , "S7pmetimr.s h dcilk c~roui~,l, see l~uililin,~s,thdt ' I put zip, and f say, ' W a s I m a n ehough -to put that huitding up,' witen I I
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hliori: rlor~i i r ~ l lI Pzil il zrp I ' r ~ ibaing iik ray s o ~ ~ i c t i i i ntgo yozi. t ~ic.i,'i,,siiiil to 1iii11oiI~~'else. I hnr,c r t ~ o l it o t h c -t o p , 1i.r I'i,e ti~l(1you, nntl bken' relic'rc I hod to f a k c I!ic bzill ~ i . t nA-n d siiets'5een b y ,. -b y. lhc h o ~ r ~ , V ~ , i r e ' i ~ die. nlc. .-llrr,nl~~heen d ; ~t / l ~b a n k w h e n I was (a irotrhle. h'u; tk&s what I'zre h a t I t o d o . l'iid I hoi'r rrci8er ru~ronto n n l a q tilnt Por~l(1ol~t"nziin b 1 L , : , P oil ~ : jslljs o n e Ir,q I lini,r nrr3e1-st~.ucka ma11 that could /lo as ' -dey a.r I cou1~P.-I'o?1cnrnc.d ( o (lo lhc job fast ielltcn I had ri;lic~iI I h o r r ~ h t I zr: g l ~ t/ / I rrie~sin,q around .. r.r ttiki~r,<jobs aiirl bc:ci~r tlle rilld f o u n d that I
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I Iii,e ~ i e i . ~been: ) . stalled. U n o w , I aill'l no,.,oood 7 1 6 ~ . . ii.ccr1.c I?!? n o w 'cnrrse I ain't n o good." t i o t i a r i e )'our l n ~ n i l y11eeti.r ~ ' o l nnil ~ , zt-e need yozi, beje 1 ~ t . 0 O / 3,011 gii'e all of y s ' paltern ~ t o go by. and n ray of strong,
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e bepiiri h j , nskil~,qCharlie t i tell 1,s. w h n t sori of education he had. t o 171 t o r his career in construcfion. H e began to laugh, , a n d , w b a t ,
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a little scl~ool.Il'e had scho 1 Lct mt! tell you something. There was three months.,[out.of the year]. It was pposcd'to 1)e thr-ee months; l ~ u t :+ *?2:;<;.~ I n;jght. nc4r&$%%ys;.thert' ,.* ::., ,, *auld lie window ~ i ~ h t s ' k n o c ~out e t l all$ thqy to al~outn e ~ r \vo;~ld l~av~-.tii:fii:.$hat, and it would cut sot ~llucho f a t ~ v oand a half moniths. It was years and I)ig enougl~to .. school: Bur :low I did11.t go t o s?hool go, to school, mv dgci used to say he woirld. try to give us an education. Noiv my dad was wrong, I ~ u he t did the best he.could. When he would get ha*:d u;,;he wohld come and takesus out of school. Sm in a way, I got i l ~ o u 't rwo'rrionths schboling in,a few years."l'hat's the way it went. *... . .\\e li\-ed at \Talie C:rucis when the: ~ ~ i s c o p a come ls here' and. started tl.ieir school up. ?'hey are great folks to try and help you'get an education. he old f d l ~ wthat started that talked Daddy i1;to sending his four oldest children to that s+ool for seven cents a month. So we went to school a part there. In.fact, to i ~ ehonest, the pait of-the education of a cquple of that .I go$ I got it through the Episcopals. Now I'nr not a n Episcopal, ITderstand, hut I'will gix'e them credit.for what they donefur nle, Bigger part of niy education conie throukh them, 1)ut I ain't got much education. I .-doubtwith all my experience that I could pass a f i f t h grade exan1inati0rr with arithnetic. -. So I never g o t ~ n u c hschool. I really startedal>einga carprlrtcr when I was a kid. 1\1v daddy was an old,tirne cal-penter. 0116 of. t h e best that's ever P l)reir, and !he] could dd the ii~bstwork, ljut he didti't hive much education ' , -eithe~:j.I really started in ?messing with his tools and .learning carpenter \\.o~-k--he a y s sir y e a r s o l d . ' . ~ had e lhk of fa;r.ly ~ u o di&ls, and they-was kept locked He kept the ke). in his pocket ;nos? of the time. Once he was. huijdin: a spring hbuxe, and h e h a d almut'a mile to walk 'fron~h o k e t o that. : job, and lie'd get lonesonic. .He got to Taking nle with him tb sorta pa& the time a\\.a!. \\'e~~,*\?.-hcn he 'got I-eady to put the r&f on, I just couldn't hehave my lirrle self,: 1 h a d to cli~nlithat laddkl- &id carry shingles-up to him. Thar's old-tinley shingles, now: Then that didn't satisfy me and I had ,to ge't ; up and help h i m O n the last-getting away up-he3$jdi1't'want to put the last sCaffold on. He thruwed him a two-bl--four up aid withp,nejhand heid : that and l@d the;shingles ;with the o t h e ~ ,and, I gbt up there and nailed .' themTt\ro nails to tlie.~hingIe.'~~'hat's the first w o ~ kI can remem1)er. : 1 I y father taupat me a little. E e taught mc as far asvhc could go. We worked t o p h e r lots. \\e were the first ones that ever siarted putting water ~' pipes to a man's house. I guess you'\~e read about the Mast Store in thepapers? No\? right across the road t h ~ r eis the first house he ever owned. He come to \';rile C:rutis a si~
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B .". \\.ell, thl~t,d&ln'tm i k c it much 1)etter. ,, %u still had thq same watei.ryn;* 11irig down. m c r p t 'you h8d witter in8thL. kitchcri.now. M'rrlt inck down a - . . , . "I few da!s sitel- that. .- .. . - . L.c;~: 1 .,'I , I 'iva~if that pipe chairgcd sohiewaf).' 'The Mission says they'll
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loan m a the -that I &rle rffter that'y~ donr .a7w was . ever put i r i ?\'htauga. County, and ,it's still tgere. At* ~ a ~ ~ d ~ u ~ i ~ ~ ~ ~ .'"I:ayipr put in the,cecond one, a n d I wns'the helper o n i t . I Y h m *&&t t h a t , . job done, the ~ I u r n l ~ in c r charge . . walked over ., artd"said; . "Charl@,+,lgll ~~lye, , .~,,., "Q"67 . . :: you the sarrie price 'as 1.111 gettillg.'to $1 with ~ile.'to,J o h n s.:~ i w2 as a . . . iielpea. , -,.. *:., . 1, '.&g I sai&'"~ ain't, got 110'.use . in&l)nson Citf., i ' v e g o t a h a ~.., -.n- ~ here. a p I .ain't interested in xoing down there and. . . helji you p l u n , , ~ . $stayei?- a t liome. I didn't go. And [roni th;te[tin~r] " n till I ' v e g o t s d I &n't pl;ml~, r , ., off a n d 011 I.1.e Ixen ipl~lnll~ing. And., these plun~!,er<;ip her& tliat I patronize no\\-. ~tiey'rer.i~'
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s;iid i t ~ v a s\vl~:rtw n i . I was under him. Next tl~ir~s I \qas doir~,y,I w n on 'rmy o\vn o i n opt ~ 11cr.c rn;lyl,e thrre niiles 01- five niilcs; 'l':ike cEirXe of ;I hou& slid i)uild it with one or ti40 hands. Build it mybelf without evqn a we dicin't know l~lueprintswhen ~. we firsti started. l'hose nice I. es .c&iic out ivi2h. a11 the l>eautiful~h~nics+justpiutures. &lks ut a picture of a certain house, "I want one-L)uilt like this.'?.No any thin^^. I l,uilt that hous,e.l~ylooks just identic'ai to the way a~ it. So~nel,ody'dcorneaalong: "Jl'here's your blueprint?" ' . hcre" [pointi~lgr o hi? head]. got ~ U S ' w1i;~t they wanted. I'm ~-lot'a a i i ~ ~ r a l - l o ocarpefiter, t-~~ . Tiles say my father \v:ls a n a t u r a l - l ? h ~c:irpenter. ~ 1 don't tthirii; ~ n y l l o d \ ' sever natliral-\;oil1 for any trade: H e rxiaa!.I,$ . th a sense of followirlg in his daddy's tracks, I ~ u the's got to learn it . , e it.' Up-till I Gas seventeen, I was practil-;llly,on m y ?&ri'ljeef cbuldn't ser the newer wais. Aiiii h e al~solutelykouldn't e ol his children to tkll him a ~ i y t h i n a~ , d the t i m e come that . ' quit. l ' h r n I was'on nly own al,solytely ~hyself.It/rnight be . , a!. and 'tomorrow it niight, l ~ carpenter e work. r\fter I went or1 n1y own,, I .o&i got to t'lie pgint where I didn't'have to 1 s o a n d ask for a job. l h e y asked me. \j7hen I was eighteen - .~ h r old, s I was f a r enough aloiiq i;] the carpenter I~u.siriess that c o d d go out on my olvn hook arid build a house, ;ind i t \<:IS considered good. ;\nd repair work;there w'as a l ~ o u tsix or eiKht wonitn in S:allc (:rucis who wouldn't let nol~odyelse do their kwrk 11uh . . nie, so I tlidri't~liavet,o go out : ~ n das< for ~ s o a~ t hthat tinie. And then I werit to r l ~ ~ . ~ i ~ i r sand s e e ,inadc i h r e ~trips to Maryland to. 11uiltl dairy 11;lr1is.I wits li;y ,I)oss nncid(>lii the h.ork tooxwith ... r ravlle one hand. . . arrie way llesc. I'd -o our in the niountains-some asked lilt t o l~uilda ie. I,n thein days, you'c1 go Q I I ~a~!d stay with thefi-11dard.with iheni. out, l ~ r ~ i hn i i\oi~serind st:\?. w i i l ~tl~erlitill it was done. s t a y with the i g "l'l~atwas custoniary then. Rut since World War people I \+-a.~ ~ o r k i i for. 11, therr ain't no suclithiriy; ;i; that. :\:man cornes and wants you to do him '.a day's work, or liuild him :I houke,and you!looh. after' your own hoard. That's a l l d o n e alvay \ec%il~sc y o u t a n ' t put the mfter. it's-mighty h:rrcl to ri~iseyour frame- o n e 1n;iri. .\lid now a11our the onlv. tools . I had were a hand a * , a hand axe, and a tlr.a\vinq kriifc. ?'he fimt few houses, now, I ljuilt weje not storm.sheetecin . 3
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1veatherboaTded. \\:hen, they 1,egari storm sheeting, it went up and down at F a forty-five [di-gl-et ankle]. \ l e cut 'all that 11). h ; ~ ~ i A d .n d - a few jobs thjt I've done, n&v, \\.as old hard wood that was taken from the sawmill. The \culls that ,rot~ldn'tpass for niarkqbwould pass on into sul~flooringand sforni ,?. sheeting. : u ~ d~t all cut on a forty-five, and with a hand saw for the first few i years. i ' And on a $01 of theni buildings I7velput up, that lumber was not surad,\yorlds . @nd w o'Id~ s of-maple and oak to cut on a forty: ie .tell.you the difference. Twelve-inch hoards cut straight ctlv a twelve-inch cut. But when yo" start at a forty-five, it thksto cut that forty-five. That's the difference in doing it. ' t one or two that I had to put a forty-five on the roof; which I . . less. Lumber going crossways on the rafters! was a'boss on those jobs, but] w h e n that WPA started, I Gad no . . show them what- I could do.That's the way I started. I under the,courthouse. I went over.Yhere,and I escaCated.under that ousetone' .of the hardmt jobs .tHat you can think of-to build a idation under it. I had sixty-five men. I had forty-seven the first morn' I went i11 there. For forty-seven nwn, I had ten shovels.'The boaman d; "TZ'ell, here's your h e w , char1ie:~ou got' ten Bhbvels. Can )-ou handle theni?" . . I said, "I'll divide them-work one &an awhile and w6rk anotfier one , . . . awhile." . Now there was men standing rightsthere hun5i.y. That's Che first big job l r\:er star'ted. And all these hands that came to me to work was wh.t.we called "cer&ied." l'hey+had to have a card that corne irom headquarters showing me,that I h a , the rig-ht to work them-all of t h e n ~ .And I , had to train then1 men to help me.. When I started oL M1P.4,,I did not have any. - body but raw Iahorers and people that neededla jot,. Come in with. overalls d~uhle-patchedand not enough to eat. I had do take care of then1 men and work some too. . I l l these big rock buildings I! dbne withMrPA during the . I Depression were done with lahzrers ,. that hadjto hive 9 job. A fellow that had a farm, ;hey would hardly eTrer let him on 'eause'they figured he, could !. live without it. ~ e t ' ssay it. wa$a s t m a t i o n job. A m a i or1 iYp.4 was hungry and naked and'that's why k $ % ~ put there; 1t/ka2 uplto me to-take '*P"J- bit of differenceto!, them whether 'care of the61. And.it didn't make.&.&mq &made him work or not work. I topk care of him,ihd kepfdim on the hay-, -&ll. If he was a gobd stout fellow grid c o ~ l d ' w o r ~ : ~ rwell,'let e t t ~ him work. If he wassorta knocked out and not too stbut;/give him a Iight job. Let him work awhile and play around. Now you ma, wonder how did I do all that work-get 'these big buildings [ p u t up] w,ith that type bf people. Well, I had to have a little bit of know-how; and they is nobody-ever, 90"-that is , ,
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ETT.4 .%SD C H A R L I E ROSS HARTLEY
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so'd;mb that he can't do somethingYor me somewheres. If .you've got pa- . tience, >-ou can. take any1)ody and train t h & ~for something. If he couldn't use a pick, he c ~ a l dusi a shovel; and if he wain't stout enough to,do much, some criticizing, along, but it was from . put him-to cam!-i~g water. I fellows who didn't kno\v. sNolv the \'allc ~ r u c i sSchool is ?he first \VPA job I bossed. I'm the man that built that ahsol~itelywith common iahor except laying the rock;. I .. :. had a fe\v n ~ & later l gn that were oh the \$'PA &hat were good ,rock hut the County hired most of the rock men because they wanted a good job. ". . S" that biilding standing pver there will be' a monument to my grave when I'm gone f r m l here. T h e first olle I ever i h t u p on WPA. It's still.& beiiyti: ful ljuilding., It's been there for' about f ~ r t yy e a i i n o y . ,Mr: wigginton [Fo.ufire ad\-ispr! \vent_ over . there to look at that-and Good there' and . looked at it and said, ";\Li. Haitliy, .yia;t 6cn'know h o w i f i the world you, done such apretty a job as that is." i$~ili,nsw,.on.,&itb b , T had good rock '. , men. And Blowing Rock has a big T h e n I built a liie,.rock 1,uiiding at BO&. I'ock g)-nlfld~iumthatI huilt. P m p r p u d of~a.11of them, l?ut t h e Cove.Creek School .. is m\- PI-ide.That's the last one0 I built. You'vz been there and seen it. That's.\vorth IJeing i,nterested'in: I think more of that job than any I've e(.er done, but P had.me11there that was hungry. D u r i n g C'orld Tl.ar:. 11, I was ridin% to tow^ with two men. river slapped the one in the'middle to wake him up. Said, "Wake up. I've got conlethinglined up here1 want to show you in a few minutes."
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PL4TE 7 Charlie in ~ r o n R o th&bve i
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kvell, I w a s worider:ina what?%e was goins ,to show that man. Got u , "Look over tKereiyou see that"rock I~uilding?" .. "JVhy sure." ,. m Said, "Dop't ) - o u ' t l h kthat's solnething fine^?" '3 , H e.,A;: allsw&ed him, said, " ~ h a t ' s ) ; h efinest-thing I ever seen." .Reach:%ver and sla$prd.rne o n t h a t old whoden .leg; sayss; "Mister, don't , you $i$k that's a nice l-~uilding.overt h e r e , ': ly I'd thinkit nice building, I ' ~ the I +an that built ,
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t an& looked straight hack .at me. Says, "I don't give a damn whabuilt .. .. it. T h a t ' s the pettiest thing I ,ever saw:" ' .I T h a t -was a great surprise to them that J was the,,.little old pe$egged ' fellow that built it. I wonder ldts.of'times, " ~ i c Ii - & this?:".,But there's.the building to show.1 guess I couli pick out . . 5 hundred lxiiidings :rbund Boone that I was tkc I,oss on. But Cove Creek is my pride. [The ' l ~ u i l d i n ~ took t\ro years to I)r,ild. Thc architiit wLs Mr. ~ Z i f e ewhose ofkes,.were in a
ROSS
ETTA AND CH..\RLIE
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PLATE 8 Charlie- watchcs y i t h a smile as students ~ 2 . hattend ~ his Cove Creek School &re by on their way to recess. .. . . .,
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Leiloir, Forth C:arolina. Charlie was the supyrvisor and was over I 06 men for most. of the time the building was under co11st1-uction.Working with him %is an assistant s~tpgl.ilrterrdent,three building foremen; and a fourth faremarl at. rhe ;ock quar&.' .. > . . . .. T h e ~kallsof the building - - .are twel~reinches thick. The inside studding is ail t1c.o-by-six henijock, ..and the: floor joists are two-hp-twelve hemlock. iis' ?'here are wood flbo;sand plaster walls. All the concr'ete pleces were precast w . = ., at the site. T Federal dovernment-'&id for-the major labor, except for the three ns I ~ r o t h e r s ~ L e c l iClarence, e, and Earl-dho were the main rock men a n d were pa21 11). t'&e C:eunty. T h e ,:&unty 'also piid for the. materials. Three other rock ~ n e n Ben , Brewer, Guy CarItdriand l i r i l l a r d ~ a~. t 5 0 nwere paid hy TYP:l.] So I ditiii't have 111q~heducation, hut I foolcd the public A d a Idt of fellows. I'm going to tell!. vou , one. '1:hat Cove .-. Creck School that I bossed-I. ,:went ~ s a ~ al-ourrd k i , ~ with ~ ,z fellow who was the checker. That's the man ,
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watchidg to see that nothing was siolen. And he was with the enginekrs and ' there. H e knew th'at I hc kncw well and good who was running that jol>*,up 4 ., was buying all th%atmaterial which was [the engineers' job]. ,The engineers there should halie ma@every one of then, bills, but'they did not do.it. I ,nlade all the bills and everythi~lg.And so. I'm awalking around one h o r n ing checking my.building and my nlen, and he was always kidging, .and he said, "Charlie, where did you go to college at?" I said, "(hod God, man, I ain't never been.inside of a college." And he turned around and said, "Don't be rellihg me a darn lie." I said, "I am telling you the truth," a n d I like to have never convinced him. . . He said, "I want you to tell me how in the world-I kndw you are mak- ' ing the bills for this job-how in the world are you carrying this job if you never went to college?" I said, "I gotmine the hard way." .And I did. I got mine through expe' nce. I went to the top. At one tirne,,I was the highest paid cabenter in unty. At one tirnk, I had as much ai4three calls a week. Right there is ] can tell you that. he woman setting there [his wife, ~ t t a that ., . Now let me tell you' something, We were supposed'to work twenty-eight days a month'. Twenty-eight days is a-working month.'I took that Valle Crucis S c h o o t I quarried the rocks out, hauled them in, done the ditches, huilt~_thatschool-up to the foundation-basement and all-at fifty-six dollars a month. NOW you study aboutthat. What was I getting a day? I was pretty near working on stanration wages too wasn't I ? Finally the big whitecollar man corne.in. "TVhat are you getting?", And I said, "Fifty-six dollars." "Chicken feed." And he walked off. \~ T h e next chFck come in a n d .it w o seventy dollars. In a few &ore weeks, eighty dollars. By the time I got that building done,'^ was up a t a hundred .dollars a month. And wh'en I got through with that building, the WPA white collars began to say, "JVell, we'got a man u p there that knows what he's doing." And when I~finishedthe Cove Creek job, I had ;he white col. , ~ we gonna work this? What we g0nn.L lars coming to me asking me, "Hpw 9 % do?" That's th'e way I've come up. E T T A : 'You'& bragging now, Charlie. CHARLIE: That's'whit I told you I was going to brag some! Even on defense jobs when I was the little boss-the third man down, the one that always gets the beating. and, all the dirty work-they'd come around, ' "Charlie, h d i we &ing to do this? How we going to do that?" And me fool. enough to tell them how 'and let them get the credit for k: You ought to know what I mean. 1 f you don't know, I can tell you: O n all/jobs any-
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\\here, whenerer you get to the point that you can go into any offices around'and hr the best secretary there is there, there'll be a , white collar appear over you telling ).ou w h i t to do. That's the way'it'll be when you get there, now. ' But I guess I'd be safe to say I've built twelve or fifteen hundred houses in my fifty >-ears[as a carpenter]. :And I always ioved the work. Nowadays, right now, the)-'re storn? sheeting with plyweod, and some of them put only four-foot pieces t6 each corner. well,' I aon't know but that's all right, but it crrtainl?. ain't as stout as what I had to build. I never had plywood to sheet the side with. Ir wouldn't be-quite as stout, but I guess it wo Id hold if it ivere put o n right. Now plywood, you don't want to make j st a straight v that's \vhat a lot of the,m do. Say you put in two sheets right her. Il's quick, and I reckon it'll hold. It's a lot quicker done. r;:ht till one or two of them blows away. Then yod~'llfind out he other! - -
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.L\RLIE:' She w& at home looking after the family., She has, never worked away from home. She stays at home and has be& a real'kife and sh?s the one ' bossed the family, and we've got four wonderful, childre-but that made them, not me. --. . E E 4 : 4\%, no_ t6af s Kottrue! / , CH.ART.I(,,: b3 I've worked a&frnrn .. home. Sent thr moAey ivh~& I had some. She sta>-edin those old rough miuntairis, steepee than anything. She worked up there till her heart knockkd her out. She's heen there many day and worked. -
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Do you f r p l t h a t a wzfe & o d d stay at home and work? C H A R L I E [laughing]: I doq't much ;want to answer that because I've been an old,foge)- myself. 1'd love to just turn everything entirely different' from what I done it'then. 1f I could. go back, I ' d be an intirely diffeient boy and a man from what I've ever bees. I believe I'd change two or three things. One way I'd love to change woAd to be more friendly and poIite. My back life has been an 'old crabby life, mostly. If I could go back, I wouldn't want.that at all. I'd want it entgely different. That's about all the way I know to answer that. E T T A : I'd just \vish to keep good hkalth, I suppose, so I could work. If I was young back again, I'd like ro go into kurse's training. I love that work. I took some, but I'd love. tb be al~leto work .at that now, but my hdalth won't permit it. Back then my children were small and I couldn't leave -
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them and do what I wanted to do because I felt m) duty was to my children. C H A R L I E : There's two sides to look at. \$'hen I was raising a family, the truth is there wasn't too much else for the women t~ do [away from the home]. Rack. then, we considered the woma~l's plare at home tending to the babies-taking care of them And she didn't only take care of the bal~ies-she went out in the mountains and worked. I'd qend money when I had some, and she done the hest she could. E T T A : I did the farming,~inorher~words. . CHARLIE: And that's why I call her the 110:s [laughing again]. she hossed so much she still can't help i ~ n l~oss t a little ! , I : \\.e had a txenty-six-acre farm. I'm still alittle bit fogcy now that ;I wonran should l ~ e at honie with her kids. B& the way times has got, living is so high 1 don't see m u c i chancr only to let the wife work when ;he can. SDmetim~sthe wife can get a job when the husl~andcan't. I thinkafter the children leaye home, it's all right for the wife to get a job, but I'd rather be xt*ome t m tkat-my-children---taken ~ c a r ~ d up till they c i n . go t o school. ~
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C:HARLIF;: Mothers are Gorki11.g today letting their kids be carried and ..tended to almost any wa)- and sort of drug u p h i the h a i ~of their heads. .* .~-73 . [That's thc c-;~l~sej for a lot of this deviinlent. i ,,.~ \:
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T I'd like to see some of this here crime and racket done away with. I her& getting to be too much of it. Now that's one thing that I would love to see changed. I'll tell you one thirig, and I'm going tb he frank Wit-&~u. -~ I've thought this CVCI- sirire the srrond M'orld War. The mothers went to work on these here defense plants and things in place of staying at ,h'ome and taking carc of the children. Of course, [the country] needed somehelp, and ever)t,o,dy pitched in and helped all they could during the War. 'Course that's sornethingthat*;.b~r kids don't know nothing about. M'ell, it left the children' by theirselves. I think they just djdn't have enough dis~iplinein.; other words, and 'they felt they weren't taken care of like they should have . I~cen.Now I'd love to see more mothers stay a t home. I think it could be managed. I stayehat -home and raised m y children,..an&I bnow but I'd ra;her do 'with less and know that my children were .Kird'time, . .... taken carc of properly than left in anyhody else's hands and just left to take care of theirselves. Do you understand me? Now you're going to have to wet-k as 11est you can';md try to improve things. Now I may he wrong in what I think and what other pcople thinks, l ~ u tI think that your children . con~csfirst unless you ;tl~solutclyhave to get out and work for a living. . -., [Of course, the lessons parents try to teach kids no\y arcn't so different, . , . .. r .
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fr-6131\\li;~t.tl~r;\vcrt: .. *. I~':lck:~hen.:"l'lleyjust*;1on3f secin to.li;t::trikir~,g:hbId . . ,, .. \vt,ll 11oiv.j I I y pagnt.;, and so did h i s , always t:~ught us to 11e hohesi'aiid truthfill ;iborit evrrvtlring, . . ;!~d I suppose"n$ost parertts d o now. 4 t least I tiiti to rn? chiltiren, and I h o w parents that do 'tiic.h their childrenthat .. ... now. ;\lid I think f r i e n r k h i p ~ . ~ ~ ~ : e s s g a e s - nwzij3. l o ~ iIgi e l l y& girls, I \\.;is reading the o t h e r n i g h t on that, a n d 011''if jou spoke kind words to sornel~od>-, wh!;, how it helped them niore, so t~ speak, even if you didn't - , like the111. Lla?lie it niade the111 feel Iietf? il,;ou spokC to them kindly. And it plade you feel Ilerter. I think it does; l'r-y to Ile k ~ n dto anyllody, even if rhe! do111;ipprr<.iate i t or n o t h i n allout it,:beca~~se .~ . o u ' l lfed Iletter ahout it yourself. .411d \ye tau+[ oul- chilhren to I,e holiest :ifid to be' truthful. T h a t it dit111't pa) in the long ruil not to 1)e truthful".,yhat ~ i s ~ ~ aitl lwas y caught upi with anti it \vrlit %;,inst them. -41id : ~ ~ i o t ,h2;~ ff..>{ &that h & ~ I stressed on my b children was to never,. .never when they went tcps~lloolto corne home with t a t r l i ~ ~tales g of \\.hat the other studerrts done or an3thing. .I wouldn't allow . ' it ;rr all. I ' d punish the111 if they did. And they 'understood I would punish tlient if they did. [Charlie]- was a w a y a t work-may136 in ~ a r y l a n dor in Durhani or- .\sheville-a11d I had to look after them, a n d I just simply told them that I w&ldri't allow it, Ilecause it didn't concern me and it, didn't - r o ~ ~ c ethem.7'hey ~.n did wrong to come in home with great big tales ~ l l ~ o uhow t , they xot punished at school thilrking I'd take u p for them, be~ . -.~ . cnrlse I kneiqthe teicher \Coultln't have punisheti them if thev hadn't done \vron,y. Ant1 anothcr rule I 'laid down up till they was s i r t e e n o r eighteen years r old x n s tha: if they wasn't hack i l y a eel-tairi time when they went o u t night, I'd cmrie aftrr-rkem:-;+nd-1dfd:Rnr thry usuiilly m a r c h e d i n . J p till the)- were sixterri. tliey had to.l,e b~ 1,)- g : j o , and not later either. I guess I \+-asa little too strict o n them.. I always tried to be kind to them, and underc t a r i d i n ~l, ~ u tI liad certain hours for them ro s e t in. -'Now 'I didll't force things on them like religion, though.] My parents didn't f o k r ir on us to s o to church, hut they took us to church. I know we never missed chu~,<.h, liur we went willinglS~ltecause we liked to go 'with t h r m . I cto11't think anything should be forced on an -they -will xet rired- af -it-and relieT igainst i i . TVhe~i children, we took them to c h u k t ~and ihey never rel)elled against it. They never said ;tnytl~inya g k i ~ ~ it. s t Ru{ I didn't push it on them. They just naturally ~ve11t. H . R I I ' : I do11 t think that 11's n yood idea to force a kid or a man or a \roni:i~ito do certain things. I n fact, we had one college teacher over here t11nt espressed it to rne once in a way that suited m e : if a [student] is not j
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interested enough in absolutely pleases. 1 him. I st21 feel like he did. Alid I doli't hi11 the main thing that caused them to leave the old country 011 ; m o u n t of they. could he free here. Now we have a tendency-you and 1.-and her and all o f us-to feel the church you belong to, that's all the church there is. \4'e have .a tcndqncy-to feel that '%ray, but it's the wrong idea. Let me tell you something that is really funny to:. me now. My daddy and mammy\were Democrats and Baptists. They raised me with the idea that nobody went to eaven but a Democrat or a Baptist. That's how strong I was raised: 'But now I'm a and she is a ,Methodist. Now when I got up a n d g o t out in the \
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CHAKLIE ROSS HARTLEY tod;iy and tomorrow a Republican, and I don't believe in beifig a Method-. ist tod:~! and r o ~ ~ ~ o r ~a- Baptist. o\v But I ' n l a Methodist now-and-I'm xve sr;iyed th&c. If the t i ~ n ewas to ever c o ~ n eto go to forcing us like b I rl~inic1ve.d have a rcgular war right between us. 1 don't believein forcing ~ O Ia - nythi~~~. * 2: [.\nd t11:ic'i the w:iy wc raiscd our children. Now we've criticized the ynuu,q p e q ~~l ~d a son~e. y ~. 'l~lGrtleirtgatlout it; though, and ,about-in you all Ila\.e to tical with!, 1 just don't know but what the younger generation is doing ;I pretty good joh of it. \Ye have a lot of jack-leg preachers that get up-\\.hat I illcan 11\ jack-leg is ones that's just about ready to start out. They'\.e got to criticizing that all the kids are going to the how-wows and rhev'1.e goi~igto the devil and,all such stuff as that. Now according to the niimlxr 'of \)ad ones] we had when I was. a boy> you could almost pick out thr \ ~ u r s si ; i i ~ grof ~ O U I I S people] we've sot now and ir would be a credit to us clder ones. 1.d ;kist like to see it keep onlike it is and keep getting a little -
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ETT.4:. I think the young people are fine now. I think they're more sincere. ----l'har'c what I rhirik almut ii.~
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C H - I R L I E : That's what I feel ahout it. 'Course, everyone has their faults. ;\\'hen I was out working around], one man had his faults and it. would' , .T-z---_ _ & 4 , a e a 1 1 X L e r nlan h a d h i s T Z i i c a l l y all people has got a t c a b overcome their faults. I fault. I've got one. You've got one. ~ u people think E t t i will agreewith nlr in that I've done away with a lot of my faults. +. I've al~vaysbeen a high-strung fellow, and the truth is, in the comtnunity \\-as I-aised in, that rliade a difference: 'l'hey was always hard on us. Whenever they got too tough with me, I Could back-cussjust as big as they could. I'd go sight I~ackon it. That's the faults I had. I sort of broke myself of that. 1VP.I days had 'a great deal to do with it. But these hig construction jobs that I had to go o n ( 1 say I had to go-on them. I reckon I did. I had to go some\vheres to get a job.) I learned's great dtal there. I learned that if you had a lot of men, more than ygu had jobs for, kekp them moving, just keep then1 moving arouild, and there was no fuss about it. I don't ' . on tile defense jobs,I never fired a man. I had the authority to rememl~rr . part of the time when I was a foreman, but I never fired a man on all them hip ,, iolx when I had hundreds of nien scattered over the area: I was on the defei~sej o l ~out i n t h e open for four years and then I went into the factory. I got along ~vithall~. of ,. them and mostly quit the cussing. [Etta] I think will a.gree xvith nle-a lot of the faults that I had when I was young are not ,
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there now; maybe some new ones though. I t might be somethink worse.~;I -dOALt think there
El-IA: Like ~ r i yg~-;~nddauihter said the other night. She-thought an acqi~aintancdofours frlt that the other side had all the faults and they stuck out like ;$ sore thu~nlr,I,ut that person has faults that were just as bad, o r . \\-orse, but they didn't see them. n e y see them in the other person. You Ira!.? to rialize your faults before >-oucan get rid of them. ~
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E.I'TL%:In other words, going to the do,qs. CHARLIE: I heared that when I wasn't six years old. ,4nd \,ou still hear it
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would hire you somebody to go out here and burn your house doivn; go out here and shoot you. .. Enough money, I mean. So moriky is the foot of all evil and yet we've got to have it. C:an't live without it. Now I lived for years with ordersfor the store and go and buy stuff with orders, but suppose when taxes paying come, then you had t o have money. I 'can remem1,er when the old people were so ha;d up-such a little money -no\\, not [onlyj my daddy,'"^'^ atalking about all the pebp~e.They were so hard u p l o r a little money that. they would even save the pennies. Put them back in a certain-place to pay taxes with. NOW that's how scarce and liow hard money was. I said folks my father's age, but also for a while after
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store (there's nol~odytakes them anymore) at that time, they was always cheated and [the storeownerj took enough off of it where you was hurt. In other words, if you took an order to the stbre for a dollar, you got about ucventy-fi~eor eixhty cents in ~qoods for that order. If you go in with a dollar in monry, they la" the stuff out and iou could say, "Well, I ain't ggnna give you that much. 1'1-e got the money to pay for it." They couldn't stick
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)ou the11 because you had the money in your pocket and you could do like the little h o ~ told his mother, "Do as you -damn please then. ETTA: Il'ell, when we lived on a farm, we raised everything and he worked away. I raised chickens and had a-cow, sonletirlles t w o cows, and h o g and things like. that. \\'e raised practical1 everything we ate. we^ raised chickens and I had enough eggs t o ~ ~ l l a a~lotb ofu grcceries ~ with. 'That's the way we lived over there kluring'the Depression. We were some of the on1)- people that didn't go on relief on account of (well, there wereseveral iri our neighborhood thafdidn't) I sold enough eggs and butter to buy a big part of our groceries and then I raised a largegarden and done all our canning and we had chickens to kill and sell. if w e needed to. I . raised chictens to sell, so-we made a pretty good living on the farm over there even if 'ilkwas alittle rough farming. M'e raised crops. H a d corn and . things like that. Of course, we had to buy flour and sugar and co ee and all our groceries with the moirey we got from eggs and chickens. Aft the children got older, they helped me with the work. They would go to school, and then come home and help me. CHARLIE: They'd come home flom school and^ usually they'd hLGe to have a snack; the kids were always starving to death- when they'd come home from schooi. Get a little knack and then they'd have to get ou,:; and .;,. help mother work, Some of them would feed the chickens and some the hogs.
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ETTA: I'd usually do the milking. CH-ARLIE: She was usually home with the $ids and I was off somewheres, especiall) after I lost my leg I was u p somewhere where I could get a money job and she was at home.being the boss. She made it a rule and I don't suppose that she ever refnsed them a snack when they come home. Then they got out and worked a little unless something- else happened. ETTA: They helped in the garden, and if the school work was finished, they helped with the can.ning. We canned six to eight hundred cans, sometimes quarters and sometimes half gallo*, of food. It took all that food for four children going to school. It hkd to d o all wfnter till it come spring and garden time again.-l-enjoyed it and I sometimes think that was the best living. I was well enough to work and I didn't have to,buv everything like we do now. ~. . C H A R L I E : Now you see a lot of divorces. rYell, I don't like it. It's hard to explain. I think that in some cases probably it's all right, but the average I think that o n each side they should come to an understanding about thing< and then they wouldn't he so'many divorces. I'll be honest with you I absolutely hate dkorcing, but we've got two kids that's divorced. But if you can't get along together without trouble, then that's the only thing you can
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do. I :don't believe in it; 1;ut there's a lot of it lieins done. There's a lot of $ivorces and I know of a great many cases ,where therek been harriage and di\-01-ce,and 110th sides aftenvards got along just fine and made a good, ~li:.in'g. So I guess maybe ther&;? little 01' fogeyness there in me.
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I-ouiz.e been married far sixty-six . ' years i~17possible, i l o w liai'e you made it?
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F2'TL\: Remember in this time that it hasn't been all smooth saiijng. O h , there's never been a couple yet that didn't disagree,butyou can work the& . disa~reeil~eiits out. C K l R L I E : iV11at in the devil is the troul>le with these folks when they sc-ti.?e a larr~ii>-arid grandchildren [and thexi part]? TVhatever in the devil' . \vouid he lvroiis with rne .and Etta if we were to divorce today at this old age? If we conld livetog-ether and,raise a family, what's got wrong with us in our old age? 'I'hat's a question I .can't see thiough. Now I. think it'k the n~ostfoolish thing t b h a p p e n . T o think aboutliving together, raising a fam- . . .. ily, after the f;nnilY'.Ggone, then ha\:e to get a divorce a n d s t a r t out hunting another man and another woman, hut we have that happen. I s soland-so a . . I can figure about it. His little crazy or sofiething? That's the only thing mind 111ust have went off, or his woman one. But you can't-no,one person . can run the world. Not &en the President can yun ir by 'himself: Andstill you "can't.put two Presidents in 'cause you can take, where you put tyo' bosses on the same job and look what'll happen. I've even tried'that. Two bo_ssescan't run a job; two bosses can't run.the Presidency. ' b ,
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ETT.4: TWO I>ossescan't run a marriage. CH:ZRLIE; I guess' it's not hardly fair. for" a feuow like me to=maIihe it' e i,e atatvng about it, because I went through all"of it ex- ., ain't fair for n ~ to cept the di\.orce l>usiness. We've never even studfed about a divorce. We've I had a. spat-.a time or two: [Both he and Mrs., Haitley h i g h . ] Quarrcledla little, I)ut I guess, -1 don't believe that we've ever had a quarrel that more than six or ?ight words passed but what one or 'the other cooled apwni I have ne\.er slapped her through madness. She has never slapped me. When we \Gas young, we played together slapping one in,other. B d t s h e said if I was to ever hit her, she'd kill me. [ ~ a u g h t e r ~. . ]And I was crazj. enough to believe her.
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E T T A : You'd have t o )no& me cold and then 'you'd better be outside -. when I come to. C:H:\RLIE: But it has nkver heen a time me and her has felt li& figking: TVe've scolded one another and I douhtif there's anybody that's ever lived sixty-six years together but what's had a few cross words., . il ETT.4 I\-e've talked things over. ,. '. .
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C:H.\KLIE: I I)elieve 1'11 tell you thc worst sp;~t--the worst feel.inlis I've r\-c'r had with her. 'l'lic \\.orst .pi.: ~r v.. ~ : had-cjufeing r the TVPA days. I \\;IS .so ~ni\cr.;il~l.t har-dr~;~. 11ut 1 h ; ~ d xot nlo1rc.v enoilgh ;mtl got ahead 8 ,' c ~ ~ o l t gtill h I 1 ~ ; ;d]le ~ s to l ~ u y;r car. 1 h a d ;L good 39 cai: [ O u r so111 w;ls the
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restless type and' y o u - r a n tell I'nl restles>, even and nie crippled up--I'm nct.er still. [ H c j j~wtal~solutelycould'not I)e still at home.
Il'l'Tb4: l'h;rt^s-o:lr youngest sou.
C:H&+RLIE:P i r t of th-at iirne, I took care of Ltta in thc daytinle a n d xt night he warltcd t h e car to go :rAurtin' or somewheres. W11, I felt like I was toil h:rrtirlp to let him go out a n d I>urn g;t.;, I ~ u the cqnltin't see it thatr sv;ty. \Vcll. out ~ i i o r n i ~ >1 ggot u p atid I said, "Etta, don't let l o u r son] have the car t o n i ~ h tto r u n around a n d l)urn g+s." \Vhrn I conic in, the car was gonc. I said, "Etta. you-lct the hoy take the . . r;\r a11d so off:: , > I just . did'n't have the nerve She said. "C:harlie, . . he begged so pitiful thxt .* o tell hini he couldn't have it:" , [Laughter.j I let myself fly pff fi1.e ol: i. words; ; soita scolding. I n a little hit, I missed E t t a a n d her loth her way there with n ~ e too. , I said to Granny, "%$-heredid Etta ,Tet to?" She says. ''1 don't know. She ~ ~ e ~ i t ~ o udool:. t . ~ It $ielieve ~e she went u p to t h e oid toilct." , ' , I said. "Go u p there ;md tell her t o c o m c t o the house." Like'I couldn't of \\-elit rnyzelf. S h e went u p therk a n d I ~ a c ka n d says, "She won't
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'I'heu I realized: it was ~ n ftime to go: i ~ a u ~ h t e r .I1 walked u p there. She was settin' there arryin' so 11adl.y hurt. And I was just ;rl)out as 11;id ;ts .she ~v;\s;l ~ u It hzidli't kno&ri it. L said, "Uarlin', conic 01; a n d let's go to-the h o m e . ~ o u ' l l ' t a k epneumonia fiver a n d die." She mid,. "1.k h u r t so had, I don't ,qi\'e a dcrn if I d o tirke it an&die." I put my ark!: around her a n d hug,@ her up a n d petted hcr and said, "C;ome on. M'e'll not fuss allout a n old c;rl-. T h e damned old car ain't worth w h a t I'\-e airexly done t d hurt your feelings. C o m e An; letk go to the house." I think that's atlout the worst one we ever h a d . I've never sinck-that , told her not to let t h e I,ov have the-car. ~
-Now that's the w a f I look at it a n d you kids, wh6n \ you get marrirh, you can look a t it that way. A littleol' car-you Fan buy \another car. Rut you \ h u r t your wife's feelings-you'll never get over that. She'll never get over it a n d I'll never Set over it. 'Cause I wak so dirty tq scbld ,her*-I'll always remenil~erthat. Kow we've'scolded oneanother-(me o r t w o words-since, hut we've never h a d t h a t I)ig a scrap. Now you see how4,i?goes? And we're still here together.
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arzci Etta if t h e y zuould. i l h lnny' in tile rnoun-
f i r / o r c i-or~~-i~iciin,y /lie inlcrr'iew, w r aske lniX to us b r i ( > / i11~haul , re:hilf liir.)' .icrw ll'i~ , . / ( I ~ I I . S ,/JI~~~.C:.:. i111d ,711 (111.
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CH.L\RLIL: I can reine~nberwhen Ian ce ts an acre. That's nothing. But on the other h;rnd, what %-a rth? There was four i hundred acres i i ~the old Xloss f ; ~ r n ~ and , it . sold , to o e m;nl for an oldtinley \\'ard rifle and a hound dog. 4 n d he &asi't as hig ;r fool as you might think. H c tiidn't have nothing to dbwith, so he'",;couldn'tlive,.off that land. But he r-oiild take the rifle and dog along ;tnd iill gamc and have stuff to'
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No~v.ol coursc, land is worth money, and yo~i'dhave to pay a'thousand ;I iitrlc lot ;\ro\lnd here. n'ow it's goind lor sunlnler homes?Right up thrrc.,. :I l~rnutifulhill cut out lor- ;L rn;m3.;holile. I h2rtc.d to,sec that hill tore up, I ~ u th:it t m;ln hought it and paid for it a J d the l;iw is you can do as . .ou p1e;rse with it. \\'he11 we moved here, there was three or four homes ., C I-e. h-ow i t s col-ereti up. I I ~ e twe got a million .people where we. had doll;^^.^ fm.
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:\nd ~vc'rethrowin? money away fast 21s we get it. I know where there's a brick housc a 111;rn I~iriltwhere hc &nt l,roke.l,I;irditlg it. I t costitoo much. That home \vent into the h2rnds of the ones that putithe-,money up. Somebody dse i h li\-irig thel-e ow, and they're trying tg sell it for six-t-y thousand dollars. In niv day, I expect I could have I111ilt it for ten-thousand. But now ill1 the stuff. is sn high. Now I wouldn't k~lowho& to fiaure out, a l ~ u i l d --~; i ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ today to. tell you the cost. ;\Ioneycome~~i-;
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1 : I don't approve of these here de\-elopers taking .;I lot of 'these n~o/intain.x;tiid hills and just I,ulldozing them off. I don't ;ipprove,of that. I thi& they.i-c I-uining ;I lot of pl;rces f r o n ~*!hat God intended them to he. ' y o u t;~kcfor irlstance as you go toward Blowing ~ o c k they , h&;vehtill: dozed 'that hill off and that's an uglysight. -Oh, it's ugly: And that was a, lxautiful place. 1 hate to yee these pLaces done that hay. I think it should be left like S;rt!tre intended it to I)e. ,
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~ : H ~ \ R L ~ F,~-erybody E.: fl-om away f r o m here wants a piace in the mount;~insnow. I rorlld just walk out here and stick a little note up for sale and ell [this pl;t~cfma)-l,ethat cia!;: But there's ;t lot of us don't want to- do that. f~lthcrs.\vherrs\.er stuff goes to gettinx up in vaiue, we all get excited. .ith a l~iggerau,yer. Fdt me and Etta, we're not going to d o . t h ; ~ t \\-c . nc\.rr h;i\-c. In place o f boliins for more expensive things, \vc rtiuc.;~tc,dour childrrn. But n s w almost everybody's got to where it's dog cat dog. 'l'hat's the one. troul~lewe h;rvc now. If a man's got a dollaris worth of stuff to seli, he ' bught to sell it for'a dollar instead of asking f i r r l e ' dollars tor it:-Now yciu're
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there on Cove Creek hg the name of Bingham: lad -an old fellolr old-fkhion doctor. He,had a neiihhor woman; ' ~ ' done mornPretty .. *,%
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really becanle interested .inZmaking knivks after I had made one of my . , .4ftel~kompleti~~g it, I sef out for ideas foj;ie.sig~lsby w h g h I could make 0 t h ~ .4fter ~ . going to stoEek and cojiek of some that wereit1:the w!ipdows: I began to w6ndes -theli'werc"&ade before 'modern machine4 and 1,lacksmithing equipment /+ c+sainv~ntcd. ' ~, e . So I-\cent out and &-ed PO find sqme peoik; thkr &ill knew how to . m k e ?. knix-es as the): were made fifty years or mare ago. By qearching, a lotdf lu%, and Wlp fmnl &od fridndi like ~ h & l i eRoss Hartley in Yilai, North car@ ' lina; I ~ O U I Itwo ~ peopfe h h o slillkl~d'ethen, the,old way. .d By inten:ie\ving Troy Danner i n d i ~ e a r aHarmo11, I collected much in:. formation. I n the follawing.int'ervielvs; I will..shbw the different'waysthat tI15lese fwo. inen q a k e kniveb. ' ~ e d r aHartpod, had , an makit~ga kitchen Lnife: H e used sections of tFe phonograph far the blades. Troy Danner, on the oldest methods of all: knife blj&s 3 ' , V * dades: *,. Both w a y of,maki.ng knives were really something YO see, and 1'w;yjil try to, : . . show - o u hoth in this chapter: * * , as
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THE TEDRA HARMON VARIETY
TcdraeHarmon h a s become go6d friend since we int&iewkd,-, him * ?bdut the banjos he makes. Since then, we hay; found t h a t he knows ho;. to make lots bf other things I~esidesbanjos.' When we .fbund out tkat he ~ a k knives, e we jumped at the ch'ance to interview.him again. When we started off that morning, it was pretty- cold. W e weint, by Charlie R o a Hartlel/'s hodse.and picked h i m u p to, go along on thc inter-~ _I i view withus. He_wztnted td go as he'remembered worhng with a man by '
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PLATE 11 He theh \cores it o n each s i d e with an ~ 1 an& , with a sharp tug, snaps it off. .-=*
10 Tedrasplaces a piece of e
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?om a $onograph spring in a , clampiiig. it & a point that allo$vs the properii.fizth for thp knjfe blade.
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e was helping to huild a church for ,?heir communjty, ahd he wanted t o. see if it was the same m a n he had known a longtime < .. agol - , \$'he; Ge drove up into ~ e d r a ' syard, he a n d charlie remembered each ther risht a w a y , a n d t h e y had as good a time
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.Tedra told us thitt he had' made knives sinck he was a kid.' His father ney& ;made ,them. i t was just a skill-that he picked u p on his owh. He started out just using whatever metal he cocld End. If he had to temper it, h e would haat it cherry red and then dunk i t 'into water. -3f. H e has'made k n i v e ~out o f s a w blades ,hefore, and he showed. us a cou$e of hunting, . ' . ,~ \: . knives to prove it. T h e day we were t h e r c how ever,^ he w a s kslnq a long . ~. thin strip. of metal that hc had 'gotten out of an old phonogriph. H e .was ir breaking it inrb-piece%to n ~ a k et'he ),lades for a set'of eight kitchen knives. H e had tkken thppatterI! fqr the knives froin an- old kitchen knife like the ones that were used years and vears ago:
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Nolr, using a ball peen .,~.the steel until the i me is removed aad it lies Kat. . -. ,,cLh
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'PLATE 14 H e again clamps the blade in^-the vice and breaks it off hy striking i t ~ \ i r ha hammer so that it is 'the proper w i d t h . ~
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13 T h e n , using another knife blade as a vatfern, he marks the width of the hl%de'on the net; stock. . ,
PLATE 15 T h e n be files the ragged edge smooth, .
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For handles, he uses blatk walnut IGcause it doesn't split and it looks so od. H e abo told us that he thinl\s.tha~using copper wire to brad the hanles together is better than using rivets becaube it's ea3ier to work, and when it's hammered into thchandle it swells into the woo2 and holds better. He said he had seen a knife.once that was held together ,with wooden pegs, but " . h e hadn't tried that. . TVhen he"mnkes a knife out of a saw hladl&,,he 'cuts the saw blade out ~?i?ha sahe? saw, but when he makes one out of'a cdsscut saw blade, he to do, a n d then shapes .~-~ it :. :_ .~ ---:~ breaks it out with a cold chis . . ~ ~ . . ~ witka-file. <, makes will last a lifetime. . . H e claims that, like tKe old 'fieCphotos and diagrams show 1-0" the nie!hod he used for the kitchen linives he made while we were there. ~
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20 He then placcs the hladr, unched, ovei the handle to mfrk where holes 'must be drilled dle for the rivets..
PLATF, 2 1 ~ f t c ?marking the !handle, the holes are drillrd.
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PLATE 2 2 < y e slides the blade's base into piice in the handle, matches up the holes, pushes pieces of copper ~ r i r e 3 through the holes. and then.,-fl,attens the ends to hind the handle and blade : firmly together.
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PLATE 23 Now he smooths off the rough corners of the handle with a file.
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L A T E 21 Final sat e job. Tradkionally, t ?\-axed. Ther were just left natural, and, through time, kitchen grease soaked in and darkened t h 6 .
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PLATE 25. kni;fe:at the top has a handle m a d e froin a - deer's, foot. The other three hnives shoxv various staxes of construetib~~ of the knife ~ , e. . j' u s tsaw ~ e d r make. a
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THE b5IEMBF RiJO CCMPIEJIO~~ -HARII)~~~
or- TK KNIFE
HOul 7 H j COMPLETED KNIFE
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KNIVES
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Troy Dilnrler is o r of ~ our ~ qewest contacts. Friends in ~ o r t hCarolina told 'us about 11i11i and took us to rncei.hin1 when we got. there. When we arrived at his horn;, he and his wife met us a? thegfront door, I~roughtus inside by thc fire, iild startkd handing out applesand oranges. After a long t \\.as reall\; iiice to relax ~viththem. , ,era1 peopfc told ;s that Mr. Danner used to he the best blkcksmith in L ;art of the country. He used to make just ahout hnything that had to .with blacksmithing.. ~k , finally had to quit, though, because, as he said, just got old and wore outi' H e said that at one time, he could stand for a hole day,slioei~~g horses ;and putting Gagon tires on wheels. Once he shod een horses at his little Shop in one day, "and boy you.could feel the sweat
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-es just about all of his life. Most of them'he makes just to his own designs. Mostly he makes the. blades from utsa~5-san&handkaws. It takes him $bout a day a n d a half to comne, arid the'?&<,time he sold any he sold them for a dollar and a half \ >~ apiece. H e says; "Guess getting cheated, but thkn it's worth a whole lot' to me just to have sohethin\g--to do to pass away the time. Makink knives is jlw a gifigiT.611 to ,p7eP-ISuess."" -.,
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PLATE 30 T r o y makes his large kitchen knivcs from piecc5 of crosscut saw blades. He breaks but a blade-sired chunk of the saw hy striki~lgit a number of, times with a cold chisel a n d hammer. I t takes hours to break it out.
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Here Troy holds a finished
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He trims off some of the es with his hammer and cold
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PLATES 33-34 For punching the holes ,
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P L A I C 35
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?ttP eLll0F WIU DE O F F TLLL ALL THE'
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LMk5 LIKE BEFOeE ,?'IS W O P K E D DOWN TO PITTHE , HRNOLF. RPPR O R H I C R ~ ~ ~
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uiOelrE0 EA5IER.
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H B ~ ~ M E ~~ ETo O HNOLE: WHEN THEV tTOPWtt~c RRE HRM,~E.&DI-J O\A15^5 boV,. aolr , "THEM J P R E ~ DOUT.TVIS
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(?-4USC5 THE H A N D L F 7 0 HbCD FAST 70 THE S ~ E E L .
P J N L ~ USED Z ~ UJITHA
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PwLn 0 PERFRr kP kCE
RND QONCHED LN TktE STEELr
PLATE 37
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At this point, his wife interrupted and said, "I wish you could see all the knivcis he 110s m; de " Then she went illto the kitchen and brought out a ' . . handiul of some of hls knives that s h t uses ill hei- cooking. Thcrc were six or eight different designs, and they were all 1)eautiful. Troy picked one of them up and said, "Kow you can go to the store and 11uy yourself a peeling knife, hut you don't ha\-e anything after you've,k~oughtit. They just don't have the Piietal. But some,of these kuh~eswe've used f6r fifteen and twenty yeam." Troy D a n n e r ~ a sbo1.n on March 29, 1892. H e still feels that helping. a 'C . kriend out is the best thing that a person could ever do. , . .
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THE WILL CAMPBELL VARIETY
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PLATE 39 A hutchcr knile m a d e by Will C a n r p b e l l , ~ v l r odied several years ago. He cut 'the steel usin. a cold chisel and a hanrmrr. If those tools u.er&'t available; he u-ould \\-arm the steel slightly a n d scribe a line o n it. W i t h the steel h a n ~ i n gover the edge of t h e anvil, the line oil the edge, he would h a m m e r along the line until -the excess steei broke off. 1,ike:Troy Danner, h e usually uscd old crosscut salv !Q,lades for his . suppll- of knife blades. ..I %
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WOOD CARVING
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n . the four-hy-eight sheet of plywood that .senres as a desk in m2 Iq5 house, -there sits a , inch-and-a-half-high wooden 'rabbit carved out of poplar by some ttler I ;lever met who scratched his initials, JAM, 'into its base. It's a nderful rabbit; it wasgiven.to me here in the mountains when 1 ' w a very young by a warm, generous waman .na~-&dViolet Winterfield, and it is one., of the very few thi~igsI hade brought 'kbh m e i n t o my adulthobd from t h ~ s eearly days on.Betty's Creck. T h a t rabbit is as appropriate a way as any t d begin a section o n wood .&aning-a craft that has been around foy as long as there have been trees &id hinds to shape them with,Some of the items fashioned in'thc mountains y r .e. made expressly-as &fts. .A coon dog whigtkd by the fire on a winter niiht might find itself in a young son's Christrlias stocking, fdr example. Othrrs carve gilt op colleclor items as a means of making a little extra income: wooden howls, animal figures, mountain characters, or even whole, farmyard scenescomplete with miniature-blrns and farm animals, or manger scenes complete with wise rilen,,and sheep and i)uildings, or mountain. h o m e scenes com$lete with furniture, fireplaces, and pljts andSpans. Such carving was one of the early industries in the Southern Appalachians. Many of the groups have been written about by Allin H. Eaton in Handicl-afts of the Southern Highlands, a tremendous'study originally supported andpu11lished by the uss sell s a g e Foundation in 1937 ,Bnd reissue3 in I 973 by Dover.. o n page I 86 of the Dover edition,' for example, ato on ,writes ahout the work done at the John C . Campt~ellFolk School .in ~rasstown,North Carolina-a 'school still in existence: "The IXL Ilrand of pocketknife, fa-' miliar to many of us of a 6 earlier generation, has never I~eenput to happier u s e than by the farm workers, students,. and neighbors of the John C. Campbell Folk School . . . Mrs. Campbell believed that 'anyone who with hispocketknife could cut a fence raii in two in a short time o r c o v e r a board ; I
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\t'OOD CARVING
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I' interrupting . .
~ u r f a c cwith sharpll- incised mountain hieroglyphics without his'own or anybody clse's conversation might, with practice, put that skill an4:energy to more satisfactory use . . . ( N o w ) no scene about the Folk ~ c h b o l i smore pleisant or characteristic than the young. people resting at ., .~ tinie or around the fireplafe in the eveningwhittling away at their lunch difierefi~figures in all stages from the rough wood to the finished object. A small block from which a mule, a rabbit, a goose, or a rooster is ,being t yhittled fits conveniently and safely in the shirt pocket, and a sharp'knife in another pocket n c d s the free moment when whittling can be r'Gmed." Then,of e o u k , there is the carving &<shapingthat is either totally p p c - " tical (tool handles, spindles for spinning wheels, crow calls, turkey Salk, wo6den door latches and hinges,~triggersforArabbit bhfes), or practical with . decorati\:e~$ouchcs(to$s;- butter-rnol&s-'tha~~le'&f.e af-.ittratlii.e iiestgn iii B , . , pat of buttif: o>namentation in some furniture ;uch as chureh pulpits and fireboards; inlay in gunstocics, scrolls on': the pegheads of a fiddle or dul: cimer, walking sticks where the imprint of a honeysuckle vine hgsbeen taken advantage of to produce a Serpent crawling to&rd t h c h i n d l e ) . ' . , : Beyond that, there are even such;things as religious wall hangings carved in relief out bf t~vo-inch-thickslabshf wood, some fully color& and amazingly detailed. The variety is just astonishing. In this section, we hint a t Some of it, but,a hook twice this'size couldn't show the work LI-all those who work in wood just in our state. There are hundreds and hundreds of such people, 'each taking delight in seeing a recognizable shape . .~ take form through his own hands, a n i e ~ c hcdehriting the fact t h a t h e c a n expfess. his own vigor, individuality, and craftsmarlship in this fashion.?:. '
BEW
CHARLES EARNHARDT, CARVER OF SCENES Charles ~ a r n h a r d whittles t both for a living and for pleasure. He staited ,eleven )-ears ago when a man he-met showed him a few tricks of the art and sonne good tools to use. He l e a r ~ ~ ethe d rest ijy trial and error, and began selling pieces ai,ou't seven years ago: The money goes for a good cause;for . years Charles a'nd his wife have heen trying to buy Ijack the family farm in iYorth,Carolina. Il'hen wc first met him, $!r. Jim Hagan, the industrial arts s, Carolina Hish School, had asked him to visit teacher at ~ i ~ h l a i l dNorth his classes lor a week to teach his students some of the same tricks he had been taughi. The afternoon,that we Gisited C:harles at the high school auditorium, be \\as 5urrounded l)y ,~l,out twenty-five pairs of hands liolding poc Lcthrii~es d11d blo~L5of wood. T h e tools he uses consist of two knives and two smallchisels. The blades of his knives are made from a straight razor and a pair of barber scissors.
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P L A T E 41
PLATE 42 These are Charles' favorite tools-the knife blades a r e made from a straight razor blade and a pair of barber's scissors. ,
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PLATE 43 Charles hplds
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block that he has marked accordi;lg, to his pattern a n d is now roughing out into the figure of a n 018
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(:liarles' in\-oritc wood is whi& pine because it is easily accessible and is easy to work \\-it],. IVhitc pine shobld he set aside and cured for at least,four to five ~ilonths--;t pear is p,referable. , Some d Charles' tarvings ar$ shown on the next pFges. I t took him a lit$Le over-onc" hi~ndredhours to complete the scene with the man and the deer. shop took close to one hundred hours and the kitchen scene about ..~ two huildied hours. ~e (spends five of sis hours o n e a c h figure that he . rGproduc/dsto sell. \l:hen he treates a new figu~;&,&takeslonger. , Some of { h i larger, Inore intricate scenes are'not forsale. T h e dulcimer , maker, for ex::mple: is 6 n e that Charles'wants ,to - keep hihself. T h e other; i~na,lIerfipres; however, Charles makes specific.ally to sell. As the phob-~~~~ . shdw.< =--= he k iincrediblv t a l ~ t e d . -- gri~phs _ _ _ _--.=-
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PL.%TE 14 Many of his works are comical o r satirical in nature. 'He creates a ne\v fiqure or grouping and, 'using it as a pattern. turns out a series for sale. This wife y e i l i n ~to h r r husb&ld thl-oi~yh an car trumpet is onc su'cli example.
PL.4TC 45 , Tbis little hound ,scratching behind his ear is anofher example of the more humorous works Charles pro. duces. ..
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PL.4TES 48-51
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Others of his scenes are one-of-a-kind~breathta1,in&lYexact replicas of scenes from )-ears ago. Here, for example, is a n d r l y living roomrdining room ciryed out scene c o ~ n p l e t eto the tiniest pair of srissors and child's.rocking horte-all of !rood. I n this scene, the sideboard is 1 0 % ~ ~ tall, the long tahle is r o w Ions,, a n d . the chair is 5" high. . ,*'. A
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52-55 A n o t h e r k e n e shows a 6 oyd v n ia). his. rnpd%fain dulcimer shop. Even t h i ~ i n ) 'sax< blade, spittoqn, peghjfor thc dulcimer strinis, +nd, the knobs 06 the dralvers are painstakingly carved out b f f i n y slivk~i!ind.kbcks of 4.". wood.
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.DOUG SHEPPARD, BIRD CARVER -
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agine a place ze'here ver rocks
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brown spots op t h e quail.
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colors are easy to work w i t h , mi,
PL..\TE 58 DougSheppard's studio in ~ r a n k l i n ;North Carolina ,
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PLATE 59
PLATE 60 Doug pailits most of his birds with water colors.
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\\;OOD CARVING
I've been c a i ~ i ni~irda ~ like ;his about five years, but I've been around it ail my life. I carved back there when I was a kid-pick , . up a block of wood and carve sonlething out. And one time, years ago, I carved a bird out and that Ivas a pretty good bird-it was11't b a d at all for shape. I painted it, didn't do a ven. good jol, on painting, but my mother g o t that bird and k e n it. I believe she~sstill got that bird somewhere. I looked a t it not too long ago and I wasn't at all ashamed of it: I., h1)- dad showed me \\.ays to do things wh& I started 'carving. I .really didn't learn much from him, He'd tell me something and 1 wouldn't listen to him. I was dkerniined to do it my way. A wood carver's going to do it their own way-no matter what, everybody's going to he different. \\,'hen I started out I wasn't any good at all, l ~ u they t were good enough to sell. I fcel now like the)- really looked had, but here lately I'm getting into it \vherc I renllychangc somethins every time I came one and paint it. 1 can put something different oil it that makes it look better all the time. I keep learnii~gmore a l ~ o u tit. As small as it is, there's a whole lot to learn, believe it h r not. \Vhen you really get down to carving, you 'can work on this one bird iiqht hcle all da) if you wanted to, if you wanted to study it, keep adding to it.-go right on doivn and cut every feather on it. I haven't had a chance or the time to dothak. A fl-iend n ~ i dT'have just kpenkd .up a shop in Franklin, North Carolina. It is sguatcd near the squarb. There are a lot of people who come through here i n thc summer who ne\:er see stuff like' thk. And the good thing about i.oui shop is that they can see me carving like I'm doing before you, and I I can reall>-sell them. TVc are calling the shop "Cardinal Crafts." Mk are just seIIing our birds mostly. People seem to t h i ~ ~ k ( w cI,c ' l l a success, that this is some6hiag people will want to come see us d o $nd they'll want to buy the bird's. If goes well, well prol>al~ly, keep it open /his winter. I[ I ' m down there at the shop, 1'11 be c a n . i i ~1,irds. ~ I ,c;m sell birds. I hope toikontihue to keep r n y buyeis supplied as well as t se1li:lg in my own shop. If there's anything that's any better in my shop, I'll get n g r e inorley for it hecause I'll be putting more time into it. If my buyers still want m j bird5 and I can make enough for them, I will make them because they've \rented Inc nice. I'll tryto keep my prices the-sqne as they are now. I'll not g p tip sky-high on them. People conie to the door and they think if they come in, they've got to huy sonlethiis%. A I I ~I wouldn't drag them in. I don't care if they do or don't 1 ) ~ ) - something. If they come in and just say that they like it, that's fine with me. l'hry're belcorne to come i11 and stand here and look. To tell me just that my stuff is priced too low [would he okay with m e l , Most people don't rcalize it, l ~ u at lot of ou; stuff is pricdd too cheap. I get
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FOXFIRE 4
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Doux carefully .es .the tvi115 feathers we%'
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mad when they idme in and say that [our prices are] too much. I know that's not true. I got into it with one lady. She came in here and there was a L;rd sitting over there.on the shelf, and she said, "How much is that one?" I said, "Ten dollars." a %he said, "Oh, that's too much !" . . I just said, "Too bad." She came back the m x t day and she was still kind of nipped about it, hut I just told her that that was a good price and she finally did buy it. I d.0 watch the birds when I can, and I feed them through the winter. ~her;'are so many different kinds flying in heie. ~ K e r e ' sa family of Eastern bluebirds nesting out there right now [in a little birdhouse on the fence].' C a n you 'hear those caihirds? And I've seen,'a humminghird twice already. There's a farnil!; of little phoehes nesting over my bandshw in that little workshop out there. , . I've seen some indigo buntings here this year-there's lots of them. Last
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PLATE 65
PLATE 66 T h r k n ~ f eDoug uses for much of h17 u o ~ k
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year I saw cedar waxwings and rose-breasted grosbeaks; I'd never seen a rosejhreasted grosbeak before in my life. 1'f.e gor a good pair of binoculars and I have several godd books on bird identification and use themfor reference and as models sometimes for my carvings. I'$ starting to really understand pain; now. I understand how to mix the colors and the l1'lending and what yoe've got to do to make it look good.: I don't know about distance and dimensions. I've had no art training whatsoever,other than what I've just taught myself. It's starting to come tb mediff$nt sh;idings and paints and how to carve the feathers. There's proba. .art that I don't know. I'm thinking ahoutgoing to bly a: lot of terms in ~i'estkrnCarolina ~ n i v e r s i t )this fall and takins a year of art. I'm not interestedkn the credit. I just want to go there and learn. want'to be able t o talk to eople about the hirds when they come into my shop. I'll have a litt E 3 n u W l e d g e of art to be able to discuss the birds' featurges with the GUS*. . .tomers. I mount.m)- hirds on driftwood, hecause it's allout tQe hest thing you could find. You could go in the w o o d i n d cut off' stuibps and thingspretty stuff 1 auess, hut you can find driftwood at ~ b n t a + that's the prettiest .tuff you ever looked. at. A person could pick up enobg11 driftwood to , ~., make a l i v i n ~al-ound these lakes ;rnd sell it. In fact, there!s.people coming . in here and wariting to I~uyit. I'm going to start upping my prices if I'm gonna take time to'find real select pieces of driftwood and carve a hawk, and spend, three o r four days on
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one piece c>i jvork. But th;it's thc only reason I'll u p III! prices, l~ecauseI'd 11;ive so nlr~c-hiirto it. T h a t is, if I c;rn find the tirnc ;itrd I'm g c ~ i nto~ take I tiinc. 1 8oii.t c;irc if people are w a i t i l ~f ~ o i m e ;o carvc one l)ird a t ;r timc. I ' m just going to takc time and do that 'cause. I'\-c got to. I want tr: c;inc orle to where it's like a real hird of some Ititid ant1 11ejust as good as these [fa1-i1oi1~j wildlife artists. Thev'rc'rc;il . good. Thcv paint c v t r ) hair or every feather on then^. I want to do work likr that, arrd 1 l)elirve I i a n if 1. can find titnd. 1 k11.o~it can l ~ cdone' I>ecause I've seen itout of l)ass\vood, too. This guy in Asheville car\:es thcnr. H e does it for. a h o l ~ l ~nilci y he q e t ninety doilars fol- one little llird anci I do it for a living. Rut I'd sort;^ like to do it like he does- t a k e my timc and really, detail one ;111d c-ar\e every feather on it. I've practiced that ;rilti I'v<str~dirdthat ;ind r I ('nli TO?~ n o \ ~ or . thim = ~ I T - T c W d o = l IIIIC work. H a \ , i n s freetiom is my idea of being rich. .I man spe'i~dseight)--thousand' ollars on thc interior of a buildin? and hr krrps going on 'and oil, a n d 1 on't undel.stalid that: I mean, why have all thAt niolieylJ What. are you oirlg to do with it? You coulti get \VII;I; you \r;mt ; h d t h e n quit. Being 'ch, to mc, icriiot hiving to work ;~rldgetting to slccp late e<.ery ~nornillg -. 2nd not hziving any hills and ]lot o\\.i~lg;inyl~oily;~n!;thi~rg ; ~ n dh;~vinfi,yor~r "
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r e l y irltcrestcd ill rnrjiing .. lots of nior~cy.I do \v;ilrt cliough to 1311)- lilt :i little piece of land l,acc in the woods, ~nzryl)cl,ac.king.up to sotne' ilatiott;il f o r c t l;i~tds o ~ i l c \ v h c r c , ~ ~ d M d i ~ ~ ~ . a ~ ~de;~ ~ ~ c _ _ t h e o ~ ~ scsilled in T h r Fo.xjire llook. I hiid ;il\rays \vot~diredhow ; I housc like that \r;r* I)uilt, iild then that i)ool; c-;lrnc out with thc pl;rirs in it: I coultl have fi,cr~scdit out prol~;+l)l!;,1)ut this wZ;r: I know \;hilt lo do ; ~ I I ( I 1.111 goiilg to I~uildnic a hnrlsc like that somrtl;r)-. [ I want ;i calrin I)rlilt/ 0111 of logs. I'm g o i l ~ gto I ~ r ~ i one l d orlc of these d;r).~sif I ever get. ;i pl;rcc to I1uild it. ould ji~stsita n d c;uvc, hecausc I hope to really grt l)cttw ;lrrtl . licttel-. \<,here nl\- birds look rezil. I have ; I dream of l ) c c o n i i ~ ~:;gI lat-rious I
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LIGON, FOLK ARTIST
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Olie (103. out o/ thc cdcnr hltce sky, ,Z,tr. C. P. 12i,qo~io j 7'ocioa b ~ o i ~ ~ l i t ,
i i o h h ~ .1.1.~ d ~ r ~into i ' ~.his b a c k ~ ~ n n d r ~ mw - b~ g f~c / ~ ~ ~ ~ / y tlic rizhi f11c~i..I f i s gcr~iigearril rho/^ clrcci ruera /il/ctf !r:itli logs, sturt~ps,a n d sticks of nil s/!nprs anil siie.~.7'iieri: zelei-e col-r~erl'/~gures .resemlilii~,qt o t e m 1 /~(i!cs,/~cihiiii.r, o scz,en-foot-[(dl f ~ i i n h o c iCrnrii, ( I srrinll penguin-'11 kinds o/ /i, j ~ f ,tiic i i ! F E / ~ I I Sflrlil , lie J O O I I /!ail picked u p n hntciiet, n hanrlsaw, n +7r!m-mr~/trim~n5z@tsnlidsfiiWTzii on a /ji?i.e o/ ze!oorl. ,YOOIL n rou,qh /iguri, rmt.,~gcd arid hc was -hooker/. h'ozet n steacl, strearn of one-of-a-kind --
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PI,.\TE 67 Mr. L i ~ o nin thr: p a r k i i ~ , ~ lot of the Rahun Gap-Nacoochrc Schrnol w i t h ' t \ r < , of thc f i ~ u r e s h r hroueht along to shnrc with olir s r i l - . dr:nrs.
PLATE 68 T h e totem pole stand&g in plkrr a t thr Carripfirr Girls' C h i p in 'Tocro;~. H o ~ h sides of thc pole art, covcred ~ v i t hc;lrvine;s.
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. ccrzes f r o m his shop -
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figures created o u f of wood he has picked . ,,.,- ., -.~--/.* szari-otcndinq zz,aoris and knots and odd-shaped cht~n.k.7f ~ e o p l cLizue giuen t o hi&. T h a t day he s h o i e d us solne cypress knots h e was going t o m a k e something out of euentually. T h e carzjings he makes^-are nezrer s a n d e d ~ d o w ~ nH. e c1oesi~'t bejieae .... i n going t o all that trouble. All the lhir~gscarved b y him' he deso-ibes as, " j u n k for the school children." H e feels they enjoy his rough 'cuork more than things that are finished and can't "be touched and played with." 112 line wi!h his detire to m a k e things for kids, he refuses to ever sell a piece his work. I t is made e.kclusiuely fob donation to, or display by, local groups that work with young people. Cotlectors are sent away empty-handed. I felt as tkough w e had been l o a w o n d e ~ f u la n d peaceful plnce. Kobody wanted to leave. :We were n o w beginning to understand w h y Mr. Ligon carzies the things h e does and wants n o 'money for t h e m : H e likes what he's doing and he loves kids-money can't b u y those things. L
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Article b y Sid Jones. Interviews and photographs by. Sid, A1 Oakes, * R o b e r t M c L a n a h a n , Melissa ~ c b e e and , Alison Rutherfoqd.
. T h e first thing I carved after I quit work was an old ' ~ n d i a n . , cuidown ;~ spme apple trees out there, and& said, "I'm goir~glo make me an Indian. , o u t of this thing." I got my power'saw and cut them 'grooves out in his h i d , . Took a l i t t ~ e o l d . h a n i a W ) ~sawed d around- he c h b , ~ t h eears, a n d everything. It just come natural. P o j'ou know what's the matter with people today? They don't use the t'aleni; they've got. A d lots of 'them don't have the time to. Just like I was; I wanted .to educate my children. I never took a vacation until it was &nost t;l& that ?+uit I quit work at , , , sixty-seven. I think kids ought to get involved, with things like this early. 1 was work-, ing on that totern pol.e..I.pkt up. at the' Campfire Girls' Camp in Toccoa; and one of my grandsons said, "That justdon't look right to me." . ,... And I said, "Well, just go ahead and finish it like you want it." That was' Walter's boy, Matt. So he just finished it off. Then the others c a m e - ~ i r k and Perry and Bryan-and 'they all workkd ,. on it some too. I told them; '!Go to it, boys. You can't make it any rougher than I'm doing." That totem pole'was from a whitepine tree that had been in my yard. I : p l a ~ t e dtha; tree. I got it from down here on Lake Rabun from a fellow. ' W; was up there covering his house. I looked there and saw that little white pine and I dug it up and took it home. I t was"planted before 19jo and was about twenty-fiv.e years old. One day there wasn't+ cloud in the sky, but the wind came up and started blowing awful haid. It was on a.Thursday, and I was fixing to go in the house and , that tree started giving away and .~
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PLATE 69 Mr Ligon replacing the bow in the arms of the Indian that now stands in the cafeter~aof the Stephens County High School e
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fcii o\ e i I ' \ z iiindc a fey\ other lrttle iicc e' o ~ i tof it lxiides the ,pole. I've ;11>tn1tIISLYI i[ L I ) ) r!o\\;. .\lid [he r,l$ic on top of it is rp;rde of o;lk. It camefrom a tree that was olit ig lily y;irci close to the well. I dc(;itied to put that eagle o ~ it, i and I 1i1ade it up ;I: the kronse Lvhile we h:zd .the pole lyingdown. T h e n when they wanted totlike the pole. down to the 1ak.e an< set i t up, they f~roughta h i s truck do\;i - there -T\-itha lift on it. That's ~ z ~ b e it's r e been&.er since. " T h e n I i-i~adean Indian for t h e Stepheri-ingit to me, i'd reniodel i t . Theti you people froci Fo.ufi,e came doivn and 1,rou~htit home for me. I appreciated tllat. 'The11 I ren~odcledit to ~ v h a tit As \\-hen you-saw it the other day in
PL:\TE 70 11f i , ~ u r eof Lester Zfaddov ri'din- on a donkey. T h e donkey holds an appYe i n i t r rnout1i;and rhcrr is a p<.gi n its hack under 1.cstcr \ u lie ran also be lurllrtl I C far? rcjr\\.:ircl. .\% in t l 151.o ~ ~< ~ a ~ ~ c J fi ing<~ ~ r ci-t ] I'l;~tc 1i7, the :II;;IIS , c r ~ t ~ ~ ~to rrt,~l a r i c k
!ir00D CXRT'ING
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the tlininx room at the school. I carried it over there irtd told then1 I was I,rin:i~li: 11ii11lionic. I isked.where we should p i t it, arid the lady over there suggcs!rd that it l)e put in the cafeteria, and that's where it's standing now. The principal over there is a fine man. He's a wdr~dsqulperson..... T h e stu. \.~ -._ dents respect him all right. I also niade a doll housc oncc. h little girl we know had i n older brother die of leukemia. Her moth& asked me, "How ahout building us a doll .. house forihq~rfor her l>irthdayTV I sai.d, "=\ll right. The case like it is, 1'11make it." And I got ii done on * time. ..ill I charged them for was the material that I h i d to I ~ u yto.go in ~hel-e-the walls and the ceilir13. I made a little. bit of furniture to go in there. :\nd I niade little shakes for the roof myself. I worked with.it about a \vcek. I'd go hn~neand think about the next step. It didn't take me 1o11k to rlrake those shiaales. I had a two-inch. chisel. I got some little two-l~y-four ocks irbm the' luml~ercompany. The fellpws over there give them to me. . . done a lot of work for.theni. I took the little chisel and tapped the litfle es' out of rheI,loch. If it's a.good two-!>y-four, T c a n get ahout twentyshingles out ~~.~ of it, b u t I'usuill!: S & ~ ~ l ~eighteen out out of each o n e . he little ch&h I ' m d e and gave toSYbung Harris College had little les o n i t ? too. I gave a little church to Reinhasdt College,too: Those are hot6 littie log l~uildirigs.T h e first curltact I had with Reinhardt was in I 939 when I wrnt u p there a n d covered the girls' dormitory while I y a s in the roofing huuiness. O u r preacher's wife went to Reinhardt, and I tol'd her not tbo l o k ago that I w s g o i n g to make her something for her old alma rnater. Me and the preacher rhok that little church up there. They wkre so' tickled with it up the-re. Thev said, '~1'11tell vou what we're going to do. l\;eTre buildi~iga 111useun1, and that's the first thing that's going in it." You know, that xvas a pretty good send-off. . . I had about'seventeen little children come over / o the house from one of the schools ahout a xt~eel;or iwo ago. They asked if it woul'd be all right to come, They asked me when they got through looking at all the stuff I've i tarved arourid here,. "Can we hive a picnic here in the yard?" . 1 said; "Go right ahead." They got out there and had a big time. They seen that tree house out there that my grandchildre;l play in. They $a);ed '. in there. I have n lo? of fun with the children t h j t way.'It?s great. What-I'm doing it n~ostl!for is to bring it 'I~acklike this, country used to he. Children didn't used to have anything to make anything with. Ng tools. T h e ki$ always made their own things-country ch~ldrendid. w e i d make wheels out of n~ostah).thi~;~. \\:e've had a right smart of little fun with stuff'like that. \ r e like to hunt and fiddle a r o u ~ ~with c l the d o Land ~ have a good time. We reall! did11.t hive toys. T h e first' thing i bought for hqself was a little old * . '
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FOXFIRE q
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PLATE 72 M r Ligon stand~ng beneath his bearded m a n in a top hat T h c fiqure was calved on an inverted trcc trunk
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71 Woman churning T h e arms rotate puIling the churn.dasher up and down.
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kn?fe for a dime wh,en I w n ~a I,oy. I would have liked to carve then, but that knife wouldn't even cut. I just had it just to have a knife. But now that'I'm re~ired,I do all for the school, children, and . thisstuff , try to get them interested in things like this. If I can get one of them to try sollntthing, they'll understand and maybe enjoy it. I don't try to d a k e noth-. ing fancy like it was out of a store-finishgd. I make it rough. A n d they can understand that. If they go to the store and ,get something, it's all dolled up. But this is an incentive for them to do something. Th'ey'll try to do something like this. Something rough like this, they're not afraid to do it. paint" . ing's the same way. I've work& with all t h r e ~ ' ~ r a m r n aschools r in Stephens County, and two in Habersham County so far. I do. them just like I done youLal&:I come driving u p and say, "This is what I've got." , ' Like the pthei day. ,I went up to a little ichool up there in Habersham Count? back in the country there: They never had had anything much. I
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. ve up there,and I asked ~. for the principal. He..told me to walk on in his hat I had. "Would you like to see what I brought?" 1 e said, "Are you going to charge me anything for them?" don't have to pay me nothing to See the stuff. I'm rnak. . . f them. Not to make money." We drove around behind the building there and they took it right on in, d he said, "MTe're goin@to-have 'a break in k n mifiutes. we'll let ill the .
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hey brought the &st grade in right on ui, to ;he sixth grade, and when v all got through, they brought the little fellows back in which I ap.p~eciated. That did me a lot of good for the little fellows to see it. They had one kid thkre who had tusit down. He didn't seem to feel so good I had the little covered wagon with me, and he'got down there and
our irip rrr~!itIy, my sratldd;lughtrrs out thr1.c' werr o looking tll~.ough this sc.r;~pi,ool,of pic~ul-esI ' v i got . a ~ j dclippings andstories t h ; ~ t1l;lde I ~ e e nwrit-
h i ~ i jmrt ~ s likr 11c wan'ttcd them. I lr;rl.lleti n lot. I titd11't yet to go to s r h ~ o l , t ~ Irarued I ;I whole lot of w i ~ n tI ~ i e e d ~t di know: I didn:t really have n
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such, wr fearurrd him irl Tlrc Eor/irp Hook. One :rsprct: of his life that wc
pleased 1.~11 ~riorniousl\.
,Y L
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P L A T E 76, Lon's granddaughter watches as he works.
PLATE 75 'Two holes are ,. drilled into the top of eaclJ rocker. a n d the rockers are
PLATE 77 Lon Richard Page his chairs.
and Foxfire's with 'Three of -
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'i\~iilianlflo&s Tvas ll'orn and raised it1 Copper Hill, Tennessee. He-now li\.cs \vith his wife and three childrennin College Park, ~ e o r g i a ,outside Atlanta, whcrs he works the day sllift on. the assembly line at the Ford Alotor (:ompany. In his spare time, he cart'es in wood, and, most.recentIy, in marble. For his woodwork, he says, "I use hand tools: pocket knives, c?r.' 1. penters' chsels, hantmers, mallets-a little bit of everythinga'ccording to \Jades and things I use; You know, yorr can't* hardly 1n1y t h r m . I ha<el~:oodworkuntil allout ten yc$& ago. first I$, thing I ever did, E-w:ts just playit~g'around.I just 11iainl)-wantcd.to:see if I could d o it." 1 T h e most arnbitio<s works he doe. are large religiops scenes which he carves in relief out of solid hlo&s of wood, the figdes in almogt tthree'. quartel- round, and colors with paints and stains of vai.tous shades and mix- . tures. Occasionally, he sells a piece, and buys more,materials to'work with. / His wife. Cathy, for example, is a mechallic at Curley's Speed Shop-a &arage in College Park that 110th fixes-private a u t d r n o b j and spo~lsorsdirt track sacers; the owner saw some of. Flowers' work and purctiased both a crucifixion and a Garden of Gethsernane. ,' hlthough pictures of se~reralof his piece4 follow, he has also carved many things thar we don't have pictures of. "I made a tonlahawk for my.'-nextdoor neighbor. I gave it .to him. Itls a great hig old piece of a hedge hush I got there beside where I live. I cut it down and carved a snake around it with its modth open;and I did some hand paintingon the snake and split a big rock, and split the stick hnd drove my rock down in it and bound it with leather. I t looks pretty good." .. \\-e> however,.do hav; a photograph ofxwork he's doing in his latest passion: tnarhle. If anything, he enjoys working in it even more tfian in wood as he feels he can get more lifelike figurts. Recently, for example, he c'a~iied the Garden of Gethsemane in four-inch-thick slab of marble ahd placed it on his father's grave. H e hammered it out at home,,working on top of a chest freezer they have on the. porch. His next project is so large he's going^ to have to do it away, from-home, however, at the Co.dart,Monument Shop just o"tside Coll'ege ~ark.,ht'ssubject? A life-size crucifixion in full round &%ed out or one solid piece of A l a l ~ a p amarble. "Can't afford to make much misrakes with a piece of rock like that," helaughs. If he could estal~lishhis work endugh to make a living, he would, "Come '
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A T E 78 'ilrilliam Florvets with his fe, Cathf, a n d his three sons,"5ennie, dy, and Billy, after one. of their freent ca,mpiiig trips to our mountains. I
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PLATE 79 This crucifixion & one of four Flowers has carved. I t measures decp. I t is carved out of white poplar, and colored with acrylic paints and wood .!ytains. He made up the desifn for this piece himself. 2 6 % " ~ 3 2 % " ~1%''
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PL'ATE 80 This Garden of Gethsemane scene is c a r v e d out of hard rnzplp a n d mpaGres 26%"x3i%"x I%! d e e p l - I t w a s copied f r o m a painting by the German. artist, Heinrich Hoffman. I t is colored with acrylic paints. and \vuod.stains, and is the second one he has caqved.
inf finished Garden of ~ e t h s e m a n e lhat Flowers is doing iq L> solid marble.
PLATE 81 An
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up in the mauntnins somewhere hlld set
11p a cawing shop and at1 antique -shop, all c6p:hiilrd with natural thilizs,:' His love for the mountains is demonstr-ated partly 1,): the frequent ca~npingtripshe makes to our coullty with 1iisf;rmily. jI t was 01; one of thesc trips that he tnct Buck C:;~wei.,olre of o,ur favorite !
iontacts.
\<$lointroduced
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i l l - t i d e n$lii photos b y Il'el~dy C u y a u x , Sharon Pope, :fuel and jQhn Pope. Piiotos o f the reJi,qiou.r reliefs &re contributed b y ~ & aWadsw o r t h oj the Georgia ~ o u n c ;,for ' ~ the Arts and I-lurnanities. t I . . ., . ,
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82 F l o ~ r e r s has only cirved * . one L a s t ' S u p p r r out of wood, and he,.'. d got the .dcsig-n for it Prom t h e ~ " h d , Rook Encvclopcdia. I t is rasvrd out of . . white poplar and meas$res 44%"~ 295"xg" d e ~ p .I t is bolored in the , same inanrler as ,t.k . i h ~, r. ? "with-the addition pf pokcherfy j ice for the deep reds. ,' ,,
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P L A T E 83 This frog was carvcd out of ash, and won ,a jury credic,.at the 'Atlanta Artist's Club. T h e award enti-. tlcs the artist to leave his \vork a t thc Club for thirty d a y to he vie~ved by prospective huycrs.
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PL.4TE 85 This relief' scene carved into a discarded chair seat.
PLATE 8 6 . Flowers has carved many xunYtocks fo? collectors and enthusiasts. This is one he is especially proud of.
was
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alie a 3 6 You see, I shake that tree; and'it'il shake this way and '11 come over this way, hut it ~von't".goback 'that way because of this big m a l n X o t here. I \ ' e l l , a r e e widh one big root, it:ll never support a good tree- [but it will.aqke a g o o d cane].'Ifthe tree shaqes the same on all sides, ! ' t h a t s h ~ w s , ~ o has ~ - i .a t good l~urlchof brace roots, so I doh't cut it-let it .. make a good tree." . Trees were important t o ' ~ i c kHarrison. H e was a fiuntain of information on wood and things that could be made from trays), walking make splits, shingles, a x harldles, wooden howls sticks, woqden planes, and stools. Making things wit had always '>en part,of his life. He was born more thaneighty..? , ~,& . i ,
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shingles put or1 w k h nails handmade hy a blacksmith. Mr. Harrison told us
H e called this "appaloosa."
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ure'of onr-third spirits of turpentine, and two-thirds boiled linseed oiL; He
owners had to have sorncthing for medicine. "They had what the). calledsa scarifying knife. I t w8s a little 'hilty machine. There's a thing up there on the tool. rack that relninds h e of it. They had-eight little blades'in there in a section'with the blades about a quarter
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I i ~ uput it d'iwn on a. fellow's shoulder where you'd want to scarify him, ?'~, and trip that tl.isser, and those eight little hlddes would come down there so s i t the l~loodand &ake him bleed. They used to think bleed;% was the 'iilsiver to all ills. M y daddy h i d scars u& 00 his. shoulders; I've seen them many times.. ,~ "1.v: h a d a - l e t of $eople quote b e . My0preacher . qubted me from the ne time: I had,carried him in t h e woods to get some sticks: I'd get p jandj it looked like a buncliof roots to him; and I'd say, 'That's a e to halye a good handle.' He talked about me seeing the-potentiality* thing. IVoodwork is wEen yot~see something, i n d see"what you can. ~~. o f it, and have enough imagination to see h ~ w it will look before ,
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Take those stools there; every piece has to fit'individuall,y, and in each e I try to get differin; curves. In fact, I don't feel th6?e's,,aiy.iiraight line.. t deal with straight lihes. he only thing that I can recall. straight is the prisms on crystal rocks like amethyst and things like ?.hat.s the only thing I know of-that$ -. got a few straight lines-everyhing [else] is a curve. You can:l'find two leaves on the ground tha't are lose enough to be exactly alike; they might be simiiar,'but i h e y w o d t be ; identical." * H r also told us horn to malye a woo,d kiln and how to use it rsee Foxfire .3, pages 366-681. We learned~themisfilkes that could be made, the work involved; and the fun. H e left all his tools and work bench to us w&n'he died ahout two years >. a g o . ~ left e howls and&anes not finished, and took a lot of knowledge with . * him. But he also left the friends he had m a d e , a n d some"of the thingshe had learned.. f ._. farinaking- a tray like the ones he made follow. Don't be -. T h e instructions ,afraid to tl.y-he wasn't. Make r i i s ~ ~ k eand s , try again. . Article b ? Don :\{aciVeil, T o m C&rlto.n;: . .. R a y McBride,-Scott McKay, Bez,erly Justzls, a ~ Bit d Carz~er. . .
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Select a good piece of wood at least four or five inches longer ;had );ou want the tray to be. 'hsfr. Harrison uses poplar, maple, cherry, walnut, black gum, or pine-anything that will split easily. Starting with a froe and mallet and ending with wedge and glut (wooden wedge), split the log into two pieces through the heart as shown in Plate 87. Don't use the glut unless ,4, you can see all the w a y ~ r o u g hthe split. cc Xnw the ol'timers, we always used the wooden maul to drive our ,\;edges with. The'wedges were iron, but they aLways.used a wooden maul to di&e 'em with l~ecauseit protected the metal tools we had:" T\'ith a hand axe hew off the inside surface of one of'the halvis.' (See T h e
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PLATE 88
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~ o x j r eHook. "Tools arid Skills," for a description of the maul and glut, ,and the proper way to,hkw a piere of wood.) Thehalf must be hewn so the top and l~ottornwill have parallel surfaces. In Plate 88, Mr. Harrison measures do1r.n 3%*' f r p A t h e t o 6 of the tra.y and marks for the bottom. now that three and three-fourths inches doesn't mean anything except.in this p a r t i c ~ ~ l ablock. r Sometimes it'll be nine or ten inches [when] I'll be ~:orki:1%on a hig block." 1 \I1ith the frqe,'he splits the wood-on the dine marked. It will run out and ill have to l;e finished with an axe. Mr. Harrison says you could also ~!sea planer if $ou wished. Y O L ~might want to tack cleats on the ck and clamp the wood down as shown in Plate 89 to make 'it
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\lr. HarriSon works the top of the block to a u:lif,orm width, then hews e two surfaces. Oncethat is dhne, you are ready' to mark off the pattern or the trap, as shown i; Plate 90. Mr. Harrison does this mostly by feel for the tray will look,: I n this case, the actual tray had to be shortened bes e b i the crack visi:~lein the lower right part of Plate g ~ You . can check r.progress\vith t$is photo a? you mark out%etray. T h e distance beween the # 7 lines isfnot important, hut it must he uniform. line (#I) running the entire length of First, mark a : the hIock.'In I I j/2" wide, so Mr. Harrison came in about 2" and mark a line ( $ 2 ) for the handle of the tray. You you wish the handles to exas they will be worked down.
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If a chip stick to the blade of your adze, stop and take it off. If you don't, .
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the chip might make y ur adze bbunce and ruin the tray or cut you. You must he guided by \ouLf?el in this step,' so work slowly until the bowl is roughed out to the poirit,shown i n Plate 98. Mr. Harrison then.scrapes the boiil with tools he has &de for this'purpose; then sands it. T o make the scrapers, use a piece of steel that will b l d a. temper well, d flare one end. Bend the flared end down at an angle slightly better than scraping + and sanding, put the howl aside " and put an edge on it. After .. to dry for two to three weeks. Now mark - the bottom of the tray in the same way you marked the curvatule of the top. Mr. Harrison says a 10" (length-j bottom was about right I 6" tra). Mark 5" from each side of the short center line, and as much ou want on each side of the long center line. After doing this, turn the over and mark it as shown in Plate 99.T h e areas marked with an " X to be cut out with a saw. These new, outer lines are drawn so they will I
PLATE 99
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r u n ' p a r ~ l i e to l the arc of the tray a s f a r as possible from the intersection of the hdtvl arc and one o j the #8 lines. If these lines do not intersect oneof the.#7 lines and the d i e of the tray a t the same point, draw another line parallel to the # 7 lines from the point where,the slanting outer line intersects the edge, and carry this to the other side of the Howl so that the two new lines have t.he same angle. T h e inner lines are drawn tangent to the howl arc at,its intersection with the first # 7 line. Continue the outer lines , down the edae, to give );ou a. better idea of the shape, and cut the-sections ' out with a handsx'iv. Saw in toward the handle along the anLil'eyou've just marked on the sides of the tray, stopping a.little hefore.you reach the hanof wood. f i t a l o ~ g 4 k~ e dle lines (#a). Then split off these &es I i n ~ ~ p e r p e ~ d i t uto I athe-top r of the tray. You r a n now begin to shape the outsidc of the tray with a chisel. Work the blocks left at the handles down with the chisels until they are about I thick. o n c e the tray is roughly sliaped, wcoat . it with linseeil oil dnd'set it gside to dry. This may take f r o m t w o to six weeks, depending on t h e wcathei and thc ivood;so te
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PLATE 100
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re down from the'.top of handle about I%" and make a h a r k as' I - , Plate 10I . T h e scratch gauge you see shown here, makes this an , sing a rasp, c~lrvethe wood'from the tbp of th; handle to this inue t h l w i d t h lines of,'the handle down the end of t h t block j . u s i d a chisel, form the sides of the handle into these lines. ay want to slope the underside of the handle up as shown in Plate rasp to fii~ish he curves, then sand the handle. 'hgfiiiish for the tray is your choice. Mr. Harrisonused a mixture of linseed oil and turpentine (two parts to one): If you intend to make bread in it, Mr. Harrison recommends that you rub lard or vegetable oil into the ~ o o to d 'noid g111ngthe bread a had taste '
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ALEX h l . 4 ~ ~ WOODEN 1~; BOWL MAKER T,\;e went to see .ilex Martin after a friend informed us that' he made
woodeil douqh trays, spoons, and rolling pins. We found his house a t the end of a ruttc4dirt road far hack in the hills. -4lex was 011 the back porch of his little house workink on one of the trays when.we..a+Ged.~~ . Helives alone, surrounded by a good supply of~woodfor his work. I n his , hard-packed clay yard, we could see large halved logs and wood chips cluttered around.; The porch was filled with the tools he uses. A well stood in the yard acrois from the porch, and in back of the house we could see his corn patch and his beehives. There was even a combination sawmill/grist.mill run by an abandoned six-cylinder Chevrolet motor. .41kx, is an interesting person. He has done many different things during ';is life. H e has operated gristmi&-(one he overhauled during World Waf I1 was so efficient that it could grind a bushel of meal in two and a , h a l f minutes flat j ; he has filed saws, and made knives out ofl~rokensaw blades; ~~
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oiice he c\en !1'1d up mill that he hauled around to make'sorghum for neighbors in :hc fa11 ( h e got a third of the syrup ;is payment). I-Ie has made . ox yokes, aud hc has made ~plit-railfences and strurtg them out..aci-oss . . mo~iiitaiilsitirs. And hr is IiTIl of kno\vledpe of life in t-he '.., rnohtains. He knows, for exams , .., plc, that thr tlrst time to rastmtc a hog i s whcn the signs are in the knees . and goilii do\vli; and th;it to keep rabbits out of-agarden, yqu ban set somegi;ls<;iars 01it ~yiththe lids off. T h e wind i~lowingover'the tops of the jars ' a nlakec a o t l n d thir scar,es then1 off. ,4nd he warns you that the b e s t w a y t o ' V laat is not i,! puttin2 fertilizer 'intd the r a y s wGh the seed, but by putting . . cd in arid covering it and then, putting the fertilizer o n top. T h a t way thrdugh the fertilizer to get at the seeds. He's also f i l l 1 of stories. .-is he worked, he told us man). O n e of his favors \,.as the s t 0 6 of n white mi11 who o w n e d a dog y i t h a short tail, and:an ' a n ~ v h ohad a iong-tailed dog. Thd short-tailed . dog was always butrunthe other, and ane day the Indian asked why hisdog was always being in. T h e \vhite man told him that his dbg's iong tail slowed it down, and off. T h e Indian agreed, so he put the dog's tail on a 11ut too short. 'The Indian, i~;alarm, cried, "Too fast, 7
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thatBwewent to see him, however, %as that we were interested in finding out $ow to make the bread. trays he is famous for (he sells all he ci11 riiake'thrbugh the Georgia Mountain Arts Craft Cooierative in ~al1i:lahFalls, ~ e o r g i a )T. h e wood he usuail; uses is yellow poplar, b u t he also'likes walnut. H e carves the bowls while the wood is still green, and if the 4ood.starts to crack as it dries out (which rarely happens) he-advises painting a coit of linseed oi10.n the bowl.' 'The directions for mfiking one follow. Before ,we left, we all tried our i t , and p.fofitedfin that that is one more thing we now know how to
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PLATE 104 Alex does much of hlc, work on his back porch and -in- - - - ~ I ltackyard S
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making PLATE 105 W 'hen bowls, 41cx first hilves a block of wood, traces a n .ov a l pattern on the flat surface, an d, with a chain saw, makes a fcw cuts donm into the block to make the hewing go A little faster. Of .course, before chain saws, he ha,d to leave o u t this short cut.
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L A T E 107. Despite his more asual technique (when coma i e d to the n~ethodicalapproach f Dick Harrison), Alex is actually very careful to stay within the oencilrd oval he has marked
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PLATE 108 H e also s h a p e s t h e bowl by using a hammer and chisel as lie begins to get closer and closer 'to the critical points. Here, Roy Dickerson, the author of this chapter, tries his hand at
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PLATE 1W Finally, using the hammer grid chisel, Alex hews out the $(side
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makers as well. We interviewed three of them, and the results of those emiews make u p this chapter. One of the men, Hadey Thomas, turned up in our ow2'11ackyard.
hey was lots of people I used t'play with: Oh, I have'played with Bill ~ a m b Sure : have. ~k an' bill played right put here at th'York HouseL_A_nlthat old man out a t Mountain City-his wife an' me always used t'danceHilliard Taylor. They had a little place built, a little dance hall. It's
of'em didn't helieve'jn it, didn't want t'have no dances, some of'em. It tick-
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did that, so the old folks could set an'.enjoy themselves, so they'd give us another dance. \Vhen they gave usone, we'd git up enough wood t'do'em a i~lotith'l-'two.Haul it in, put it right where they could get it. They'd just clear ever'thing out of the way, an' set those old kerosene lights in the corner, y'kno~,.,so we could-see-seemed like then I could see as good by '. thenr as I can by electric lights now. An' so we'd have the awfullest dance you'ever seen, An' G-e'd dance sometimes away long after midnight. Us , < boys, we'd get busy for them dances, whether Ge yanted to wbrk o,r not. K e ' d all go work li!ie..the devil t'g& t'go piay. We'd move everything out of whiche\& room was the biggest. Most times it was the room-used lh'dinin' room. The music makers, they:d git right up in one comer. An' they'd come right around by us, y'see. \lie had t'bow right up in the corner., It qlwa)-s fell rn!- luck t'help make the. music, an' I didn't git t'dance too . nruch th,em days, An' then me an' old Arthur ~oung-we used t'kake. lots".. ic. l\'e'd go t'hotels down-there at Hayesville [North Carolina], big the H e r b e r t d t h ~ yhad some big'uns F Butmjustaround. rn the commuoh.i'we'd have tb~o'r'threea week all th'time. We never missed a;week not ha\-ing dance, Saturday esptxially. An' sometimes two'r'tLree durweek. IVe didn't git no pay for that now; without i t bas'-dell, w3at you'd call a big shot 'how;, he might pitch in fifty c&ts. They'd set a,.hat down if anvi,ddy wanted donate anythiqg. Lots of'cm maybe do;ld put in i ' a nickel, some of'en~a dime,-some of'em didn't put in nothin'. Some days et up a $etty good hatful: Pretty good payday. I have made high au fifteen dollars in a night. Back:in them days, that w v , lots of money.. C \.That'd took me fifteen hard dayst'worli that out, when I had%& there . . - just in a little while. >ie an. rloregce lived on that for a long, long t i p e after we was married. 'If ir hadn't been fo; that, I i6n"t know what &'d 'a'eione. 'You cquldn't Gt . . work then. Back in what' tGey 'called "Hooter Days:: Always said, ''He . come ii? as Presidknt, a .dollar a day an'-a pair of bvei'alls is enoush -hior a workin' man.'? , . wan'ted work, you .4n' that's all they got. An' they's s'qanp couldn't find nobod$3a&~anfmoney.Peopl-e who had money $st set down ., on it'r'somethin'. They didri't circulate it.% all the way we had an? money in hur pockets a'tall was t'go t:them dances a , ~ we'd ' gl't a-fdw nicke1s:r'dollars'r'something. Outside of that, you'd go work.for a man-he'd piy you in corn'r'meat'r'something you could eat. The; could pay-me in :that, but they didn't have np money t'turn' loose. .<., Tl'e had soqe of the awfullest times you ever seen. .And .X;hen we brqke up the dance then, y e stayed, hy gosh, till ever'thing was put back u in tfie * room an' all cleaned up.,Cause see, k was'in a~community-we knowed'em. all an' they all knowed us. T h e women an' men .stayed ., right-around there ,
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till we got ever'thing fixed back in the room like they had it. An' then we'd
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Th'ey knowed what,wasacomin' up. We all knowed what was comin' up, so we all stayed straight. Oh, I do remember the names of some ,of the songs! We h a d that old "cripple' Creek," an' "Free a Little Bird,", an' "Down' th'Road," an'
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the "grapevine twist." Boy, that'd kill you! And the Georgia
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FIDDLE MAKING i
with your partner.
H e run a hardware there in Hayesville. We played the same figgers they do now, hut we done it s'muth better than ;hey do n&, you ough; t'just see th'difference. I'd just like t'have me about.sixteen.'bn the floor like we used to back then when we used t'dance, an' leb you see. ' w e could just play one whole outfit l ~ yourselves, an' just.show,you the difference. We,didn't have no special name for our music, but thepeople didn't want nothin' hut a fiddle an' a banjo. They didn't have n o guitars nor nothin' like that. They said .they could dance as good again with just that. And I'll still argue that with'em. It's a whole lot better-take a man who can p l a ~a banjo an' a fiddle right there, an' yau get out there, an' you can do a good again dancin' as you can with ahese ol' guitars an' these ol' pianers an' things. All that damn noise agoin'-half th'time you can't hear ,your figgen-the man a'callin' the music. You take a fiddle an' a banjo, an' you kin hear ever'thing thar man says. M e an' Florence quit when they started up with all them bands an' things. ,6
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I i I
THE HARLEY THOMAS VARIETY
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'Harley Thomas has been one of our favorite contacts for a.long time.. During the early years of oxf fire, Harley vitally contributed to our issue Bn', log cabin building, as he was one of only two people who could show us how to ndtch the logs. His demonstration included the detailed intricacies of the difficult dovetail notch (see The Foxfire Book, pages ~ 6 ; - ~ ~Harley ) . alsoshowed us how to make a spinning wheel, and his expertise in its COG struction was ,something to see (see Foxfire 2, pages I 94-95). Harley a-greed to show us how to,make a fiddle, but before we relate these instructibns, we would like to tell you a little bit about Harley Thomas. Harley was horn on December 2, 1892, in the Skeener community of Macon County, North Carolina. Except for a period of eight years during
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FOXFIRE q which he li\:ed in Alto, Georgia, Harley has always +ade his home in Jlacon Count);. He married Fan,nie Bradley on ~ e ~ t e m l ) 2g, i 1 9 1 2 . Harley has ;?lade fiddles since the early twenties and $k learned how toa make them by observing "old M7n ~ u r l e y , "who lived in Baldwin, Georgia. Har1e)- has made a total of twelve fiddles during his lifetjme and 'each one was perfectly crafted. H e &rprised us all, however, by saying that he could complete a fiddle from scratch in .one week. H e has his own sawmill and y selects and cuts his wood for his fiddles. He also uses his sawmill to' er wood since he is a skilledwoodworker. Harley makes Lgnll cabielves, ,and other furniture as well as spinning wheels ind:'fiddles. He to niake caskets when there was a demand. 1 Sk\ye;.al older fiddles that Harley h& collected over the years hang in his shop. One he treAsures in particular was given to h i m b y Fate Lonk of the reek corn~nunity. He .clearly rememhers hoit lie obtained this d we thought it only propeb: to-give you Harley's account oLthis h..
"I 1,ought Fate Long's tinll~erup there on his place and mbved.$ sawmill and I hoarded. with him. H e had that fiddle hack there and. he und out I could play a fidd1e:He had me playing the fiddle about every 1 bedtime! I didn't have a fiddle at that time and lhey wan;ted me to play down here at a party, a n d I borrowed his -fiddle. 1-toldhim I wanted to borrow it and $iyit. He said, 'Vou take that fiddle ahd you keep it till I call for it."He died out and never did call for it and I still got -~
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it. His folks just told me to keep it hecause he told me to." ROBBIE MOORE AND RANDALL HARDY
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PLATE !10 Harle) Thomas with one of his fiddles
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PLATE 111 Harley used a homemade plane to shape the top and back of the
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.. P L A T E 1112 T h e patterns used for the fiddle's top and back. T.hese are each hz#e of tiyo pieces of wood 5 / 8 " ~ 1 5 ' ' ~ 4 %that ~ ~ are glued side by side lengthwise 'with Elmer's Glue. ( T h e fiddle is held together only hy glue.) T h e i o p is made of spruce to produce the best sound. All other parts are m a d e of m a p l e ( c u r l y maple is best) except the finger hn'ard, which is yhoriy. T h e diagrams indicate h o w t h e top and hack should be shaped, and the areas to be "dug out."
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'ithf the. plaae, out top and i i ~ e fiddle until @heyare
tee
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114 Harley-moothes the sides wl;th a rattail file.
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PLATE 115 T h e "rib?' or sides o f t h e fiddle are thin strips of maple
1%" wide, a n d a r e soaked i n h o t water until pliable and then placed in wooden forms to harden p l a c e d a t rach end of the,top. in the corrzct shape. Blocks of maple-1%"-high-are to hold, the ribs secure !see P l a t e I s o j
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LA'I'E 110 . Diagrams show dimensions and shape of finger board and dovetaifing of
PLATE 120 Overall
\.iew of completed top. Note bass bar (dark a r r o ~ v )y h i c h is 7" to 8" long and %" square tapered at the ends. Also note pin holding t h e lining, as mentioned in Plate 116.
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P L A T E 121 T h e finger board is made of ebony and stained with hlack ink. Arrow denotes tapered rredge that gives. slight angle to , t h e finger hoard (see Plate r 19 for diagram of finger b o a r d ) .
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FOXFIRE 4
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THE GARRETT ARWOOD VARIETY I ..
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Garrett ~ r w m ' dmakes his fiddles muc$ the same as' Harley Thomas ade those in t h e preceding section. ' . ~ a r r e t t ,as do most mountain fiddle C ib akers, chooses s p & e for the top (soundboard) because of its good'tone quality. The rest di' his instrument is shaped from curly inaple which is ' . selected for its beauty. As soon as the tree is chosen, cut, planed to a thickness, and cured, he begins shaping the top and back u&ng tools and g a u g e he manufactures in his shop. Both the top and back are cut from solid %"'planks, unless wood is scarce arid large enough pieces can't be und, in which case Garrett will join two pieces together side by side with mer's Glue (Plates I 25-31 ) . The effect in sound is no different, and he has made fiddles both ways. The strips that Garrett uses for the sides are cut from curly maple approximately l/1 6" thick, and must be cured for at . least a year. He must h i careful not to cut them against the grain,for the; would most likely split. When properly cured, they are shortened toLthkcorrect length and boiled in water until saturated and thoroughly pliable. Then he presses the wet strips into shape using his homemade forms as illustrated in Plates 133-34. The maple must be left to dry fgr at least twenty-' .-. four hours w-hile in these molds. LTsingsuc tools as a saber saw, rasp, chiskl, and knife, Garrett carves thf nick ahd 011, and rasps the edges smooth (Plates "135-36). Because. . of'; the precision required, he drills the holes for the tuning pegs. all the 'The remainder of the job is, for the most part, assembly. Wirh + pieces laid out, Garrett begins gluing the neck and back together, and'then. concentrates on attaching the dried sides. This must all be'clamped and set ,.: A-.. ,L,V overnight. The lining strips and reinforcing blocks are aaqed bext,
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and everything is sanded to' accommodate the top. When smugly top.is .glued and clamped, as is the finger board (Plates ting of the sound past comes next and must. be handled delicately ( h a t e I 3 9 ) :T h e bridge, tailpjece, and pegs are the, only remaining items t o b k attached hefore the final step of eiiher varnishing or staining (Plate. I ~ O ) . Garrett's fiddles have a tcihe and &ing all their own. He- takes a lot of pride and enjoyment in the instruments he makes, and many a friend and neighbor has enjoyed the spirit of Garrett Arwood's fiddles. s
Photographs by Ken Cronzc.
DOUGCORNELL
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PL.XTE 124 Gariett Aruood, playing his fiddle. A~
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125 The patterns Garrett ures to check the slopes and shapes of the fiddle
PL.?TL l!i;
Hi<srt of homer~ladechisels, many made of old,filcs.
'PL;\?.E
l h c hom&nadc cl;lmps Garrett uses.
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128 Gairett's
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home-
PLATE 129 G a r k t t shapes the inside concave surfaces arid the
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IIr checks the slopes and depths with his patterns.
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Tht back and tyro strips long c u n c s on one side of
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PLATES 133-131
T h e sides are clamped into forms as shown.
L.4TE 1 3 i T h e top is ready to be ued to the hack and sides. Note the locks at either end of the back to which the sides are glued, the double lining, and the triangular support blocks where the sides come together in the
P L A T E 138 T h e neck is 'now glued onto the body of the fiddle.
PLATE 139 Garrett adds the sound post with t h t help of a curved, sharpened wire. H e slips it into the middle of the instrument and wedges the post into place', then pulls ,the wire out.
P L A T E 140 T h e n h e adds the tailFiece, s t r i n q , and bridge.
P L A T E 141 Garrett Arwood shows us the finished fiddle.
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ATE 143
PLATE Clarence o; "ribs."
T h e forms that to shape the sides
THOMAS C ~ P B E L L ,
cradies, fiddles-and just about anything else. Toni still doesn't'use glasses. "I read the Bible without them. rlrld I read
m € a q b e l Y s energy humbles us.
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two of us.hrothers living. T h e rest are dead. I was the firsr born. "\Ye had a l o g house. My daddy built it. He was a pretty good carpen-
ter. He'd builb weatherboard houses and work every speck of the timber
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Families madc it hard. I t was hard living back then. They was no money, 30 jobs,no work, $u see. Qnly just cleariw and building fence and mkkinFcorn and taters and stuff :like that back inthese mountains. : "Mother. wove blankets. Old Bill GTindstaff used to make looms hack bver here where I was-born-Greasy, Creek. [ W e had one he made.] And my grasidrnotheryo\,e cloth to mike pants out of and stuff like that. And. Daddy made shoes; got leather and .made us-shoes. Only got, one pair a them all win-. winter. H e made'em in the fall, you see,-and we had to wear .. ter. If we ~wore'em out, we went barefooted. I've seen a lot of kids barefooted'as~dit as cold as whiz. Go to sciibol thataway. Big he& frosts and they hadn.t sot no shoes. o n e man lived right at us and his children-half of them-never had a shoe to their foot all winter. They'd go outdoors, though, and paddle,around in the snow. And didn't haveino outhouses t11e11. They w&'t even thought of. People just went to the woods: "I remember when they wadn't a speck of la+ oil. Thej- had no lamp oil when I was a I~oy.Not a match. Had to kindle a fire with.a flint. Take one of these flints, and they was a maple that has what you call the 'punk' in it. You take that-flint and your knife and lay this punk down and you [strike the back of the,closed knifP hlade against the flint]till it'll spark, you know. Arid that p{ink'll catch the spark and, then you blow it and keep ablowin' it ~ i i itl flame?, arid then you add slfavings and build you a fire. It'd just spread right out arid burn like whiz;'you know. BIO; it a little and get a blaze and pick it up and put it in a fireplace,~ndput you sorPle shavings on it and first thingyou know you had a fire. I kee'd my daddy a many a'time 9 get down on his knees and kindle a fire when I was a little boy. "[For light] he'd go over here in Limestone Cove and take him a sack and his ax; and he'd hew. out ihese rich:pine knotsTandsplit'em up into splinters. Then he'd light one and stick- it. in the chimney someplace for . . light. "And then another way-Mother would put hog's lard in a pint cup and twist her a piece i f cloth into..a wick and push if doyh in there and. light that wick, and that fire would draw that lard oil right up i n that wick. She'd set that on-ihe tab& and we'd eat breakfast before daylight. " Mother's first 'stove was a number six-step stove.. Then they 'co111e a number seven-a 1)igger one,. you know. It's an iron stove up on four legsa little flat f e l l c r . ' ~ h e ~two ' s caps [ey:s] down here, and then it raises up a little and ;hey's'two-,caps up here. They're a good cook stove. They come in about seventy-five a,Fo. . "Big Charles Hilghes.up here, he got hini one when they,first come in, n know. -4nd he built a fife in it--hid good dry wood-and it got red hot n top! ~ n hi9 d wife <\,as ncmcd ~ i ) f He . said, '?'ill; that stove is going to il ow u p ! Get t i bucket of water tdthrow on it to cool it down.', .\nd h6
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HOAIAS C.L\AZPBELL, PLOW-STOCK MAKER '
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threw that water on there and busted that Stove all to pieces.:I know right whrre the house was. Been in it a many of a time. Big old log house. That was before 1.tz.a~~narried.It ruined his stove. Had to 11uy him another one. "I went to st-hool. H a d ;o walk three mile back up on t \ ck spelling hc~ok.Rut I Never learnt to fig,? 110~ a ~d ~ i r ~al~outarit!~nietic. g But I've learnt someway. Y o i ~can't figger [cheat] me out of ;6thing. I can figger with any of'em.1've got it up here tnppillg head!. IVent to schooLtwo years off and on, but the 'school only 11t three rnocths [a year] during the winter time. H a d to set way back in old. H a d a big old' log house with a big chimney in one end of it. 11von'd get cold, you'd get up and go to the fire and get warm and go.. , and study ymir l6ssom~.It was so cold,you just didn't !earn rpuch, that's all..C:ouldri't. And we didn't have r k tedchers [jack theii to amount to ,~ d
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y dacld! didn't get no leai+;ifnef&r, llut'he to rea;fis~ . . he preached for about forty years..-. *~<' , ' t was hard to make a livini.] T've plowed o?eps a many a :day when Hoccl corn for twenty-five'cents~~a~da)i. '%hat's the biggest thing 3 tilere was [for work] in my youn3Cr idays. And c l e z n g a i ~ dbuilding fence . J -seven and eight rail fences. See, stock'run out at that time in the woods. You had to knee your fields up where you made your coi-il and tatel<,andstuff like that. Had to fence that all up. After they done away with 'that, ad to turn around and fence your stock in [because of the new
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"I had thirty to forty head of hogs in the woods after I married. My mark was a swallow fork in each ear and an underbit in the right. My eighbor hadhis marked the same way except the underbit in the left [see owfire 3, page 85].'$lad them registered% Bakersyille. frer I married, I built some rock culverts over streams for the railroad. I sa;+'milled ior twenty-five years. They wasn't n o mills in this countryl till I was a great big boy. First sawmill that ever come here was right down here in this bottom here. Steam powered. They was lots of women come to where we'd niove into a new section, you know. Why, they'd come and stand there and watch that engine- run a n hour at a time, Three or" four or six of'em. They'd never seen one, yo11 know. ~ h e y ' dget a kick out of' thnr! I Jvorkcd my way up in the mill. I set bldck first,. then I fired [the I sawed. When the steam would get down-we've had to s h l t * d o ~ v nmany n time to l?uilld up steam in the boilers. "\Ye went from Laurel Forks Hampton, Tennessee, to Cane River to : 1,imestonc Coie in the Unaka Mountains for.seven years to Ripshin County lor two years. I cut thirty-two thousa=d feet inthere one day. We never fell under twe~ity-fivethousand feet a day. T h a t was a-regular day's, work.. A I
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run n I,ig saw. Put trvcnty-five ).ears in o n that.
ever done nothing
n1.-.4l,out a month at a rime is the longest I stayed off from'home. I
PI..\TF, 1511 T o n i i w o r k area. icirh axe h a n d l r s and hammer handles in the lore$miind. i
;in& hi!-ko;( for rhe crosspieces arid an? peps (I-ecentlyhe has been tal holts in place of pew to se; how the!, will work?. H? makes the ,Y' e t i l i e n l o p i n s t&g$rfaces 11)- random with his drawknife , . . k plane. T h e n he makes @e:_waining parts and pins itsall tor. I'he false coulrer is always' tii$d$.*~f metal. "You see, he a big stout +." n s that. ~ o useel a ~ i d + . ~ i P pheijt a stone or an)-thing, you'd 6, a\va\,; it can't move." ~reakyot~ foot r our. Tear it rixht .~d.-.n b - ~ F & 4 8 His brother: George. n r e e d . -+ t l" ~ v ..t$ ~ & ~them r e all to piecrs. Have a mule p i n g prert)- perr and hit ;I root -:?.$;,;:g-::, .-L.< " ,. T t ~ eplo\i poinr sees 011 list. conyicti& -- the job. Tom i s consrnntly-tir!kerin@:~itf; the construction to make, it.:a better f .:'- plo\v. 7'11e'~resenr uue of l ~ o l ~ : ; ~ n s t eof a dpegs is one exan~ple."I bork ev.thki that I kno\\, ho\v of&n think allout. [Add] some thin^ new to g;t move, >oil Iilio~i,..\nd T'rll making thcln to lcist. T'hese plows someday in tiriris ;lhiiiicired tIol1;11-s.&hey'llIIC irl tlic ;~iitiqucpl;i(.c~, you know:" 'hoiigh ?'on] tias m;icie them for years ("I inadc ahout every plow stock .. ail ,Pkeon, Roost : . he h;~5nor liecome rich. For years he sold them for three dolL?r. apip:e. Xo\v he gets a littlp more, but prdxthly n o t , what the\'re I\-orrh. He doesn't seem to require much money, though, and so it doesn't seem ro l~otheihiin greatly. Rein5 rooted in-the past, his attitude toward n3o.r riloderi con\.eiiiences is casual at liest. IVhile. y e were visiting, r'ex;implc, one 6f the relatives who \vas there noticed'that his refrigerator s unpluec~ed.She puinred it out to him, s;iying, "If you don't k'eep your ipidaire ?iP c;o!ted i ~ rpi r i ~ v .'rhoniau, it'll dic!" .. "I dori't care if i c doe5 die, tie replied. "I clo~i'tuse i t in the winter L,
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He h;is. liowe~.cr,;l~crli :~I>le to s;~vc.I O ~ I _ Einone!.. "I got a Ixrnk nc'count," tic s a p proudly. ..iyoi sr\.!.ri i!~rrrtlrc.~l 11!~Il;~ss irl thcsc!"
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. One oi die relirives who, was'there heard him, laughed, and then said to , r e:irshot, '.\Veil! He'll have to get us an awJyl ;rice C b i s t n ~ a s .
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iii3 photosmphs ;i~rcldi:~xr;im shroow hoW his prows are put to,
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PL:\TE 15!
Toni shapes-a piece of raw stoek. Note the hirkory "cpring" (see arrow) rhat pulli the head of the clamp 6ack \\.hen the f o e pedal of t h e shaving horse is not *= depr~iicd. b i
P L A T E l5.l T h e plo\v from the side, finished except for the addition o t the plo\v point. . -
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PLATE 155 Here T o m attaches tht* metal plow point to theToot with a,
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P L A T E 157 T o m also fines some repair ynrk. I-Iere, ht! shows l'oln Carlton how he s;ilvagetl a hoe hy rivrting a piece of a n old crosscut s i ~ vblade to the original shank a n d a d d ~ n ga new handle
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WOODEN .,SLEDS~'' :.
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n th"e A p p a l a c h i a ~ i slong I~efore I
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was horn, mountain farmers m a d e sleds -to use where t h e i ~ r ~>'' ~ w ~ ,o the ground, the sleds wouldn't tip over nearly as easily g narrow, they \vould fit through tighter places between Boll Bennett, our school's work supervisor, found one of g away in the woods where someone had abandoned it.' hack to his house and called us over to look at it. o T o m m y Lee Norton a n d Lake Stile: about t h e s l e d i d - t k r = i s i s L - ~ -
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rea of the mou~ltains,the runners for such sleds +vere rsualLy . n1;ade out of sounvood ( a soft wood that often has a c u m e d place in the trunk that makes it ideally shaped),. thestandards out of locust o f hickory, pieces that go across the runners to hold u n d ) dut of oak. ds, h u t they were of basicallf the same he samr niater.ials. O n e type was t h r s l e d that had four- to five-foot standards drilled into the runners I ~ u tno sides or ends. I t was use2 for dragging split-up adid wood, firewood, fence rails, poles, or long strips of t a n hark out of the ~
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-4 second variety h a d lower standards with side pieces nailed to them and n o ends. These were used for dragging heavier loads such a s rocks for a chimney, 'sand, or dirt. Sometimes a sled of this sort was fixed so that ends
igh sideboards and ends a n d was used for hauling lighter loads that would slide easily such as corn, fodder, hay, \vheat, grain, etc. Without the sides and ends, the farmer might leave a trail of corn'behind him. If the sleds were to I,e used in the woods, the- l~encheswere usually ' mcunted high so that the hody of the sled was well off the ground and
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PLATE 161
PLATES '158-161
Perk 1avn d
Conrray Huehes are brothers who run a self?uffir:ient farm in the mountains of North (:arrilina, l'hc) have al\vays usrd " a sled-of the type .l't.dr;r H a r m o n built for ;ttlrl thr:? still f;i\.or it over a .~ us, ., tractor ; I I I ~ wafinri I ~ i ~ i g l iovert turn on land ;AS strt,p ;is'tl~rirsis. I n the photos, they bring ;I lo;ld of hay into their barn.
' . could be pulled bver rocks and -stumps withou; i e a ~ i ~ io8.t g the I5ottom. 'C Slcds uscd in fields, on theother hand, were lower,'their benches cestlng dii-ecdy OII t l ~ t o p of the rp@nerssince there was 110 need to worry about * rocks aiid s t ~ ~ ~ i i p s . 1.11; i r d s would l r p u l p r liorse, inule, or steer by nieans of a pullI I r i i i l e v e e .e runners :it the front. T h e bar would have a cicvis for-a sing!etree, or a hole drilled in it f o a~ c h a i ~ i a rrope. , If the iled \<;is used frequently, the r w., n e r s might have to 11e changed as oftcri a e<:wy'iis or seven inonths. Nesy Ones .; would be cut i n d their sides and top.; h e ~ v noff square, but the l~ottqrilswould .he left rounded as they \could \\-ear do\rn anyivay through S8e. A4sled that wasn't heing used was turned upsitic d6%n so the runners could not soak up ground riloifture and would {;lie the sun .so they would harden. -1kSriled;ii.c:\\'h~~~le.d is newVif it's been well niade,it can sure be ~. a pret1y thine. I can imagine it would be. Stanlev Hicks,-one of the hanjo makers featured iri Fo.x/ire 3, is someone rhar?ve also rzflkedro ahoit sleds. I n his section of the mountai~is,several iT hours to the north of us Ileal- Sugar Grove, North C:aroiiiia, sleds were sometimes haif-soled ( a process desc~ihedlater in this chapter) to keep Irkem from wearing out so quickly. H e descril~esthe sleds he remembers . as follows: "Dad made all of his sleds. And I've made from their farm ,. . inany of a Sne. IVe h a d one we called a log,sled that we logged on, and then we had a rock sled. -4nd then Tce had the one that we hauled our hay aiid corn and stuff like that. T h e rock sled, it was down low on the ground arid solid floored across. The log sled orily had two crosspieces on it-log pieces hack hrre and in the front. .And the other sled; it was slatted the other ~vav. ' ' l l a d c t h e runners out of sourwood mostly. Or, if we couldn't gct sour~vood.\\,? xot ash. Got them where they'd l ~ ecrooked up, and then we'd hew rilein, you know. TVe diiin't half-sole them at the firsr. T h a t wis IaJer. .%nd we hored them to put the standards in and put crosspieces and that. ,'The rock sled would have,.a solid bed on it, and it was built real low down so \vc could roll rocks u p off of the ground on it. And it had sides on it and a front end. Hardly ever had any hack end on it so we could 'All rocks on.from the hack. ".4ndthe uthei sled was made up higher so we could get it over rocks. Sometin~rshalze to take a prize, you know, if it got down too low with a load on it arid sot on a rock, and prize it off, or lay something ~ I I I er it and jx1l1 it off, .'If yoli li(:l~ti'i in thc dry, i t \vonlti [;<st.Then s o r ~ l c t i ~ i wr'd ic finlf-sole ihe111, If tiii. ru111ier t worc I too rnn(li, wv'cl I f - s o them. Rut they'd kiit almut half of t i i v sunlrnrr without half-soli~~g.
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~ l dtake and split , d i t e @ak- ,. we'dhalf-sole thcii~;D' cut n whits oak I?L~& an and put it ox-er the end it,. and then we bent'it down p e s s Bore a hole with a J \ e begin this chap p!ge 6 1-54 Gtd, r34 that is mhst ?oiii*non in hi ~ b r t hC:aroli~~a. Man)- of half-solid to fie\.ent the ru \Ye il-ici~cu~lcludethe c of sleds \vr \yere fortunate enough to find. We. .scFon reallzed, however, that it would I)e impossible to document all the variations, for sleds, it seems, come in as mnliy shapes and sizes as the farmers who made theni: -_ -
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LOY:SMITH n~~~
Tedra Harmon, one of the banjo makers-we ftaturedin Foxfire 3, ;also knows how to make sleds. When Ke found we were interested, he offered, to make us a sled so we could get a series of photographs of the entire process. It turned out to be a longer job than we had counted on, and we had to drive t& several hundred miles between our school and his d home twice l~eforewe finally finished it, hut we made it,' as you can see& * from the folloying photographs. 1.d like to tell you a little bit more about our visit beforc.we get to' the makiIig of the sled. Once while the o7her guys were working on the sled, I took a \v;~lkaround his land arid in his shop. His shop fascinated me. I t is like a small houx witli a heating.sto\pe unkt 'and a kitchen in it. Upstairs were bedrooms. l,ut 1 didn't want to hother something I shouldn't. I later found out he and his ~vifeactually did live there until they built their new house ahout ihundred yards away. A huge deer hide and deer skin cover one of the ~ v a l of l ~ the shop. O n another, he has letters orderins banjos, .as .. \%.ellas I;&.$ saw hladt;, hanjos, and pictures. .Also h e has a rack with deer angle holding up some knives he made, and a hat hooves turned at a with a fox head on it. The fox hat is a dark shade of gold and is thick and fluffy. I found a 110sof groundhoq hides cut in circles ready to put in ixiiijos. All I oilid say while lookins at his furs, hanjos, knives, and things .. 1 . . I 1 I t i : c~~~ I I ~ I. 11acl sorrlc, l i u t not enough to buy all I v d Hc 1:llc.r :old me ;I knife lie niade with the h:rndle made from >L , . tlecr l~oof. ! ~~
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sriid, ,tz H a r m q ~,c&ne b@'and . -. "Ha\:e )-ou ,nll'h ' i $ i a d B ! I ~,..,$e t& her ,no.' ., .% o,n:%.:'*~e little \vhile later she carne .. outside and +id, "'red&, br@i'ern stopped \chat ~ v ci & r e doing kind \vent 'in and bur eyesa$ln~osf.poppedout.. There on the t a b @.v.a s a whole lot of good food. o f t h e food . I , m~. .e i n b e r , we had eggs, sausages, fried chickel;, fresh creases, 13r;con mixed with green Ijeans, hofnem,7dz hiSctiitq h ~ ~ ~ ~ ; c a k e , ' f k s h ~ ~ l n q c o f i - o ~h i~l~k ~, ~~ c o t i ~ and coffee. \I-hile ive were eating,' Mrs. Harmon kept a~ologizingfor not.. llaving-&ough. \\'hen we told her ~. how much.we' liked the creases, she gave us abbut three hundred~s&dsto plant for oursel<es. * : !\'hen 1%-egot through eating, we just talked for a while before going hack to the sled. .T,"dr+ started talki~iga l ~ o u tthe old-timers: "It's unbelievable to know how well the old people dici get-;along [with almost nothingj. Uots of people nl:lSht laugh at thsrn, but thcy wasn't nothing to h u g h at. I'\.e had a lot.~%lk~76i1166~7iii.e 1 ~ ~ U m i n e ~ f i m e ; wi hwbscutm ling oats ~\.itha cradle or mowink .grass with a scythe, and they'd btdnd and lbok nt that and say, '\\ihY, anybody can do that: \lltll, I'd &nd it to them and the)- cou1dn.t do one thing. he{ thought it was easy; b q ~ w h e nthey took ahold, they foung out different. I have a few times thought that I;Could do something t d. best . of anybod>iiiid cG5< 6~find'out.that an,0thei :' man could just skin me alive: I-learnt to just keep my mouth shut ;ijesS I know \chat I'in talking about. . B& . ' c XOTV sornetimel people get so 'educated thky can't ske obvious, things'. ~
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Thai's anothek thing that ge'b me. I was talking to a man once-had, a little, toolbox and a handsaw that wastoq big to go in it. And he says, '1'11 give scme inazi 2 fi1.e-dollar t~illto tell me~howto put that saw in that box.' "I..saidl ' ~ i m n i ea screwdriver and hand me your saw and I'll put it in for you.' He handed me the saw and a screwdriver, and a crowd just went to I~oohooing and laughing. I took the screws out of the handle and throwed it d o ~ c nthere and throwed his saw down in %here and said, : .'Gimme !.our five-dollar bill.' A n d [sincq he wis so smart-like I didn't kncrc \\-hat I was talking about-I kept the five dollars. i would have give' it hack to him if he hadn't acted.so smart. But why he couldn't see that al-,:' { 13uffaloed me. When I took'that,off, helooked like a fool." i Ti-hen Tedra asked Cheryl if--shihha one,wish, what would it be, Wigig. turned around and asked, Tcdra that same q;estion, and he said, "If 1;had jusr one wish, I'd wishto have mv hea1t.h 15ack when I was eighteen years old. Then the other things that I want so had I'd he ahle to go on and ,work rind get them. -4 lot of people.you ask ahout a wish ask for absolute foolishnc* and stuff that don't make sense. ,I1 bet not four in a. hundred ".., wishes for a honie in heaven. .I wish for good and then I car, ahead and
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die, +'Rice home he~@!fi{
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. yc:~iO$dn't get me t o d b at ;ill. I?ve even ibused my i&,dydrinl;in$'ind. . . stuffiiki~rhaf.. b d you~.knowgoursilfthey'sh lot of people'~doingthat~right /-.'." .no\\.. .4nd this acld, manjuani, d h e , LVell;,.you know they'~t;'ruining'ahLir body. Just k ruinatidt? of i p z n d God, he didn't .mike'our bdgy to just be -15ruised uld*beat anround.iverl. yay. I t h i f i k . w e s ~ o u l take ~ l cark\of it. Be particuiar abbu;tikiniQ~afe'of~ o u health r as you can. For ~ h k > ' : ~ o u ' vlost e \ yous h e a l ~ j ydil've ~, lost it alii:\iid )-QU don't realize that until );ou',dometo' b that point '&Id see that you haven't, got nond and can't do notking.v think \ that's the.happiest thing that a kj,%ng person can have is health. I f \you-',da'went ttirough the s b ~ e r i n gthat f g i d &hen I went through thzt o'k,ep'tion? yok'd !sow exactly whait f ' m talking a b o i t < i , [ ~ e d r had a a -dise&ed of the y a i h artery;in?his kg cut out and replaced with a patch3, I . section , wanted to dieafidget dut'of,thkre..S;ich pain, my mercy. I t was awful. ~ h t God tells in Hi; book that He won't put no more pain on you than you can bear.aBut, brother, Ishad i'load of it. Now the doctor explained,-said, 'Mr. Harmon,..now I'm gonna tell you the fact< Now you're old enough to realize and not get e ~ c i t e "d ~ n o- y : ' -. P ' " I said, 'You needn't w6rry about exciting me.' "He sa$, 'I can't tell you how long you'll live, hut,' he says, 'I'm hoping you'll live a lollg time. But,' he ,says, 'wheneve'r that Brtery does come loose +m that patch on either end where I cut it,& I had you Qn the operating table I coiildn't save you.' Said, 'you're gone.' Said, 'Ydu might live to breathe two or three waths:' But said when it come apart, my heartld just throw all the blood out onlthe inside and stop it. H e says, 'It'll be an easy death. I wn assure you that. Now don't let'that scare you.' "I saia. 'It ain't scared me,' and it ain't. If a doctor would sit right there and say, "Tedra, );ou'ie gorina die in fifteen mkutes,' I'd nevcr cvcn shake my hand for I'm ready to go. You won't be afraid with the power of God almighty. He's your protector. "Xow I've-seen the time that I guess I'd,a'been like a lot of other people. TVhen I seen death on me, I'd start a'hollering. and a'screaming. I've been in hospitdls \\ith people real sick, and someone come in and say, 'Are you ,
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d they'd go to hwling. Well, sornethirlg's wrong. They're ~got the faith to sta~ldu p a n d say, 'I'm not afraid to die.' ,fdbi;'t~rc~nkt td die, hut5. I ain't afraid to!" <,: \ ' ~ e , G o t up f r 8 k t h e table-anddvent out into the yard"and worked , . , , i s . . t ' - &I fhe sl.ed unril dark. L.
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D ~ ~ Y SNK E W E S - ~
phs and research &@!2yAYne, ~ h i q Stocky, ~ l i o u i s e Freeman, niq, Lo)! S m i t h , and Clai+e Bender.
PLATES 162-167 Tedra begins his sleds with the runners which, in this case, a r e made of cucumber. Here, Cheryl Stocky cuts the n o t c h e ~that the front crosspiece will fit into.
PLATE 164 Tedra fits the front cross,piecr (made of seasoned locust since it has to take so much strain) into the nmches on the runners. H e w i l l peg it into place later. \ _
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PZATE-1-66 . T h e ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~03. T ~ iG?@eFitiip F in f G t i f Tedra's l e f t h a d : ~ has bee11 nailed on temporarily to hold the runners the correct distance apart. ~
, . PLATE. I G i S o w the hemlock sills ark tacked b t o p l a c e . , ~ h ei i~l i be set perma-' nentl? later. They hold the floor of the Bled u p off the ground so that it can he pulled over racks and stumps without hangin@up.
P L A T E 16R. .4 hole is drilled, tlirojich rach,. ehd of i h e crossI j ; e c ~b ~ t othc runilers belo\\:, and pegs inicrted. Hrl-e, I.ouise Freem a n saws the yellow locust. pegs off flush. ~~
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PI,hTE '169 ~ f t e r the ! bottoms of the pegs a r c sai:ed off flusli, ~
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PL.4TE 170 \A1hen t h e wedge is in place, as shni\.n here, again a sa\r is used to r u t it off Hush with tlrc I,i,tl<,in uf tlre runner.
PLATE 1 7 1 IVith the sled upright again,, the seasoned oak crosspieces, are placed. Tedra, first :!.~.;-&itls'htfi<s'for the nails to kGp thern from bending in the hard \vood. T h e n r)wiiyne drives one . nail in each end of thc crosspieces a n d places diem off c e n t e r so they won't interfere with the I" auger used next. . .
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PL;\TE 1 75 T h to ciit a scrics of slots 21t the spot the pole i ~ i u s tbclid.
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n:111\ a metal c : i ~ % ~ ' + h r ~t l 7r<~~ 1~1t~~ cr ., . . I I I S - ~ ~ Ii r ,i , ! ; ! ; f :hi: I f I inti^ it .1:1c1 iic~:ld\i! ' l i i.r ! i , i i ~I I I ~ . ru1111(.s'\1 1 1 1 \ cl. 1 I - .7 5irip :c I!>,. . ( ~ c s i n !
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178 \ \ : i ~ holds the half sole I l e l tirs it 1~~111~10r:1rily \ v i l I ~t\$-i11c.
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PLATE 180 T h e n T e d r a carves a sea-
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P U T % 179 Ken drills holes at r e p i a r infen-als [four holes per half sole, in this case) for the pegs that \\.ill pin the half solc into-placc. --
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soned half-inch yellow locust peg for each holc!(thc holes go through the half sole ,! and completely through the m n n k r ) and drives them in. As the green half 'sole seasons, it-grips the peg. I T h e excess peg length is cut off with a hatchet or saw.
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PLATE 181 O n e half sole in place and the other ready to be set. T h e .]laif soles wear oue with-use, of course, but are easily replaced. Meanwhile, the runner itself remains unworn. If kept dry when not in use, the sled should last for years.
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~ f ; e -the r other half sols i s set the slcd is rightecl'and Bn oak ifloor is addrd. 1,VitIi t h r standardt rcpl:~ced, it's ready to usra Sonic farlncrs / a l s o make a long wood hox with high ! s .~ d e s that will fit d o ~ v n between the /standards and rest on the floor. This is :set o n the sled when haulini?. small , rocks, corn, and the I , a n d is re.' moved when not needed. T e d r a calls his sled a "bench" sled. .!; There. is a l s o a "Yankee" variety held together with metal rods. He thinks it got this name ~ v h e nsomeone from outside the rommunity introduced it (seee L Plate 183'). -
PLATES 188-190 (\'ariation 2 ) This sled, made by a man outside Bakersville, North Carolina, is a very simple but very cornmon variety. T h e outsra~iding features are the crosspiece in front of the sled 'ivllich is actually set into the fronts o f ' t h e runners i n a l m o s t mortise and tenon fashion, and the'four one-piece standards (see diagram). There arc no half ioles on the runners. These runners, like those on so ~ n a n ymoi~ntainsleds, are simply curved sections from tliedrunks of young sourrvood trccs. . .
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PLATES 193,114 I \'ariation # 4 ) This sled upas m a d e by Harv Reid in Blairsville, . , r Georgia. I t has crlrt,ed s o u r p ~ o o drunners and a mortised crosspiece, but the box is r~ailed to t h e st:riidards a n d rrsts on crosspieces that. are nailed to the tops of the
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I1 my life,I had hearti talk of, /
and e\:en watched my family make, ' a garden. But because I~ .oung;r and the grocery store was just do\vn the road,'I, never felt that uld go out insthe ho? sun and hoe the garden. Suddenly last year the that I \\.asgoing to dave to plant n garden dawned on me. The first ng that came to my mind. was, "I don't know 'anything about a garden." t's when I started working on this article. y first question \vas why did they plant a garden? Esco Pitts, one of our on acts, said, "Then you couldn't just go to the store and b u ~ m* u c h7stuff, 'cause they wasn't much stuff t o buy.'.And the people just made txeirliving, just got the practice of 'makiQg their living at home." And that's just what they- did. The women would take care of the \regeta11le p r d e n . Mr. Pitts recalled, "My mother would always put one row of flowers i n t h e A d d l e of the gardcn. She to& care of them 'just like she did ', the yegetables." 1 -72'hat did the meri do?They t&kcare of the field crops-things like two acres of corn or wheat. T h e corn 'was saved to take to the mill for their cornmeal a n d the wheat was made into flour. Sometimes they grew cane for cane syrup, which could be used in theplace of sugar. Yes! People really did,get out and work in the field. And if you got sick and couldn't work, you 'didn't worry about it much liecause some of the folks that liv'ed near would'come over and help. Aunt Arie said, .rPeople \vacn't a'scared of each other, like they are now." All the people %r and wouid, gather a t o n e house. They would have a barnraisin' or beann' or cornshuckin'. T h e families would all bring food and jdter the was done, all would eat a n d ~ t a i k .Lawton Brooks said, "\VF had a ny a cornshuckin' way l)ackyonder, hut no n10re.l tetgetting the land ready and planting the sceds came watching it ahd keeping the animals out and ' t h e buys off. Fin;~lly came the $Ganxe?t. That was the time whrt, r\:6ryl1otl~wori;cd. They workcd not or~ly -4
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Ednir Buchanan's vegetable garden. . ii i
ther it, Imt to store it foruse during the winttr. The mother would can I-egcral,les and drj-the fruit. The father had to bury the things like potand .ca1,baze. He buried tKem to keep them from freezing. Florence Broo!<s said, ..~ou.could30 hack in the dead of the wipter and dig out a '. cal>\>aeeand ir \\.ouId b e 5 u s t . z good i s the day you cut it." ; d T h e people raised their pork and txef, so they didn't have t o buy much. The\- only bought \\.hat they couldn't grow, going to market about twice a \-ear. .fainilx I \vouid raise enough vegetahlrs to have some left to sell after purting up what ihey needed for the family. Kenny Ruriion remembered,. , "\\.e loaded up the \\-jgon and it wai so far [to market] tWat we.woyldhaye-; to c q n p on rhc :vay there or back." < K h e n the\- sold thc vc~ctahles,they would huy their suppli& consistingof . pepper, salt, .uxilr seeds, a n d coffc< Ixans. M r . Pitts' commented, "I've \\.eke up man!. :i'n~o;i~irl~ to the smell of coffee beans roasting on the place." ~-4fter;ihour ten or fifteen interviews I found that I had not only lea how tp plant n garden, hut I had gained a small amount of understanaing of what life - * , \vas like t h y or forty years ago. , ,
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MARY THOMAS
I r ~ i ~ r i ~ i eand z : ~ transcriptions by Bit Carver, M a r y Chastain, Vicki '. C h a s t a i ~Slrrir ~ ~ .Yirhols, Cheryl Stocky, l l f n r y T h o m a s , and ~ e r b s eTurpin: Oc;ani:ulio7i 0714 e d i l i n ~b y ,!Wary T h o m a z and 1,ynnette Williams.Phoi o , ~ y a / ~ hh? '~ Breizn'a ' Carpenter, M y r a Q u e e n , Annette R e e p s , , Barbara 7'(1),lor..110i-y T'iiomtii, t1r10Lynnetle Cl'i1liam.r.
CLEARING THE LXND 1 "
-Fnn~i!iasin the nzozintnins gencrclllj, sefllcd o n lnnd'tlinl had not been . l ~ r c i i o f t , s /lio~?~estec~iled. ~ T h e ? ' , therefore, hn;l t o , bt~i!tl their l t o h e s ' and ~ jarnzing f8r theil, su,-r~ical.
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R. XI. DI(~:KERSON:All this counpy, this bottom land here where wesee. it noxv. in nry fathei-'s and mother's day and-my grandfather's day, was in a swamp. It \vns growed up In woods. And .the first settlers here settled around the foot of the hills above the swamp. T h e swamp was full of water and yo11 couldn't do any good dowri there uritil it was drained out, so they d the edge of t h e nlou~itainsand up on the mountains. cleared the land thefe and got the l o p and built log houses; that's tlrc as raised in-a log cabin. They buiR those Log callins out - t o o k off the land they was going to cultivate. They took cd this kind of bractor [a horse irnd sled] and'skid up to where they was going to Iluild a house. They .:salvedl the trecs down on th'phc< a~rclcut'en~up. T h e olrcs that they M-as soin: to use, tliey rolled them ovel- to the sidc. But they rolled the old rough logs and the stuff that w;ls too_!)ig for a house log, they rolled that J up and I~uilt'ema fire an<~>*d em all u p in the bru-sh. Sollletimes it would takc'tlvo or t h r e e ~ a a )to ~ liurn all the logs. l.he$rl just keep rollin' the logs togefher till thcy xot'em I~urntup. Ne\:er thought anything ailout getting them sthmps out. You'd just plow' around the stump. In the middle the& might be some little stumps or rocks in the \v;ry. C:o rle til>le to take a I~igstump, they might'lay some loose rocks * 1113 on i t the~rrout of the way of the plow or the hoes or mayhe a . ~% stump th, vasn't 1,urnt up quite in the pile thcy would lay it u p OII the, stump and let it rot. ~
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lancl], t h ~ y ' dgo out \Cith their crosscut saw and an axe,, and they'd chop down tlrc trees :uncT th$y'd \corli then1 into 1oi.s if thcy wantcd to I7uild a house. If ~ i o t tliey , M . O I . ~ @then1 ~ into firclcood; s;r\v it and l ~ u s tit up. l'lren they take tlrk n>:rttoc.kancl the shovel xncl clis the stumps up. I t took a long tinre to di- ;I stump up, I ~ n tthat's [what thcy had to do]. S o ~ ~ ~ e t i m they es
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PL.4TD 196 It took
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tremendous amount of work years ago .> to 1 c o m p l ~ t e l yclear this fertile bortonrland.
d& down to a tap root. That was a root that went straight down, [the others spread outj and sbmetimes they'd be so.hig that t w couldn't hardly roll the stu~iipont of the hole. So t,hey'd hitch a mul+.to it with zchain and pull the stump out. Then they'd fill the holehack up. .People wou!d s!ed r o c k ~off a figld. Why, we.used to have an old mare and we madkeisled, a ~ put d rocks on it.'We'd load that o1d:sled with rocks -every one we could put o n it, and Oshie Halt would drive the old mare. She was a big and in6511horse, toq, if she wanted to he. And we'd take them dow-n in herween Grandpa's place 2nd Bleckley's and ad& t%em to one side of. the rock fence. Mr. Bleckley would haul and pack the other side of' the rock fence. It was down in thevalley, just old loose rock out of the field:we'd just take a :led load, place them in there, and'keep filling the will up. il'e didn't need an\ wooden fence;Bee, there wasn't no cattle grazin' in there then, hut it was a line marker l~etweentheir place and Grandpa's. PREPARING THE SOIL
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A nzan couldn't walk into the. general store and b u y hisfertilizer and lime -no such t h i n ~ sexisted. T h e people had t o provide for the ,enrichment of scrap of chicken and the soil from ze'hat was available qn their farms. animal manure that could be collected was put back i n the soil: S o m e folks
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m a d e conzpost piles, a n d m a n y spread ashes o n the ground to sweeten and enrich'it.They zvere true organic farmers.
AKNA HOWARD: 6ie.d terrace if we h a d a reaklv steep place. Sodetimes you'd ha1.e t'do t h a t You know>the way they'd do that [was to] make a ridge'rigl~tthrough here, a n ' they"d som; sage'r'somethin' through there, and it'd stay theie ail th'time, an' th'sage'd hold the edge of ihe
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I,Ov DOVER: Now that new grounil with natural soil that's not heen.disa
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turhed maybe for. a hundred years ,or longer, see it's got everything in theye it needs. I.'ntil you tended it an' got nutrients out of the soil, &$y we didn't have nothin't'do I ~ u tplant it. Wheu we'd grow str~ff till the ground wouldn't make any more, we'd s o w g r ~ s sfor th'liorses OF> those'l)alci plaees.
RY BROM7N: Tl'e took thc manure out of the llar11 and put i t in a
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en as 1)ig as this room. M'e'd clean out the stalls of the mules, cbws, hogs, and. chickens in the early part of thc f 1. :\nd then w d d go to the woods anh get a load of leaves to throw in ere. From time to time during the. winter, we'd mis it up and keep ad n' to i.t till it was time to use it.-\lre
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' P ~ A T E197 Relle Dryman's father b u ~ l tthis pen for cornposting organic matter, and Belle still uses it.
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h;id \jig sacks 1t.r n h d e into l)ig aprons, and-we'd go toth'pile and somebody \\:auld fill up &r ;ipron and Ge7d.$oscatter it around the garde111;. # I \\.;I, r;~isrd ;lt Scale\-, hack ill th'~nountairis,and you'll find that nearly evei-'l;hd\-h,is n riiffrrt:nt way of farmin'. Ouk garden, we kep' it speci+l. \\-c'd"cle:lr it ir: the spring of th'year, cleared off every little briar, an' took a, 's;lked it; then broadcast it with stable mai~ure-tried t'l)roadcast it ever'?car. Ko\v farniin' is different-like broomsage field, we'd l h r n that -OR,\vherr if \;.e'ti had comethill' f'turn it under, see,*fhat'd be just like good frrriiizer. IYr d i d n i k n o w that Imck then. Land \$as cheap i~zicl;then 61d eople c-learrd up new ground i;e~rly ever'year or we'd .just leave. 'Course, liard-plowin' with those stupps 'all pround. An'.,we'd tend that a r till it got whereit wouldrjt make nothi~i'a n d then w~ let it grow ,., s1r.s t1i're;i~orlS'niuch of this mou~itainland Washed away. d trj:'t'p~ow . . it th'first yearAwe'd just go along an' it'd.hang $, an' 4 t8ke it out and 50 again an' hang it [the plow] up-agairl-it'uz kiiida vatin'. ~on~<-fcilks just dug holes arid pIante,d.cn t h e hills -th'first year. ow those spr&ts ali' briars in that rich"-dirtfd gfow some times six. es in one ,night. Yau co"ld'buy two, three acres of land back then of fertilizkr. my^than you could l ~ u yactwo-hUp&t_d,p~an~;l;lsacli ought threehundred kcyes for less than :I dollar an acre!
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(I-lRPENTER: \I~e'd cut those deeds and thirlgs all down, then \se'd rgke them to the nliddle'of the garden. Just p,ut them all illto rows; one ?.t one end, and one: at t ~ e ' o t h e end, r i n d one in the middle, th2n .light don't a fire to t h e m 1iP'd-light d cor 'stalk and. keep stickin' it along-it niakr i big fire. Justlet it , h u h a ~ i t t ~atk a time. You know, if it had been ,, l~urningfrom one end to, anattier it would have made a fairly big. fire. It'll just ])urn u p so high aqd go;out-just stir around with a fork and make certain it's:all . out. T1ieri:we ent to $lowing with a horse or a mule.
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~ h k y ' d let the old cornstalks and vines and I -+ tver3th.i& sot on the gro"nd, and that fall, they'd plow'em under. They ' usually plowed in tli'fall or through th'winter, because rhe freezin'an'thawin' would break up that dirt an'make it s'fine. Made vour ground hetter. It don't have clods'r'tlothinj it1 it. You plow it in th';pring of th'year ' anJ it happens t'l~ea little bit damp, you'll have :clods in there all year you couldn't bust with a durn h o k . I've hoed old cloddy ground when you couldn't do nothin', only roll the c1ods:I despise that-just like gettih'.in a rock pile. [They used ashes for fertilizer.] I've hauled many a'wlieelharrow load of,them. The>-used'sm kinda like'thef u s e l i G - 7 0 sweeten th'soil. An' tflqt's where they get their potash. They put that mainly in their vegetable garden, not in th'cornfielas. Put'ern down through th'winter. Every time y'clean out th'&replace, gkf your ashes and fill up your wheelbarrow and go ~
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WILLIE U N D E R W O O D : Before we planted, we'd have to plow it; back
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then we'd havr to-plow ~t with a mule, 'cause we didn't hive any 6eavy equipme~~t-like big harrows and things like that. We used, a low gopher-: plow and what we call a single-foot ~ n u l eand plowed through those things. Nie2idn't tear it up too much the first year after it was cleared. We worked it the11 through rhe summkr, and the nextyear it would Ile a lot eirsicr, ;~rlJ. we could do a lot better job')lowing because we could break those roots up; they died out and started to rot out. And tfiat helps your soil, tC6. ~ h e l Ii was growin' up it didri't take too many years for the soil to,stop p~oducing-a ' . good'crop; we'd let it grow u p in stubhlc o n e year and the next year we'd " plant it in rye and. the next year we'd plant it in COG;. F V ~rotated then. Now a lot of times, we run year after ye,ar with the same thing. We put a lot more Stuff back irito the soil than we used to. Y o ~ ' ~ r oa&lot more.,in.soil if you put back in it. Soil builders, you know. rot in therc and make bet-
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PLATE(1SR Gay M C C I uses ~ an old push plour to Iay 1Iffahis r o w fqr planting.
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TOOLS T h e tools iiz~nilmblrfor farming in this area fifty to one hundred years ago roere relnti:rlj~sinzpll, and nor!-iiiec)~niiized,except for t h e wood-burning, stt~n~ri jiorczii~cl glc~iri tlircsl~erwhicli people hired out o n a shares basis to :!:rr?fi their i y c , zr~lienl,arwi 001s.. I t seewzs almost eoery family had a plow, ~ l , ~ ~ ;iiors, ~ ~ l sspades, ,, rc~kes,arid nzrittocks; but some families had several kinils of p l o ~ i , hnr-rorras, ~, a corn plnnter, and a grain cradle. A n d t h e n some pt-olle just ii~aifi.d o ze'ith w h a t was oil hand-Florence Brooks told us that since her f i ~ t i i ~di(in't r h m e a harrow, he took n big old pile of brush and liilrhcd it to l l l ~nizile c~ntldragged it / w , r the field u l ~ t i it l &as smooth.
R. 11.DIC:I<ERSON: Well, peop'ie used aboutthe sarrie tools-hoes,
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mattocks, and a plo~v--that's about it. h4): grandfather used to have a l'jraid hoe. ?$hen theykorne out herk to a retty good-sized sprout or ~~7r1il)that't~e'ywanted io dig up, they'd use this oe as:a mattock n ~ l ddig it up. And as th'sprouti c o r k out on a stump, ey could take this old braid hoi and go around th'stump and knock'em 8.But these 01: light hoes we got now, you'd bf.eal+ the handles out of
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R u n i o n has used' years.
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them. 'Tlais on; had ;r good. Ilig, ktrong h;~ndldin .it and it was what people c.allcd ;rpr~il~l,in' hoe. I do1l.t Lno\cz how collie the111 to be called '.'braid"~ui~-/
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Now ~ O I I ' V C seen these single-foot plow stqcks that people would lay off a I-olv at ;I tin,, with juit one rnde to it. N& that was the only kind of a plow they had to get the land prepared. ~ f & they r got the land prepared a n d the rows laid off, they.d have what they c;llled a double-foot that ivould, lia\.e twro feet o ~ ~ . . i t - ~ n e ' ~ l i11 o wfro?& of the other. The front plow wo:ild " I be next to the so>y%$nda little ahead'and this one would come ;rl.ong and go alona like tlia? and get some of the &rt to the.]-ow sort of, and the11 they'd turn al.ounci and con= Imck down that ?ow and throw the dirt to the other sow. NOIVthat'uz what they called a double-foot plow. And that'<%the.only kind of a p1'ow that they had to cultivate corn with. They had this singlefoot ploy that they plowed up the la@ with and laid off the fus;ows, and then they used this double-foot to c u l t i ~ a t ethe corn with and t o plow u p the weeds. Therlalonfibehind that the children would hoe. Lots of times one of those llarrows~would1)elong to three or four families. Every family didn't have one-couldn't%fford it. So they'd work together and wfien they got the land ready, they'd go so~nelGhereto a goodi~leighbwkover there. a n d t h e f d get his h a k w mayhe a n d they'd go in together i n d all [work .. together 1.
HA4RRI' B R O W N : 52:e didn't have nothin' hut a little hull-tongue or sill;gle-foot
pl&v t'*~o& it with-didn't .
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have tenners hack. ~then. They: call'en~ -
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PI,:\TE
200 A horncrn;ide drag harrow, with wooden. teeth. ilrawn behind a hoise, this harrow would break u p clumps of earth in n garden Sefore-planting.
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sir~gie-footsnow, Init back sixty pears ago they called'sm a bull-tongue, be' cause-niost cveryl~odyplowed with a steer.,i can rernember seein' one fellow plowi11'~vitha plow he ,?lade out of alociit. tree-just a stick hangin' d o 4 t'dis LIP th'ground. For a lorig time, hand wooden plows were all we had. 'Then people began t ' l e a r ~ liow ~ , t'work with iron; they made the plow-shoe out of !hat. Later they had tul-II~II' plows, an' shover or [a] lay-off plow for layin' off rows, an' twister plows for hilling your dirt. ., . . .~:~
R Y C : . ~ K P E N ~ E RThey : -had a drag was a ])is old iron i~n,gwith 11i1rs across it and sharb teeth. They'd put a big rock on there a 10% ;ind sometinlesthey'd stand on it, when they'd get irt;~-place-that retty dotty, you k~>ow. 'lthat'dhelp to d s h it down. ,411d you could w it when the ground was damp. \l'hy, it'd he as smooth as a lettuce
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L O N G : T\Tell, they used a horse in those days. 14'e didn't 11ave.a and we-hoed. the corn. 1l1e' planted 'I@ fields of corn, an& Ge .e.d the corn allout three or four ti~ies:Every t i m e w e plowed, we had oe it, 1,ut now we ust spray the corn i~lste'adof having to hoe it. T h a t a lot of work, havi~lgto hoe the col-n every time it was plowed. BUG you to keep the yeeds down. W e u- s e d a single-foot to la)- off with, and a calti\zator to plow with. \Ye used one horse, and hookedit-TOf h i cultivator. b That tusned the soil real good and if you could plow it, if your corn was big er~ougb,youplowed close to it, throw the fl-esh dirt from the far side of the
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PL.-\TE 201 kobbie Letsoniholds another homemade drag harrow, this one with metal spikes for teeth. ~
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row over to the nest. Th?gt wrould coxrer u p a t of-the little weeds t h ~ were t camin,?, but you still had to cut the big weeds that were in there, and if it was a dry season that would kill'crn. But if it was rainy, they'd grow 'right 3 hack.
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$L \TE 2O? -Horse- - ( o r muit-: 8 draxrn c u l t i ~ a t o r ss u:h~ 21s this one axe still in use.
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~ c e r y o i esa&d almost all of thei: seed, but m a n y people did b u y some;# lettuce a& cabbkge seed, for example. ~ a i h e r i n grind storingseed for next ?em's c r ~ p swas 6erious business. A supp1.y o f healthy seed a;?ured a jnmily . that, b a r i i n f p e a t misfortune, they would be,gble to m a k e it through the i<.xt y a k as they had m a d e it through t h e last: Precnutions were taken' to insure that the seed would remain safe and d r j , as,;next year's food supply. I j
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on't reckon there's not much qf anything a fellow can an sav;th'seed off of. Let'em get rip! on th'stalk or^ 'em out, dry'em, save'em in little &kcs or jars. Pepper cumber seed, all kind of bean seeds, all kinds of seeds. ~eoplelusedt'never buy seeds. An' people used t'save theii onion seeds,"too.: Had:th'multiplyin' onions-red button onions-that'd run u p an' make their buttons on th'stalk. ~ a v k t h ' b u t t d n s .We never did save no cal~ljage seed, but you could save'your cahhage through the winter, and then sct'em o"t i n th'spring of th'year. And they'll make you cabbage seed. Beets, the s;ime urn)--:---savethcm through the winter, put them out in a row in th'sprirag of th'year, arid they'll run up a n ' make seed. If yon leave'ern in th'ground, they'll make seed th'next .$ring. [My daddy] picked him out !
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GARDEXING
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some p ~ l r t ypotatoes; and he'd take some hay or somethin', b a y b e leaves, put that ill- ;t hole in the ground and put..h+s-$ktatoes o'b tha4 and put hay over them. And rake dirt over it +nd.';ut a piece of tin o3er that to k ~ s pthe ,,,:,,'~ ;vater:,qut; ?;d~ii~~\~%s'sh.~lcseWi. Now sweet potatoes he had'?; bu:: them.
1,OK D O V E R : Ydu get yoilr seeds from pretty ripe.
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on something and let them dry. 'l'hen you take them up arid but'em in jars. l'hc)- 'have to be dl-ied; or you can't keep them through t'hd winter. We'd p ~ kth'seeds in 2% jar or a tin can )lack then. When th'bugs kot t'gettin' in,' ' people ~vouldstore their bean seed in a snuff can an' kept '?nough snuff-in there tlcover'enl up. For tomato seeds, you'd just squeeze th4 seeds out on a cloth, then lay them down somewhere to.dry.' Then put the~'cloth,upsome\.\here to s a w for the next year. The seeds stuck to the'cldth, You do the same thing lo; cucun~l~ers, &quash, and pumpkin; I ~ u tyou had to'let,.the seeds dry before.you packed them away. Pe6ple werk more anAious in savin' seeds then than we are now, freezing things. T h a t was a big thipg. ~
A.I.IRY C.4RPENTER
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Thrre . was r~o\vhere to' buy seeds, '30 we saved them. Once w e . ~ o t t m we , kept'em. We'd leave a row of hea& in thegar-- = . den to seed fol- nest ear, then we'd s h ~ l them l out w h e ~,,~s, :y r ~ e dup, and "put t h e n ~in. ;t can and put , a spoonful qf soda in'em %$'shake it real good. And ihat's yous seed for next year. It's'the same way with peas. a For corn, w h e i we were shucking it out after it w a dried on the ear, whenever \ce found a 11ig'~rettyear, ~ v throw p it in a separate pile to save . for seed. Even mustard-we'd let one or two grow up and make seed, and they'd leave one cahl~agestalk to grow u p and make seeds. 'Same way with spinach. The pea and hean seeds are the only ones I pht sotla in-the rest them,,up . in a cloth hag in a d r y place and hang it on a nail I'd just put . "; .. somewhere.
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PLATE 203 Belle Dryman hunR ahese bean plants in her barn to dry in the fall, and use'the seed 'next spring.
save s o n ~ efrom the last year and, in the spring, hed the~ndown. Fix up a
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by it. 7'ilejr W O I L I ~i n m o r e plant corn u,nn'e, t h e wrong sign than.
of people that don't believe in that, hut I do. I'uz raised that way, and I go
want to make a good yield, you better go 1y, th'sig-ns, I'll tell
that now,
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you s l i o ~ ~ l d ~pl;int i ' i co1.11wh 1 th'sig~isis ill the lieart-?'get I~lackspots in your j i ~ n i ~'l'hrre's i. ce~.taintim s as th'trioon goes down that I wo~i'tPlant. Somcrinics as they o down, tliejk'll Ile ~ir;ivl)ein th'bowels an' ,ge('i~i th'legs an' feet is real'sood tinke to pl:~~~?i!Lo~!tfri~j.~dddoffrl~i~~~.-~h~PP~~est potato .-.-. .~ ~ .. ~ . . ,..,.... ~ &. ~. ~ ..... ~ ..~ . ~. ra~serI ever saw-said th'signs + t h e feet even if. it's on the ncw moon. world t'lnake Irish potatoes is a]-e ~ o o t lIro.ni the headdown to when th'skns arc in the fcet. The on d o w ~to~tlr'fe~t..,~'l'lic .. . signs get th'he;i~-t,thcn f r q ~ njust I~elow gofioni the feet 11ack to th'head t'e\:er\-:part of th'l~ody all o v e ~again. ,
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H.\RRIET E C H O L S : [Thcrc are ccrtai~isigns to plant under], and that is on the new of thr moon when you have dark nights. \l'hen you plant yom cal-~l~age, plant when the signs are in the head. NOWthe d;irk ]rights. is for onions :ind potatoes. 'I'he new moon, I I)elieve, is fol- corn where it won't grow so'tall-if it's planted on a full moon, see, it grows straight up. Y O U , sow your plants at different signs, and/klien $u'pl;int your Ixans the best time is to plnnt'em in t h e arms. \\!l,&i you set out plants, start with the * signs in the thighs and you'll have good luck. '~'hat's'theold-time rule, now, and we still .go 1)) it. 'C:ourse, I'm old timey myself, you know. My parents went by this and I found [usually'] the old timer's go 11y the zodiacsigns. \Vhen the si,qn is in the bowels, you don't plant ljecause your seed rots. E T H E L C O R N : An' if you plant I)ea~rson th'new of the moon, ihy'ever like t'raise any, they'll rot an' speck. They'll make good vines, Ilut they'll rot and speck. I didn't b'lieve that at one time-then I tried it once. .
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.PAUI,INE HENSOW: If you %,ant :I lot of cut-unil~ers, plant [the seeds] -when the signs :Ire in the tMins. R. X f . DICXERSON: \Yell, some people'd plant I)y the signs, 'specially I~eans,I ~ u twe never did take much stock ,in plantin' by the signs. A:lot of people llelievqil i~i'ernand.sometimes it worked out and it'd look like .they's right; then aggin niayl~eit won't. But what most rver'l)ody had to do 11ack then &hen t i c ? sot their land ~ e a d ya ~ i dthe time Tome, they'd plant signs or no signs: -It's kinda' like Uncl? Boll, that lived in this two-story house oTrer here. Somel~odywas asking him one day allout plantin' Ilv, the nroon. H e said h e always pla=ted hi.$ down here 'cause it was so far to go to the moon to work it that he'd never get'it worked. J
L I Z Z I E l>O'\'IN: htanirna planted beans when the signs was in'the armq. Thcy'd never plant toln whe;i the sign? was OR the new of the moon; it would glow 50 high )ou couldn't reach the ears. T h e planted corn,on the full moon, and.it'dtg:ow short and the ears would I)e full. ;lnd potatoes tlie same way- if you plant then1 on tlie new of +the moon,'::they'd make all vines and no pofatoes. So wd'd plant potgtoes on dark niihts .. in, March or ~ .. .~ ~ .- - , -
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FOXFIRE q April. My mamma used to say the moon was just like a man. 1t changes 'every eight days. She'd plant things that grow leafy on the new of the
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ESCO PITTS: .you ldaht'a put onions, out in March. You can pu$ them to put them out on a ~ d a r kmoon,\ for they
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i'he d i f e r e n t kinds o f vegetables grown here years ago are sfill prevalent today, with some variation? in particular varieties. F h e ~ e r u s a l k m arto cultiuate, appears t o be the m a i n exception, as it isn't grown very widely,here now. <*~ Corn was one of the most important crops-it was a staple for both people and all .their animals. T h e y ate it fresh o n oi58ff the cob; in fresh corn cornbread; used it dried lo make cornmeal, popcor-n, parched corn, grits, and hqminy; and sprouted it to m a k e moonshine. T h e fodder <.s; (leaves) ./ was u s e d d r i e d to feed the .animals, and the shucks were m a d e z n t o mats, scrub brushes, hats, and various other things. T h e vegetables are listed i n the general order in which people said they cool-weather bnes i n the early spring, and n late-.spring and through the s u m q e r .
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R. M. DICKERSON: Usually the first thing they would plant was Irishpotatoes 'cause they'd stand the cold. We used to plagt'em back in February. 'Course they never came, up maybe until sometime in March. Then you'd have some to eat because more'n'likely you'd eaten up all your pota. toes that you'd made last fall hy that time. EDNIE BUCHANAN: We always planted potatoes on a dark moon in in March or even February. We'd cut the saved for seed into a couple pi Had to be sure there was two goo& eyes in each piece. Well, we have our rows ready and fertilized with manure, and just plant those otatoes real deep, We used to a . .. . otatoes a 3 then'coV6r'em wit ~~
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ADA KELLY: After we planted the potatoes, we'd work'em an soil up some as the vines grew. We found t h a t if we made a s , we'd get big potatoes. We always put ashes on our potatbes; an ew potatoes arouad the time
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GARDENING \vere blooming, but wouldn't dig the whole patch until all' the vines had .kiied down. U'e'd plow t h a n iut-that plqw'd run along under the potatoes and run'em out on top.of the ground. But I guess some people would dig a them- .out. LAWTON BROOKS: [To stok] potatoes, we'd dig but a round-hole, not too far. Then we'd take us a big sack of leaves, put right in th'bottom of otatoes up. You can pile them up over the level of or straw a ! cover put some leaves'over th'top .of them I end up with a sort ofihound, then when you want some u out a little hole right down at th'bottom an' them po' right to you. You can do apples th'same way. -
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out one and they'd just make a whole big bunch.
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, PLATE 204 Aunt Arie Carpenter gettlng some help digging her potatoes from Fotfire qtudents. 7 --
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FOXFIRE 4:
I>OK DO\'ER: If 1 don't set onions out in March, I might just as well not plant. Seems like they never would do iio good [if they were put out any laterj. Thry do best,in a pretty loose, rich dirt, and they need lots of sunshine. Sornetini~.alongin August when the tops dies down, we'll pick'enr and sprcad'em o&$*h'dirt gets dried off, and they get cured good. You '\can't store them till they've dried and cured. ?hen weld put'em in a liox'r'somcthi~~' aiid not let'em freeze: Lots of people'ud tie'emin t~unches p
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our ow11 otiio~is.We hid what the);: uliiplyin' onioi In$ jhen. [They wCrc l~ienniali~ecause]the first r, a little o~iionwould grow into ;r big onion. Save that Ilig onion till lxing, plant it, ;ill' it'd grow into ;r whole hunch of little oniotw [each ,hcri pl;int?d next ?eat:, would grow into aliothcl. :I~ig : onion, and 'what we c;tlled l~uttons ,, .. o11 the top Yo11 save thosc Iiuttor~still next spring I:~~if you plantedthe h ~ ~ t t o or l ~ the s litie multiplyin' oriions in the late sunrtner, they wouldn't makc too big of
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1:LOKLrJC:E RROOE;S:*The? did haye 1e;d lettuce; you didn't jiever see" a head lettuce. We planted itcarly, zjnd when it give up, we planted it late. * t'grow it in .th'iniddle of th'summer. . . ,
PLATE 205 ,
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Onions and lettuce . . may be plantcd in February or Maich.
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Plant it around March if thc ground' ' enough. O u r seeds- we^ . , 1)ought'em in th'store. 8 u E S C O PITTS: hly ihother grew it every year: She had two kinds-leaf lettuce and soine that made hCads.,~hkplantcd it veryearly in the spring, evrn before th'frost quit, l~ecauseiettllce is hardy plant. She had ." \yeathe< iii;l once it gets up some, even a freeze don't kill_@. It does real gocad where the ground is rich,-hut now it's sonlcthing you&%Ito use when it's ready, or it will ruin: . - + -
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C:KERSON: [plant] five or six rows d garden p e % , ~ o u kndw nothing but ;i hard freeze'll h ~ l ~garden rt peas. T h e frost ~z do9~t.'therthem,~ and .ihen , in May we'll b6 gettin' peas f r o n f i ' g j r d e n . . 3&:. ., LON D O V E R : You plant a row of peas on th'new moon;~@'~over'em u p good with dirt; th'calendar; you can see I go by th'moon .and . th'signs. . We had ~ v h a twe call IVe'b let th'peas dry all' s . . HA4RRIE?. E C H O L S : We'd $ant garden peas, also-'called.them Engiish peas. YouVhavet e p l a n t them early, February or iVlarc6, because they like ccol wzather. They don't need a real rich soil like, say, corn does, but a pretty goodosoil. They do best if you.can stake them up, but you don't' have to. They're harder to pick if you don't, though. . \Ye also planted c r g w d r peas aiid l)lacl<-e>-edpehs, which are really , n ~ o r e l i k ea lie&$ in th&&av the\. %row. Now they lik&* warnler weather,, R . ' . and you. can sfant'elii in your corn, and they'll &i9h the corn and y o u .,$ -$,$$ b pick'ern after they're mature arid all dry. *?
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Turnips FLORENCE B R O O K S : We raised'grfat big turnips-people don't raise 9' turnips l i l x they did then. Old people h i d great large turnips back then, and they 'had'eni 2 1 the winter. Lot of times they'd': havGt'plow those old tui-nips up and push them aside to plant again% thcspring. And my father .went to th'field"wirh a big Ixsket [to gather the cast-aside turnips], and the hogs. We used the same turnips for--we'd ---- put on pots o f ' e r i ticook..for i%. greens that we used fo.c,the,turnips themselves. . . '4: . ..,. , * ,,,! : ,.',,A
have the greens through the fall
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MARIKD.4 BR nto the late fa
cabbage seeds in between
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ws when they got up about four to six
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PLATE , 2 0 6 Cabhage just be-
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her1 we'dtalie the corn and put it in the cril!. . h'f. DICKERSON: O u r old rule for p l a ~ l t i ncorn ~ Imck then was the
D O V E R : U p in June, we'd plant'a Patch of corn, and it'd h e in roastill' ears till fr.ost. We'd cut th'stallts dff before th'first frost, m down in th'ground and shock it. Th'frost wouldn't hurt it and you ould pull roastin' ears a good while after th'frost. Stick th'stalks down in th'sround, y'know, and just shock,it up. hfalie a l,ii year of ~ o r n - ~ ' ~ eitt -in roastin' eirs what y ' k a n t n o w , hut what you don't use for feedor-&. -~
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bread? you w:t;j (ill ;tltcr it comes two'r'?h~t,ee'good frosts in tll'fall of th'year : ~ n dtllen y'xatties your c t r n and put it up. They say [the frost] helps t'dry ; th's:Q out of th'$.,l~~~cl;. I-plant corn in h i i r c h and'harvest in fall. , . , , In plantin' c b n , you want to coves it,,,early corn, ;~l,out that [two ir~chesjdeep. But IIOW if th'gro'und's gettin' warm, it's gettin' late, you don't cover it dee&r th:~n t h k q u a r t e r s inch an' it'll cA11e u p quicker- But if you plant it too:,$e,p, it won't come'up:
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KENNY R U ~ V ~ O They've ~:: changed from th'old way, and th'lxst corn I Sf. eves ~.;iised'waswhed I plnr~t'edit in March and it3d._et up an' get frostl~it, and then it'd rolne Imck out'. Of'-course, if it's barely picked Gp out of. -, .ound, if it I)ites it',down into th'bud, why it won't come out. As long as n't kite it plunrl)\dowr~ t'th'yround into that l,i~cl,your !corn'll coiile -2 ut. It'll corne out :i~icli l ~ a k eth'heavy corn earlier. -,
-4RRY BROWN: ~ ; j ? m ~ ~the e s corn t we were going to keep ,over the inter, ive waited way ~ d t e till , after several frosts. That's so the corn would.. I
TE 2flRrnThi~ corn ha7
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get good and dry. If it didn't, when you gathered it, it would rot. Mre'd go, ill an' pick the c o p and heap it up; a n d then somebody would come through with a wagon, loading u p and carrying it to the'barn. Sometimes we'd pile it out in the yard, and have a corn-shuckin' with tweniy-five to thirty nlen and have a great big dinner.
Sweet potatoes AM'TON BROOKS: You take y ' p o ~ t o e sfor seed, an' you got to fix you ood bed, b e p it where it won't rain-in it-keep it r.overcd-and use soil. Plant your seed potatoes, lay'em in there whole, bury em by side till you get your bed full. When they come up, you just slip one er'll just lje covered u p rout] off, an' another'll just c have t'keep it warn]. You Y'start );our Bed in th'sp rew them in a corner of I a q your slips along in June. Mi nd, not rich soil: Them 'corn patch close to th'house. Y to have hard soil t'push to or they won't make. 'I'hey'll'ket real an' not be any bigger t h a n m y thumlj. y o u harvest them long about Sometimes a frost'll hit'etn, an' you cut your vines off. If it rains r a frost,'they claim th'frost goes in'em, an' causes th'taters t'rot. 'e plowed.'rm up-they're hard, i'dig u p without you cuttin' a lot of'em
ESCO PI'lI'S: My father always, when he dug his sweet potatoes, let 'em dry in th'sunshine. Then hi'd bring'em in th'kitchen5an' put'ern tj$ck of, m o v e . Xe'd sort m aii tlfsmall; k m g ~ s r r h g y p t a t o e sthat . . wertn'tbig . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... . . .' .,. .... . . . .. . . .'. .l..,l.... . . , . . . ,..,.".. . . ' . . , , ,... .,,'.'.,.,.. . , " .~.'.,.,.:,, . ,.......................... enough to try t eat, land hedsaire 'them for seed2. H e storedthsweet potntoes over the winter in the smokehouse. ~ g r l yin the spring of thTyearjhe'd take those little ones and make him a cold frame with a co;,er to start his plants. ' I , ,
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Tomatoes , , H.4RRY BROWN: T o mike seed beds for ou,r tomatoes, we'd burn [organic] trash in a pile. T k n just.took a shovel and hoe,~andjust turned it all up, and. mixed it all in the ground. Then we'd sow the seeds, and when they got up several inches, we'd set'em out in rows.
EDNIE BUCHANAN: I sow the seeds in :ipril and ,sometimes I sow them the first of March, but you can't set them out without keeping them covered \ until-the middleof May.
LAWTON BROOKS:
People didn't always stake up their t'maters, hut they do just so much lxtter than when they just c r a d over th'ground. Now, t'ma-ters is a thing that doesbest in the new ground-even if you put lots of
Inallureor fertilize fo [the old] ground, there's still somethin' about th'new ground--they do hest in it. The dirt needn't he too rich, hut it can't be' ther. . k d , sun-$'materseneed sun or they'll grow taller and taller or light, and not l a k e mapy t'maters. ESCO PIT'I'S: :I never saw a tonia'to till I was ten or twelve years old. My hardly go to t'hetal~lei f there was a Tomato on there. H e 'tva hog would eat'errr and he wasn't ~ o i n gto eat'em. To~ e t h i n gwe nkver saw in our young days. -,
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ESCO PII*Ts: Mother used to grow a lot of hot pepper-we didn't have . any bell pepper in those days-none of these big sweet peppers. She sowed th'sceds right in t h ' p r d e n usually, but sometimes she'd plant'ern in a box . -~an' set'em inth'kitchen, an' they'd get u p an' then she'd transplaneem. till frost is over t'plant or set'em out-latter part of April. It s quite a while. They don't start making peppers ;ill July or August. used pepper in her sausage; rubt~edpepper on thqurect meat t'keep s away. She used it in her relishes, too. "' > R O O K S : [The peppers were] just like "they have now-all ut th'lmnana pepper. W e had I ~ e l l ~ ~ and p e rhot pepper. We planted t h e m ~e~a~~l~~al~~ut~.Ap~il~,,I,,,gu.~~~ Planted th'seeds in th'row-didn't '' ,.., .. 'right . . ,,,.,,,; .,,,, , . ..,,-.,,.*. . , , ever thin'enr out hecause pepper'll makeljretty thick. -
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then thinned them if they was too'thick. She had th'green kind of okra. FL0RENC:E BROOKS: -1'6~don't put any in till after frost-I guess May. I l ' e always p i i th'seeds irt a cup of warm water one night, l e t ' m sprout, an' take'enr out an' plant'ern th'next day. U'e always made sure we put chicken manure ar.ourld--chicken manure Will really - make okra. Th'okra was just like kh'oi~ewe have n o w ~ m we ' used t'have a white okra -it's just so-pretty and smooth, an' it was good too. Okra takes a while b e fore it starts hearin', b u t once. it starts hearin', it just keeps growin' taller, C and keeps I3earin' till frost. It's best t'pick it ever'day, when th'pods are around four.inches long. I t gets tougher the longer it grows.
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Squash
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ESCO P I T T S : I don't .remember <.. seeing these yellow crookn'eck squash w h e n I y a s a I>oy. [ ~ mother] y planted huhbard and butternut squash, .-.~
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[the kind that call stored o x r the winter]. My d a d d y had a smokehouse where he put his meat, and rhatk where he stored the sq&ih..' . He'd pile thcni in there ;und cover them with shucks or s x k s to keep the111 from f r c ~ ~ i i Squash g. likes an)- good garden soil and pretty m11ch sun. It's thing to gr&v. M'e'd just plant them in hills, several feet apart, I.' not a and give th$:m room to cralvl.
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H.4RRY BROWN-,'Old people ;dways--;my vine, th'tenth day of May they c;&d \'irle Day--that's when they always pl;~nted them-squash, Kershaws, ;irid hul)bar& Kershaws are pulp-filled an' grow great long, ;ni' . ~hev'rewhite, have a heck to'em kind of:rike c,rookrieck squash,. only great big. Thcv ~ r really c good t'fry like sweet potatoesj or slice r ~ pan' put hutter an' cllgar oii'em, an' put'em in th'stove an' I ~ a k e ' e n ~ . .~
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ou put cururnllers out-just as quick as th'dangel. of st gets over-. -fr(yst kills'ern--along in May, unless you just put out a few t you can covck from the frost. Pl;cnt'em it1 hills an' give'ern plenty of I .. n to crawl. . N I E ~ ~ c H A A A NW : e usu;illy plant cucumllers a&und t h e t e n t h o f Ma!-, Vinc Day. lljust plant then, in hills, several seeds to hill, and they i;st run out on a vfnc on the g b u n d , and the cucumhers'come on the vine.
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L O N D O V E R : Weid plant' watermelon an' mushmelo~l-y'always planted Day..I'vc known that as far back as I can' them th'tenth day of ~ay-\'i& remem1,er. Poppy alwavs'd step off about a half a acre that we'& ut in wa,.. , . ternieIons. ~.
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E D N I E BL1C:HANAN: MTe'bsed to grow whdle patches-of melons, l ~ u t we didn't have ;l certain time to plant them, just early enough in the late spring or earjy summer so they'd have enough time to grow. We'd have watermelon and cantalopes, and the whole family would come over to eat - . watermelons. M'c never did sell them, hut I think we sold a few cantalopes. :My husband just loved to r;~isc'eni,I don't know why. M A R I N D A BROWN: TYe grew watcrnmelon and nr~1shnrclo11,which they call cantalope. now. M'c grew them in the field, in good l~ottomland, heca;se they like a more s a i d y soil, not in the garden. We'd plant then1 in hilis, and work'em until [the vines] started to run o l t , then we couldn't weed'em any more.
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t'l,loo~i~in't h a t ' s th'best time. We had a old mule that got scared of a
just before Easter. Some of the time they'll get frosthit, and part of the time
as good as theyused t'he. We had what we called greasy-black beans-I've not seen any of'em in )-ears-little white l ~ a n sfn .a white pole bean. Th'greasy-black hean, you car1 eithu eat the green bean o r a dried bean. For a dried bean, after they get dry on-th'vine, y'pick'em an' put'em in a sack an' beat'em out with a stick. The beans fall out or th'pod. . ~
HARRY BRO\jTN: W e aidn't have anl~half-runnershack in those days; we had cornfield 1,ea.n~. \q7e'd pick'em after they got large enough. We'd take'em ;nd I~rcak'emlike we were going to cook them, and set down with
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I T T S : When I was a boy we didn't have bunch beans-they's all' refield beans or running beans. Around the edge of the garden -my lother planted her butterbeans and what we called October beans, those'
green as long as the season was open, and what we didn't qick be.mn.s.rn.n
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the same kinds o f things they planter1 i n the early spring, but: not as big a 'variety. Collards are included only i n this section because they really don't frost, but everythins elsementioned here ' , . taste good until they've been hit was also grown i n the s h i n g . ESCO P I T T S : For a fall crop, we pianted turnips in September and cab-
in rh'gasde,~.C~ollusds:Ire not much godd till th'frost ljites'em-niakes'ern Ixttcs eat.
on'cm I1ef6re ydu pick'e~n-the- just have a sweeter- taste that way. If yob ~;row'enllike eal-Ty calhagr, they don't taste right. y o u can sow your seeds r sows, or in a bed an' then traiisplant'en~ into ,rows. -C:nme tfrefmrh5iT
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HARRY BRO\\'N: My father would take the collards after they got so high, and push thcrn over, a%d put a piece of pine tiark and then dirt over
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I I Z addition to t h e gar6en vegetables mentioned, people grew other t h i ~ ; ~ eifhel' s, for themselves, or f ~ theilr lir~estock.These c ~ o p soccupy a ant t o the overall functioning of t h e farm a s a nearly self-con-. -~
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Perennials; herbs and-spices
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I t w a s c o m m o n /or a cornei_ore& o # ~ e . ~ , , u e g ~ i a bglaer d e n d o be +s nsirle Frper%nials.-~jze-herbs a n 2 spites ( m a n y of which are perennials) .,were often d z q f r o m fallow or wooded areas and transplanted into the garden so they'd .. be close a t . ! h a n d . Plants s u i h as ,/erusalem artichokes and rhubarb w e i e commonly grown ( a s uegetables) with the herbs a n d spices. T h e Jerusalem artichokes form edible tubers under the g r o u n d ; and if a few are left each yea?-, t h e y will sprout a n d grow up again in the spring. R h u b a r b grows back each year from' t h e sAme stock. ( W e haue not included another well-known perennial, aspamgus, here, because n o one w e spoke t o used t o p o h i t . )
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RlIARINDA BROWN: My mother had her herbs and s p i c e ~ s e t a s i d eon one edge of the garden. She grew horseradish for putting in pickles, sa .e for
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stasoiling saus:~gc, garlic for flavoring different things, dill for dill pickles, / a n d pepperli~iitfar flavorins tea. None of these things took much pamperin-all 1)ut the dill would come hack from the same roots, and that would (self-sow, :rnd tl'iey dian't take a rerilly rich soil. Of course, you had to w e d 'them and'keep then1 fl-om spl.eadili~itoofar, especially the ga lic 1 She c~lsogrew rhul~arba n d Jerusalem articKokes along t e( edge of the -1. ~zardkn.'l'lle rhuharl) she gbt wheii a neighbor divided hers. l'hey like a iiied soil, and [the
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B R O O K S : O b , G i had [[Jkrusalem] artichokes. I doli't ~ I i F r i t h e y ~ l ~ n t e d 'they e n l ~was just there when I was. They kept ming h c k , an' we'd just 6 g ' c m an' cut, Lord mcrcy! They were plantcd outside of ih'ience-it \L-as-qoodrich soil right below th'garden. ad rhul,arlj. We always set it out hy th'garden fence an' let it it up, just let it grow, year after vear. It gets in big bunches. ~ ~ . ~ ~ . . . . m inside rh'garden. : .rv
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ESCO P I T T S : h l v mbther Lad all L i d s of [herbs]-rhubarb, rue, cornfrey, Jerusalem oak, mallards, sage, parsley, and catnip. She had in one corner oi her sardkn all her medicinal plants, and that corner nevei was plo~t-edup-she was veryrarefulof th'at. They'd just come up evek'spring. T h e rue she made tea of, and I ain't seen a stock of rue iilmany a day. She used Jerusalem oak to make candy out of for worm medicine. And , th'mallard leaf \\.as to put on n ISurn-wilt it in front of ih'fire an' slap it on a l l u r n an' ir would draw th'fire out. Thecomfrey sheksed for poultices for sores.
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riibther [htida,corner o f . the garden].-where she grew' dill .and sage, catnip; grour~div-the babies'had .to have that for tea. And .-..sheLe.gse&$..tansv. and.pe.ppe,rrai~at,-~Cl&-ot~~&em c a m e J ~ a c..y k ear..af~er...%eac ,......I:I:.... ',
Alanlr.! people ctaltiz'ated fruit i n the mountains years ago, with apples, peaches:.,nrrii ~ r a j e sbein,? the most c o m q o n . B u t it appears to u s that people relied ieT3' heavily o n t h e hilrl fruit wjzich ,grew i n abundance. S o m e exanzples are blackbe~ries,strawber~ies,huckleberries, perslmmqns, cheiries, mzllberries, mayapples, and elderber~ies. ,. '
KEXNI' R U N I O N : People grew apples, peaches, grapes, j l u m s , a-nd--~ ~~~~
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pears. A R ~they '\vcre dqlicious. ,4t1ht&time here-%as, nb such thing as sprayin'. T h e people in niy young life pruned their tiresand grape vines in '
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crll;rr-t'put stuff ih, 11r1tmost people just dug holes in th'grotlnd.
M:IKINDL3 BROWN: ~ h : l e 1~was 51-owingup on' Middle Creek, my father had all kinds of fruit, and there was no prol~lenlwith btigs. 'l'here were
but I really can't remember.
the ,bi~-ds,1 surss, a n d ,we also.had self-sowed p!um and peach trees ;ill
sweet, it'll have a kind of litter whafis. But you let the seeds get good an' ripe on your cane, cut it down, strip.th'fodder off it and bring it t o a cane^
E'11' BROOKS: There's not a whole lot to xrowing cane. T h e work hen it ripens. You just plant it and forggt about it for sixty to sisty-
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BROOKS: Cane is something that takes a soil that's n Q top clay soil's the hest. $ow it in rows so it Gin he' worked t i b e
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was hard work. We couldri't sell it. I used to sell it for twenty-five cents a gallon, X1y father just "lade hundreds and hundreds bf gallons. H e cooked syrup for all the neighbors. H e had his own equipment, his own furnace and cookins vat nd everything. Everybody couldn't own a vat to cook syrup -cause it was too expensive. O n e persoy in the -neighborhood like would start the operation. Thcy paid'em so m u c h , I d o n ' t remember the prices 'now, but we a1w;lys had a 11ig cane patch. I had to hoe it, a n d that was a jol~.Plum up until aftcr I ~narried,we had cane.
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T,l,.E~,. C ,-,.,H O L S ; . Y O ~ - ~ ~ ~ ~ . prepare ~ ~ ~ . ~your ~S . - .~ bed. C ~ ~ irst ' ; ' ~you ~~' I
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crtilize or barnyard litter in it. Frkme it i'n with planks and put a he dil-t u p and ~ n a k eit soft. 'l'hen, in the early spring, ;it them jn. T h e j are little seeds and you don't want en they corne up then you put a screen over them,.; or over. You plant then1 on the.$& side so the ~u .let yauc pla11.t~.get.up. six. t'o .e&ht.inches high, I~iigerthe better. oQlt in your tobacco patch. You' have td work t4e soil . ciircfully to keep the weeds down. Plow it,l>ut you can't plow close to the pl;i~lts;you h;i~-cto go around and be careful not to bruise them. When it starts to ripen, it ibes to Seed; it has a bloorn and a seed on top. Then you top it. 'l'he!; have little suckers 'otl thcn;, little plants that comeout on the stalk at the leaves. You have to pinch those little sucliers off to make good toY>;rcco, and all that str&igth goes to the leaves. Then when it ripens cnoughall the leaves go together:^ They cured the toi~acro.bark then: T h e y didn't have y,wh&xs~justfor a small fat-111. They would jbst hang it in the barn. .,b ES(:O P1'I"I'S: hly grandfather grew td,acco for his divn use, a Gatch ;tl,out as I ~ i g21s this robm [ I 2'X rq'].. Wheh ,those leaves hegan to turn, now that was his j.ob, we couldn't do ~hat-he'd go through the field when those l~ottomleaves began to tgrn and very carefully pick one off a t a time^ and put them i n a basket. He'd go over his little patch two to three tin!esl a week. He'd take those big tohacro le?ves,. tie a hunch together,take'emand hang'en~u p in the barn till they got good and dry. Hk:d putjem where we couldn't get to it, It was hard to grow; seems like every three to four days checkink those leaves, lookins for worms. I always wanted to work ut no, that was apart. twist his t o h a ~ o ,he would make a sweetened water with homemade syrup and he'd put a big wagon sheet down, put hi's nice leaves down on .$hat sheet, a i d take that' sweetened water and sprinkle -~
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PLATE 212 Tobacco curing in the sun on Conway and Park Hughes's farm.
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it on the to11;lcco. When it got bretty damp, why, he'd t:bist.is. He'd lice; until 'he :got it done. Some parts he'd have for chewin', and some for SinoLil~'.I'lwpretty sure he saved his seed. Some pehple had big old tobacco patches. T'hey~.didt>'tsell it. ~ h e ) - ' n i ; ~ dtheir 'e t o I , a ~ c .and ~ they divided. it with people
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LA72'TON BROOKS : Lots ofCpeoplegrew hay. Thcy could sow i t albng 'i in Aug~tsiin their corn. After I 1;rid l,y illy corn, I'd go in ihk,orn an' sow it. , T h e n \v!:cn )'gather yo& corn, you xo \Jack ill i h e r c , cu; th'stalke m!ie th&n off, an' you'll have you a clear: meadow. therr whencyour ha?~,g$ts.- C u p l>ig enough tt'cut, you cut it s o n ~ e t j n ~ e ithkpri11~. n They'd get:an old n ~ u l emowing machine [pulled with nll;les oshoyes]. Then thiey b2a an old rake driven with horses, -. an' it'd-rake up u11' when it got fwlt, you'd trip it ., . an' i t i d d u m p th'hay. 'Thenafter it cured, y'had t'staclz-it: Didn't have no , . . c,
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You ~ o d set d threr cuttings Gilt of a m&dow.-$ou woii't xet too ,;uch h'third timr,kfkeeps comin' up by itself each timr. Thcn you could'plow it - ~\ uffder and it in something else,,like corn. ~. ."
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H.4RRIE.T ECHO1,S: Hay is a Crop saisr.d ~. i11 n ~ ~ s t d \ ~ earea x y now. All the ~vol-liisclone with tractors and I ~ i qrn;lr.kiiillery today, I)&.,used to be, it " -was all dolie liy hand. Lot of times people would plant sr>ss on worn out \
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PLATE 213 Bclle,Dryman atldher so11 Foy p u t u p Yhrsr lijysiacks.,Her cows'have nibbled arvn)- qome oi the hay fro111the bottom portiotls. i
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out with their scythe and cut,i't. Now some f o l k had hoke-drafv1-i m o ~ i ~ machines, ig hut we didn't. How long it qakes to cure
ind it, then lay some [)rush on the ground [around the pole] so :1
LI\\VTON BROOKS: Y o u c a n sow rye in August, in yofir corri-it *likes cooleq wcather. I'pz always proud t'scc th'old thrasher come in ,there-
U'hen they got done thrashin' j t my house, he'd go to yours. We ha
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GARDENING
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out, sack $up, tage it fo ;he mill a n d get. . your flour. 'l'he oats was for tk@nitnals. .,
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H-IKRY BKOIVN: Well, th'waplWe thrashed th'rye, we ~ a i d abunch of poles over a hole in th'hole. We laid th'rye on top of th'poles beat it with pole. You get as mudl as you would out longer. "I'h7rye falls down into th'wagon sheet out, and pur ir GI s i c k . 1'hen day, you get out and pick up a sack, and th'wi~td'l~lows th'chafl; out of it.\
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T E 2 1 4 Louili C a b e shows us hole a grain cradle is used. !
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oats will them in the fall; tl&,spr&?oats in Pel,lukq;~r The stand the hard freezes but the springoats they had to put in when the hard f~ekzes\yere o\:er. The)..hkd to.$repare the ground the same way, eut i11the fertilizer o; the I,irnyard l?tter, w h a t e x r theyhad. Broadcast it over the land, then plowed it under, then sowqd .their ~ r a i n .A lot of people used to sow it in rows. They'had this machinery to sod~it. O n e little grain will come u p .and ,make . dozens of stalks. Then,they had to'harvest it. They'd cut it with gram cradles, and put it in bundies and shock it. I t ~vas~~hard-~iilior all together. 'She); called it cradli~lgthe grain. the^-grain,cradle was as sharp as a razor blade i t had to he to cut the grain:'\Yhen the shock. cured, . they'd haul it to the barn ~vherethe thrasher could go, and thrash it out. It took four or fivc to fl operate t h e thrasher.
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Interestingly enough, all the people w e talked .to said the insect problem used to h i z:ery small. S o m e felt it had to do k i t h the fact that people often burned $8 their gardens and field; &fore plantih,o, and that .the m"ounlains were !burned or;er every Vear. W e were assured that there w o u l d have been little need for chemical insecticides euen if they hdd already been developed. It must haze been quite a blow to people w h o had for years grown hialthy, relatirsely bug-free vegetables and crops, to witness the euer-growing insect population a n d watch t h e m lower their gardens' productiuity. . L'%nimals, howeuer, both wild and domestic, presented a greater problem tT3eop'le's gardens years ago. For this jeason almost everyone fenced their .,.:,re uegetgble . .";;>S cardens, and while cattle, etc., were s{i&on open range, most people fZTcPd their fields. Followjng w e present a ~ e n e r a lquote from A n n a Howard about pests; after that we'll'give suggeitions on dealing with individual pests, and finally, we'll present a small piece on fencing.
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ANK.4 HOWARD: [There are so many insects now] 'cause they ain't no -,
cattle nor hogs nor nothin' in th'woods is my idea. An' people don't hurn like the); used to-burn off fields and big brush, piles, kill all them insects. I remember we had rats. They'd get in th'garden once in a while and eat alittle in the garden. We didn't do anything about t h e m Now crowswould .. eat up your corn crop if you didn't keep them scared out. We'd make scarecrows and put around the edgebf th'field-that'd scare'em out. sometimes they'$vould g e t s o had, people would get out in th'edge of th'wobds and'! 4 d shoot a t k n ~ . : . i Now we had rahbits. They was. worse than anything else. \ ~ e ' k i d swould1, ,,.,, ,! have a couple of rabbit boxes set but in the edge& th'field, and ev,ery,, I
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'eat ]jack then, they didn't bother gardens like they d o n o w . ' ~ ehad moles, ; . used Lo, bnc of u i d sit aropnd through th'aay wilh a hoe tlLillit, but then we got a mole- trap. Th'ground squirrels got in a lot and we'd Shoot - . jthsrn] an' pat'em. See$we kept dogs, and that was our pastime.
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plo,\v the garden up good
Cabbage Worms: s pour warm water that's h a d red pepper soaked in it 'bver the cab; bage e dust with soot or ashes from the fireplace sprinkle dry dirt on the cabbage pinch ofI a lcaffrom the bottopqof the plant, lay it or1 top of the cab'bage-in the inbrning it will be coitered k i t h worms % ;g -., -
e dig d0lr.n to thml ~undkilfthem
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e 'sprinkle plants with sulfur or ashes
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Blackbirds;.
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in nearby trees and on the plant5; t the sun intermittently afid scare
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will flrip in the wind and scare
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e put up a tall fencearoui~dthe garden
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Groundhogs:
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a keep a good gr-aundhog dpg e stick a sock soaked in gasoline i f h i s hole*
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sulfur \vill poison them e set mole trap in the run' o put niothballs in the run
o plant mole plants (also called castor beans) around your
will scare off other moles
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PLATE 216 Csco Pitts has used this mole tra11 for years and years. He told us it has killed numerous moles.
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will keep them away - . c set a n old shoe out in the row
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of it (it has t o h e this hig1,ecause it won't rattle i f you don't) and fold the papcr down ovZr the, stake at the top. Tie a sking hig enough t o f i e /
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e set 5 trap for them . .
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.r set niothl>nlls around wli'ere you last saw them'-. . e set a rat trap in a mole run, as rats often use mole runs r tcach'your cats to hunt al?d kill them '
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get a squi~.reld o ' shoot a ~ eht ~ dthem o poison corn. with lve:br arsenic
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T h e folioroiitg- jieople contrihuteci i n j o r m c ~ t i oon ~ how to deal with garcien pests: * Joe Arroze~ood, E$nie Buchanan, M r s . Cetil Cannon; Carl Carpen:ter, L.eana 7'. Gnrz!cr, Doc Chastdin, M r s . N o r m a n ~olernan,?I&zogeneDailey, Fred Darnell, 114imnrie Dickerson, Barnard Dillard,. Bobbie Dills, Harriet Echols, Ton1 Grist, ~ b n n i eHarkins, M r s . Earl Holt, lilr;. L. D. Hopper, Airs. R o y lielly, T e d Lanich; A u ~ ~t a $Long, Pearl illattin, J i m AlcCoy, l:lys,te$ -4dcCoy. Bclzora Moore, I M ~ SGeorge . h ' i x , Mrs. J . D. Quinn, K e n n y R z ~ n i o ~ iW, i l l Seaglc, V i n a Speed, 23: J . Stiles, L a k e stiles, M r k O r e n S w a ~ ~ . s oGladjls n, Swanson, Gladys T e a g u e , Cal T h o m a s , Neld Thomas, 1117.5. Rirdie I l a e Ifinson; ~ a l i h Vinson, T . F . I'inson, Pearl Watts, Grbuer Wi+b, N a o m i M'hitmire, Mrs. Ben Williams, ~\lrs. G;ace WiFiicims, Lee :. ~ . ~ i ~ l i a n z s , Zoellnei. "~ill - .
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Fences most people
put up a paling fence=uU& t J e L u ~ q & a b h d a n i . A fnlzng je~ice sort of a 7-ough picket fence m a d e of hand-split boards, pointed o n to/] so the chickens wouldn't fly zcp on it and then into the garden: M a n y people fenred in, their /a?-m crops, too, but there they used split rails put together in n zigzag p n t t e ~ nfor that. These fences kept. out l~lrgerdomestic and wild animals which woulrf eat the uegetnbles and./or'jarm crops. . ' -
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ESCO PITTS: You had to enclose your garded so my daddy split chestnut palings in t h o s ~days. Chestnut trees was mbstly what he built. his house out o f . Chestnut trees would be sixty feet to the first l i h b @d long straight trees. .Andthey would split awful easy and he would just3'5$it palings abou
T h e n he put his locust posts in every eight feet and made his railings one at the hottorn and one at the top to nail. his palings to. T h e palings went u p -. , a n d down; they were sharp oh the ends. .
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PLATE 218 The rail fence in front of Thomas Stubbs's cabln is very much l ~ k ethe ones p e o p k used to put up around their fields.
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R. hl. I)ICI<ERSON: ~ v c r ' b o dhad ~ to fence their own fields. You had fence logs and you were s,utpposed to take care of your own cow yourself. But ha k when I was out here, they had what y'called an open,range and any11 dy,could turn their cattle out, and if ?Vo&had a cornfiela; you had to keep it fenced up to keep the cattle out. But after we voted out the free range and \-oted.in the fencin', ever'hody that had cattle had to put then1 up and kcep'ern in their own A f ~ e rthat we didn't have to fence our cornfields so niuch.
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DIFFERENCES IN THE OLD
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M a n y people W P .spoke to felt ihhtth.u3~e,qetah12ithZj used . t o grow tasted better t h a n thyse t h e y grow.tpday. T h e differences were attributed t o ' t h e facts that t h e y used t o grow non-hybrids, whereas t o d a y rrrc~st seeds are hybrids: that t h e y used t o grow z~egetnbles totally o r ~ a n i c a l l y , but don't 7 , ; ~ ) ;a n d that age m a y h i o e hinderedtheir-ense of taste.
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. , ANPU'A HOWARD:. I think the fk;ti~izers make a difference. I think that makes th'difference in the taste of the plants we eat. You take peopie that. use stable manure for their &den; I think that m a k c a difference in the flavor of the food-it grovjs off better. Now I garden with store-bought fertilizer, and 1.don't like it either. I can't get ,a good pretty garde;i like I want to.. I think ahout hack when I waq a kid and my father usea t'have tho,$e pretty gardcns. And now Io&n't get one like that, and I'rn sure it's that st'dl,le manure: It's really good for a garden.
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ADA KELLY: I realIy believe t l p t some of them had .a riche: flavor. They' were grown just from'the soil with no additions at all, and it just seems that they had a better flavor.
LATYT"0N B R O O K S : T h e y h a v e a lot of diffcrcncc-in
th'beans an' in, th'tomatoes and things like that. Th'beans tast; altogether different frofn i: th'kind they used to gl.bhthen. H A R R I E T ~ C H O L S : There is B difference in the taste of vegetables now and then. I don't know whether it's that wepeople have grown older and our taste huds are getting away from us, dimmipg, like Qur eyes, but it doesn't'seefi l i b the vegetables here taste as good now as'thky used to. You know, I use.2 to love fruits and I ate,,-them all the time. I still d q but I have . ' to force myself. I don't care for them like I used to, 1 don't know why.
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A A T n R A R R T T RCSVZ'C
BIRD T R A P S awton Brooks, one .of our most informative contacts (Foxfire 3, pages 2 2 1-44, for 'example), anmzed us again by sgoqving us how to do something that we hadn't seen . before. Lawton, who stops by our office occasionally, revealed on one par-. ticular afternoon that he could'make a bird trap-a trap thaf not only caught other snlall,gamt as well as hirds, but one that also left the anim.al aliye. Since we were interested in other methods and devices that snared animals such as rabbit boxes and deadfalls, we aske.@awton to show twgbf the students w l ~ owork with us, Robbie Moore and David Hopkihs, how he made one. As ~ a w t ~ r m a it, d ehe told us a little bit about them,, as well as a fufiuy story about his brother: " ~ a c kwhen I learned to make bird traps, my brother Neil and I would use our father' hoards. H e always kept a stack of boards around for patching the roof with-everything was covered with old-time boards. Well, we'd slip those h o a ~ d sand split'em u p and make the trap out of them. $Ve didn't have no nails. We knew that if we got his nails, he'd raise cain. y o u could use nails, though. But we had to learn to do it the way we had to do it. M'e didn't have no nails to nail'em together with, so we put a bow oh'em to hold'em together. "'\\re used to catch a lot of quails, or any kind of little bird that'would come and get;;; it. 'Course you take an 01' hog or something . big, they'd tear it u p pretty easily, but just common game won't. I've caught rabbits' in i t , before. You can bait it with corn or anything. You just make the. trigger x . and put a nubbin of corn, a piece of bread, or anything you wagt t o p u t on ,. it, and the animal or bird will comb." ! As Lawton showed us how to make the trap, he told us a little about his ' childhood. There were six children, four boys and two girls. His oldest brayher was Ernest, then after him was Wayne, then came Neil, and Lawton was the youngest boy. Neil died as a'result of .the flu in the flu epidemic about the time of World War One. H e was twenty-one, and was working as
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'TRAPS, DEADFALLS, AND RABBIT BOXES
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anyway. H e tool, a backset and never got over it. He hadn't been married buf a month or two when he died." As he talked about his brother Neil, Lawton remembered something the .bifh~ -------; ern F iaZ done wKen -they were younger. , ~ . . "Neil was about the size of this one here [Robbie, age sixteen] when,he jumped out.of the bani 1oft.He thought he was goingto make him a kite and fly, and he liked to have got killed. -
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at the time. My daddy .and mother had gone to town and left Neil and me lone. They'd-always tell Neil to take care of me. My mother and 'da8dy ~~
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cover the whole buggy. . "So Neil got to studying about making a parachute. H ~ s a i d ,'Tell , you what let's do. Let's take this umbrella, take a run to go, and jump out 'that ,
to the ground easy.'
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"So he just backed in these and he-took a run t o go, and when he opened the umbrella, it just went wrong side out. H e hit the ground like a log. He didn't move for a long time, knocked the breath out of him. I thought he was gone, too. I looked down there. I went down the s air,ste saand out in 4 - p the lot and rolled him over three or four times before helever got his'breath. I was just sure that it had killed him. But he was all right. H e was just sore. My daddy asked him, 'What's the matter with you, Neil?' ".\nd he said, "Mrell, I'm just kind of sore likt I been lifting or, somee thing.' "And I way afraid to tell my father anything. I kndwed that if I did, me and Xeil woyld have a fight."
Interviews and photographr by Robbze Moore and David Hopkins.
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PLATE 221
PLATE 220- Lawton ad& on boards alternately- going straight up on two sides and sloping t d other two sides until the trap is eight to ten boards high.
.He then "fops o f f the trap with several more hoards so the birds cannot fly out the top. Lawton says, "You can top off ?the trap anytirfle you want to.' Make the spacing in the boards so. the bird [or animal] c y h e and they aintt iir the dark."
PLATE 22'2 The !trap with all' the boards in place.
PLATE 223 Lawton does n g use nails in making his traps,. but holds them together with bo\\,-a green stick about 2' long that he pulls taut over the top -. and ties with rope to the bottom h a r d on either side.
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PLATE. 22.1 Diagram show1 scalk of the sticks used to make the trigger. Stick "A" is'$z long, "R" is g s " , and "C" is ?on. T h e sticks are the same as those used for the deadfall trap (see PLATE 2 2 9 ) .
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PLATE 225 T h e ;rigger is made of s k i l l green sticks of hickory or other hard~vood. Lawton carves out the notches while the \\-ood isgreen and plible, then lets it dry before putting any tress on it. T h e set trigger .is baited on the right end 6f'the horizontal section with bread or corn o r o t h t r bait..
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PLATE 226 The trigger assembly is made of ,three sticks. When set up, they make the ~ i u m e r a lfour. When set, they hold together only because of the weight of the trap pushing down on the vertical stick. I t IS so delicately set and balanced that the slightest movement by the animal o r bird against the horizontal piece w,ill collapse the trigger assernbly and bring the trap down. T h e base of the vertical stick is not stuck intp the ground, but sits on top of the ground so that it w,ill fall over easily .and not lieer, the trap from falling.
PLATE 1
PLATE 92
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Now measure in another&" and draw another line ( $ 3 ) parallel to the one you just drew. This line Will indicate the thickness of the tray. / From this line, measure down the block whatever length you wish the inside of thc tray to bc (in this case 16"),and draw a line ,($&) perpendicular to the center line. M e a ~ u r eout another 5/8" a n d m a r k again ( # 5 ) . 'Matk.a-centes-width,kinc , , , .($6-the . ., one with. the circle on it in Plate ,,>,.., 91 ) . I n this case, you would measus; 8 1~f;6o;m either of the. innerlines,, Transfer this line to the bottom by the method shown in Plate 92. Go back to the center line you drew down the length of the block. You are about to mark out the width of the handle. The lines you see in Plate 9 3 are marked I j/4" on each side of the center line for a total width of 2%". Extend t h t center line down over the edge of the block on both ends so YOU a n i d r a ~ ce-nter ~ ~ a line on the bottom. his es T h e other lines on the block are what ~ r . ~ ~ ~ a r r i s o h u sdevelop 1, own theory,about making the trays. They help him keep u p with what he is doing when he marks the curvature and begins to dig out the bowl. He laid these off by the width of his square: O n the circled,linein Plate 91 you will notice ashort'mark near the edge of the bloc'k. The ma;k is ?/s" in from the edge of the block. I t is marked,in with dividers (Plate 9 4 ) using the point a t w h i c h lines $ I and #6 intersect as the center. In Plate 95, Mr. Harrison uses the dividers to begin to mark the arc of the tray. He tries several radii until he gets one that "pans out," beiglg careful not to mark the, wood which will become the handle. Mark with the dividers until the c u k e begins to turn toward the center. Finish the 'curve
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PLATE 93
PLATE $4 .
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PLATE 95
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with a ",French rule,': as shown in PIate 9 1 . '+bcall this my French rule 'cause I get so many curves out of it. There's some more up there I made. I just heni this piece of green pine and it holds.'' Mr. H a r r i s o ~then goes over f the final outline of the bowl with a lead pencil (Phte 96). c. .i You are now ready to begin digging out i h bowl ~ of the tray. Mr. Harrison uses a small adze called a cooper's adze to do this. Start from the mid-. i I d1e:and wqrk slo\vly outward (Plate 9 7 ) . Be v e q careful not to go top deep. . 8
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DEADFALLS
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-4 deadfall trap works on exactly the same principle, and uses the same triggerins device, as the bird trap Lawton Brooks showed us how to make. By definition, however, a deadfall killi the animal when .the trigger is released. Tedra Haimon explained that when he sets u p a deadfall trap, he finds a large flat rock that is heavy enough to crush any animal unlucky enough to nder it when it,,falls. H e then raises one end and sets the triggrr. As a bird trap, the bait is placed on the ppinted end of the horizontal , I n order to keep the bait on the stick m'ore securely, Tedra pushes it the pointed end, splits the end, and drives a wedge into the split to d the end and anchor the bait in place. F& rabbits a h possums, he pples, beets, or cabbage for bait. For raccodns,) he uses sardines. For foxes, possums, or ikunks, Tedra baits the trap with ome third of a uirrel or a whole bird. . . nsure that the animal enters the t r a p , only from the front, wood, and brush are placed at both sides of the1 trap.
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rticle and photographs b y Robbie Moore.
PLATE 228 hllnard Buchanan and Wig construct a deadfall trap
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Though rabbit box@ ,ha.~e.ls&a~ ~ ~ t i ~ n ~ ~ d ~ & ~ t ~ ~ p a ~ t ~ - [ ~ e ~ ~ r S ; ~ - t h - t h F o <\ Book, page 2,571, we, never found ahy& who hadmore compIete information.on .. them. Recently, two of our students,Mike Drake and Bob Sjostrom, found an old one it. an abandoned home place i n our county 'and photo',, ? graphed and measured it for this chapter. 1 ?
O:agca- by m.rL o u r c
PLAI'E 234 Diagram illustrates the trap mechanism.
PL,ITE 235 Diagram shows dirnknsions of the rabbit box.
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__-that one thing she loves to dp is talk, especially when.there are people there to listen. Annie talks a l d t about her hair and. how it used to be so long and eautiful. She has told us many timesth%t she thinks a .pekon's 'hair is their "
that means more to me than any outer beauty anywhere.
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July 1864, and in -4ugust it was finished with a top on it. My grandfather and his neighbors built it. It didn't have any chimney and Grandmother
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cooked outdoors under a brush arhorj I n the falla they sealed tbe crack with hoards, threerfoot pieces split out of timbef. T h e house-i& first co\:ered with logs and h i l t like a b i r h t r a p aitL.rd;-1t w i t ~ t q x ~ e h ~ - ~ with logs for the-gahle and logs put across from the long ways of the house [poles running the length o f the building acting as both rafters and lathing]. They put the chimney.'on-thatfall. I t lasted about a hundred years. we^ tore it clown about fifteen years ?go because ic looked like it was going to I fall on us. B . T h e first floor was..,a,pun.eheon..floop'p'p'iitttw. aStl~t...p$ank...bup*~e-of-~spl* ...' l o p that were about two i k h e s thick. Then they were smoothed off. The[$ . . , have been three extra floors [since then]. We had store~boughtfurniture. We had a little iron bedstead and' its ead' and foot weren't nb bigger t h a n my iittle fink?. hen' Tve had one I bmemade bedstead that, was a great hig old thirrg.It had great big posts, big railings, and slats. id,&idn't-have any cords-it wasn>t' a corded. bedstead, never did have ode of thbse, k e had stray mattresses and cleaned ' them out every year. i ~ b ' dburn t$&old land get some new. I'll' tell you what, they lay just as gomodi f k r you get them fixed and le lay good with a big, heavy quilt over the top of that straw , gocd a bed as anyone wants to 1ieor'Mother had a feather be
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PLATE 237 Annie greethg t\vo Foxfire editors from the front porch of her log hwe. -
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My mother,my aunt, and my uncle all grew up in this house. :.'' and father lived here till I was born, and then they built them ,ahouse up on 'a hill from here, and we lived .up there till my" grandmother aied 1925,a d t h e n we moved back down htre. M'e moved d o w ~ , ~ h e x , e , . ~ J . . x ",,,.,l,-,.,-. countof. the~,sprin.g .g,...Eapaa,atb~ught: tbe..spring was the greatest thin ever has bien. I've been here ever since.' ' I 'don't want no city life because I don't like it. I lived in a city in South . ~ a r o l i h afor two mo,iiths, and I didn't like - it. I lived 'there long enhugh to know 1.don't like it, because I like neighbon, but they were just too close thPre. 8 When you live in the country, you can have a garden and you can g o pick fr&h vkgetables whtn you want'em, and.they d ~ n ' tcost you so much. God~givesy o u t h e s t r ~ n ~ and t h if you use Mihat H e gave you, );ou might not" make a bounti'fyl crop, but you can make some. If you've lived long enough and nobody yon't hire you and,you3re able to work, you can make you something to eat, and you can eat it. I
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T E 238 Annie in her gar'den. She\ had the garden in the same s b t since .she was a little girl, arjd .it still grows w r n ten She does~not-useferdfeet tail. -izer, and plants only'hy the signs. ~~
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arms, you plant your cucungers. Your root crops,ou plant when the sign's in the legs and feet. Now a m o t h e r things, we'd make jelly on t&e new of the moon, and get a who$ lot more jelly'and the juice would jellr, quicker 1 than making it on the full of the moon. My grandhother'd make her own soap. And she'd ;hays mike: the soap on the new of the inoon. That's when you just see it je1?ing the; bgst. I.\'hki we'd~-killhogs, ive'd always try t'kill'em on' the decrease o f the moon-when it gets smaller: And then yout meat won't puff up and be big old thick pieces,, and it's easier to rend&. [ S e e t h e chaptei,on planting by . . the signs in T h e F n x j r ~Book.1 We had a lot of animals -6icn, mules, a horse, hogs, cows,, chickens,. ducks, sheep; dogs, and cats. ,.The hogs and cows w n t wherever. they @, . pleased all bver tlie mountains. TYe've had bees ever since I could, remember. There weren't no-@andI . children for a long time except Suzie and me, and I begged Grahdpa for some bees. He ~gavkme^ one stand 'and he said the -first t i m e - t h a t one. swarms,.it belongs Lo s&'~ .'and that one; w8s -~
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,sijid Iwasn't 110 ol"il,e.' hogs and '..
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f our t~rows.And. solnc $ople a r t , I~usethe Imdy I,? overworking. I' .
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:urd keeps'em from doilbg thiliss :. ., their minds on their work, khey'llle . '
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ent to school. And I'kiad chores to. ad no special tiiile to. : & P We glayed
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ked to have something to live on. Papa'd t hy the f i k , and his mauls thai he uked, and b W e had pine %not lights to see by at grown when flarna first bough't her y -lanlp-that'& hold about a $in$-it a;ld keroscne oil cost five cents $gal:
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winter, we fixed the fence around when the ground was-pryenough ~. . . we'd pkow in the-wi~lter. had to feed the chickens, ducks, hogs, sheep, but ' . I went o schooi-every minute that wefhad school. My daddy never k2pt us f :. out a ni,'nute from going to school, no.mader how much work he had to do f . that we* could help him do. H e said he didn't want us t6 grow up like he .. , * :-.. did. ' M'e had a hal:d time washink the clothss. M'e had a big old pot (I've still. . g^o! that iv&hpot) of iron, a;ld you gather up your dirty clothes, take'em down to the l~raAch,fillup yo$r tubs with water, fill *up th'pot, heat it goo'd .. . and .,have it warm, and have homemade lve soap, and a I ~ i gstick &bout so lank, triAmed . olf Qke a I n t . Yon'd,have a,,i,ig stump, piece of wood settin' 'up that way, a14 put your clothes oikhere and I-~eat'emwith that stick, and then put'ern in the pot and put a fir; aroundthe pot, and some soap in the p,ot, parboil'eln n l.~oil'.ern,~"~hen you rinse your clothes and get all .
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FOX/F&E
,.: ,“?;~he soap,&t.
You didn’t
‘Xwring&g let’em
motioi]
have
a wrillger;
with your
dry and they’d
you wrung
this way
hands., And then hang’em
be pretty
+&white.
We’d
[Annie
fiat
would
like. what
they:
You get after’em
aft$r Dad’s I didn’t
we got now;
old britchesLit
[Th’e clothes
hang’em
with a battlin’
would
have very many
get’em
today
I
make5
out .on the line and 6n the grapevine,
and go to the woods and get 1ong;‘slim ,poles, and ger one with set it in there and hang y&xx clothes I$ that. The clpthes were then,
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a fork ,and real styong
wouldn’t]
st?ck Ii@1
last ‘long,~
used to have
to
>’
clean.
toys. I’ll tell you what
toyi we had-we
had twos
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dogs and Iwo cats and a rag doll. My grandmb made me a rag doll about three feet lqng one time.,~Yes,%he tgok a one-pound ,.flour s&k to make the~--~~ ‘front ‘care
of it, Stuffed it with cotton. Me Fqd ~S~@zie,~th~at’sm~y~sistei,~we~d~~~ke of our cats, We had-two old cats, Sandy and Coachie~. And ,Boun@ng
King was the dog. He’d ,go as far as from a”ll :day. We’d $ay with’our dogsand~+ts. do now’: We climbed
trees,
too.
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here to the ‘cop of the hill and,stay We didn’t,ha<e toys like children
I .fell qut one
time
and
like to brpke
my
,.l.-~-.,,“~“’ ‘,?iZ% And I’ll~tel! you another thing.,,Down. below where we went to play, ‘3~;.:. ~~ theie v&a bratichzand a white $k right bn the edge, and a limb sticking -. &t. We’d catch ahold of that limb, swing way out over that ~l$.nch,,~W~~d ;< a a’killed ourselves if we’d ,+‘fallen. Papa came al&g atid found uphanging on that limb. He cut it off. “That ended
the fun. He cut it down,.
&es
around
to everything, us and we’d break
, y&s a game Ither, /I _,
where
&ring.
it. They
didn’t
It ain’t nothing
.
think
out right,, There’s::,not
,
this what
were
strict,
and: they
dancing
6
-up
Now, that
c
no harm
no’~more
harti
~~_
a hig time.
and there’s
gets lost! ! The
bars’ hoqe you c&e
wasn’t
daddy
would
I’m telling- you not~tir&$-I
we didn’t
do it, bezaG&
me. He wouldn’;~~haG&et
~‘~‘~where,
‘~‘~
al-low us, to do that .~I, eitb the top of3he hill, that’s
There’s
a’bit
I@g
,~It’s lots of fun.
but square
it was right.
We They’s
noth-.’
teachers
didn’t
in dancing,
surely;
in square
dancing
there- is ix< eating.
My parents
Well,
shady a partner.
and we’d just +e
If nobody
:;
didn’t
halfway
a partnerapiece
they let us off by our;elue
fe&
They
the road,
any inore~interesting:
if it’s carried *I
Each
and ~swing ba&kwards.
we’d all go. Just have
We~played
than
k&w.
we used to play eat school.
and we’d slip off down
irig that’s aIli&
,you
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We’d play ball and drop-the-handkerchief and, ring-them-a-rosie. also played grape-vine twist. It’s a dance. WI? didn’t have,any music. ‘two
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I want
w& came back
us g&y to know
home.
house,
sa);;=Now,
better
get ahold
you’d
of i$and_lI’ll-
my dad>$-Mias-zQuthf$ he,‘d say, “I,f they’re
where
yoilr+re.”
whip
man:8mQe’d
wi& it. When&?-le~wgo
to’~play with, the children, hack.
only ~strict at the
If they
He kept a real rlose~~$-welli’he
but
if
‘j,
.’
not d6 you.” whip
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to the~~~~fieigh; g&g-~-saFewhere, were
~~-~-~~~‘-~~-~:
goiihjust wanted’~\. ~J-?...:
~~
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stay under my soof."
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speak ugly to a grown person and n o t t o touch a thingthat belonged to t h e other peison without asking. When we first started to school, the path went by ,this little bridge where Mrs. Bleckky-had ;*.apple tree and apples would fall in the &ad, and we didn't have any apples. Daddy said, "Now., Annie;
get farther than the seventh grade. But that was all right, I went to sch~.oI.
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FOXFIRE 4 ber. We'd help my daddy in the fields. Thk; we'd have nothing to do, and the teacher would say, "If you've got, nothing to do, well come on then, may1,e you'll learn someihing." I never went a year but what I learned something. I was seven when I started. T h e schoolhouse was a good building. !I was .built in p l + n k . . ' ~ h efirst school building I ever went to was abgut a milc from here.',^ went there till I was t t n or twelve years old. And thell they donso~idat~d the 'schools tdgether, there was two ,,schools. Qne couldp't 'get along through the winter by itself, so they put'em both to;ether. Then I went from this side of 'the Baptist Church to a slab-blqck building ~$itha rodf on it. When it rained, it leaked at the t o g o l the door. Wc'd go start up to dass, go u p right through that water. We went in about , irty, supposed to get there by then, and you'd have a n hour and a half of recreation. An.hour at lunch and fifteen minutes in the morning and ninutes in tKk afte;nooh. We done some tali p1ayl:ng at that hour; .,!. rselves to death playigg ball! studied history, geogiaphy, English, arithmetic, and spelling. I wish I uld find me a United States history book. I started out at three [months chool year] and quit. a t six h o n t h s . T h e county provided that. I don't know, I guess the state paid in some taxes; . too. But the teachers didn't get,but thi,Gyfive dollais a month, and that was the o n e t h a t g o t the most: ~ r o mtwenty to thirty-five dollars. They h ~ a d w h a tthey called Teachers' Institute, and they'd. go and they'd traih'em. ' T h e n they'd give'em their papers and have'em to Gdrk at them. And then they'd giade their papers, and the). had qne, twp, and three-three grades, first,'second, third. I never had a school teacher in.my life, honey, that had a high school education. They generally went through the seventh grade, and went to this Teachers' Institute. A good schol& that had just finished the seventh grade could : teich school. 1%not fooling you. . I dofi;ivant td teach school 'cause there are too nlany bad young'uns. I don't want that responsibility on my hands. I went to.sclioo1, and I've been in school, and I know good and well that the poor old school teacher just - h a d tosit there and take it from-he or she or whoever it was. Give the child a whipping ana he'd go home and tell all in his favor-in his favor. And . here [the parenil come. Well, I said, "Shoot, Ibd,.ratherbe a knot on a h?ckoiy tree thanJbe a school teacher. I ain't a bit better yet, not. a school teacher. O h , wh&, n o ! ! I belietie in correcting children myself, and I believe i n whippin'ern with a switch. I don't believe in hitting with a paddle. you can make black and blue spdts withiem and hardly know you're using
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-The children don't have the education, the knowledge, that I had. I'm a wise guy now. They don't know anything about everyday life, about everyday living. I've questioned some of the children around here, and I know I
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ANNIE PERRY
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they don't know it. They don't hnbw hpw to measure lumber, tkty don't know how.to measure how much corn a room would hold with.the dimensions being ten feet high,ieight feet wide, and twelve feet long-they don't know how to find th'din~ensionsof a bushel of corn. They don't know arithmetic; they don't know English; they don't $now spelling. You need thos'e -they're the most essential subjects thereare. Wlly these children couldn't tell me if they had twohundred to lend to someone +on 8 per cent -interest for two.years and six months. They couldn't tcll me how much whoever borrowed thr money would 1 , ~ d u ethem at the end of thc two yean and six months. Can you? I can ! ~ h e vdon't Ltach h a t now-or they didn't teach the children around here that. That's what I call everyday living'. People had different ideals &hen I was growing up, different all the..way around. For instance, childre@ are not taught to work like we did-we had to work to make our bread. w h e n we got out of school, we didn't loaf here nd yonder, IIO sir. flow they tie in bed till ten o'clock, get up and eAt their n e r l c o m e hack ,. in twelve,'one~o'?lockin the night. I 'didn't do thatre wasn't nowhere to go-none of this running up and down the road for me, or anyone else! M'e went td bed when dark .came, and got up the next morning when the sun came up. I don't a p p o y e of a of the ways that young people do, and ;here's no elderly people that do. ~ d don't u wantk hear what I think of kids today! I think they don't care. I don't-think they have any body pride. Now, I wouldn't show my knees t"5pnobodY,hut you all.'And I won't have my dress shorter than my kne6. They don't care any more. Now, I'm gonna tell you. You asked me! They don't care no more about their nakedness.They don't' 'care as much as Adam and Eve did, 'cause Adam and Eve was ashamed of their nakedness when they was born. Went and tried to pinc.fig leaves together and make aprons to hide their nakedness. Some changes in the world are'good and some are not. Some of it has degraded people. They don'tobserve the Sabbath as they should. They don't take care of their bodies as they should. They d o n ' t r z y .on nobody. They think they can rely on themselves. I t gets 'em to think& that they can do anything within themselves, when you can't do that. They used to gely more on their,Maker than they do now. They have learned so much. that'they think, "Idon't have-to call on my Maker:" Things won't get better, not t l k way the world's going. I thirik Judgrriept Dayis close at hand. . i I don't believe they went to the moon. I don't know. But I just don't be.lieve they di Why the moon is a-I never studied science in iny life, I neeel- dibgb% yhool farther than the seventh grade, and I'm Qlad I got that much. Children, I'm eighty-three years old. And I never did care for 6i science. And I read the Good Book, and the Good Book said that the moon was madeaorule the earth and-all the heavens therein, fishes of'the'sea, and $6
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FOXFIRE 4 the fowls o h h e air, and even man's hody. And the rnoon rules theivegetation. I don't think they landed u p there. You just know what rhey said. And how do you know hut what they c'arr.iccl them rocks+with'eni? Possibilities that they did. And if it was made to fool with, it'd heen put down in the reach of man. I believe that, too.'Cause we know that God created every,
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ink that the world has ~rradegr-cat prhgrcss, biit thry's a fcw .things that I think is money spent foolish. And chat is trying to go tolthiLnioon!I don'fithink that's fair at all. God niade everything. H e maae man to rule the earth and all the inhabitants therein. And he didn't make,the moon.for man to play with. If he did, he'd put it down for rnan to reach. He'd put it anyhow where man could get on a stepladder and go u p ! I don't think that it's-well, it's just no means! T h e moo11 is the niooti. Leave it alone! There's not a thing in the world up there hut just the moon. And if they ad the first chapter of Genesis, they'll find,out what the moon is-first d second chapters, I helieve it is--they'll find out how God created the rth. And he made everything. Man was created. T h e earth was made. ,111 not educated, of coupe. But-it's true. We had it in Sunaay School yesterday, ahout the creation.' r' It took him six days to create all these things. H e didn't do it in one day. And so the moon and thestars-the moon was made to shihe at night-and the stars was made to'luminate the sky, and the sun just warrris the earth, that's all it does. But the moon rules the earth. Now you, girls that study science, don't it teach you that the moon rules the earth?.And.so, therefore, 1. don't think that they ought to he fooling with t h e a. o o n Thhe's nothing u p there. And what we see on the moo11 is t h e . adow of the earth. Youlook at our maps and see the shadow on the moon and see if it' ain't just exactly alike. Don't you-,think it is? If you don't think it is, don't you agree with . m e ! Some r i i ~ h twhen you see a-big round moon, you lqok at that shadow, and see if it ain't jtist like the rnap of the earth. ~
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I don't know nothing-about ghosts, nothing al)out a ghost. I n fact, I ncrvei- was I~roughtu p to heai ghost tales. My daddy said .]lot to tell children ghost tales. Said it'd make'em afraid. Well, I'ni not afraid, hut I tell you I -----.-.ti.~-l~~~~~~~-.'.......... .. . . . . . . . ..~..~. . ~ ~ . . ~ ~ ~ >. ~ ~ ~ ~ '
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ANNIE PLRRY
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where you turn i ~this i way at 'that bam,*Iv~r.Bleckley lived there, ,and Mr. Syaffosd lived dow~;there. qnd'they had lots of big old, brood sows. And if or made a pig sq;eal, the sow'd bite you. And they'd say, you caught a . p i ~ "Now: Annie, don't you get out there on the side of the road (th'em pigs was e on the sideof the road) a n d go through there or them old sows'll eat you up."' Well, they had me afraid of hogs. I'd have to go l)y myself through those woods over~therc-I'd look way out here andaway out there; there ,vouldn't he n thing in the world. Directly I saw a thing that looked like a . . hog. And so I had to go by it, and I was $cared. .And there wasn't'a thing in the world. Not a thing. They wasn't a h o i within a mile of. there, just some sttmipsia'lyi"g there. But I guess it looked like a hog to me. 'Magination. That'i so now; they scared' me with hogs. And I'd look way out, and I'd see something and I'd make a hog out of it. Now .that's the way ghost tales get b d. [There] ain't no ghosts. C on't read the Bible too much. I read it some. But I don't read it too ,'cause I can't. My eyes won't let me. M'e'should read the Bihle, byause H e gives us knowledge. Your conscience tells you whether you're 6ving right or livin%:-rong. If you wihf,io steal something, say my hat-which you wouldn't do--but if you was to steal my old hat, something inside, ainner-man on the inside, would say you done wrong. . I know one thing. [The Bible] says, "Honor thy father and thy r r h h e r and your days will be prolonged upon the earth which the Lord, thy God, hath made." And I know another thing it says, "Whatever you sow, that's. what ye also reap." When Linda was 2 little girl, she cilne up here and she wanted me to read her a Bible story. And I said, "Well, we'll just read the first chapter of Genesis. Well, I had read i t off and on all my life, q d that was the. first time I ever read it and got the real meaning. I'd read it, just goin$ along, through. But H e didn't make but one thing a day. Had you ever thought about it? Just one thing. T h e earth was formed first. I t was totally d a ~ kand He made light and H e saw it was good-mo,ming and evening. Then He made the fowls of the air and it was good-morning and evening. And on till fhe sixth day. And the sixth day, He was pleased with all H e had done. And H e created man, and man needed a helpmate, And H e cali'sed Adam to go into a condensed slee;: 'And He topk a rib froin Adam's side and made Eve. And op.the seventh day, H e rested. And who does that now? And H e hallowed it and called it the Lord's day. I'll tell you right now, God didn't intend-I know [in the] olden days, all the pictures that were made by men-and the G o d Book 'says, "It is a shame for a man to wear long hair, a n d a woman's hair is' her aura of glory." It's her g l o ~ yBut . it said a woman shouldn't cut her hair. But it said it was a shame fbr a man to wear long hair. And I think they look shameful!'
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They look sorry to me! If I was a Xoungster going to school, I wouldn't even look at one that had that shaggy hair a5 a friend. I'd just cuss him down! Do you think they look admirable? I t just looks so strange-and men wearing moustaches. Now I don't. like that either. It'd be like kissing a stinging worm. lack then wasn't l i t more i n ~Dp o. r t a ~than l t it is now, but they live better than they do now. I believe they was more conscientious ristians then than they are now. In your reading and going about, don't you think they were, too? They observed God's laws more than they do now. You never heard of ~ i o l ~ o dgoipg y fishing on Sunday. You never heard ' oing hunting on Sunday. They's breaking the Sabbath. And in my childhood days, if they took a gun and went squirrel hunting, the neighbors around were the grand jurors. They would prosecute'en1 for it and they'd have to pay for hunting on Sunday. Sure did.'~eopleused to observe it much more than they do now. My grandn~otherwas reared in South Carolina, and-she was Presbyterian. She said they didn't get to cooka thing on a thing. They cobked up~foodo n Saturday to do Lill ~ o r l d a y morning. They made a little tea and that's ever'thing that was done. But they had to tend to the hogs and c ws But a5 for cooking, all their food, , they ate it cold. They went to churcp and if somebody was sick, they went ,. to visit'em~tosee if they could do a4ything for'em. And if they didn't need .nothing done, they'd, come back hode. And they stayed at home the rest of
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y Sunday dinner of a morning. I cook my dinner when I cook my breakfast and~ifsomebody wants to come and eat dinner with me, why they can, but they eat just like I do: Sometimes I g o \;kiting in the after- . , > noons, sometimes I don't. .Everybody ought to have. one day out of seven. I go to the Methodist church. I walk over there and some of the neigh.~ borsbring me back home. But I walk over. I feel like that's too much trouble for afiybody to come after me. I walk a mile. That'll keep my legs working. But I can still make it. I say, "Why not use what God gives you?" I am thankful that God has seen fit for me to live and be healthy and strong as I am at the-age of eighty-three y'ears. My birthday was the teenty-third day of May. don't know what has'caused the difference. I don't know whether there's more people in the world and more conveniences. Let me tell you. You know people-they don't think about God giving, them wisdom to,be able to do all these things. Youa don't get no wisdom from the devil. H e don't know nothinf. But God, H e gave you your lite; if H e gave you your knowledge, everybody ought to serve Him. ~d gives us everything. When we get in real deep trouble, who can we go. to? Who can we call on? He's Creator and Maker of all.
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eing a horse o w r n y s e l f , and B s e e i n g how people trade ?ors& now, I was cu~iousto find out f hoT; trading were. hat horse traders had bad reputations, but I found one else\: Some are more honest than others. One der would take a horse k i t h a lame leg, give it a shdt of morphine, de it; another horse trader"hu1d cure thk horse, of lameness, then
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As I talked to many different traders, h o u n d trading wasn't. always as
port their horses in big trucks instead of riding one and leading the rest in a, string. Now they trade primarily-sa&dlr-horses instead of work horses a n d '
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MYRA QUEEN
e q s b y Myra Queen.
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r three 01' horses to one good one .and 1
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LAWTON BROOKS
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Horse trading w x kind of a complicated tbhg-like it is with cars now. Back in them days, it was horses they looked to instead of cars. If yqu was traydin', you'd keep your eye'out all of the time all over the country.
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P L A T E 210 A. Teeth are an indicator of horse's age. They may be filed down to make a h o n e appear younger than he i s . , T h i ' l o n g e r and more protruding the. teeth, the older the horre is. R. Horse's relative age can he d e t e r m i n d by the sharpness of his jawhone; the sharper it feels the older the horse. C. Depressiui~above horse's eyes. A deep depression shows that the horse is old a n d / o r in poor condition. Some horse traders would blow i t . u p xrith air to make the horse appear younger a n d better. Alsb, if hoise has moon blindness, one or both eyes (just below C ) \vill turn white or light ~ l u efor two weeks out of the month when the moon is dark. During this time he is B blind in theaffected e y e ( s ) . D. Area on f a c e which may turn gray with age. Some horse traders would dye the hair to make the .horse look younger. Also, a broad flat f a r e means a horse,witl work. E. Ears are a sign of temperament. .4 horse with big ears is more likely to be stubborn. F. Sunken area along side of neck indicates. horse is either overworked or too old to he worked other than lightly. G. Broad chest-sign of a good worker with a lob of stamina. H. Swinncy-when the muscle in the shoulder deteriorates and the horse can't use the leg. O n e attempted,cure uras.to slit the skin at thr shoulder and slip in a piece of poke root about as large as a man's little finger. I. Straight legs-good point of conformation in any horse. T h e horse is more likely to remain sound and have smoother gaits. J. Ringhone-a h a r d gristly growth in the pastern of +. horse usually results in lameness and is considered incurable. K. Twirl -where the'hair on the flank of the horse forms a spiral-shaped co~rlick.I t is a s i g n of stamina. L. Area on the aump of an Appaloosa lvhich is likely to he spotted. One horse trader we spoke to dyed fake spots on the rump o f . a n Appaloosa who didn't have uiarrr. spots his own. M. Wcll-muscled hindquarters indicate that a horse has a lot . of strength. N. Biq foot-a desirable qualitv in a horse used for a lot of plowing. Large
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I . 2 John Houck, who ha2traded a few tradii~gunless you m a k e a little something."
"There ain't no use
PLATE 242 Blaze, a n~ne-vearold M ork Iliare awned by John HoucL.
brother arid I rode a mule that I had just. traded for-a. you~igmule breakin' him to side. 1 married when I w a s twenty-three and 1 traded up till I was married and then traded some after I was ,married. Things were.. 't eve? seventy-five cents a d a y , but you get out hard and )ou c o ~ ~ l d n,make
somewheres. It's just lik: today going out and making five hundred dollars. I'd go to Hiawassee and Bliirsville and trade. I'd set on these country
]\'he11 d was tradingihosses, I watched. Everybody farmed and logged because that was all they had.pI knew e\'erybody in the county because I was go off and in a couple Say you didn't ha\-e a pair'that matched up-I'd of days, I'd find one and get it so it would match yours. I'd put them to-
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I'd already seen a man that had K n e j k like him. I didn't aim to keep any of them myself. I had pretty'uns and some I couldn't give away. But I'd alwith' ways get shed of t h ' h some y a y or other. I knew what to match the man, but all I was tradirig for was the bodt. I'd take cash, chickens, hogs; anything I could go trade again, I'd take it. And I just kept that stuff
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o n e till you got shed of tiirn. A I I [the ~ heaves] would stay. down for about a week or so, and they would come ,back again. Y8u have to dampen everything he eats; even his hay, you've got to wet. ~ h give & him a little Japanese oil ahd give it to him along with the hay. w h e n you do this'for a
if a horse has got any heaves about him. T h e Japanese oil'worked on his bronchial t u b q s o l x way so,he could get his breath, but he .couldn't let 'it
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out. They would kind of whistle after a while when thsy got tired and 'they would do it had. You could hear them a'comin'. 'I'hen some horses had the swinney-that muscle right where his leg starts across from the bottom, he's got z'muscle there. That would perish away. That muscle will go away and he'll 1)e as slickas a hoard and he'll limp when he starts taking swinney. ??here1,$nothing you can do aboutit. It will just perish away. I never did know what caused a horse to take the swinney. .4 lot of horses died with kidney colic. There is a.remedy for that. The l~otskilled more horses than anything. That's a thing that they takr and jou an't,do a thing about. They go crazy ihey hurt so 1)ad. They'll gnaw at heir sides and l i t ? theirselves and they'll wallow and th.ey'll do it again and gain. Finally they'll go so crazy 'they'll walk through a fence. They-don't ay attention to nothing.'~heywould kill the horse. r,could you do anything with a horse if he was lame. I'd als just tell the rman he'd sprung hisfoot on something-he might get betr he might-not. I've seen them change their color. ~ h e y ' dget some t to make them look good but I never thought it made them look any worked on their teeth to make'them look younger. That's by. Looking at! their teeth, a man +at's ever fooled with horses can tell their ages any tihe-if he's ever lookedin a horse's mouth any: They would take their horses and file their teeth some and make them pump the holes up with air rightkhove their eyes. There was a lot of that done to trade horses. They'd stick a needle under 'the skin above the eye and pump them up. It was against the law, hut they'd do it. Old man Ferd Burrell, he 'made a fortune tradin' horses. H e owned Hiawassee at one tima 1.don't know hoiv much he owned .at Franklin. H e died down here at Franklin, but he owned a lot. H e had a lot of money in the hank, the" tell me. I'vk heard people talk about it. I'd knowed him ever since I was a kid. ~ h a t ' s ' h o wI got up with horse trading. I got to fooling. arou'nd with him: I used to go around with 01' man Ferd. Watch him trgde. Theri when I got up big enough, I took his horses and traded them for him. ~ h k nI decided if one man can make money at it, another can.21 got out on my -own and you could buy horses cheap. I got me up t w o~r three .' 01' plugs and I started. l've had some real horses, and some that wasn't worth a dime in the world. Solire ihal you wouldn.'t b v e . Look like quilting frames goin' down the road. But they'd always trade somewhere or another; they'd always trade. Ferd Burrell used t o g e t horses in by the carload. Mules that had never been broke. ~ n cash d them right for the mbney. I went up there with a man that had our place rented for his tent and b i i t that road from Hayesville to Hiawassee-the, first, r ~ a . dt h a f e v e r went h there. Costella-Brothen-built it. Ferd seei-thgy was doing i;*with
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PLATE 243 Lawton Brooks shows Myra Queen how to tell the age of a horse.
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and he was ready for them. He'd get two hundred dollars a pair for thena mules and he got them for a hundred dollars a pair. But he was sellin' them
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in a one-horse wakan. And if they d g n ' t 'have the anything. This 01' black guy come by there that day a n d , Wayne, he was , just laughing and going on about that poor horse. You could count every rih that horse h a d a n d his hip bones stuck a way qut. It. w a an 01' white horse at that andcihat made it look ugh, yo11 know. 30 Wayne hollered
"I'll give you that 01' sheep tied up there." That hlack man didn't do a 1 t h i ~ l gexcept get off of that horse, come back, tie the horse up, and too! that <. "Do you reckon rope leading his sheep off. Wayne looked at me and said, he means that??' y you've traded with him, you'ye traded." Hz was a trader too. I knowed him. H e took the sheep and left the horse there. Wayne begged for me to You can't give me that horse." He said, "Tl'hat are we going to'do with it?" I said, hat's yourqjob, son. that's your trade." T h a t iust tickled his wife to death. But I wouldn't
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I said, "That's exactly w h ~ 1'111 t going to do. I ain't going to have a thing to do with it." I I stayed busy tillalmut dark and started to go home'. Then j ~ esaid,. "No, I want you to Stay w i t h me awhile. I swear I've got to d o something with . this horse." I said, "\lielI, 1'11 tell you where you' might trade him at. You might trade lii~n'over on Crooked CreeL. ~ e o p l k?;er there keeps such horses as that and yo11 might trade Sim over there." H e says, "Well, we've qot to do sornething." So we got up there, We had to go over by Hiawassee and he says to me, "Lawton, I'll tell you what I'll d6. t ~ h don't j you ride this thing through town?'' He was ashamed to let anyhody see him riding that thing through town and have people lasghing at him. He said, "I'll give you a dollar if you'll ride it through tow$fol. me and let mc ridc your horse." I said, "All ri@t." I-<& got down off mine a& got on the old poor thing and we just .went rkckin' on up through there. Went over on Crooked Creek and went u p to a; place. Now this is wh.at tickled me. This woman and o l ' n ~ a n,had this 01' mare and she got so old that she couldn't eat enough to make he? fat. The old mace's name wai' Bess. They'd.llad her for years and years. Well, the funniest thing.was h e went-up. a n d knocked on the door and this lady &me to' the door. He asked her where Hicks Mars was.Hicks was a horse tr4der. Wayne said he'd just give it away if he coula get anythin,?out of it. ~ h d ~ i a i t"Do i , you want to trade some?" TVavne . . said, "Yeah, I've got a 'good horse out here, I want to trade." She said,."Bring it out here and let me look at it."-So h e got the'old horse "nd led it around the edge .of the house where she could see it. She said, seven years older than God !" I just fell'over. life. H e knew be was hooked there. H e his head. H e Said, "What are we .. "
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going home."We wac ;,bout e i g h t m i l t s f 5 & h o n ~ i I. t w a s @ l i i n g ~ h ~ ~ : ~.~e c o m e ~ t o a l i t t I e ~ - r o aup 8 there that a family lived down. When we got to that little road, Wayne said, "Wait a'minute. I'll tell 'you what I'm going to I do. I'm going to hid 01' Bess faredell." 1 said, "\17hat are you goirig to do?" H e said, "1'm goingto turn lier loose." I said, "\\iell, that's your job." So he took his saddle off. 'l'hat was one of Those are those little terrapin-hull saddles. H e got it from &ddy-in-law. the kind of saddles that they ride on these race tracks. That's what I called . them-terrapin-hull saddles. . , ~ ~ ~ * ~ = -
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that road and you'll find him down-in the field."
and 1 was p i n g down- this hill . and met him right at the foot of it. I knew that was the wrong place to talk to him, hut that was the only Chance I had so got to tallcin'. He said, "Boy, I like the looks of that horse."
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I said>r'tVh;~twill you do?'?
e says, "I believe I'll ';lo it." it on thc ~iiuleand come on
11 think of that trade a lot bay mare you ever ~ a i d ~ ~ eyes o u r on oman. I got that off a &nch of gyp'i 6 v.ery once in a while,, and they'd always vn there a t w h i t &e called the ~erb;ert-Ford.You forked the river
with anybody who would trade. I'd get in with them and trade. I traded a,
had another one to match that mule and they 'wanted that one bad.
They kept him in a big meadow on grass all of the time. This fellow gave me the hbise-didn't cost me a thigg. He couldn't do nothing with bim. Hc ,
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tell you, son, I shore am short on money right now." I said, "llrell, what have you got to trade? I don't' have to have money."' I had me a good saddle horse I was ridin'. I was leadin' that one. I always kept me one. I always had one picked out for myself: Sometimes I'd trade
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would trade as high as ten times a day., T h a t was your best tradin' was the same way. Go around to .Murphy. They traded a lot there. course they always had some to pay boot with. I t may not bk money, dut they had hogs or cattle or sbmething that you could take and get tbe difference off of. I'd just go to the field one day and match up their tedm
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' ho,se was than a thing in the world. "Well," he said, "he's comin' nine year'old." I said, "That &n't old." He said he was round and sound and'kine year steers, and a ruagqn. He said, "I'll tkll you what I'll . old..'I had some db.1'11 swap with you for twenty-he dollirs."
said, "I believe .. -. I'll just trade with you." 7 Now he got away with me. Well, I kept that horse
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'Kenny tells us some, of his horse-trading advegtu'res.
. H e said, "I'll be gladto trade with you if you've g o t a young horse." I said, "The fellow I got him from said he was young." H e looked at him, shook his head and said, "No, I would~l'thave him if yo~i,givehim to me. Hc's twicc ninc, then some!" Doggone, I was beginnin' to get disheartened. H e wouldn't tiade wi t all. I'rode him back and put him\in the stable. ne day a fellow came hy, an old friend of mine-I reckon he was friend of mine. He said, "Tell you what 1\11 do. I'll give you a . dollar if you'll take me to ~ l u e ~ i d ~ e . " -I said, "I've gpt a horse that'll take you all right.': [ I t w a s the same horse Ferd Burrell wouldin't trade -fdi.]H e had a sack with somethin' in iti'and I never asked an); cluestions. WeLt;I said, ''I'll just gear u p a n d take you." I hitched that horse t o ~ h u g g y and , me an' him Started. W e got iettli out of the settlement, a n d h d s a i d , "I believe 1'11 take' a drink." I t was in a jug and you couldn't tell how much you was a'drinkin'. The$ I took the B jug, turned it up, and it was pretty heavy. After a while, he says;"Whoa. Let's have another drink!" When we got to Blue ~ i d ~I'tell e , you, I was just
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.about out of busin half a gallon, thre and I went back thiy said I was st was straight d,ow and I seen I h a d t o do somethin'with that horse. He wouldn't plow; barely move. So I rented'a pasture; it was pretty hi"gh, too. Let him stay in there ti11 fall, I decided I'd go down and lqok at him:!He was j h t a so& -all over q l y , hardly any hair. I don't remember what they calleKit that was o n g with him. I told my daddy, "You can have that horse if y&'ll go get 'm." He went and got him, brought him home, and the horse died. SO I lost abouttwo hundred dollirs on that swag I got stuck on that one. All f gqt out 6f them steers a i d \&gon was that one dollar I got to drive I drink. that-man to Blue ~id&ihd_+ll... the. 1 i q ~ o r :could 1 Horse traders will te!l people false. care what you're trading, you etter tr&t your own' judgment. They're~mutto trade. They wdn't give the geof a.mule as over seven years, and a'horse just;nine. That's as far as '11 tell you. I've had some mules that wasn't no 'courit:.~'ithone mule I had, it took one to lead the mule, one to hold the plqw, a n d - ' ~ m...t odrive and-whip. He wasn't worth a blame for nothin'. More &&tPsn'e'?6q a n o t h e ~ h n He'uz . still,worse. Got another one; when you'd open the door,'".\, \. &d go to kickin', and you couldn't get in that stable to save your life. He'd kick with bot liind feet. I bet he didn't miss my hkad three inches. Boy, you better watc on horse swappin'.You shore had, or you'll lose what you ' have in a few eminutes. You can't go bac . onc you've made a deal. I've put . . out some money buyin' all them mules. had one pretty good old mule. H e in' me the was club-footed, and I swapped a stove for hi truth there. He'd work.
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"These horse traders her< you better look out, or ---~wu'&g-effiGne with & rope and your horse gane." H
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WILL 'ZOELLNER
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There were Fretl and L. M. and that s h ~ i f ffrom Cornelia. L.M. and his daddy were two of the slickest there was inithis country here. L.M. had a bunch of plugs that couldn't hardly go and they 'had a sale down there. So, L.M. says, "We'll have a sale and I'll dope them horses up; they're all trained but they'* :not able to go." Most of thern .were old,and their teeth were all filed- down He'd take those horses out and .file their teeth down .so they'd look like a six- or eight-year-old horse. YO^ -
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PLATE 245 Will Zoellner, a,blLiksrnith, told us about some notorious horse traders who once worked this area. - . . !
know, a horse's crown runs out when he gets twelve years old. H e ain't got no Crown. Well, he had that all filed out just as pretty as can be. H e fixed it all back and had them horses down there, but they can't eat good for a day or two. So they fixed those old plugs up and I shod them. I didn't say nothing. I t wasn't nothing to me. Old Joe said, "We made a' thousand dollars yesterday,with [some of] those old plugs." I said, YIVhat hyou ~.~~~~~ doin' with those horses-they're all to pieces." He said, "We're feedin' them dynamite. We give them a teaspoon of dynamiteand they're just like a colt for ~ i g h tor nine hours. By that time -~we've already got our money and we're finished." ~ a k them e out on the road and they fall all over the' selves; get their legs. fangled They sold I don't know how many old p gs They cleaned up \ there for a while, about twb years tili they run out. Old man L.M. had to leave here, he got so far along that people ~vguldn'tput up with it. Fred got pretty smart +long towaras the 12%. y e owed me sixty-five dollars for shoeing when he died. [One time] therc was a ladv come in here with, her husband. They wanted two nice saddle horses ' and L M. WCLS at the shop where I was a'workin' and he was standin' there L
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'ust so he. got the money. They were fixirl' to go over arid his wife
horses on back.
OH man Joe looked up at me and said, "That tooth,has got to come out." I said,.'\You c;anlt it.? -
id, "We'll take him right here and put him right to sleep: \V>ll get your
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H e said, "He's comin', he's comin'." Tliey gave him a shot of somefhing else.'I don't know what it was. And the horse raised Qn up. He was bleedin' pretty had and he gave him another shot. The fellow come and looked over the horse and put t h e saddle on hiln and took him home. Old man Rosie .
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h'ell, he got on home and fed him that night, hut he wouldn't< eat nothin.. And the nest morning, the horse laid down out in the orchard and died.
-They'd come and stay about thirty days and leave. Then another onk
and looked at them, and he had a little copper-Eottomed mare there, prettiest thing you ever loohed &weighed about eight hundred pounds. He said, "I'll guarantee her to work anywhere."
,. , . at me as I went by a little while ago." H e said, "This horse here is hard to bridle, but that's all. If you can get
there wasn't hut six that would work a'tall. Rest of them would kill yqu. When you openrd the door, they would turn around and kick you with both f'eet. They- were doped when you got them, and when you got home with them, they'd 11e almost normal, but when you got up in the morning, you , ' b e t t e r lbok out. l'here is all kinds ,of tricks.
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with a rope and your holse gone. I know of a dozen people who went down there'and swapped a durn good animal off just because he had a little age on him, and got home with one that would kill you. Wouldn't ride nowhrres, wouldn't work nowheres. That's the kind of stuff they had.
in and maybe come from as far as ~. le, you know, just way off that way.
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Iy father ran a. st01 he sold; it was just a flavored-up drink..You could get ach and apple, and it sold for fivc cents a glass. Well, they was $ohg to in' convention 'at my daddy's store. They had a full allonharrel~ofthis cider and they drew out about three gallons, and ed that jug hack up with whiskey. Well, there wasn't no& left after. was just a wide place in thc--Foad. The me6-folks were nly ones there and the biggest per cent ofthem would get d&~k. 'Some of them were pretty bad' to drink tad much: Sometimes they'd hi"&, a fight over ihe' age of a horse and sometimes they'd have hdrse races. h e y l d gather in &nd'ma-ybe~comefrom-as far a s Asheville, you,kn?w, just way off that way. Some of them would he on the road two or three days before tRey got r h ~ r e And . then irade horses on the way. And*somc of thcm just went' . .,
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PLATE 246 Harry Bro,vd, Sr., \vho with his wife now operates a thriving craft business in furniture and weaving:, did some trading ' when'he was young.
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HORSE T R A D I N G
through the country just trading horses. You traded with them, you got beat. ~ h e y ' dget out a n d say, ''I bet you a dollar my ho:se will outrun yours." They never did b;~6y?i-%s_or . .three~dollars.'Course back then five -dollarswas money. I believe five d o l l a r ~ ~ % t h - m o s t I heard Of them bet-
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Sometimes when a horse was a little stiff, they got them out and got a whip ancl made then1 go around and around tili they got them all livened f tirn%;in the-r&rni~l~,a horse would be stiff. Those spavins was ut arthritis and they'd gct thpse sores around where they wore r. Sometimes you'd cut a hole outT?th_e~pad.-inth~collar to proi or sore on their shoulder. All woik horses h a B a k i l o t qn their I w,here that bone come out. Some of these horse traders we~e-veryslick-they cquld make' money. of coursc there was a lot of poor fellows that got beat, that didn't
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sies used to go through here trading horses. flobody ever d i d . .', thernphat didn't getbeat. I haven't seen any gypsies go through ' . wenty or more years. First they went through drivin' horses and anle the secondhand cars. They used to camp over here a t Rabun e the post office is. They used to have that place covered up L/
It aoesn't matier where you go, you'l1,always find someone. who'll cheat on horse tradin'. At that time, they judged a horse by his teeth: They had a , ' float [file] they cilled it, which they put in the horse's mouth and they come right along tKere and filed thk horse's teeth off.' It'd make the horse look^, younger. And some of them would have .a spabin [knot on their leg] and : + -. get crippled.They'd shoot novacaine in the spavin and it would last for sev:s 4 ~. era1 hours. And then the'y'd feed thkm gun powder and different thing.. like that to pep them.up. They'd give them the gun powder in with their fqed. But I thhk that was+kostly superstition, because I don't thi& i u n powder had any effect on them. p o w there a r e w h a t 'they call wind~brokenhorses [also called heavers], and weavers. They.run a horse till it would almost bust their lungs, 'you know. ivell, when they got to going little ways, they'd go to heavin' and, just fall down. That's what they called h e a i n ' . And the weavers; when you' . tookthem out to plow, they'd have fits and they just go 'round a n q 'round. They called that a w l a v e r . After you worked them awhile, they looked,all ' ,
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With a horse that wears a harness, where the trace chains are, the hair gets worn off and also on the shoulder where the collar rubs. If you didn't have these signs, it wouldn't be a work horse. And with a saddle horse, look lor the signs of the saddle. And the next thing, you examine their teetli. Be!
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fore you buy a horse, rent it for a little while and if it is a heaver or weatrer, you catch it there. Another-thing, you want to pick up one's foot and see if it. can be shod. Lots of horses won't let you shoe them. And you can notice where a horSe has wide or narrow hips. A narrow-hipped horse is bad to kick. Another thing-in mountain sections, people didn't want too heavy a , horse. These draft horses'like Clydesdales are too big. People back in the mountain scctions were more likely to have mules, andchere [in the bottom ,, . * z and] were more likely to own horses. You didn't keep a horse.or a ream much after it passed nine yea1.s old. At that age, it was usually counted a nag and slipped off on somebody.'' :We usually kept a team of young mules. We had a couple of mareswe -. the pasture, and raised our own mules and trained them. Sometimes . were hard to work. A mule is more dangerous than a horse. bf the llorses we had [email protected] daddy got cheated by horse time or two. Horse tradin' .was just, a way to make a livin' like ttle traders. We had some that were honest and some that wasn't. It any other business. I n any business you got somebody that's 'going way to take advantage of you. ~v
"I didn't play any tricks; I'd let them ,be the judge .i of what they thought."
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T H A D "HAPPY" D O W D L E
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I 'used totswap horses lots. I ' d buy a horse, maybe R%e two-three more, tie'& together, hit thk various settlements i v t h e country, and swap. And I made somk money-that's the way I made what little I had. Tf 1 came
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along and you. had two-three yearlin's, or a cow or two you wanted to sell, Iid buy'em iB I could see I could make a dollar of two. I made money all When I got one !hat was pretty old,,I'd take a rasp and file .his teeth down till4he could eat. He'd put on more weight, and his teeth wouldn't be s'long, as long te,eth is a sign of an old horse. It'd make'em look youpger. Sometinles I'd blow up the hollow above t h e eye of an old horse. T h e older the horse, the deeper the hollow. I'd take a needle and stick it in there < under the skin and blow air in there with a little old hand. pump-puff it u p . I t wolttd stay puffed up for a good while, but it'd finally go back down. P I didn't play any tricks; I'd let thembe the judge of what they thought. I'd take a rag and some good oil and rub the horse down with it, a n 8 t hair'd be all layin' in place, slick as they are after they shed. .4nd I'd ta shears and trim t h e n ~ a ~ and i e itin1 the tail, and son~etimesI'd shear his ears
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PLATE 217 T h a d Dowdle remembers the days when one of the main purposes of wading ,as to match up a good ~ v o r k team. He.re, James Wilson plows with a liorsc/niuhe combination.
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if he had ol' long hair in his ears. I'd also trim up the hooves and put neGshoes on'em. [To make a lame horse.appear sound] I used to have a little oil'r'somethin'-just rub it on dope and I'dUgive'em a load of it-linseed there. And li the horse had a corn, I had a blue ointment to rub on it, and it'd heal up in just a lidle. [To mahe an old or lazy horse look spirited] you can get you a little dope and put it in it, morphine or something.,fie'll be lively then. Just like a e an old dgad man a'draggin' around, and in two days maybe in' the frnce if he had a good dose of dope. He'd climb that
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lish on a horse to change his color. Take a little brush, coat him ~ i t it. h Shore did look good, but you didn't want to put too mudh on him, just enough to turn the color of him. And I used to use some kind of blue ointment on where the) were turnin' gray around the eyes and such. There war a fellow that lived in my settlement-he tried to swap horses all the time, too, and I got from him the prettiest little horse you ever looked at nea~ly.And I thought I'd made a good trade-got him pretty
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FOXFIRE 4 cheap, swapped for another'un. I took him home and put h i k up that night. T h i next mornin' when I went out to water'im, h i was blind as a bat. H e couldn't set a thing in the world ! I said, "Well, I'm fixed now." So I fixedhim up as good as I could. There was gonna be a fair, so I went 'up there, and a fellow had a pretty good mule. I rode up into the ya;d at the schoolhouse, and he said, "Where'd you get that horse?" I said, "There ain't no use askin' me that." says, "That wouldn't make no difference about where I got him; I've 8
ood mule out here I'll swap you for that, pony. I'd u git him." ant him bad e n ~ u g h , ' ~ ocan e went on out there and looked at his'mule, ar~dhe said,"'How much ~~
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hat ho;.'se,an' ride'im 0% the!trail thkre an':back." I . ught maybe surely he'd see that he was blind. But no, he rode him out and said, "1'11 give you a ten-dollar bill and that mule for him." I said, "Just make it twenty and take him on with you." H e said, "Well, that's a little too much." I said, "If you think it is, don't do it.?' That's the way I'd do, if I think it's t o p much, I don't trade. H e got back on him and rode him back. out there again. I thought, "Well, if you had any sense at all, you'll see how .he -'is." He didn't, and we traded. Well, the next morning before'I ate breakfastj somebody was peckin' at the door at home. My dad stepped to the door, and it was the man I'd t ~ a d e dthe horse to. He said, "Where's Thad at?" My dad said, "He's down at the barn, I guess." So here he come down to the barn. He says, "You know you put a blind horse on me?" I said, "Well, yeah, I knowed it." H e says, "What's your idea?" I said, "To get shed of it !" . He says, "I'm going t'town and take a warrant for you." I said, "I don't care if you take a dozen for that. Anytime you buy something and you look it over and don't see that there's anything wrong with it, well, the trader ain't responsible. It's you who's tradin' for it." I was comin' home from Toccoa. I was down there on the creek and it come a snow. I had a boy helpin' me, us both on a horse and a couple more horses in between. H e was riding behind'em and I was ridin' in front of'em. M'ell, we crossed the creek and there was another crkek comin' down that
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HOKSE T R A D I N G wa), and the creek made kind of a bend, way off the road, and plumb around.'We camped there one night, and in the night this big old yellow dog trotted between our tent and the road. It was nearly dark, and I just thouiht it was somebody passin' by. Well, he went on and here he come -trottin' back. I had a little old shotgun in the tent and I said to myself, "I'll--. ,.justsee who yo11 are when you come hack again." Well, here it come back'again. I said to the boy with me, "Shall I kill
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rld hesaid, "Nd, let's just let'im go." where we were camped was urel thicket i n each side of the road., said, '!Take yoir pistol and step out there and see if you can find 'anydy." He eased o u t i ~ i n ddirectly I heard his gun go off.And they was just. rin' them bushes down to get out of there. They'd followed us plumb t of town to get to rob us that night. And would' of done it if we'd a'been tent asleep. I'd sold all of my produce, and all but two or three of my nd shucks, they'd have got thre.e or four hundred dollars from me, at the other boy had, about two or three hundred dollars.
wouldn't take nothin' in'the world for the exberience I got tradin' horses." *
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HOB DUVAEL Theifirst horse I ever o&ned was a jack. I was eight years. old, and I bought him with money that I got together from tradin'. I started tradin' x. from-I'd say five years old,or six-pencils, knives, what have you. So I' saved my money till I had fifteen dollars, and I bought me a jack. But my father, a Baptist preacher, didn't want me to have this jack, bo'I carried . . him off to a barn quite a ways from where we lived. When he got 'out Sunday -morning to start his circuit [four churchks]; the jack started brayin', and he wanted to know whose that was. Finally I had to say it was mine. + ,''Well," he said, "if you'll go tofchurch, and be a good boy - and go~o_school, I,'ll let you-keep him;";~hete.mptafic% w a s 7 d g r 5 a t f or me to get to rid: that .jack and drive him to a little old tho-wheel cart, t h a t Sunday;I put i f i thk whole day with him. When he domF home Sunday night, naturally my mother told him what all had happened. He said, ''T*ke that back." That's B. the only time &we ever went back on a real bargain. I t like to have killed me to have,to take that jack back. This .old boy wouldn't give me my money back, so hq kept the money and the jack, too. T h e next horse I got from a n old horse trader from Hiawassee. .This \ horst had a kidney colic and $id be& down for a day or t k o . It had rained and runlinmud rrll around him, and the mud was about knee deep, and the - -
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trader picked vp an;lre and wasgonna kill him. I said, "Pleve don't kill , .. .. that horse. Give him tb me." H e said, "You c a d t donothin' with him.", I said, "Give him to me an' I'll show_you." Well, I got me a l~locliand tackle, 'put a bunch of sacks under him, tied ropes to it wherc I rould brace hini, and pulled hi111 up. In about two hours, I had hi111 to wherc he could that evenin' late, I led hjm home. I n less than a week from then,' ,-kill' him. Then I started tradin' on that one. When I was eight 1"'swapped t h r c i o r four times, and 'I got a mare whq was gonna ve a colt, and I .was gonna raise the colt. I carried her to a pasture, and h6rse kicked her and 1;roke her leg, and that was the m d of that been tradq' horses ever since. I worked for a man from Texas for five wintetS, and he shipped as high les at a time to Atlanta, and I'd meet him there, and then we'd , One time I didn't have body to'help me, and i _ h a d twenty-
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PLATE 248 Hob Duvall-with Sidewinder, a sis-year-pld ~ralking*horse owned by ' 1. Randy "Hoss': Litterell.
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seven head of hories and mules in ~ u l a , 'Georgia. I led t h e m ' f r o m ~ u l ato Carnesville. I tied them three abreast, the11 I'd tie this one to the tail ahead, and when one would start, why, h a e & h t y ' & p We& w a s ridin' a big gray horse, twelve to fourteen hundred pounds, and I tied a hitch to the saddle horn and got'em started, and went. Then they wasn'~.nothin' hut 1'-model F ~ r d s .You'd pass maybe the mailma'n, or somebody now and the;, but you wouldn't pass a dozen cars in a whole day. You couldn't do that today. I want io tell you one on me an' Frank'Rickkan. I pulled up over there with a load of horses one day, and.1 had a four-year-.oldpalomind horse on the truck, and Frank said, "Take that horse off. I want to see him." I said, "Listen, Frank, this horse is four.years hid and half spoiled. He's ~nenn." s He said, "Rooster'll r,ide him." I said, "Listen, Frank, I tell you this horSe is mean! .Don't put that child on him." H e grabbed:him up and started to put him on the horse. I said, "If you want-him rode, you get oh him." ' iVell, he reached hack, picked up a big old parade saddle, throwed it on the little old horse; he just bowld up. A saddle has a keeper on the back cinch, keeps it from goin' back on his flanks. Anything will buck if you put a rope around their flanks-it ticklcs'cm an' thcy shore will buck. ~ h " ehe swung into'the saddle, that keeper slipped back and hittim on the flank, an' . t h a t horse just went straight up with all four feet,' like he was on spiings. I seen when he hit the ground, Frank's face turned red. It knocked the breath out of him, he come down with such power. The next time he went loose, when he hit the ground, Frank's both feet flew out of the stitrujs and he threw Frank high enough to where he kicked him twice before he hit the ground, kicked him on both sides of the knees and then the bottoms of the * feet. Frank said, "I felt my shoe heels go through the top of my head!" I've raised my family by tradin' horses. I tried to farm. My wife was raised at Clairmont, Georgia, and when her daddy passed away, why he gi\e hex a little farm, and w'e lived there f o ~twerity years. But I never made a dollar in my life farming. I'd lose money. But my wife loves a farm. One timc when wc were li\ing in Clairmont, I went to the Nacoochee valley, driving a mule and a horse. 1,traded two, three times, and when I swapped with one man, I got a load of corn and a shotgun in the hoot. Then I got a load of ha). And I come down the road and swapped this shotgun for a sow and a hunch ofpigs, I put them pigs in a sack, tied them to this ridge pole that was holding the hay down, and when I come through Cleveland, I swapped this horse I'd heen a'tradin' on. But I still had a big old mule hooked to the wagon. I got a cow for the horse, and tied her to the back of the wagon. Here I come down the road drivin' that mule- p t - r w o lines on ~
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at wasn't even broke to the horn of the saddly and here I come down the
mud; Y h e n I got there, h e began to :find fault with every one of'em,
"You don'; know where a man could get a little liquor, do you?" . e said; ':Oh, yea$~'ve gdt plenty of liquor." . said, "How 'bout gettin' me a. quart of it?" and I give him a dollar and ,
Sa we go to Atlanta a n d buy a b i g old pair of mares that was as old as I was, or older; one of'em was gray-headed, but I had their manes cut off, and trimed'em.up, and they looked pretty Liter I got'em cleaned up, and
just like they are."
H e said, "I'm gonna trade,"-and jerked o u t his pocketbook aqd counted
when a man had plenty-that's where I always trie'd. t'make my moneyoff somebody who had it t'spend. I knewhe, was comin' back, and I paid
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"If youwant to go to court, I'm gonna bring that ga'llon of whiskey in and let you pay for sellin' liquor." That just slapped him just like that; and he went h o m e a n d ain't said nothin' to me yet. Well, he crooked me, he let me make two trips up there, and I seen he didn't have no principles; he was a big liquor man, had plenty of money, so I decided I'd even up'with him. Why, I've had people to come hack and want to fight and everythi~g else. Right here at Clayton, I sold a horse to a man for four hundred'n fifty dollars at the horse show, to a m a n in Marietta. And this horse had i a hlue in the show. H e paid me two hundred down and owed me two . , ; ed and fifty. He was to come Tuesday to get the, horse. H e pulled up >,,,,I' ay like he said, and then said, "I've decided f wouldn't take thzt ." '
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"No," I said, "you c.an't make that kind of a decision." e said, "Yeah, oh yeah, I want my %oney back." said, "I don't have your money, I've got my money. You bought this e fair and square." said, "MTell,I'm gonna law you about it. We'll just take it to.court." said, "Okay, we'll have to go to Rabun County' to try, it because that's ere the crimewas committed if they's been any crime." Well, he had a man with hzin and his boy. We fussed around and you'd think we was gonna fight, but we didn't. Anyway, he said, ' " ~ o m eon, get up in the truck with us and let's talk yt out.': I told my wife, "Bring'my gun out here, I may have to kill these two * 's, but I'll do that before I take this horse back. You're gonna pay me now." H e said he didn't h a v e t h e money, and I said, "1'1) tell you what I'm gonna do. I'rr~gonrla take your check, and if you don't pay mej I'll kill you for two hundred and fifty dollars." me a check and took that horse. My You !+now what he done? H e wrote ~~~.~ ife was really a lady, but I w a s mad. Mad enough to cry almost. o h , I've d some awful times in my day. , I was travelin' once, and I had a~. blue-eyed mule. At a certain time of the onth, that mule'd'go blind, miybe'tbo weeks out of every month, when the moon got on the dark side. This mule'? eyes would turn white. She was . just five years old, and the prettiest mule you ever lqgked at: This maG1'd tried to trade with him two three times; dldfellow Allison, and I cduldn't 2 rtrade-wfth Tim. I come by there around three or four P.M. on the t uck, and I said, "Listen, I'm a'goin' over to Hiawassee and Blairsville, . and herek a mule that I don't want to trade. If you've got a good mule like this, that'S the one they want. I'm gonna pay you to leave.,her here with, -~
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. . you. I may l,e gone two, three days." 1 just to& h i f off and put her in the
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lxtrn. I knew when 1,left her that he'd hook th& mule when I got gdne;for 1 knew she'd work anywhere-she'd ride, do B;iything you'd want h q to 1 d o . But I knew then at a certain..time, she'd go b l ~ +gain. d So I went on, then come Imck I)y, said, "Well, I come t'pjck u p m " ~ u 1 e . " Mrell he said, "Wait minute: 1.want t o swap for .niule." I said,, "What have you got to t r a d e ? i ' ~ e - ~ h o i v e&e d a mare a n d colt. 1 d "I'm gonna swap with you for a hundred dollars." # " he said, "I ain't gonna give that much for hei.:\1'11 give you fifty and the m r k and colt." ', , , ~ e l l , " ' said, I "I ain't got time to fool with you. I'm gohna swap with So he just paid me the' fifty dollars, and I traded the m'nre and colt, I just walked straight across the road, and sold the mare h? a logger. ' colt. Anyway, I knew t h a t 3 e ' d be back when that dyle's eyes ad, and here he come. So I swapped hi& a,mare. H e was a &at big all man. This mare would work anywhere, hut when you hooked her to v, she'd lay into the harness as hard as she could go. That timt h e & teen dollars for.the boot. *So it wa* no time, and here he was 'hack, I n, and he said, "That'mare is just s'f* that I can't keep up with her." I said. "\.\'ell n o y i f you can't keep d$"$.ith her; you. know good zfnd i -11 there ain't no use for me or nobody else to try her, 'cause you're long\ ged, and if ybu can't keep u b with her, it'd be impossible for me. I'm . . \ ins have to have ten ddl~ars~?oboot and swap you for somethin' else." Seems like I traded him a mule this time. I said, "I've got t'have~.something . . for the gas for this truck. You'll have to give me ten dollars for the boot here to buy the gas." i H e said, "That's what's gotten me into all this trouble is this gas you've , heen handin' me!" if traveled with every gypsy on the road. A gypsy will fight one him wrong. When you done the right thing, you stand u p to a ' on't care, let him be a murderer or what, he ain't'gonna h u r t you. take the meanest man in the world and if he tells you a lie, you can face him and say,, "You're telling a lie." And he'll swallow &.Now that's somethin' I learned from t h ~ ~ p r i ~ ~ ~ i ~ s " you m ~F tr o~ dn i~ 1 ~~ ;. d ~ ~ s you' s&d up to their face, they've done ,you wrongl. they'll t i k ~ ~ - ; l tthey ~~~.I .f ~ ~ ~ haven't they won't take it. 'l'hat's just a higher p d e r that m k e d t h a t h a p .A ' pen, 1;reckon. Those gypsies was the smartest hone traders in the world. Most :£'em carried their wives arjd families with'kem. Well, they:d sell lace t$ey'd bought in the five a 4 dime store. It's haid t'feed a bunch of horses :a,kd travel. Well, the'm women would get out ahd s w a p that lace for s,bmethin' t'eat. They swapped with ever'body that woyld trade wit( them. i . They always come to the mountains in the-summer, and when the catton
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egin t'open up, they'd go' south i n y ; w i n t e r , and spend the winters in . were money-niakers; none of'em got any education, south ~ e o r & a They but' they were smart people. Smart! ~ h i were y Irish! They could sell any~, thing. They'd never get discouraged.--'l'$eyid talk to ydu for two hours, get vour confidence the first-.thing-, just play: along with you, that they were your , friend, that they'd do'anythipg in t h e world for.you;then whrn they got yourlcoi~fidence,then t h ~ y f dcheat you. T h e n they'd ask jou an unrea- ." " . , ~ son~&le6bot. Well, you'd offermaybe half, t h t k they'd trade with you. B u t , they're really smart ~ e o p l e . ~ . . ~~. ~ . Then I he@ to follow these [summer] c a ~ k ~ s . I ' d g ("rses et for these^ kids at these girls' .camps. I've had two or three boy$ carupdiuttfiiit Gduld break the federal goveinm~nt,becab~e.then1 old hoys'll ' r ? ~ ~ your i horses to death. After they quit row-eroppibg, I went t'using ho,rses around these camps. I've [supplied horses for] as high as five camps at a time. But it,got to where I O U couldn't make no money at that. You had to buy these horses d pet one, mayl~etwo, that you ,. . use. These kids can't ride, 'and they's very few of the iristructors orses an' [I'd] just pick'em up here and. them just he tickled t'death me the horse, don't you see? You'd ave them horsrs t'winter, start l?uyin' around the first of the year. They ~ . had to feed'em all that time. I'd go to wouldn't use'ern until June, and. vou L4tlalita, buy a load of horses; there'd I,? bwo or three of'em have a cold, . vk.spent two or three hund b u t of'em. It was espen- . dll;~rsa horse. I bought one litas poor. H; reeled as he walked. I . . an old quilt, and kepthim in for two months, and when I took him out, he'd got in pretty g o o d shape. I carried him up to the c d ~ u and ~ , got a hundfed twenty-five dollars - for him. I used hi& for two summers nt a hundred twenty-five, i n d I sold him to a fiIty,Eut it's arough-grid-dm-. . ' ' I e it today and lose it tomorrow. 1 d work horswsnow white, a .,., come and wanted &?buy him, and/. ~. - - L ,% ' rci?A~di Trput the harness'.on, I the bridle off of him, hung .. he" miiid me just like my '
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H e said, 'i\'Vha,t do you ask for him?" L . , I forget what, seei%s.likeya hundred and a q a r t e ' r . ,Anyw&, I priked _ ., him; and he hought'him. B ~ t . , ~ h ehe n went t p pay m e ' f ~ & & ~ e s a i d ,
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potash, a little salt, and a little
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that just tickled me to death, "cause I dyed her hair.
He said, "I'm gonna app-this horse. H e ain't got enough dots on him when H e put His hands on him. I want 'more where the Lord blessed~him ~~.
e turned him in the pasture and he killed a Shetland pony, And broke t b o
high as fifteen hundred dollars apiece. It's been a long experience. I've
started truckin'emrl'd ride and lead a bunch. Oh, listen, 1';e
you nev'ex-learn it all. I don't tare how long you'tr
been robbed.
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fourchil'dre~i,ive own ow- o$n home. We iin? rich, but we got a \,cry comfortal~lelivin' for our age. But it's been rough.)or 130th of-us.
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ADAM F O S T ~ R ' .
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I*guks I wasju7t bani to like to trade. cbmmencedtSadin' yhe'n.1 was . a lad. Fint.trade Iever made I swapped a sheep fGr. a bfood sdw. I'd. track for a n y t h h g I could get ahold of. I've swapped for cfiic~ens,banjo anything. , .. , I Ilever didkoo much, about changili' t h e l ~ o k ~ oa fhorse, except hair.@If they were gray, I'd dye their hair ;round their face with paman-., ganate potash. M i x ' i t u p in warm cbffee; ~.that*& it colar better. '+d used to, back yonder when I wa;s &,young man, I'd raise the' depressions il~ove-theireyes. I'd pump that u p a n d niake'elk l'ook younger. I wouldn't do that n o w . ' ~ u ta little hbl,e;nthere, fill it with airj and then fill that hoje o It'd stay maybe a-week, iong enough t'$ade it: Thef's a lot of people hack in the olden days-who'd w o r k o n their teeth; . but I never did do that. They'd file'em off. I t didn't help ~ h e ' ~ r s any. es A' man older than me- hack yonder used to do it-he'd ' p i t in his mouth to hol3 it- open, so the horse. couldn't .
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pretty good little trade."
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I thobght it was! So in a few days, he said,
money to- buy anosher mule colt.
"~d now, that you've got
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HORSE 'I'KAUING
249
driviiig his mules. I was just afraid he wouldn't want to trade with me with B ' matter--you s havin' trouble?" it noti cranking. He said, " w ~ ~ the to it and , Add I said, "Yeah, it's got a hftle hot. If youhook those mules 0 pull it off,:it'd crank in a fewsteps." ''\~hy,~'~he.said, "my buggy outfit wouldn'tpull that car. T h a t singletree . . on thkrn's tori little, don't you see that?" . I didn't cnow what he meant-thkn, but as i t turned out, the mules wouldn't ,pull nothin' but the buggy. Put a little'weight to'em, they woulr!i;l't pull, i n d he didn't want me to know that! I kept on till eventually I gct it cranked. I got over the top of the hill and &ade it fine from there ..on in. He wanted me to stay till the next day and teach his son how to drive ',, thk car, but I told him, "No, I had to get on home." So I got my mules and rtea'back, and got in way after dark: Next day I swapped'ekfor a little ddle n ~ a r eand g b a hundred and fifty dollars to boot. I 'was m a k s aney I thought. I just give ninety dollars for the old car. I+st kept on goin' from there on-not regular. I wor obslots of my l f e But ~ back through the thirties when it was so hard, I made enough tradii' to support my family when everyone else ivas,gettin' on the WPA. I?d tradd a horse, and if I got five dollarsto boot, 'that'd do me a month. The money Irom horse trading helps, but I always made my crops-'taters, corn, ;beans-and had my hogs a n d killed five, six, iight hogs every year. I've ddne ever'ihing but steal to make a living. You don't get rich' when you're a trader. sohetimes you make sbme inoney and sometimesyou lose same_monev. I used to go from place to place-Franklin, North Carolina, Murphy, North Carolina, Clayton, Georgia, and I'd go to court to swap. And there'd ' be these horse-swappin' conventions over in Union County and around, And have a week's hone tradjn'. I t wasn't a fair, just a horse tradin', people get- ;. tin' dqunk. They'd b e in a different place every year. There'd be a few farmers go, hut mostly. it was us horse - traders, swappin' with one another. hiaybk you'd make a,,,littl;m o n 5 . . , fellow come'by day, and he wanted me to take a mule to. ~lairsville " for him for tendollars. I sai8, "All right, P11 take him." He had it traded off, b;p we stopped down here at Hiawassee, and I saw a man lookin' at the mule iq my truck. He said, "I've got a four-year-old mule I'll swap you for that mble." The man who owned the horse told me to go ahead and trade. He said, "You just go ahead and trade the way you want to. You know more about tradin' than I do. If you can make me a good trade, go ahead." . We wkht 'on down-the road and the man give me a big fat hog, fifteen to twentdtbushels of boot and the old man with me just set still. Well, we got the little four-year-old mule He nebLr lef on it
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for. b o w that's hprse ti-ading. .h;~n-chorses for him. H e wasq't no horse trader. Now he traded cattle, he couldn't trade no horses. '1 tqld him after we finished the trade and he horse loaded up, "You'vc got beat."
In the wind-up, I give him what hoot I got, and he give me the'last mule I tradcd for. And 1'took it to.Franklin, and swapped. it for a big old mule, the
started t'work. He said, "Oh, that's a good mule as ever you've seen.':
the truck. It was about dark, and I went to flown and got some big ropes
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into,the road he w&nt. I had a fellow witQ.me, and I'asked him to lead th mule to a friend's house, Ferd ~urrell,.andfigured we'd leave him there. S
over t~ Franklin. I've g0t.a mule over there I have to go and get." W e went
over there in his truck'? he swapped a time or two with this fellow, Burrell, ,
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.MAKING TAR
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. hubs were made completely of wood, resin ( o r "tar'!)
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f the turning wheel huh. In addition, the tar found other farm uses:
Mack and Terry Dickerson, p;t it'hack into action. \+'he11 I first walked out to the tar rock with the reskof the crew that had hdped turn it upright, .,Mack and Terry werk getting ready to make it. I felt excited, I was getting an opportGnity to witness aAd learn ahout some-
chance to see how tar was made loAg ago. Perhaps they had read about it in
know how to do.it.
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there v(.eren't any machines or'd,evices to do if for them.
PLATE 250 As a child, Terry Dickerson used to watch his father melt resin ("tar") out of fat pine on this rock. With Terry and Mack Dickerson's help, we re-created that experience, and many of the neighbors came to watch.
'Ilrhm I set out with the rest of the crew, I .had a feeling of determi- ' nation. We were going to turn that rock qver. No question about it. We also had the feelillg that this was just some big hunk of rock that was in someone's way all the time, We had no idea that it was a special rock fo? making something useful. M'e hadn't heen told in advance what the rock had once been used'for. When ~ e - ~too the t rock, I wondered about that depression rn it. Finally I realized that the rick was once used for making tar. Then I ' became intcrcstcd in it. A couple of days later, Terry and Mack started to make.it. All of us ca e to watch. There w q interviewing, and a lot of pictures were tak&e making of the tar Gas very interesting. Even some of the ,community folks came to watch. I t was kind of like a fr;endly reunion., Some of the people said.that it reminded them of the past when old-timers used to make tar. M'ell, though some of the people thought that the old way of making tar had died out, through the aid of Foxfire., M a c k and Terry, and us, o n c e , again the old-timers' way of making tar was relived. ~
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DALE FERCUSON
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PLATE 251 l'o turn the rock over we dug the earth out from b e h ~ n dit and PLATE 752 Mark and Terry first packed the iron pot full with slivers of 'fat pino (pine that is almost ;solid ' resin).
LATE '253 Terr) Lammered the last pieces into the pot with a stake to make sure it !*.as packed as full a s ~ i could t be. ,.:.
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PLATE , 254 M'hen the pot was packed, it was inverted over thedepression in the rock's surface, and, over the tiny' groove cut in the rock to allow the basin to drain. Then a piece of tin was placed betM.een the pot's rim and the ' 9 'groove in the rock.
PLATE 255 Next, Mack and a ne~ghbor brought n a t e r from a nearby stlearn to make up a batch of red-clay mud. 1
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PL.IITE 256 The xpter \\,as poured onto the clay, then stirred to make a good stiff mixture.
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?5(7 The clay \\.as , then , packed around the ;im of the ljot to keep the flahies from the.fi;e that >$'ill r be built 6;er the pot from lappihg in , ~ under the riim and setting the wood it;- '* +'s side o n fire.1-The piece ..of tin keeps the -. . 7., mud from (llirYg the g r o o k in the rock . , , ;, and blockink the How of resin.
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PLATE 258 .Next M a & - a n d
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Terry pilcd w,ood over the pot and started a bonfire. They, kept 'adding wood to make the fire as hot as possitde. 2
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PLATE 2 6 b Finally the resin began to melt and ;,in down the indides of the black potwhcie it collected, in the rock basin and drained out the groove and down the side of the rock into a pan Terry- had waiting.
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PLATE 26J Whpn ;he pan was filled, the ,fesin was pbured into a container for Ifuture use. I t keeps indefinitely, remaining in a syrupy form. T h e flow finally after we had fil!ed three pans. We'toqk one pan with us and Mack and Terry rest.
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became interested iiij) giing when Bill Lamb,\ one of our earliest and finest 1 We saved it specifically '\
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tacts, told us the haunting memos ork into this chapter:
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"They'd take them old log carts-I don't know to this day why the; wouldn't trqil up logs-11ut the>,'d hook the oxen to them carts and then they'd just have to scatter around to stay out of the way of that log pushing -that cart down the. mountain. I n the place of stringing up four or five logs like people got to doing finally in this country, why, they'd just'have to outrun one iog. i '/ "I've seen I;oor old steers-and them with big yokes on-1've;seen them /' have to-run juSt as hard as they could run to stay out of the way of a log, { and the log just running them over:If it run out [of the'logging road] and! ,*' hit 'something, it was just about. one's neck broke, or his leg, or somethipg 8 r'nother that way. Soinetimes they'd try to jay loose from one where it was on too had a run. And i f you hit a rock solid sometimes, just stall thcm just as dead as they chuld be until you pulled and twisted off. "1'11 tell you what I've seen. I've seen as high as five or six yoke of cattle to one log when they was in here logging out the old 'virgin timber. I've seen five or six yoke go through all the punishment that ever you see'd on anythins. 'Course the ground wasn't level, you know. Just,to get out it was over a hump or in a holler. And I've seen steers picked plumb off of the ground . by the head~going-througha lo;-~ place in here,- M~he-n_I:\:e_-seen them going over the top with khe oldwheel cattle in hack next to the log-maybe ' them just-having to slide their head right them pulling over therk-8nd sideways in the ground to keep from catching their nose in the ground. "And every once in awhile an old steer'd get's foot cut off-catch it beI i , tween a'log and a rock r_somethin.s, you know-and maybe just cut their foot just abouk off, Hav I %
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yonder past that, you see. Well, they had to hold them cattle and their , too. JVelI, that'd make the awfullest strain on them cattle ever you e'd. If it'd jerk them over and throw them over the fender log, then it was k up everything till you got them back up:
could, and then a man j y t reach over and lift him off of the ground. Why,
porch and jl~stmake him 11ounc.e.''
trucks and modern machinery. Millard's ancestors settled'in the Smokies through $ land g r i n Queen of ~ n g l a n d . * ~ h ' e y ' vbeen e in the mountains ever since. Rlillard himself was raised right ahote Waynesville, North 'Qarolina on Browning' Branch. H e lived there FOB; thikty-five years right ipth&& the Depressian: "That was ha& in tfie days when everythin$ was down so low. Jim i
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suction .~vorkaround here.' "And lie sai& '\\'ell, I was doing,all right,' he said, 'if it wadn't for olae
I, "I'liat shut the job d o w ~ i !"' L~1iilai.d'~ contact with horses and steers has been constant throughout his liic. His fos example, was a cattle buyer. When he g0t.rea.d~to
many as a hundred and fifty head. These he'd drive to Clyde; North Care-
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guarantee you couldn't dodge one neither! It'd shore fly up and get you. F Raise you plum11 up off the grourid .somet~nic,s it'd kidi so hard. .I ''il'e used to shave an old mare we called Dinah. h d old Dinah, I'd put : her ill new grouud and go to plowilig her and every time that plow would hit a root or a rock or sol~~etliing and h&g a little bit, she'd look back a d .you and snap her teeth. She'd pop her teetKjust as fast i s she could pop'em, and go to switching her 'tail. She'd get mad whenever that there. ~-
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sideways and snapping her teeth a t me! And she'd bite you too if you was '
like that no more, YoLng people now, why they've got something else to do. or somet$ing lik'e that.
BREAKING AND TRAINING OXEN
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to you and-yo&-get'em broke; they've got a whole lot more sense than a horse or a mule. And they won't come half as near hurting ybu.: You can work a
just matched, you.know.
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hol.ns. ;\rid they've .got it. now. You donit see many,"
ess url.fhat I~reedingthe 1
-4nd if thcir horns is r i g 2 i t i f you've iot'ern turned like the regular old work itcer-you can hear'em a'going along the road, and them old horns will just i ~ ce r a c ~ tosether n~ as they walk-just m a k i l i ~a tune nearly. "
If yo", want to pick out a yule, you mace sure the corv's legs are th,$ same
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length, and the backs ,are the same height. You hax:e to have t w o cows : al~outthc same l~uild--legs and all-'cause if you don't, you'll hive one ; long lank$: steer and one short one.Also you h a v e ~ t opickthem out by-the, shape of their heads: ~ h l k~ e s t a g eto start gettin!g them halter wise: where you can tie'em and handle'eh is when they're jist sucking calves $st being ~ e a n e d ~ w h e n the:;'.re about three months old..Just take'em when 'they're calves and start handling'em-play with them two or three times a week, or maybe once a week'on Sat"rday eveningsdr Sondays. Have to'fool with'em a month qr more to gentle',',emdown and get them used to you. -m-ThFz--tyo,u want to pen'em,together. If you're going to work'em gethe;; you ou&t to pen'em together and feed'em together,,and make sure bne can't crowd'!'the other out when they're eating. Keep'em together all the ', time, and then whenever you turn'em loose out here, they never will separate. 'f'hey'll stay rogether, and wherever you find one, you'll find the other. steers when ., T h a t way you woi$dn't have no trouhle going and getting you got ready to work'em 'cause they'd be together.
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LOGGING
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These steers I've got up here, I can g y u p there and'tie one of them and start off from there with i t , and that otlper one would tear o6t a n d follow ine if I was to lead him plumb over idto ~ o r i hCarolina. They've been ', r) .done that wa). all the time, see? Butget them used to ahaltey; first. Get'them :to where you can lead thein around anywhere you wast to go. Get them to wh'ere:you can hande them iii anv directior~you pull on theni with that halter:&ndthem not pull back. .O ~ f ' y o u h a v etroul~le,get twb men-get one in front aEdone in back. Then if the one in front pulls.and the steer fails to come, let that'n behind have ' :him a good long withe and moue'im! ' ~~. . . :A-\nd then when you want himcjtostop, say, "\$boa," a11d then hold him : t ~ f t e ryou sayj "Whoa," and make him stop, see? You need to. b~ pretty stout . yourself or tsey'll overpower you and do whatever they want to. do,. I've took steers when they was nearly too hig to train r i ~ h tand put %its in their mouth @st like working a horse 'cause I cou1dn:t handle'em l o other yay..
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PLATE 262
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Mil'lard shows the oxep whd's in charge. t.
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er their jaw.Just any way t o , it e
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After I get,my steers llroke, I won't have.norrope on'em. I might leave a ,;.halter &'em o ~ acdpunt r of theni'looking bettel:, but I w&t have3no ropes . ere a n d h e don't come,:.or I e l 1 hjm t o back -. whip. I. 'use that- whip 'to.' u p azd' grab that . . ,, .. .., * to use it. hard., ' .qt . WZLJ:. After' you fool with'e'nl a.l&tle I)it2get,'em to. .i c a n just take tliat whip and t h r o w 'i ' I i y i n d around that hol-njand i t y , ight hard,' it21 Ile just like'it's tied. , , n):where then. .- , got to show them :hat yhii're a lietter man they are. And until you &, you can't do.notkingwith'em. Ydu .wan$to 1 ..' , you k n b w , ~ > u?hen t if they wdn't $ ~ .. to f&11 them in a shape t o s h o w f . ypU , . .one , . . time . get'em showed that ;oulre e y o ~ ' nhave with'em. Unless-one of'em was P. in a while, any of'em will take a nd they're a something that $ou .going to kickznor nothing i l ~ e~. o u ' l never l be ex-. rhings'll k k k yqu quicl\; 8s lightning can '.* cks-Kurd too: '1'11 guarantee you he'll bring' e. up fo~ijards:You'll & a' alking d k r ~ wards his. head, and he'll k ck forwards hone'il just kick back; .. . but a steer'li kick '. y.3ak.e . . a i d t i ~ nto 'hit you, they'll~jir%. . n get 'away from'em. That's exactly 'the .'
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more opless gait together. ' ~ e e' ; ~. ~ legs and s uff that yo? want to-watch, long-leg@ . one, then as long as they e just a littie*bit faster t h a n the ps.'That's the reason you've got ,to size
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ke a few times, they won't never do you go to work them. If ych'll pick and one on the other and go 4s plumb to. their heads, about 1 they'll turn that yoke b a c ~and be ou've got.to knock that into'em: .
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of n e n y l s o r t of scary: You can take some of'em
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ild do,'\vould I>cgo around an4around it. I'd put,that yoke on them of a rorning, and I'd take it off'em when I fed'em that night. Do that about a
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take the "swell-head" we
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. a wholelot4ui&er to use a dull saw that didn't booger u p their horn norle;. You go to sawing in t h a ~hor11 and the blood start to flying and then1 sdn-ofa-bitches g o to belleiing and bawling a n d i e t down o n their, knees-you could hear'ern from h'ere to Clayton. Had a gauge we could pull their h&ct .throLgh to hold'em: It Gas bound to hurt. I've sawed hbrns off of'em to w h e r e blood would be runnine as fa: as from here to the .barn out there- . great big long branch of it. Cut off maybe fifty or seventy-five at a time, you krlow,, and you had a l o t of blood. Get soGod-dang sick h i v e to quit and . , .
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, FOXFIRE 4
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I d o n ' t guess any of 1-0"boys have ever or each foot L o r twd pieces for each . make a shoe. See, their hooves are en their toes,,there wasn't nothing, and there's nothing back there between their heels either. So the shoe,was. two separate pieces.of steel. You h a K t o put [the steers] in a special stbck when shoeing thenr and tictheir .feet down'to a hig heavypost where they ci;ldn't move them-put big leather strapgarourid their feet and tie them to that post and 1wouldn't kick. shoe'em ivhile they was tied 'cause they's never been one that 'do&n,arld l ~ w and l ~,eller and everything else." . g shoes &'em. It didn't hurt'em. You just can't hole lot different.' I guess they ,more or ier on'im. Some of,thern, when you first ' e prettcrough,,but not nothing like a,steer. Ybu t having you a where you :an pull his leg hat pdle"and put a leather strap +round g ; put' the shoe on andthen- turn hi& loose
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s nasty wheq you're fooling logging* logging is just hard work. Wbrk from liefore the geld. ~ a v i n gto wade -in:mud hip and ice the other half: That's like the kind of wiaters weused to have at that .time. We've n i t had nb rough wiiters i z a time. Weain't had no really Tough winters s'ihc? the early 'qos, W e used oxen to drag the logs' out of the woqds wiyh, and then we used and from the mill 50 t.he railroad siding. W& e used oxen t o M % g o n s ~ ~ r tohm e t i m e the lo'g~ gqt to the railroad siding, it would take. about .
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d stast;at the beginning? Okay. . _. ut to length. You alloy two to four .inc
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then that .was standing in heavy woodland-big trexs. :You wouldn't cut down ~mpret h i n fohk "or five of them b i g tiees [out df field close to '. home] till you'd have enough wood tomlastalfwinter. You take trees that's four pnd'fwe'Boot through-one of 'them six-foot saws just barely reach thr9ugh it-andyou don't, have~-iocut too m a n ~ x fthem "-.--.- to-.,.,...,+ have winter woohGvery few. Sp
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-. . . ', far it +oL~id..~plit! , %, , It'd ru& t e. ,Ash was another thing :hat %;as ,: s~wful-hadto' split..'On scga too, I've chop'ped sis.hou;s choppircg a lead thq:way the son-of-a-g~inhad to'fall tokeepitJrom splintersaw it,>?ou know: Just had toset in with an ask Lnd chop it. . . , 7\ ins. ~:oul)hn't r.. \ And bnce-in i bvh~leyou'd hit one. th;~iyou'djust have to chop down. You take+one so big that you totild almost set that sofa there 611 the stump, a n d 1 . you s$t in :hopping that down and yciu've:eot a d;iy's work ahead of ,you. A, It'd just take all day for one to f;rll and hit the
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power. saws, - you don't have to saw p;nt the hcart sinse cuts faster than-the tl-ee wilr split. r o t h e war in 4 I rut sonre popl;rr ;md ,white pine and' I.i,ig: And w e had ;r~r:ful,bigihestn~ztsand awful what they called hard n~iple-thkt was sugar ma: hat that was awful hig. I'vy worked as high. as two sawniill with s m e a d of cattle.
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1 work- good; olie steer' ought to pu'll, his weight. ?'o him om of reason ~-to where he.oi~g$tto go pn, jud i n nn ~ foot at,nhill a little1,it; 'l'hey ought td carry th'eir , \feisht. . 1 . I'fe had,pnllinp contests up until \ j ~ o r ~War d 1 1 ~ n I r i l e sin thei; class, I - +ear-old fillies up to six-year-old-like thit. ,They'd pull yveights. You keep img on till they .co;rldn't pull anymkre. No money ptize unless maybe got two dotlam a;tdfa. half for. having the.be
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Cathey's down l a r d e r jabout three-quaitcrs of a ~nilej.By- th,e "time that.' a'v-histling through thc ail.! . .. '
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many as fifteen logs'l>ehind them. Just looked like a'P1;cight m i n . . v d lot 6f ' times, jusf one t r i p a dap is aid you'd make. Bring in anywhere from fiftecn to twenti logs Ssat a time. Take a half a d:ay to go get'em. h f h ? l k l ~ etwb o'clo&~efor@fyou ever ;,got'em all i'saileh iogeshy and ready to 'go, 6111 with'ern. .And that one trip a day's, all i6u'd iflake 'caush yotl miaht be Pifll.,, .!. ing two mile, two mile and ahglf. T ~ l F s ofcr a ~ i dstop :ind rrst;!ou scc. 1'\e workrd all tiay I,I~;&I c!.&iind not &el, gel, one log to thc mill. '.: -s 31avbc t:ihe two d:iys to :e~:od?'l& out p ~ ~ l l i nIiim g nll,the \v;ly> Elzrt. . ', . . groUnid. Big 1 0 %was ~ h,~ .'1 'd : t niof%. 6 Sometinirs you'd walk up to one lyir quld do+to. sse over the 'top of it. The$,.. '011 the ground and it wa. ~ o ~ . e . ' . ~ h$ou e n ko to nlovii~ione like that, :" don't havpn+qthing like tl 64v the);'% got Cquipnrient to tno\.e it witli, fou've got to'have somet e and hosser;. We had doul~le+d single .lylt we didn't have nothi 11qollers i n i t h c n ~ .Put t\\:o of them to:'and tsipke tack16 blocks-* them together. Thiead three into t w ~ gethet., ancfisornetii@, es we'cl ha@ to do th;ir -to move i t . Yapzand r'ht.1; on down ihto r l r d then1 a few times as twelve. head"of . . carflc to one ,log: ce,' :nd wk'd put all. ,twelve to, some h,le a ~ i dmy Imddy ha ,,of the I ~ i gstuff to lliove it. It'd he so hig.they3d haie to bore.it. ahd put . iowdesgups in it to split ,it before it'd ever go on the saw carriage-cjuarter il up. :Yqu don't see nothing lik? that no most. ~ a t ' i nt'h$'couqt"r?. I't's all gone. I - Back then they wasn't no rbads. Roads was j"st what you m a d e wherever you went through. If we was going to move i whole lot of logs, a n d a good . f.%J distance, we used corduroy I-oads. You'd use that three, maybe six' months. .. Fix the road just for that. T h e m logs going &er it would keep the dirt .@ the top of the pole for a while,.and'the logs would just.sliiie ac;ross the poles. I That would make thein slip across easy. But yod -douldn't hdrdly he able-to. sn'ake o n it ioi- mudH mbre than three months hecause the pol& would keep getting pr-e~s~ddo.411 i;;to the dirt from heavy IGgs p i n g over the111 until the' d i r t wduld be. level h i t h t h a tops of t h e pales, and the11y6u'd just have the .. road. . . .. U'here the road had a d i p i n it, put b n s ;ales in it wk called bull poles t o hold those logs up and get them over the dip. , 'T&$ corduroys had .to run just about the way the)! a highway now. What youchopped ,out with an axe *as the. road you bad-then-or what you dug with a mattock 2nd sh.ovel or pne of those ld scrapes';ar slip . . \ pans. Only way y8u~everused thaf wheel scrape would be bulldlng a road to where a sawmill was going to besitting for three or four years. Now if it was to come a dry spell like this, you'd. turn brancKes into the ,road to make i; muddy and t o . i a k e it slicker to pull on. T h e rainier the weatherwas: and the-harder the gcound was froze, the more you could
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ATE
265.-, I n, order fo dra$3#~vernllogs but:.of t h r \\;osods toxetlier instead of ha\% s r the, fags i r c ;;q~?.F~rrt~~r'ri \viiti, t n i l r r . e i r W ' - ~ n e d i i \ ok,s c o n n ~ r t c dby s\vivcl liriks so the o ~ us i i t t ~ r r - i n d c p ~ ~ ~ i d ~ : ~ i t I $ -two n.,:~ l d1inks::pf . .
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PI.!\-I-IL '266 \.'hlen t h r logs are hook&
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. It Xvas a l o ~ i ~ . t j m.I~Pforc e they c\.er done that ~ j a ) ~ i ~ ~ g . . v i t l i ~ si nt ~s ct ~~ aki.i. they , had t old big loA'chains '(hat weighed about a ?lJ~;d;'ed an' eft; pounds. I 1 gue?s the illside of the ,link was al,or~t six i11ches.-i'hcy M-asm i.d c, put of . thre&quarter- or- $even-eighths-infh stnff. Well, they %as so heavy it'di>take' . ,. t\vi)'&cn to h;~~!dleonc of 'them. :\ntl:t'hey called ?l>;~ta dl111 d?ai;l. If. the i ~rr'&~rl~l - . w;r.s.;tc!:p ~noirghTpr a ,log to ru~>,->ou'dpilt~r11i1t d u l l ~ ~ h ; ~ i ~ i . ; ~ r n l r d it ;lloltg al,&~t four feet from t$$ .. .front end of the&&&r and; that 'i~:i~clcthc' , -.,. \. / s b ~ t - o ~ - a - ~plq$ u t.,. in the:.groY~~rl"till i't woul+l't. 3111 a114"I%;$' yo;lr..stecrs. . &l'liclr, . , \ v h e ~ i ~ # + @ ~.:oto u d o \ c i . , t o ~ l e v c l e t ~ ~ ~ o&RSqc, Yr l ~ i d it \ i n u l d ~ i t~ ~ I I I , . , &. , ' T I I ~ ' : . Ibc6Jq, r&&?d'the $g rauId-slip owl* it ;~~lii.~vrl'ri go un-with ', $3, & Y <<< 'i ;j .L%11. \ 4., , 'I . ' " 'l'hcll thry got to 1e;trnin~ steers to'whC-re thcfd .ja )-...\fits . the); Ic;irn it,:" whellt\.rl. thry start'to of tli&jaY places aftcr thre: or four tririts-of.$~gs , . ~ ; u s ~thcm,,for cl ifour,oi fivc days 'in a row, ?hky y$ildn't even ;tpP in:the ,. , , ,hole. , ' ~ ' h e ~rn$' ' d plunll) on through it .gct!ing 4t1t of th-6 j k y . mow,'rhcy ..9 .' ,* :, . . " 19" ~no\,cd ! . . .~- . * . > a , . ..* . . ' k f i f thc j i r o u ~ ~ &hot. s Icvcl endugh fij?';~ team. to get <>utof"tlir~:way,' when j a y off,,ypl~'vc g o t t o ;Jig t11r71-j-hKi~ I~an'kfor the111tbs .. j h f h ihe ~:h;ld . e - , those ,logs run, thc'y'vc got >toget in that so the logs ?an ri' ,, t h c m ~ t i h d i th6rc. ~ i ~ They can't stay iri,fim~tof tkid , so fast. they'~Xill'cr~;-~--hk;k their legs a n d kilr'eln.- - ., , ; legs, ;rlld two 01; thr6cis j w ~ k s . . . .. , *. . ljut$'\.e s~in~'en~~~a~l'.o~crI"i\nd I .. -. , .. never. was hurtrhyself. YGrlicddown ,or knocked.. .down., "Shins k< *i n- t ;dl oSer. limb. fiy h d hit you ilrroSs, or s o m c t k i n ~You'd . be &re f o r three-four days. But. ...as . f never'did gk't?jlobroken b6nes. , ',: .~aw.,thpse'teams,we never did switch johs much.; ~ e . h a d . p u rjob skidT; ding cvery,day;,\Vh.erl we wol:kcd: at that, that $as evel-). ;day business; ' ~'Nol>ody~dihii't fool with-you* &anx of cattle.. ~ o b o d didn't y iobl with,.whaf ' ydil-ijro;,i.: I drove and and taok. k;$e . ..., of mine, and the .other feller,done . . fed . . ;~ the salne way. withhis. ~$obod) didn't 'fool with your stuff, .: Sometimes we'd s G i 2 h- - o u r , d r i m hdFses,and wagons when uhe driver he out pl'anting crppi or something and we'd l ~ ehauling a c i d yood ...&6;1ld.. , I In the summer and .ndt 'using ithe cattle, ~ a k s&cl) e 7d\;,. s e1se'C team like .' ', chat, you know. But' every m & k . h a d his teani and he fed and took Lark:' ,.of:cn~,.a~;il he workcd'em at;h he. ivol-ked.'enl evsry dx).. Nol,bdy didn't, -. t ,, ' ' h a p hack likc-they do tiucks how,. .*)ibu-know: one drive one 'day and one . - the next:..That didri't.g.6.-i11he~~ever ,-. you got your team, you'ke&it. i . \\'ell,. the cattle.knowid h& their l,oss was so . a stra?igcr. . notiinS witli.thern nohod.' Soqel~odyelse f o o ~ i h ~ w i tthern, h two or;three weeks to get used jo him before he could get any &ork out of -%
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PLATE 270
JYhen ;be truckis toa&ed, th$ logs are chained down Lviti. chains tightened by log bin+rs for the trip to th'd 'mill. Before leaving, the men put ~ h ' a r l
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theill. A sorf of a quare thihg, the majoriiy of'ern is. Soine of;eern3s .diffele~it,,~l~ut the Jnhjority h;is nmri or l e s ggt one niaster, : a i d th;it's ;ill ,' that :.ets atiyrhing oilt of t)erri. 'l'ht.? \ v o I ~work ' ~ .for h:df .:1 d o z e i ~people :it / 6ne ti]+. The):!re strani: chnracfer> on th.;it. ~ t ~ e y ' tc:tl!ed t' R di~r~ll, I~rute, , , ' I~u'r-tl~&',re . ,. n Ion,< wny fronl I~eingdur%i?,!t!l,;hfy'1.c wcll-educatcti when it ;' : e n m e io that k i r d ' o f l)usine<s>;luse they kilo\ vvlio's who. B;ic,k whenever ' y e w o r k e d - ~ ~ ~ ~ r iraised ; ~ w e 'thern all the 'time. Back ithen ~,* ' w e ' 11(1;1 c.;ittlr. -1hey whs to{& to rhd-mount;iins ; ~ n d,t\~rnedIi~ose.,Lotsof , . ' times rlrcy w ; ~ s left in'tbe ~rlou~it;~ins all wiri~r-all eiccpt hcifcrsaatld cows i t h a t was p i n g to hring cnlves. You txitlg thern~in::\nd we nlarked,~heq--.car n~prks. Every nutf7t aid ' y had his 11l;irk a r d it \+';is scgisterd~' " P at Ralcikh. Once or twit ear of one l~eirlgstole.'l+ut that was soinething , ~ e o p l edidn't ?'hey didn't take the "other feller's st%l!?hey wzk different ..are now. They woilldn't bother noth-ing that didn't l~elongto' theni. Y Q didn't ~ run into ;iorle of th'at-hardly ever. O u r o~der"~krleration wouldn't t,e linthired, -.ndr they wouldn't boiher : nobody. e ..4iid \ve-wouldn't log'em much i;nt-il they was three years old: hen sonre' * . of them. ..we might wor-k as rnuch as three yea,rs-ile~er over four years. "'-Wow if the logs was going to l ~ ehauled 5 long whys, youAd haul rhem '" with tennis :~nd'wagons. hecis cis six-foot hixh-great 1,ig old wide tire '. on'b+~l. Took six head of cnttle-hhree yokes of.&; to a~wagorr.YO; had the'llig pair hehind next to t5p,wheels,'and'yol! called them your wheeler%* . T y e snlalles qnes w'er,t up front to lead with, and thcy were your lead c&. , In?,other'i.ords, ihe front ones did the cpntrallin# of the work.. .kid the '~, .nwtml~erof teams you used,depended 611 the size of.the Ibgs and,the distance c yqu were going: . .- . -:. .. : I t took two rnen to operate one of those waqons. They were heavy con- . . ,~ . r r r l s . ~ u d . k r l ~ - d e rTph. e m old-wagons would cut dowrr ,deep. I Now the team th%t wzts o'n the wheel-the or!es that carried the wagon jongue-now they caught it rough. T h a t front wheel'\r;ould hit a ri)ck,'you , . k,now, and that tongue would hit that steer hard if they was p a k i ~ i g a n y -speed-especially d p n h i i l : It'd' jwst ' a h o w kntck'ern off. theim febt. I've .. . seeri'enl knocked plumb down to their Knees. See, vbu've,got that tongue . ,,: right in that yoke, and if a front wheel hits. s rock or sometfiing solid, the ~. , toIlgue slams oye'r and it hits that steer and jerks this other.onq's weight on .. him tQo. NoGithit was rough on'erri. Really hard' on'ern: \Vagoning is hard work on'e*n. $eason it took two men was one to dri<e, a n d o n e to run the : hiake. ~ o u i $ ~ ao ])rake t on that'wagon. T h e brakeman walked behindit. You started ioing downhill, and he'd. ' that 1,ra'ke handle and hook i t in one of them notches. If you just ;are down on it a'nd hook-it i h another one. , -
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I,OGC;IN(-; '".7'heir \vhen.tlie \vaol; sot down the ~ p ~ j l\vhy l , lir'd r.;iise it ;I riotch. \.ou drivrr \\':ilkcti tip front. Didll't Ixive . ,..*.. mind. 'l'licy'd pull \ c ; r ~ o inore ~ ~ s with n -.,rause a ri16lc~~voultis o further ; ~ i i c Iti and 1tc ~ v a siriu(.li f;iste&avi~h ;I ;.i: au crcir feed a iirule .just . ferd him of ;I r ~ i ~ l i t ~ r hi111 t Lsed to tl1;11 ; ~ l i c lyou \ v ~ r i . i ' night. ~:o;'i:c g o t t o iecd ;I horse \voi.Liiig hi:>] lizird, l x ~ t .~, ~i i ~j d~ ul e ~ . . : dist;tnces \vith'em anddust feed'om oric; a day. , .a Xow steers were the samc way. You ?onst have rofeed tlie;Ii ljut once-a =.~ ~. d ; c if ybi; fclcri'eni gooh. You tali t;ibe and fced'enl--lil<e ,ve ,fed'eni cottpnse
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T o co~irludethis s'ection, roe asker1 Milln~cito.ex$lain to us sonzrtl~it~g of'. thc-eronornirs of one of t h. e old.opel-ations--))ow tl~i@~~rrers r:arrLe in, what .>, SOTI o/ motley zc!fl.r inroli~ed,'g(c. ,
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\\:e just cut the l~estljack hen-the l)iggest , to saw out good lurnl,es, y o c u e got to have good .tr ,,:
If yo11 x a n t whenever we
was lussing with oxenl we didn't cut clothing l ~ u.tt h e ,.best r\,ecau>e there . w;~sn'lno sale for nothins else, haPdly, and even whai h e got %outdidn't I~ringmuch. TVe hauled tinil~er-oak boards - , many of a load of ~iurn~lter.one that Mias eighteen to twen.t): i13~hes wide and sixteen foot long: Wide enough to alnrbst mhke a tal~letop. A i i d i t .was clear all t&e ,way through. .And G e hauled it f . n rhe:,lriill, to loaded it inside a railroad . a railroad .idin? and . car and shi ped it to Chicago for twelve. doilirs a t,hobsand [feet]. T h e s a k e . .* Inrn\)er now would run at least%eightl!ui died dollbrs for the sarneamouni. ' , T2:iiJot twelve out of it. And it Itail to'lje good .tcl.sell at all. If it was& the ."I just didr;:t sell any of h. Cherry and wa1nd.t apd. oak sgld,l>~tter . best,'you .
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than a~;) of it did. .4na we- sold c$y w+hlut, curly birch, c$y curly maple. And it wouldn’t bri~rl,i but <welye or fifZeeri dolla& *
And
ih~l-e wa.big
‘cord of wood-in j
chestnut.
them.
Load
I‘w~&t
I’ve cut a lot of It six ;md seven woPth
nothing
paper,
And
j $&l
still, C:hay$pn
urn
thrn
poles
it and
and
ta&
strai:htes:f
‘~” and l&d‘em PLit them
that
foot, at~oss the stump.
had
twexlty-oile
Alit! ch&tnut
ycnt~
a qua’rt,er
is nc&ally
16~~making
what
on flat cars. We loaded
sol,d ‘for li’eht
yo&g
cl&tnu;.~~a~
in the &oods. tht%l,C?th
<et- them :,i the little e&Y:‘.
be ten i 2. block
3 plot of:
you sold. 1411~3-that
time. ‘%ack years ago.
on a clip fifty foot~lon’~‘a*nd. &em
wasn’t”
\r:as* a bun-,
it to the mill ! .4nd :B lot of chestnut
thinly gl-owed
,,
out of one tl;&. ~.’
a dollar- t~yentv-fix~c~ a corrf--ihat
phone? pol&s’Qor. a long
a ixxlt the
tre&
car IGad of wood
I+),~;:~ C&lpany
i~‘\&s
si,sty foot,. ,A col:d and
~vas to qrt
chestnut
a full railr6ad
ch$~-ry 3nd’ 2 thouia;d !’
and ‘tackle rnd
a team
of, horses. Ilnd
hack
in ‘them old dark ‘~ovesJin”~he
Smo,kiqs t~hey used to’ be a Ibt of
foot across the stunyp, y$!ed
hird,‘s @yei b?+
would +f
it -&I{ j&as
th&.
Lor:c,, have:
it lx ,wQ~th?&%$@y
hit ++
m;$le
to ~~&~w~cIY
gun$tocks.tisde eden.
;\nd
I’t &S
fhey-niade
but ‘c~f’it. ,%$a
,IOJ ~of it
prec.;? ‘here fo ?&&
four-l+welv&
@uol:-
A-h);-sixe$
it +;uld
.s
six-by~tiights.~
.And theIT they
r~~<~down ‘to smaller s&s ,QV~F @eke, What t,h‘ex, done-, 61. with it,_;1 don‘t- knhiv. .4nd then black w&ut went. to S&den t&o., r 8 ‘b But we”d’siart lo,g$ig whex&r~ the kini’ of t’rees we .w&&,d J&&T t\!e’d Cut -one ~kind one time. and an&her the nest. Maybe’ be, m+ie one ,tirne, nrayl& poplar ong t&q and..n;a):be~walIlut or oak. We cut ~m$e:paic’ t’h~%n ...kJ ” r anything ‘cause. there was pore of:lfgt zmSanpthlnp else. ~j:i. - .“>- ’ 1’ I” C.,.~ i So we’d jurgwwhere.the most bf it’was, an& the Ilest.’ ’ A4 lot of times,,we’d
get or&&,
car \vould
hold
a rwlond
at ~a Time, &ti
hickbry,
Shout-tbelcle-or
go,to
thw’d
fifteen~‘thous&d
see. &fostly
see, io make~wagons’
But we would
and whateve;
and tell‘the
carS sent for : whe,n &‘d be ready to load. They and the.brake was I& &, and if wk. needed to m&them,
brake
off and
Back ,then, cdmpany
moved
the brake land.
them!&+vn
,the Governmen,t.~ The
Govern:nent
the,Depr&sion.
\‘hen
to l?Uyilig land.
SometimeS
w
tp ivhefy
back. Then~y,ou’d
th+gs
Iot for ,L
L
thqy wo&l’~
wwe set’ bn t.he side ‘: iw just took the
we
si
never ,weilt to. buying
started
and
fork ’
wanted,&zn ‘iand th& , S’$ ,,a: $y owns hothing. It w& allFp&ate OCR.
load.
didn’t
cuts. .4
sq we’d’ get drders
depots agent,
hwe’the
1 tighten
y&i1
oak, and t.hen’ we got a’whoie ,$#I ,j ->*
out of.
the,depot
fe$;
Y&Y,
pickihg
hack
land,,until
,rigI&after
Up’, ‘th~“C$&rnment
,they did’it,,they &&ned, _2 ~~-~” ,~~~ ~~-
to~preserve tit e. 9 .
went forest;
"$82,
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1:OXI;IRE 4
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'I'he. sn\vnti.li h a d to be in kind,of a flat place-a place where there was g e n t ) - of ?+tr,1- on accoullt of y0u.r boiler. You h i d t o have plenty of steam. H a d to h a v r ~ i ton a good-sized I)cinch.. ~ ~ ~ d t h too, e n they , was a lot of \vood*rnGvcd ~ ~ ~ ' h r a ~ ~Se:, c h cih+'h;ld s. fl&es. 1 don't guess none of yo c go f o u r or fi\& miles l,a+'in, o n the head oI t&t \,ranch yllere it cdm% out o p t h e m o u n t j ~ i na n d run good,_ar* ..@ l ~ ~ ~\vh;rty(iu ild c;;lled ;~.spl%shdn~n:-jilst a tlarn t h l t w ~ ~ lfill d . u p ovel':, . , . ~ ~ i g l i yo11 t . j\l/yv. Hold sevel'?il I h n d r e d gall.ons ?of w i t t f . ~ i s t 5 . --~.. thcrr, turn thy \ v a t e ~ . $ t o that Rilnie .troilsh a n d .go t o p ~ g t n n gw o ,. it-*just 9one stick of wbod,righ<, against t h e gthds'one. T h e *water . ,* $, . down. It'd m a y l ~ ego three o r four miles !lie (hat. C. 'Then sohel,odv. would . b e ddwn there a$ r h e 'l&e.f end where i out p i c k i n ~it up arid ]&dingit o n n wa,gv~ia n d taking it to a rails '].hat d.; acid wobd, kgstly. A n d lurnl,cr t. b o- . :..' l h e ) : ' d ' p i c k ~ n p lu s;in~ewa,)?alter it was sawed:.. ,;- A, * See, that Tvas a cheaper G a y - o i mo\=lnait, a n d it spv& adot df tin~c;.?'ake; a pretty good while ib l.~uildone of them 'flunlrs, b u t they'd kekp ,011 Ihsti~g.' . \\'asn't to" irirlch repalr to d o o n . t h e r i ~ ~ ; i t h e rIf . the water wknt t o freezing, they'd take the .water: 6% of it so there wouldn't b e nbthing to hreaK it do\sn. And then if it & t , a ?hole Iqt of frdsr o n it, it'd I - ~without I ~ water: 1; woul,d run on that ice. But l o t s d timedtthat h a s too fast.: rt'd. ,run b i a s t it'd, j u n ~ pthe trough ' ~ a u s ethepe's places that'd have 'to.l,e curqed on,&.
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. . . ,- i' . . PLA.I.E 271 . Acid .wood (chestnut) , ,
?
usas essential f6r ,the ~ r o d u c t i o n ' o f fiiper.;Conipanies like C:hanipion 1"ternatiooal M.otild h;ild kniles.,of f l u m e s ' ~ ~ ~ . into thj.niountains.in order 'to g
"$82,
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1:OXI;IRE 4
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'I'he. sn\vnti.li h a d to be in kind,of a flat place-a place where there was g e n t ) - of ?+tr,1- on accoullt of y0u.r boiler. You h i d t o have plenty of steam. H a d to h a v r ~ i ton a good-sized I)cinch.. ~ ~ ~ d t h too, e n they , was a lot of \vood*rnGvcd ~ ~ ~ ' h r a ~ ~Se:, c h cih+'h;ld s. fl&es. 1 don't guess none of yo c go f o u r or fi\& miles l,a+'in, o n the head oI t&t \,ranch yllere it cdm% out o p t h e m o u n t j ~ i na n d run good,_ar* ..@ l ~ ~ ~\vh;rty(iu ild c;;lled ;~.spl%shdn~n:-jilst a tlarn t h l t w ~ ~ lfill d . u p ovel':, . , . ~ ~ i g l i yo11 t . j\l/yv. Hold sevel'?il I h n d r e d gall.ons ?of w i t t f . ~ i s t 5 . --~.. thcrr, turn thy \ v a t e ~ . $ t o that Rilnie .troilsh a n d .go t o p ~ g t n n gw o ,. it-*just 9one stick of wbod,righ<, against t h e gthds'one. T h e *water . ,* $, . down. It'd m a y l ~ ego three o r four miles !lie (hat. C. 'Then sohel,odv. would . b e ddwn there a$ r h e 'l&e.f end where i out p i c k i n ~it up arid ]&dingit o n n wa,gv~ia n d taking it to a rails '].hat d.; acid wobd, kgstly. A n d lurnl,cr t. b o- . :..' l h e ) : ' d ' p i c k ~ n p lu s;in~ewa,)?alter it was sawed:.. ,;- A, * See, that Tvas a cheaper G a y - o i mo\=lnait, a n d it spv& adot df tin~c;.?'ake; a pretty good while ib l.~uildone of them 'flunlrs, b u t they'd kekp ,011 Ihsti~g.' . \\'asn't to" irirlch repalr to d o o n . t h e r i ~ ~ ; i t h e rIf . the water wknt t o freezing, they'd take the .water: 6% of it so there wouldn't b e nbthing to hreaK it do\sn. And then if it & t , a ?hole Iqt of frdsr o n it, it'd I - ~without I ~ water: 1; woul,d run on that ice. But l o t s d timedtthat h a s too fast.: rt'd. ,run b i a s t it'd, j u n ~ pthe trough ' ~ a u s ethepe's places that'd have 'to.l,e curqed on,&.
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. . . ,- i' . . PLA.I.E 271 . Acid .wood (chestnut) , ,
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usas essential f6r ,the ~ r o d u c t i o n ' o f fiiper.;Conipanies like C:hanipion 1"ternatiooal M.otild h;ild kniles.,of f l u m e s ' ~ ~ ~ . into thj.niountains.in order 'to g
?LATE 272 T h e flumes nsually ended \\-as loaded into \\-;igons o r narrox+:-sauge railroad cars for-the trip to the ~ I a h t . ( P h o t o courtesy of C h a m p i o n Paper.)
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photograph shows acidC,wbodbeing moved i n t o t h e plant's $,ard by narrow-gauge railroad: T h e engine, called a "littleShay," pushes twentyfive t n thirty "dinky cars" a t a t i n ~ c each , loaded'with six to eight cords of wood. (P,Iloto courtesy of C:hzimpion P a p e r . ) ' ~ . . . '%..
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And it ~sasn'teasy to carry that wood back uphill. to put back in. I t s h o ~ e wasn't! ' But a two-inch hranch would casry ,that. You'd cut the acid wood and pileit up all alongthe flume, and then when you'd turn the water into it from that +lash dam, why just put the wood in. Then that flume would be full all the time. ~ d u ' dflume enough wood there to haul a dozen teams, then, all day long on down to the railroad siding. Load it on a car. ut nDwtl&r sawmill : it took a big inch pipe running free about all the . e running water for the hill. And then t h e brankhTbii ~tX?oiighunder saw a n 1 carried the sa4dust:oR. They used to put the sawdust in the creeks there if they. was one,close enough to where they could have that saw box right over the creek. Then you woulrln't have to have nobody to move no dust. The branch,would wash it off-take it away. he mills was steam engines-steam boiler and steam engines. Fired him up and got a good head of steam up-enough to pull the engine-and y y throwed the steam on the engine and that's what done your sawing. Had your saw just like they've got it now, but i t was pulled with steam in p l a q , of gasoline engines. ~~~
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PLATE 274 Narrow-gauge railroads were also ?used balsam, to the mill, Often trestles were required,'and crew would he rall'ed in to build thrm. This trestle pr Fork, an area that is now the Pisgah National Forest,!
large 1ogs;such as Rube Mull and his ent up into Little East o"rtesy of Champion ~
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PLATE 277 At the h e a d of the railroad line, a n overhead skidder (far right) Rower& by a stcam" hdiler would be used to drag the logs out of the _:,Ie I cut, to'the woods, where.hf:y-l~$ .. -- loading area here 'a log. loader (or "stiR-necked loader"),, visible in jl~is' p h o t o g r a ~ h on the tracks beyond the steam engine, would load the logs onto the railroad cars for ihe trip to the mill. When one car u-as filled, the lbader would pulI off the main triick onto a short siding: so that the engineer of the train could move anpther e m p t y car into position to be'loaded. (Photo cour-. <esy of Charnpioti' Paper.)
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PLATE 278 A "stiff-necked", loader at work. T h e loaders were steam powered, and their hoilcrs were often called "coffeepot hoilers." (Photo courtesy of Champion .~ :. Paper.) .".
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LOGGING
One of rhem iteani I)oilels-one:to pull a big mill-was a pretty goodsizrd thing, and the engines were' just about twenty horsepower. Wasn't none of them .o\-el-twenty horsepower. 1hey \vas a little drive wheel-about an eight-inch. wheel-on that, en"i q i n e and it was cast iron. I-leaiy son-of-a-gun. And when that thing got started and picked up his speed, why it t w k a lot to slow That old 17ig.cwt iron rvheel doxvn. Long as you kept a Ijioiler with plenty offire a n d w a r n in it, yo11 couldbhal-e steam to saw o n . Had a pop-off valve on it. They only t so hot and then the steam pressure would open it up to keep it from owing up. ' i ~ h $ nthat pop-off ,,valveopen.ed,.itwas ready to g o t o sawing n ! If a man kpowed how to fire one, he could just ahout keep that popff valve going alr~daylong; 'cause while they whs %angins logs, his steam ~Q would build back up and it would pop agaln. -Back when tirnl~erwas so ,y and so big, it took'em a good w k l c t o saw a log up. he~waythey operated was something similar to. what they operate now. . . 7
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PLATE 279 B u d Allen, or Suel Medford movi+g a steam sai,mill. ~ i i h tpairs o f oxen (one p a i r is not visible beyond the lower left corner) are hitched to the boiler (far right), and four more pairs behind them are hitched to the long sfack a n d saw box. This srcrie was prohahly pho[ographed in the Piseon Vallry. (Photo courtesy of Champion Paper.) e ~
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One outfit would saw--he'd do customer sawing but the itlost of the time he logged his own nlill a n a u s t sold the lulnher. Buy timber, you know, and .. . sell the lumher. Once i~l,:i.+vhilcthere'd be sornebody haul some logs in on wagons wanting it sawed td' build a bar11 or a house. They'd come in and swap work instead of payink:, Most of the time if they wanted lumber, they'd just come and worK pro1;nd the niill or work it1 the woods a few days, you see, and take lhkir pay i ~ ldir?be$ r And that was 'one of the ways got their building rnateiiai b3dk then. ~dnictimesit .was a, problem get..they t ~ n gmen to w0l.k in t6e &ods and the mill both 'cause the population was thin therl. They wasn't too many people. So,,thzkt was the way they'd do. ,. They'dsGitp work-for somethiagthey needcd.. ;. If t%ey werc going to * be &winS there for ;t long tim bunkhouse for the men working the niill. Shirley [Millard's wife] ran the 1,unkhouse sometimes and cooked for tlie men. We had o u ~ own : little place to stay in, and the men stayed in the camp. Then, 'when the sawmill moved out, they left the camp hehind. People coming in gatheri~lgher6s could stay 6 there, or hlinters. Son~etimesmoonshiners. They got used a lot, so they~were kept up. Someone would cDnle aloqg zuid stay over a light or two, and do a repair here and there to keep it up, and the next man the same way. Some .. of them camps stayed there for years and years that way:
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MODERN LOGGING Back then when we was working'$teers, they, wasn't such a thing as a truck. You either skidded yoGr r loq4'to i a sawmill, or brdught then1 to a wagon. They wasn't no truch-ufitd in the woods up till '35, and they was very few then. See, you didn't. evenhave a,dual-wheel truck. T h e first one of them was made in :32. And the trucks that was first used back then was pulled with a one-wheel sprocket-drive. They didtl't~evenhave a drive &aft on'em. The)- was just one whqel that pulled. .\nd the). wasn't no roads to run'ern on because everything that was hauled was hauled with teams and wagons anri steers and wagons and it w a s just out of one mudholeinto a~iotherone. They wgsn't nowhere for'em to go so they wasn't no good, see? But.the truck ~ ~ k t h ~ p l a c e f ~ f i E trstai-t ~ g ohni t h . H e only delivered the lumber after it ,was ready to load on the railroad carrAfter he took the place of the wagon, why then he gradually went to going back in the woods and taking the place of the horses and steers. They got to building roads and putting then1 back in the woods. But they wasn't,.too much 'bft h a t done, now, until u p in '37 and '38 when they started taking them hack in the woods. T h e first trucks was a very small rig. Well, they hauled a n awful load for .. ~~
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thcir time. I ~ u they t didn't move too much because they was too small, and their iliorors \\-;IS so small tlieyliitiu't have inuch-powei. I know you know ,.-: .\vh;~tall .A-model Ford is. Well, ?.ONkrlow'ai,ol~twhat you can lriove with a c' 'iA-model motor. TVell, now, that' the size motor they had in then?. Fourcyli~iderClie~rolet.It was they saine size motor the A-model was. A-model was ahout as sti-o~ig;III order ;IS they was, so you car1 tell by that hoG ~lluch . yuu could nlose with i t . 'l'l~at'sthe ~ ; oit, started out. If you had one.% you._, could haul t~i&e-~uar;ersof a cord of wood 011, you really had a x o o t l truck; but you could take a team and "wagon and h;iul a full cord! .41id you you could with a teani and wagon couldn't go niucli faster in a trucl, o r . -,..... 11kcause the?- sv.nsn't .no soads.So .if you. wasn't .h:\uIing,somcthin--hutsix D *. eight or ten miles, yoh could get along ju$t as good with a good team and wagon as you could with a truck. . But then, you set, the state took. the roads over and they got to building roads. Back the11 they wasn't 110 road tax, and the way yo,u built a I-oad bark in them days was with what they called a poll La.: You paid two dollars a yea\. to \.ate. That was poll tax. Well,?h place of p i ~ ~ any i i taxes ~ [in cash], you worked on th$ road o n e d a y o u t q f ' t h e year for that pill tax. ; You either h i d to work a day yourseif, or hire a n l a l to work in youc place. And that's all the road work they w a s . , ~ h &wasn't no state taxes or dwnty tares or n ~ i l i i non~the roads, so the individualskept them up with that or're day of work. .\nd the11 nlaybe going by somel~ody'shouse here a l o n g t h e edge of their field it'd get real bad, and the field would h e co\,ered over in want to get them rock out of the way where he was tend..' them in the road and v h r k it haul then, rock and \$'ell now, that's the kind of work there was. .4nd then the state \yent to charging taxes and took the.roads over and just went to building strips here, yonder' and about, and trucks t h e n got to operating and cars got to operating a i d they got to raising the tax o n gaso- ' . ,. line and stuff, and that there's what ~iiadethe whole thing go to bfiilding. But see, all during that time they wisn't no way for R to'build because they wasn't taking no taxes in. It was just lilte-if you started to go sonlewhere, tK'ey was half the time . ". ,: . it'd just'be like hitting that field out there; gettikg out &ere and'picking out a;: hard place in the field to drive on and hoping-,it . would hold up a few days . ,for you to haul over: Keep sorr~gbodyI~usyfilling u p i h c potholes where .. you'dmire ~ O M . I I . Sornel~odywas hauling rock a l l \he time filling up the ruts. That's the orll! way you went.. \\'hen it rained, you done work'whenever you had.teahs and wagon;, 11ut:ou didn't do nothing when you first started off withtrucks. When it set in to raining, they stayed parked 'cause you couldn't get nowhere wirh 'em. If you was haulin? downhill where it was fairly steep, you could take a ,
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good team and hook it ir! front of onc of the trucks axid pull him, u p the mountain and load him. He'd come down all right! ~ u 6 h esure wouldn't -0 up. Ever); tinie he went u p there, you had to pull hinl up! Pull him * u p there j n d get him pulled around, and the; you could load him and conje on out. But that was] the way ,you it, and the only way you .. - done ., . ,, couli"ho it then. ,. [Even when the first dual-wheel truccs came it, it was'hard. You could haul the logs to,the truck with'i dozer and load it, or drive on in and.if you. .. - got stuck, get the d'ozer yo pull y b l out, or put a twenh-foot pole, in between the dual wheels and runethe truck on that pole until you got out of the I've . poled out of. . .many a m"dhole like that. 'l'hat, or pull out with a .~ . . ~ . . . , . . ~ . . . . . ~ .~. of horses or a skidder if youwere dose t b o n e : , O r i f y o s was-&ahling... ~ ... ownhill, put on a s&of chainsand go in, and then take'eni O Kwhen yo11 ... . brought him out. .. You know, you could outrun one of them old ti.ucks'an!;where 'cause that [ $ r i ~ e ] ~ s ~ r o c w9uldn't cet 1st it go d d s o fast-it wot;ldn3t turn hut so fast. You could turn one down a qg. per cent grade and o u t s p i t if you \Iy line. And fhen a1,out the last sixteen nionths that I was there, 1 \raS on the esperin~tntalend of it. .M'e:niade some tires over there and put then1 on trucks, and'we run some on them sernittailrrs a hundred and ten thousand miles and half the tread wasn't even dose off t h e m . They t when they wouldn't nevkr let nothing like tfiitget on'the liiarlikt. ~ k a was Come out with that D o . u b l e . ~ . i gfor l ~ a . car . . . . that was guaranteed for'sixty . .. .. . . thousand miles. But they was so high that p.oor peppl'c could~r~t~afford'em so'.: they~juitqdit' m a k n g them. B u t they couli make a tire there-tliatwould wear a car out. And the11 during the war they made them pontoon biidges; i n d they made them thgwaway tanks out of rubber that they dropped off. planes* whenever they was eniptied.:r\nd the\.niade some tariks that held as much as five hundred gallons, and they could take one of them tanks 2nd take a fifty-calil~errnachh~eg u n ~ a n d ~ ~ s hall o o tthe way through that thing and they wouldn't be t k e e p a r t s of gas spill out of it. There was somethin# in that ,<
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ruhl)er tliat when the gasoline hit it, it ~nndlcthe r u l ~ l ~ e r ~ ~ s s ~senl. lvc_~~~~. that hole>. Then when the wnr was over, they just keptadding on to the plant, went to making radiator hose and, well, just anything that was rubber. ,4nd synthetic sponge. I guess they hire something like fivethousand over there now 'cause they're spread out all over that I~ottom.I've cut tol~accoright out throu$h that l?ottom;ight where that thing's setting. Tt I>elo~lyrilto oltl man , Julk\\\'elch. BU; when I first stnr,ted work&lg there, me and ~hisl-ey got a prize there for I~eingtheyoungest rliarried cotple. It was ten pounds of sugar for the prize. T h a t was in July Ijefore they started puttins all the machinery in. heys started putting the machinery in the Monday after that. I madc a dotlal. !o a dollar and a half a day there? And I'd heen there almut three months when I went to logging for Genett's [Lumber Comp&ny]. I worked graveyard shift the Dayton R u b l ~ e rCompany-went in at.,eleveqo'clock and come out at seven-and then cl-awled in 111y truck and wentto.the woods. I'd get in horrie sometimes six-thirty or seven-lots of times eight o'clock in the ntght; and then go ~~
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PL.4TE 282 -
I n the \voodpard-trailers
that haul wood to thr paper m ~ l l
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o load. It \\as steep a n d they'd mire up tbo much. H a d to drive myself to
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unload' a load. . , and . chopped m). s t a ~ ~ d % rout d s to r0n)~m-6fF,and they was . five opthem Togs rolled.b&r ,.me. . ~ a s h e dme tiil mj' ?ye; swelled shut. Is, .. ' n't even kiln\" when 1119 kidneys..:acted or-my l~owelsmov'ed for over. a - k . And )bu know"; nker*hroke'.a bone? BU; riow.it.shore mesied my es u p ! 'but '1 was in.'the sawdust, .see? Th2y'd just filled the hole up ... n\. with the iLYzer and srndGthed it over, &ld therirJogs just. rolled over me and hbsied ~ i ~ e ,that i n sawdusi. 'Course the sawdust ka hard. Hard-enough ,' "<_ that,C;od, I'll tell yay, itgi& nlr a nkshhlg. I was in the millyard, and tliey " : .,.~, i h u t the-saw down L a -n d ill i."n tq me, and on&of'ern'run in alld called the .~ .. . am1)ulancr. They thought it'd killed me. I told'en~to cancel the amhul8nee . call 'cause they wasn't nothing wrong with-me. Rolled around on the, - . . . . few rnin6tes and'finallY made it up and got, u p and got in,', '' ought I'd go hack to the woods and gei.ai~othes!oad. But .. tiine I got to' the foot df the rnou~ftain,I seen I .couldn't. load when ihere.'.So I drove on to the house; and ~ h ~ n got . 1 to the house; I rbuldnlt get.;on to the house, and they to& me to the'doctor. I was o u ~ a l > otwo ~t weeks, I thih!k, before .I went back. Went-right badk at 3 again.'l)id;l't have enough sense to quit. ~ f t e r " 4quit Dayton, . I went back to loggiilg'full time. I was using a truck ' . $ 1 a n d skidder and . horse all. Two trucks: Two o f my own trucks. H a d sorne. body else driving one. . , -, . , ..‘ kIostly i y e hauled ~ ~ e i . l 6 $ 8 e ~iihzhteen b. thousand po-unds t o t k i axle % / '' what you're supp&ed to 'carry: That's back axle. ~ r o n t axle . yoy:re n p . , ' $ 3 supposed to carry but limii. But I was ,carr.y:hg way-. l u s ' a fifty;dollar . . fi& plqs . , P ' &r th,at. And it was a thre'e-cent-and-a-half a over plus-court.~c~~ts-if ,. they caught you. That'd ,wipe out [the profits of] several trips,when.&ey got;.. done with ypu. you'd' already workeQPhout.two weikks for norhing..whenafl . ' they.caught-$op, A n d then thit'd make the son-of-a-hitch'k's pDj6 w2tchin.g ;
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.&irlky,'anhfillairl laitghed,"I done it. and f ' h e a n I done ' .. . , , .. . . : p
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I- live'd over in North Carolina. I outsmarted Fer@ [ n i ~ k n a m e ~ fastate o~ .
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of the co&(ry] d few d m e q a n d , wha is legendary in this y were sharp when you donethat. i They come up down-hel-e21 was parked righi ihove t h a t State Lihe- beer joint. on the-old 41-l,ut,they come u p 'the& that.%venin&just a'little h j . fore,.dark, and I was overlo-aded to hell andl,a&, ,add ~ e r g y ' dheen trying to'c;tch IU; And him .and the Mac01l'c:~urpty'~heriffcome up there and . -down.'ihire-~e. fiappene lobked t h e t&k over. Ralph
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lire out soniethin,~.::
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thorit?, to. Oltl J. P. Long was the head nian. H e lived over ihcre at Bryson Ci+\[North Carolina], a n d h e was the pay m a n . Fergy says-, "I'll have .. Ip 1,ong to get you I~eforey ~ get u to Ss:l\za. . . . I s;i!;s, .'TVell, lle might\and 11i r n i ~ i i tnot,:! So Fergy, he'radioed ,I,&tg . t o g r t rye, a n d . 1 !inowed,tl!at Lens would conle, too. So I jl~stpulled o u t fi.o~nthe service station, iuid l:ersy, he come . . ' , I ~ a c kto 1~r;~nklin. I jus; p u l l e c ~ o ~ ~ t f r$own o n i there :ind went over out the ' ' . . other s i d e o f l'ranklin and pullcd u p on the old ro;\ti where they could~l't, ,'i > sCe,thc -11-uck1161 nothilig~lind got out ; u ~ dwalked.l)ack down there on the , sid%cof the rnaili-road. A1lc1 I hadn't I)ee11.t h w e'. n)are than ;rl~out'thirt-y nlinu k s t?ll old I , o i l ~come t h r o u i h . A4~1dhe colne 011 to Franklili a n d missed . . l e i ~ a c k:rii,cl &l'&~it 11ac.h the other way, a n d I just waited about irri: r -he ~ v m Ijack'the t . . other ya!.. I knowed he'd se& I d o d i e d hi;? o r , done sornetliing-;or ~ ~ i & ~ l ~ ~ tI'd h o\ver~t,lracl, u ~ h t home. I waite$till he'd .. Ixen gone ;il)dut an h o u r . a n d just crawlrd ,in t h r tr11ck and - went on through' to Cniiton. , * ' , . . , , . . ,. +
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,.-\TI: 283 T h e prescl~t-d;tyCanton Hardxood Compaiiy in Canton,. North Carola, hlozt iogs,arc brought to thi? mill by truckrThe hardsvood luinber produced h e r = f u r ~ ~ i t ufloorii~~; d, and building Gaterial. The'loader a t middle r i ~ ! his put-
$k .(Photo coortYsy of .C:hdnipic$ gs into the electric-powcred sasvmill itself.
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PLATE 28-1 . T h e Canton 'Hardrvood $a\~mill.'At f3f rishi tiie loahed carriage is,
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ready to r!ipve the log throuyh t h e . b ; ~ r ~hdair Operations like this 'pktely auforfiated and cuntroll6d hy men statifined. behind pan . I . courtesy of Cl~ampioiiPaper.) r
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PL.-\TF, 283 Thr Canton Hard~cood4unlber iard. Some bf the luptieer here will be' kiln dried andtheil'resawn and plangd for furniture and floorings. Other lumber yill be simply air dried and used f& building'giaterials. (Plloto courtcry of .Cha~hanli;ioh .. - , Paper.) ,, ... . .,
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.. But b:kk then, I'd.~comein of a ~norning,go to'thr woods, load bp, take. . ,, a n d p a r k the truck, go home, a n d then gb o i ~ tearly the next rporning. I used to.cut and load that truck myself. If the boys 'conie and helped tile '+ clbad, all right. They helped me. But I'd cut and loadthree high racks 011 that a da). hy rn>self,Sorrietimes Shirley'd go with me ;ind cook dinner. .411d she dcove a mule ;lnd'pulled in byhole lot of stuff. And-she'tl scotrh when ive'd.rol1 big stuff up.,Me and 11el:d put just as 11iih~:lload of logs OJI 3 truck as tIie18.. put hith these loaders-her scotclling and me rolling with a peavee. - , .~ :lnd thefl I done it myself 4 ~.lot.+Put on three high ~ i c k s + I rilean Lhree high ones. High as an); of'ern. I was pulli~lganywhrre from thirty up as high as thirty-four thousand pour;ds>t a trip..And I'd rut that muc'h wood : and load it in a day 11); qlyself .after I come back fronr iielivering the last load to S\:lva. .lnd I was loading, l ~ yGod, with my damn hands.:-I shore was. [Pull the truck.up to a high 1,a;lk a n d roll th$ l ~ down'poles s that . . \vent from the hank down on& the trilck.] I'd cut ahd ITo;>d'that' son-of-agun as long as I could get a stick.on. That was Imck, too, when things, yo11 ,, know, 'was pretty cheap. I only got a dolla~.a n d - n i n k.:t ~cents a thousand for ' a long time, and pulling it to Sylva, too. Seenis to me likethe last I got was two-trventy a thousand when I was .doing all. tharheavy hauling.. I'd pull any.where from ninety-six to a hundred and ten dollars a trip. Loading heavv was the only way ,to make any money. Pull .evrrythins you could go 'wit%. T h e trucks just. stood it. Yeah. l'gey just had to stand it. You had t o . drive so fanthat you wanted to-take all you could 'cause it took a yhole lot. of gns to puli that load over there. And tires too. But I'd'just c'ut and load ~. till. I give~outand sit and rest a while and go at it again. Lots of'tinles it'd b$ rleve11 o'clock w h m I got in of < night, and \. then get up and pull out at two again. And then I'd rest OFI Sunday-get : . 3ru11k on Sunday and sleep all day. . ., . I' fir~allyhad to quit. Qld E'ergy got wise and 1 finally had to quit hefore hre did get me. I quit pulling and let ~ u h i o rBryson go to pulling for me . . 'cause'.I knotved Fergy'd get me if I kept on. Junior, he always hatiled aboutrs&nd&d. H&wouldn't o,verload. But he told me he'd-pull it for me. \I1ell, he did pull it lox me 'for sixty cents a thousand pounds. 'l'hat was >. ' cheapei than I could pull-it 1YY rhe timqii took n;e to pull it and the.wear . and tear i n d upkeep on the truck, so I jus$ quit pulligg it. Let him pull it. 1t b a s hard work, t ~ u tI'll tell you the reasonel followed it. That's a t h i n g . they's fast nioney cn. It's hard ivork, but5it's fast monty. Pays good m6neq .' I, ' -. I'd go out here 11y myself when the wages was seventy-five cents an hour and make seventy-five clollnrs for me and that truck in a day? They was - people making four and five dollars a day and me making that kind of ' monev? I-cozil&'t q u ~ t . ,
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Cwry load of bvood that goes through he<\them big high loads of wood th;lt goes through here e\-er:y daT-is bringing at least a hundred and fifty d o l l ; l ~;L ~ tlYip, and .they's sbme of them 'making three trips a'day. And the)-:re ~vorkinga t i t like 1 worked at it [for myself and my family]. They'ra rrji~ligetti~lgpaid For it. Pirre I ~ r i n g i ~seven ? ~ twenty-.five a thousand. at th niill, aud (hen) hig trucks goinfthrbugh. here with thirty and thirty-five thousand p6u~id'ever)-timc thcy go through. Youfigurc yourself whether they're i x a k i i i any money%? not. 'l'hey're nraking a pile of money. That's the reason I fooled with it all the t i ~ n rntldw0uiti;l.t fool 4 t h nofhing else.
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Shirlev Buchanan 3
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Du1i17g one ljoini in his career as a logger, Millard B u c h a n a n opernted a log,yi,jp r a m p and ~ o ~ k efdurteen tl 777en iuho liued o n the job i n bunkhouses except .far f . 1 ~Eteekeni; ~ w h e n t h e y went home. Millard paid all expenses such ac s i u n r j ~ n y son the timber, upkeep on the equipment, and f o o d a n d , sala~ies:jor tlie men, and 'kept the balance w h a t he mad.e selling the logs t o the /ili~1.h7iOgeLumher C;ofornpany as his sh$re. hi; rc:ork reent o g ,411 3' ' ,, nd so Shirley, his wife, and their children l!z,ei'ot ti., canzp wi?i h i m m B b , a r i d e from taking care of the children, ,.*.zc8a.r to rook for all the m e n . Curious about wh,at that life ,was like for a ~ o r 7 z a n .Cnnz Ron(/ anti Llinnette Williams went to talk to her about that - lije as =ell as her hushand'j work. About the latter, she said, i'That's all he kimrr (lone-lox unntl cut p u l p . ~ o o d That's . what he loved to do. See the trees i , ': ., f?fliJ> i M'hnt she shill ubout /lie former fyllows. / 3
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\.\-e lived do&^ here 011 Warwoman [in Rahun County].. That's where we W;IS Ioggii~gat. T h e men'woGld go out *and log all day long. We had soii~chot-ses:'One of tbeni was named Scott and the ot-her was named Harr)i' with. The men would eat off and come in at lunch night and eat again: years. We had fourteen -. two to he born while out of 4ood. They Just :enough for betause that's
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~vherethe nlt.11 c&etd.eat. TVe 11:~diil1~11cds in [[he I~acliI-oo~n];q d our .big wood cook sto~:e: aalsd 6ig"wood table and a cupboard to keep dishes in [inthe other part of the house]. \\re didn't h a v e i whole lot'of stuff. ' \\,'e'd get up in the niorliing about five [to have the inen fed] I I the ~ time they went to work. At seven they'd done be fed and gone. I had this big old dishpan that I made my 1)iscuits.up in. I kliowed just how ni11c.h milk to p i ~ t GI. I had a bia container that held ;il)c%~ta half a gallon, ; I I I ~J put the milk . i n that. The11 I put iny Rour in the niiddlr of this l ~ i gpa11 atid put ;I whole lot of shortfnilig in that and niis$d up I~iscuits.TVr'd niake aljout sis OF eight p;lns full. That's a lot of I~iscuiislor that 1ii;lny.nien. And we'd have niayhe oatmeal or,;~pplrsauc.eor~gritsor gravy and eggs and jrllies and but. ter and all kif~dsof t h i n y like that to go with it. B ~ i it t ,varreaIly soinething i to get up of a morni~igand know you had to cook all that 111sny biscuits. They'd be good and l,row~; cooked on thgt wood stove. You'd just put then1 in there and /n a few minutes you'd have a meal ready. 'l'hen we had two great .l)ig olc$,pots for coffee. \Vc'd make one ,and : they'd drink it yhile the othcr was l,iug niuile. 'l'he old stoves weren't \ . ' that big, and the one I went to h ~ u d d k e e ~ i n g w i twar; h the one I had down -'. -there. There wouldn't he too much $opm 011lop, 11ut we cooked them three meals on that stove and kept it goin&, s \Ye usually kept pine knotsto 1)Gld a fire with [in the store]. KeeG the > fire quick with pine knots. . h d the kids enjoyed geiting out and picking up the pine knbts and helping with the fires and stuff and cooking. Sometimes * , that hoyfire would burr1 some of the l)iscuits, l ~ u ta;l)iway they was all. eat. , . E\.ery o11e.of them. T h e n I'd start right back after that [meal was .finished]. By 'the time I got the \vashing:d;ne on t h e rub board, I'd cook that &a1 at lunch. &nd then cool< again tgat evening. All I got done waS washinoa ironing, ~ - cooking, ~ and trying to keep house a little bit, 'though there ~qasn'tmuch house tokeep. But we enjoyed it. , , , 1 Now we didli't haverefrigerators down there. Tl'e h a just a stream t l a t welit .down the side of thed>ack o f t h e house out illthe back yard. We kept our butteiatid milk and . .stufdi~ithat stream, and we'd go out.there and get it and it would l ~ egood and cold: For dinner, we:d ijuy other kinds of meat thal e could keep f s e v e r a l mqk w e ~ dput it our these in that branch and get it. Sonletinles we'd co0k l ~ o l b ~ t i and a , we'd have a big . \ old pla&r and gravy and stuff to put on 'Hqtahle. A k ~then ~ d at night we'd. onions so we'd have fried potatoes and $een heans; and th&'tbierl.lil<ed 13"); onions 1,)";he l)ush'el, a i d we'd fry these ohibns. And we cooked. nlashed potatoes-just' anyrhing,you'd meiirion: &lackherri&: - . We'd have blackberry pies a at stuff. But it was sirnethi& to cook. for: that 9. .~ ..
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PI.IITE 286; : I loring camp high in a .watershed. The buildings wo;ld be family . hnmrs, stables. a.ciininRhall: outdoor !oilits, and sh or]. The flume through the nriddle o? thc camp iadicaiw that this xras one of Ghailipion's acid \ ~ ~ d o d o ~ e r ~ ~ (Photo tions. ".s courres!. of Cha~l~-pi,un Paper.) '' . , . t ~
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mall? men, you know; a n d get all that ready and get it-on the tahle,'Theyld ~ . c o i ~ r i ns m r r e d tdeith-i7n-d'~at'a lot. . " I didn't do all the cooking 11y ni)isclf because there wa3 this old nfan that ctn!.rd with uudtliat; [was / . ,- f r h ] \21aynes~ille',~ o r t h~' a r o l i n a His . name .was De;ic~ilI,edfoi.d,, jyd he co,uldp't dd ~ l owork. H e was just a little feller. .-indhc c o ~ i l ~ j ~ l ' ~no . . iwol.k.'I,ut io hk c o d d hclp-me in the kitclqn. They tola ' l d 2 v h e n I \cent dkwn , thes4,th;t I ' d b e cooking . . 'for;;hese.men,i$ii?that I'd .hay; /I IvornaLi to,coinc in there 16 help me. ~ h e . & d n ' t never ' show up. I *. . "didnlt eves scc I~er..But ~ e & o ncome and help& me: He'd get up of the mol.ni~lga13d help make'iliscuits and help me. .&ash and put on the coffee and stuff. ;\nd AIiJ1;ird hei*ed a lot wiih the'coo!
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FOXFIRE 4
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the sled to get-to the highway, and then sled our groceries 1,acli in therel was the. muddiest place, I know, that I've e \ ~ e ~ in~ my ~ r life. i . then during thc~wkek,as h l i l l a r c L ~ o ~ k t hlogs e out [to the sawnull~if_w:e. ~. ,.. .. needed an\thklg&jse he'd Iring it IlacL in that day. But we went out once..:! week and ],ought groceries. 'it'e'ci be thcre bv ourselves on the wrekentis;'so that's when we got allthat done. \lre'd go out and 1,ring in hay o n t h e weekends for , the horses. Buy big slal,s of fathack to season with, and 1,ig buckets of lard. Everything had to he 1)ought in quantity I~ecausethey was a lot of us to feed. \Ye traded out here at the stores in Clayton. Goldniine Branch is the name of the place d o h n on \\'arwonlan [where we had to drive from]. pourteen miles out of town: You can'& the little road where it turns u p to ~o in there now. I'd like to:go hack in there sometime--see if it's still as ~ n u d d >as - it used to be. Get the young'uns 011 that sled andrgo out to the road and c+tt&~h..-the truck from ihere on out. 'There was a lot of tirues tl~ey had to pull the trucks out of ?here with the tram brcaus? it'd l,e so muddy they couldn't get out. Put on chains and evel-ythink. . Then the Inen would come back in Sunday night ready to work the next day. During the week, we'd s e t through Every night almut seven-thirty or eight o'clock. p here wasn't nothing m u i h to do after supper. They just eat and went and rested. -'T.h,ey B a d these instruments, and sbmetirnes they'd to enjoy pickand sing .and play !outsirk the bunkhouse. Everyl~ody&emtd .. . theirselves. ' l ' h e v w o r b ; " ~ a r d but ~ they enjoyed it. And we'd have lots:of'company: '1'he;'d come from ~ a y n < s v i l l eand el7erywhere else. Our pe6pIe all corneao se'e us. A 4 i dthere'd be a lot of'people frurr~\Va~~worr~ari.corne to see us.\Had a right smartof company. You know "~reaGh" Parsons? He'd come but thcre and eat with usson~etimes.He remenibeied us way down in there.
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Earl "Preach" Parsons
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"Preach" Parsons was a n employee o f t h e Forest Sewice for most of his ago. His job took h i m t o c a m p after adul@ife before he retired t w o {amb-lare and small-~hackin,~'on t h e operation and ma?-king timber for selectice cutting. His career spans the development of the i ~ ~ r i u s t rfy~ o ? n' 'steers a n d u p and clown shsh m4tls through hanrl.mills (he.ren~einherswheli there . .q..q e seven i n G r a h a m ~ o i n t y h7orfh , ,Carolina alone) to moilern pulpwobd . . operations a n d clear-cutting. ~ : o w ' i nretirement, w e asked h i ~~. m to tell us cibout some o/ the camp.r ire --T-~~i-, >a& a n d some of the experiences he had durzng / I T S y e a ~ & e j ; e l h ~ ~ ~
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Nqw Millard ;rnd ~ h i r k ~ ~ u c h a n a i i -visited I in there. Their carl+p wa ~ ~ i cof_t:he a l smaller ones. They didn't have many men in their camp com pared to t$e hig commercial operations. ~ o o ' r n a n ybeoplr get the concep..
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tion that all cnnlps were s ~ ~ x i l l ~ j little u s t shacks out in the woods, you knok. Some loggins ? a n ~ p stook care of a hundred and two , ~ ' . ~ ~ - - Tli;~t111e;trlt tt~cyb. i ~ tostaff i . . it, you know. ~. ~. e who clcnned u p in the camp, the\- didn't, cal 't Gonlen anyhow. They ~ r e i eold loggers that they called They stvaniped. up. l'hat'i what they $&led it. And they were clcai~.Boy oh t ~ o y thcy , wel-e clean a6 a pin. Now therc would I,e l ~ e d l ~ n gl,e(;ause, s y ~ uknow, out in the foreit and everything, and mein r ;rnd there with thcir belongings on their backs-they'd Iring in. But thry had their different treatments for ljedhugs-kerosene and all that sort of stuff. They were really clean. A n d you didn't make your I)nnk. They inade it for pi. Clean sheets. It's surprisins. I t was-really sur,
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PLATE287 Another logging camp, this one at the head e n d yj.& narrow-gauge raii-!I roadiline-Thc, divellings are log si,des with canvas roofs. T h e long, narrow wooden { building behind the dwellings is probably the cook shack. An operation like this one i might h i v e sevent)--fiile a hundred men living there a t one time. (Photo courtesy of Champion Paper.) - - - * ...
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7~21sjust a place to cat,'and :&a:was just sol-t of all uilr v ~ ~ t t erule. n Some- ? .\, ,look. Not supbody sat d & ~ i and went t i talki~lg,boy, they'd gi\.d hlm posed to do that iri there. You sat i11 the]-c, you ate your food, you s a t out. K o ~ vthey h:id good lood. Particularly the Ifettei. camps. And they were proud -of their,food. \\ray Ilack there i t w?.;hard to ~ e xootl t loggers. They . - . I we]-c scarce. .So [the compuiies] wouldetltlce them with a good calilp. T h e p+ypr(~i)al>l?. wasn't tbo hot, I ~ u tnevertheless, they l i x i good hal-d staple food, ar?d clean surro&dings. T h a t was the pride. of the lossing superintendent-his camp. 1f.a logger went off and talked about his camp [and cl-iticized it], boy, he was through. .. Q .4t the silniv time, they had %,hat they called l o ~ g i n git.;uiips. Now thry were not tl.a~-iipsthe way we think a l ~ o u ta guy p i n g down the 'rozd without anything to eat, iuid unshaven and all thiit sort 0 T stuff. Down on -* t h e world. H e just welit f s o n ~qir. logXing cariip to iinothrr. Pt-ol1al>ly no folks 01. anything. And he'd stay in camp "X" a whilc-li?;iyl~e two 6rmtlil.ee months, maybe two' o.r three weeks-atid t h e s hrid cl.osc the qiountain . , walking and go Ib the nest camp. He just niade the I-ouritis, you krrow. H e never drew his pay,,,and so he nevrr was out of money. Whenever h e liir rliat canip again the liest time, th'ere was a paycheck there Tor hini from fkh s t .iinie. If it was a year later, or if it was five years later, thet'e was a pa9Fht.c.k . _ (
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bl-ou~lit'news [I-on1the other camps, you know, and from the oulside world. 'l'hc\ liked 'to see.them come. 'l'lie hi(,st colorful one was "T-rarnpitig Jit~i~fiy'Q ~ e l t 6 1 1 I. 'guess it was fo1.1y or fifty yexrs he jud tramped the logging camps. And, buddy, he lovedit. H e could tell some of the doggonest tales. Now I met Jirnniy one time in his late^; years. Some of the tales he'd tell, you cQuldn't PI-irit them. You coi~ldn'ttell them Ilefore n;ixed i-onipanf. His tales were'somethi~ig. H e niight take ir notion to lez~ve,and he might take some driving gral)s-that's these short chains with hooks in tile ends they use to hook logs together i; trili~is [so they could pull six o r eight logs at once down the niount;ri!i]. C;ie the sign and the teamster way d o w ~tkere ~ . would take off. I\'ell, old Jilii~riy,he was lialde tp drive _ope hqok into the end of a log . and the othel- into ;I stump, you-knoe,pnd.;l freight train couldn't pulp iti . thc sign atid then he'd takr QI re inonthz 'l'hese tt.anlps were very colo . ,. s4 {o keep the r~ioraleup, too. d to I k g o o d But loggers were proud of their c 'ljec:iusr that was the iliain attramofi for secul-irig good lahor. They'd take them orice' or twice a &onth on, thelogging train.to town to celebrate, you. know; and the11 I,& &the woo&&hry'd .&?. go again. But those people just got it ill their i,lood jt~st.like 4&@@~y ..(' . with anything else. l'hat's all they w a n t d . 'l'hey worked hard.; T & & %orked ~ under hard \>asses. They Were .. fair, I,ut the); here hard: The$ had to be. They worked six days'a week. That old lo&m was q~rite;iefeli$l-, 1'11 tell you that right now. He'd go out and r o u ~ hi t . l'hey had I,&~ls with .{spikes-"in -the soles], and they werc deadly weapor~stoo. l ' h e y werc .~.$hting';ien. But tnost of the time they'd peel the-Ifark off the Logs, atid thev'd be as slick as gl.ease; so they used these l~ootsto walk thc slick lo$. l'hey'd run those"logs just like a coon. 'They , weye experts in their liri;. Generally you think of a logger as just common (I hunidrum-a~~yl,od). can d o that. But it took an expert in every line of it. They hat1 these splksh da~ris,for example. T h a t was ahout 1905, I believe. And theyl~l-ought these river rats~infrom Pennsylvania and Ohio. hatw was -. . people traL~iedto run lo,qs ooli a river. Boy, they had to be just 1ike.a . .squirrel, too..'I'hev lost r: lot of people in this C:hatooga River here. T h e \vny that worked-they I~uiltthese sp1ash"dams on the tril)ut?ries going into the rnai~iChatoogn, like up Holcolni ~ : r i e k .And what they'd do is cut logs for three or four 'months and pile huge piles of them on, the banks. Then when the wet spell came and the rivers began to come up,' , they'd roll these logs into the river I~edarid th'en open the splash dam above, them up, and that water w6uld take t h e m o n down to the main Chatooga River. They'd aim to diive a coople of millioii feet'that. one day. That's a lot of logs, too. And then they rdde those logs, floated them down in below
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'I'ottoa, Geo~gin,someplate, nnd sawri~ill~them. 7 he sawmill^] had I~oomu across the river that would stop the logs, and they'd take then1 out. But once those loqs started, they had to keep them going. 'l'here wasn't anything surh as quitting.. 'l'hey had relief crews, hut those crews were going all the time. .\nd nien had to follow those loggers with food and everything else till those logs werit thtough. But t h o x river rats had those boots so they could sun the logs- - h a d allout fifty !pikes t6 each shoe. There were experts in every area. Cutting and fellina ;ind notching. They took pride when'they'd fell a tree. They could take a tree a hundred anti , the hill, arid fifty feet tall, and mark a spot out there on the ground .around the!.'d drive ;I little s t a k e k t h e ground. And those experts could klmost fell that tsPe to whcrc it would finish driving that stake in the irourld. It just *took pcopl_e like that [with that kind of_skill] l)ec-ause t'hcy couldn't split theis tinibcr. If it split [while they were felling it], and that crack shot way u p the trunk, they'd ruin the 10%.And the11 it had to fall in position, particularly if they were loggi~igwith horses, so that the horse could pull it. They'd tliro\v that log in position, pointed the way they were supposed tolie carried out, so that the horse could get to them. [Then if the? weren't going to float the logs] they'd haul thkm to ;r nar- = lo\\.-gauge railroad. The hest.oncs thev had in the logging woods were "th5 railroads*witli Shay engines. They ran off cogs-like gears in a car-and t h e.v. were much more .powerful [than .conventional, piston,drivenengines]. Either that 01. they had tram roads. A tram didn't have ail engine on it: It had swit;hlracks. They'd loah this car and let it go do& the hill under its o~viipower. i t came down to a point, and by the time it got to going a little too fast, it turned u p r a d e . ['l'l~?<sthe way 'Ishen, just h e f o ~ = - i t g ~ t . . l o ~ t f i ~ e . . a . p . e z . . p f . ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ track back this way (to take it farther down t the upgrade, it would go through a n automatic switch-a "frog" they called it-and that switch automatically just,fell hack over' [aster the c;~r went through heading uphill so that it would be in position to direct the car onto~%enext downhill portion of track when it reached the a i e x of the bpgrade and headed ba&'downhill]. Over here on Tray Mountain, they'd s\vitchl~acliseven times getting down the niouiitain. . ,411 those big loggins camps are gone from this circa now. There just isn't the same type of stuff to cut. The small'timloer we have now does'n:t necessitate that kind of camp. And the mills now can't take cal:e of the big logs a G h o w . They have to keep turning. it arid turnips it on that carriagr. rlritil they lose at least oriii-third of that big log hy just-pruning it'down to where they can get it through the saw. They had those big handsaws then that could take a iog that was six feet through-back then they c u t for the ' widest width they could get-hut now they verv seldom ever cut anvbhinr I
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T h e Champion Fibre C o m p a n y opera'tion a t Sunburst (nor*. Lake , come into this i r e a a n d d u m p their logs into the log shqd off them before they were sav!d. Soakin5 the ~ r i t saw blades. T h e ~ l o g s ~ w o u he l d drawn i n i o t h e band mill om the spcond floor of the building at the head of the uared by a hand saw. T h e n they ~ v o u l dbe moved into circle saws operating in t a n d e m \vould'&w them into . . ttrelvc hoards a t a time. This mill was shotgun fed a n d stcam bperated. ~ t a c i e d \ l u n i her is visible in the far h a c k ~ r o u n dbehind the stacks. A. large operation like this one iriight cut 100,000 feet of lumber a day, and have as Inany as five trains operating siniultaneously hauling logs from the camps to the mill. (Photo' collrtesy of Ch;tmpion Paper
P L A T E 289
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over ten inches. That's the marketable timl~ertoday. They take that 1unil)er ,and laminate it and put it together and come up with all the wide stuff they . :. need. So logging's entirely different now. Used to, they wouldn't fool with that srnaller stuff. he), couldrl't. ~ o o k ' t o omuch work. Whkt they.wanted ,. was t h y b i ~ l o g s , --.
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Will Zoellner Will Zoellner wo7-ked. ~. as. .a. blacksmith at s_everal of the logging camps in our area. W h e n w i asker1 h i m what-a. G c k s m i t h ' s responsibilities were i n ~ .world! T h e b l a c k s ~ i t hhad to do those camps, he said] " ~ u e r ~ t h iinnthe it all! E v e n a clamn table leg breaks in the kitchen,they send for the black~
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nnaple, a n d - t h e n at the end
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tllnt day, w h e n t h e steers were brought i n
tab their hide rnzu. A n d the yokes h e mcitle ,for tliri tteer.r had tu J7t e.xcicllv so tlint tire strc.1-s couldn't turn in t h e i n rind # s t /ou.led or Ilul-t thernsrlr,es.
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~ i t i l cabout his reiork with t h e m . T h e n roe cliked him to talk nhout t h e i~n-
told u s n b b ~ i t . \\:hen I fil-st started loggiiig, we uscd. slccrs. T Iikr to work with theni. Horses is hateful. 'l'hey get t o fretting. l'hc)- ier nkrvous. I don't like to work with horses. Especially in muddy ground like i n a creekhed or some-
in the roughs I'll take a steer.
thcy'll stop just like ;inythin
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with them; I've put harness ,oh t h e m 5 n d plowed then1 single '..',...' ,..,',%,'",'& like a mule. They'd do ,a~l)ithing. ", "-!?' But they've got to be over three ykars old [to do heavywork]. Theyire not stoutZenough.to do anything heavy..ft,efore that]. They're hones are soft yet. :\nd you don't want to strain" theril.i.Some of them tgkes it8wful haid. They pull too hard. And sgrhe of ;hem .. . , Zvs .. down on you. H e wants to go faster ..~,.t)mrl;th$,resL ~ ~ d d ' i e ~ @&id t $ 2nd he lays d o w ~ Then . vou have to just ~ h o ~ h i n ~ ~ ~ G ~ , ~ ~ u ~ .Z~e~~eas~y~with ~ ~ o u . ~ h them, a ~ \ i 'of ~ ec~o u~rts oe y h e easikr you ... ....~~~.~~~ ...~
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his l~ackend the other way. One's got his head upside down, so one's got the yoke ~ i d e r n ~ a h d other t h one's got ,it on top and then itis an awful. shape. They'll get one killed. You have to go ahead and knock the bow out and push thein arouud.?n there and put the bow back. You've gbt to make a yoke to fit so they can't do that and so his neck won't t d r n i n the bow. .>I'vehad the111 to walk on their hind feet,get u p i n the air ten feet and jump and r i p and tear; but you get them working with other teams in a' procession and they'll soon stop that. That chain goes from one yoke to the other, and he can't do t h ~ t . -
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Oilce you stait logging with them, you call teach a pair pretty quick if you're logging with more than one pair. You.put a trained yoke ahead and tlien tliey'll show that [new pair, also called a "yoke"] what to do. T h e new' , . ... -ones can't----"get' away let them run, and -- 'cause the~.front- [piyr] ~ u s twon't .~ when you hook them [together], the front ones rnalte them gcfwhere they
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to go. Now what they call a team is three yokes. Now in the middle you've got . . . ? p6tcy ?nnrl )bm 7 ' ' hf a &itchh If thcCy ' ",,don't,the front;?aftle put theri, down in overl,oard. ~ h e y ' h a v ctgrlje pretty Y ktout cat~lc,heavy cattle, to push each other ant1 hold th;~t,load up there. A > "oungstkr, he'll s o s t r a i ~ h tthrough and get in the ditrh ;tnd get killed. He cion't look out for himself. He, doii't know how. So the lead orics ha\; tp Ilc ' f)el-Sect17t~ainecl,and the middle oncshas sot to I I ~lie;~vyenough .tb hold thrni in there. i Rut the l~utts-the list ones-it don't make no difference whether they're ' 1,ro'ke or whether they're not. If they want to pull, the!; call pull; and if they , n't want to Lyull,the o t h ~ ~ s 'drag l l them. "They'll go. lhey'll have to go. hc).'ll sop~i.kc'+m it; arid if theydon't look but, the dthercattle'll drag m.alon,~.[ ~ h k y ' lsee l that if] the other cattle can do it, th%y can too. ut the butts should he heavy cattle too hecause they've sot lot or pushi 'R and pulling to do against each other going in through the ditches and linll~sand holes and stuff like that. They have to Ilc stout enough to hold .., : thcir o\v11. But thg'.ieads have got to IIC a1,solutely trained. Where. you holler, b "\\'hoL," avant him to h stop. It don't rnalcc no differenre:whrre it iq. And thcy soon?learn,it, and they get so the); look [lack and watch to see if the other cattle is not hung u p or anything like that. 'l'hey Ibuddy up in less than a week. ~onietinies'oncof the. buttr;i~,illtry to lie down,on you. 'l'hey get inad and lay down. When thcy la:, down, wh~,,jmstshoot them'one with the ox whip and let the others pull .him up. Then",, he'll go get mad, and he'll i o . on. And d o n'-? ' t ~. ,.a e r l o a dthem. Make sure thht 'they can pull it if they want to. Then after you log them a week or two,&hy, all t,he trouble is o"e?. But \ i 7 don't'take two yokes or three yokes of cattle iq th'c ro(lgh land ljkc cliffs and rocks. If you do, you're going to get one killed. ~In loading logs-we didn't have-'no.way of loading l"gs then. \.$Te'd j u g load the? with the cattle. Take the leads off and wrap a chain'arounb the : log and t'he wagon up there. Run two chains under the Iqg and on^ over and hook the cattle to the ends and let them cattle pull that log up there. You strtnd u p thcrk with a peavee and watch and see if anything \ slips. ?'hen iuSt holler, "\Yhoa," and they'll hold that log. They won't let it go l~ack.Then youspike him where you want him and tell them to get up alittle. They'll ease on up there and as quick as tlie log hits the standards, -
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PL:\TE 291 A b r g e operation like Champion would also have a' cun~niissauy.\\:here "its men could obtain food, dry goods, tools, feed, and other supplies they niight need. l'his on?, on the head of Sunburst, like other commissaries, had its busiest day on Saturdays when families would be free for the weekend. Since they were only paid eveky tlii.:ty dai-s, employees r o t ~ l dniake their p u r l h a x s with what they called ' ' d o o g a d ~ " -credit vouchers against their forthcoming paychecks. At the- end of t h e month, they r v o ~ ~ draw ld the balance of what was left in their accounts in rash. Such a commiss+y niiglit serve as many as twenty camps; t h e band mili; thegeilfral: pi~b!ic2nd.tbe-ina84 pendent, loggers, h'ke Millard Buchanan, who cut boundaries of timbc. themselves, were paid by the thousand feet of timber they brought in, and could make purcliases . here on credit against what the company would' owe them at the end of each month. : Though most nf the people in this photograph undoubtedly work f o r the compahy, only a few of the& would be loggers. The'list of employees required by a large opera. . .. . - . tlon \?is .stk#@rin2,*iind would include: cooks, "cookies" '(cook's assistants), "lohhy hogs" !men \vlii, served the food and cleaned the dining hall after meals), "s~vampers" ( t h e men who made the skid trails the horses and oxen used to drag the logs to a loading a r e a ) , "road' monkeys:' (men who 'maintained the skid trails), "grab -j"fk&+~rttMmrcg+~-hgs s o t ~ u u l r + t , e p~il~a];.-te%sters ( h e n Gho drove the stock), blacksmiths, stable boys, foremen, timbei'cutters ( t h e men who felled the trces and trimmed and cut them to length with crosscut saws arid axes), sawyers, hlock setters (men who positioned the logs so they could he sawed at the mill), firemrii to fire the hoilers, "off-bearers" (men who took the lumber aura. from the saws), "cutoff 'men" fmen who cut the bad ends off lumber and sqyared i t u p ) , "trimmers" ( m e n who edged off ihe hark that the main saws didn't g e t ) , "pickup men" !men \rho haulrd the lumhrr to the woodyard), "stackers". (men who stackcd lilt rvood in the woodyard), "skidder menY ( m e n who operated the overhead skidders), flaemen to signal the skidder operaters, "tong hookers" ( m e n who @ked the choker to l o g so they coilld be dragged to the loading,area by the skiddel'), train engineers, and so on. (Photo courtesy of Champion Paper.)
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--tttq'11 a u t ~ a & ~ + l L y ~ s t ~ i I L c ~ k ~ o ~ ~ ~you ' s just _ l oturn a d them ~ ~ ~ T h> ~ ~ ~ .;iruririd ; ~ n dget a ~ ~ o t h cYok~ l . lo+ p h ~ m l on j up t6 the top. 11, Now when I M-orkcdin camps,. there &as some good camps and s a n e bad ! . c;smps. - b n e I stayed in had sevent):-t\vo men. 'They conie from Hayes\-itle,[North karulina] and up on Shooting Creek [North C:aroli~l;~] ;md several fronr Franklin [North C:arolina]. 'l'hcre was one hol-sc man that took care i He ' of the horses. h e n that-they jvas, well, fat. H e was from 12'est Virginia. \vas ;I I ~ i gold feller. ~ i c c quiet, : easy to get n l o ~ ~with.. g He looked after the horses; and if the harnessdidn't fit, he'd get n i t his whittling knife and fix i t . \Ye never lost l ~ u one t horsr. And then the ((o\-ernnient had sister11 h e n -inlthc \voocls clay and night [marking trees to IIC cut in the National ~ores;? Ian'ds]. Get oilt'in these mountains ;nrd they would~i'tgo home. :l'he)-'d just get i i i ~ h e11;lrracks and.go.to sleep and pay ihc 1,oard. Then wk didn't do a thing but hunt the marked treks and cut them. Now that'c;lmp had anything )-oil wanted. MAkcs 110 difference what it ~vi!s.Thr; hat1 the nicest I d s you, c\-cr looked at, and they kept. clean. And those heds,'they'cl go wheje we'd go. They were in barracks th'at could he ~ n o v c d Yon . could pull them where\.er yo11 ivantcd to. They could move a ~vholecamp in two hours. .\nd the l~oysthat would go out on a shift hunti ~ i gthe t i m l r r to cpt way off, if that company didn't them, they'ci. go and ge; them and liring them in. But liiess sergrant \vo{rld send the dinner out a ~ l dmeet whci-evc~.they xvere logging: . . 'l'hcy had tools arid equipment ancl everythi~lg.And the c.ooks, they had thcir hps1-arks con~iected~ , ? t hthe kitihen. Had a dini~lg'room,living soo~ii, ;~ncikitchen. T h e living room wad aLseparatei~uildingso t e) d .~ d nt Intel.fere with the men and wornen~\vbocooked. \Ve had 110th men and womcii i cooki~~g. It's really a nian's jol) to cook in the woods, hut if ;I woman wants to do it, why, she's cleanest. I'd rather have a woman cook t h a ~ ia Inan. l h e y were handiest. i . But all the camps werc1i't,like that. I had to quit one. I left there. They didn't have brain ohc. Never thought a inan had to sleep at n<+t ancl h a d to have something to eat dinl~erand supper. They'd just put him on out . and let him go on with it. Tell you what to do anti not-make no ;tsrangcnients for you out'in the woods. I got full of it. -&ere was one old head man ahotjt seven or eight feet high'with i great . I ~ i gold black ~noustache-old Ijon): feller. He didn't have Irain one. I told . hinr, :'I always wdrk for people that:$ got a little sense, but now I over-' , . . . guessed it so I'ni throush. Give me niy pay and I'll leave." . "\Shy, you can't do that:" I says, ',I'm going to. If you ain't got the money, I'm going to anyhow." "But what's the matter?" ~
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LOGGING
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1 says, "Nobody's got $11)-haink here to know how to log! That's what'i the matter. Don't you know that a ~ n a nhas to eat alittle s o r n ~ h i n gonce or 'day? I c6me in for supper and you put me on a truck h a v e to go to Vire,ini:r to get some, cables and a compressor and st'ufl'. You never rhought hl~outthel>athj;and you never thought about the eats. You ain't' ,
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head a ~ i t t l ebit and said, 'bWell, I thought you had arrangeinents made." ukl I make arrangnients ill the woods?" een such :I pies? iin my life. h'l'an would have to fix him a he table when it did i e t there. \lr;tsn't no place fixed to set. ourown stool or a piece of l~oardor somethins to sit on the
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Id him, "IVlien ~ a t u r d j yconies? I'm going home and I'm going to h," he skys, "we've got aplace for you [to stay]." "Yes, i see )-ou haye. Sleep in the sawdust pile,'l)y gosh,'and lay down in he ihade uf a tree [to sleep] when it's hot," I says. "Eat ?he5 we lirrd it. If it ain't fair [weatherj, whv, do without." !"\\Tell," he says, "howdid all d o i t [in the othe~,camp]?" I:says, "\\re had a mkss h h i . MrB had a cook. We had 'KP's.-We had a housekleaner. \Ve had a bed fixer to stl.ip thk l~eds." ~ n Idsaid, "If you want to log, thit's the way you got to at it. You calrlt work seventy-five men and have them -sleeping on the.trees n d the l)us$es and rock cliffs and . the next morning." alittlc l i t , sa'ys, .'"Are can't do without a l)lack5mith." without m e . - I ' m gone. I'm just the same as home
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there, "I'll have to call headqual-ters." 11 them up and tell them I'm gone." 8 ' So Istepped on out. 1 The kind o i c a m p you.ran made a big difference when you expected'men ong and into the night. .
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Jake ,Waldroop
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Jake.Waldroop took four of us from Foxfireto lee t h e N u n t i ~ h a l aNational Fbrest, not-.too far f r o m his Kome i n Cartoogcchnye, X o r t h Carolina. H e has a special interest in this t ~ e e , which is reputed t o be the "lar,qest yellow poplal: i n the United States." His ~ r a n d f a t f i r ralso , named Jake Wpltlroop, once owned all the lnnd i n Sugar " C o v e re!here t h t poplar is l o c a t e d a n d had sold thnt lond t o the U.~S:GoG- ' r
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e r n n ~ c n iprior t o its being lugged. Jake remernbe,s n s n child c n m i n , ~to-.the big po/!ln'r, milch larger t h a n fl17)l dthers in. t h e area; with'his m o t h ~ rlook'-* '. iii,? for ginsen,?. It re'as n lnntlmark,ei'rn then. Z P i:l.'nlilroop, ~ Jake's father, mh h logsink operation in this nreh about sixty yenls i ~ g owhen ,Jake was n young znan. ~ , ; i l k nthe Sugnr C o r e nren was bei~i.,q.izrt,,Jake h a d , t o m i k e a decision about cuttin4 the big poplar \ tl-ec. H e np,i~nrentl!,had no'eithetic ritnsons f o j saitin,q the tyee- Ec,en 1h;en it , runs at leas/ tliirtecn feet i n rli{metir and t h e crossc'ut snzis were:6Zly t e n . fee/ long. T h e io,y,qin,c rompan)! said they wnilld ,get n iongel- s a w . T h e n l a k e renlized 11101 even if the tree were,cuf,,they would hnoe a i ~ e r ~ r i i f i c z t l. t tinir gr//iri,q it out.of the z ~ o o d s and , then it c'oulil n o i s h e cut =nt l h c sqzulr~ill bccnirsc of itr great width.. 7 ' h ~ r ~ f o the r e big po[~Jnfwas sixzrcci. , ,. .Tr~r'crnl>,ears n,go a trail was ..cut ,throu,qh ./he wood.r to the .tree b y the * Fol-?st Serz'ice ant1 dpdirilted t o J o h n ~ a s i ? & ka~former forest ranger wella likcil b y the Korth Carolina ~ . e s i d e n f s , othis f a&. Her-airs< his fathrr zvns n loggrr and hts the n z f n h e hail hired, we aske4JnX-e to iell ,
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PLATE 292
Jake M'aldroop before the slant yellow poplar.
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and Ixeak that jam a ~ u get l them, to moving on.
u.-:?ere they was logging-. hen they'd come in for supper. A few of the men boarded at home, but we always had ten a r twelve stay with tis. Then they'd go put on Saturd6)land come hack on Sunday evening
"%ownn on the weekend. .. us, into it. Then] that But this camp, 'my daddy 11uilt it and moved
The thrasher would come around at the fall of the year and-thrash that
everyone around stringing thern. They'd have leather britches beans and shell beans too, hut most of them would be for pickling. They'd pickle a big barrel full of .them. They'd hoid siity t; eighty gallons. Fill one of them with pickled beans, and have hig sackfulls of leather britches beans. And wasn't no trouble about meat. We just grazed hogs back in the mountains. I rememher one time my daddy had twenty-seven killed one day. H e got a bunch of mi11 to come in and killed and dressed - and cut up and packed u p twenty-seven. Mre had a big smokehouse, and we'd salt that meat down in that smokehouse. So we had the food. Mollles would feed them potatoes, meat, l~read. Every morning she would make them a I ~ i gpan of sawmill gravy. She'd -have a great hig skillet and she'd put somemeal or Aour in it. You could make, it out of corn meal -
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, or flo~;r,,.l?11.f.)-ou generally thickcncd your gravy with flour. She'd gut that Hour in that par; and.she'd let it I)rdwn a little I&. Then she'd dump @ilk in there::-or water if she didtft h i v e milk. So they'd have gravy, andithey'd A lot of times it would just he the whole big middling. have eggs and And ham, andshoulder m e a l . And she:d havd fruit. of fruit. Alid,she3d I,al,e these dried fruit djes, or conictimcs just haye ljig ;hirers of that dried fruit on the tahle. And 'it was I it. And she'd have apples;iuce and jelly. They'g just goo;l. and thcy3d.,eat ,,lake ~vorldsof jelly up in the fall of the year. Wh)., you could pick just I,~ishrlsof l)lackl,erries and apples. She was'I,usy. Worked all the tirrre. Tlien'eithcr they'd come in foi- lunch, or @y'd send r:-~omel,odyto come ' into the-hoardil~gho6sc and they'd have the di111ierready all packed in big buckets and carrv it out to t h e p e n . Arid depending on how many men w?s +.I goi~lgto be at the lunch gi-ound, wc'd ha<e<x big 6offeepot and-i7ial..e -'tt out there. I t k a s too hard to pack coffee. It generally took two good husky men lo carry out the lunch for.-them men to eat anyway. They Fould eat, the111 1og~er.sdid. L,ord goodness, they could take care o l some of it. I t was a sight! O n a great big platter one % o d d just rake it full of-beans and meat >~~ and fruit and \:egetaldes and whitever they had. It was a aood life. I enjoyed it. b o u d i d n ' t have all that much to worry ;il~out.You didn't have all this confusion-killing and evcrything. Once in ;r'~vhileone of them would f i l l out, but hardly ever in therri loqqipg camps. You'd ne\-cr hcar of m y troul~lemuch there. Some of these liigger canips, 9 so~?ietinressome would break over and h a x a little shooting streak. A nian would get killid~o~.er a card game. But no1 often. In !the eve~iings,sometilnes the men would get ouf a n d g a n s u p iind p l a y ! . them a game gf sethack. I've played setback kith t8em for hours at a time. It xvoilld get so dark we'd have to go in. And the gnats would eat us up in the summertime. We'd have tcrl~uildup a smoke and we'd set ;~rourrdthat srrioke and play sethack. And sometimes some of them would Iring ill a hanjo arid make ;I little niusic. And olir t i m e we had a fellow-he was the t~lacks~riith.And every i\'ednesda>; night w e ' d have services-preachin$-for the loggers. He'd ~vaittill after supper a i d the cookies had gotten everything cleaned up so. they could listen too. Then George, he would preach in t h e lohl~y.Pfetty .y r n ~ ~ cr\-er\h nnc,of thrm 1oi;gcrs w o ~ ~ cornc l d in and I~e'justas'quiet and listen to him, you know. We called then1 "the good old dais." ;\nd they was. . ,
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I n l e r r ~ i h s and photogmphs 61, C u m ijond, Lynnette ~ i l l i a m s ,and Blenilo Carpenter.
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one is 'fortunate enough pecial place to go to-a. I1 always ren~enil)er. A across<\thecreek, ar1.d u p re you can always sn~cll e: .ins in that place is
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piace that involves a trek down a t the opposite hill, just for a short some thin^ cooking eve? he'fore y . . the person one will never forget. I se~liemberAunt Lola as far i l l ~ i n ~ eat l bit and never ,will. a n y ~ h i n gslveet, and I have ga1:e 111r a little red Bible on is a' treasured pomrssion. . . . . W Aunt 1,oIa is the sort of right, when !or1 need advice ..?!he's the person wlso can tell you right from . wrony,~ without iliakina it sound like lecture; i stead itLsouqds like good 0 common sense. There's a kindness al~ourher wh ch is in~poksil>leto ariicu-late.,A ver); :eiieroup and gei~tlk-n;lturedperson, have never heard her say a harsh wor-d toaor allout iany other person. Shc's vriy closeL'to God, and tries very hard i'n her own &rl;:tte way to help ojher people know God the way that she does. Aunt Lola was I~ol'non March 26, 1 8 9 ~ in thk r$'arwon~an comn~unity.~ . , She's actually my great-a"riJ, I,ut to me s,he's l]een\nlore like a grandmother. : i. . I g u e s m u l d s u n l . i ~ pall niy feelings for Aunt ..i'&ola in t h e tliFCe words, "Ilch\ehei'." *, . , , .. - "f ~-
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AYITA J E N K I N S
Photugl-aphy n r ~ t l in/e?r!iuws dune h y nil Cnr~Ner,.Anilu J e ~ ~ k i 7 ~d sn ,t l
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P L A ' I ' E ? ~ ~ iluiit Lola \Cith Anita Jenkins ontridq.her little home. i .
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My grandmother said that ,she could co\.er: my face ~yithan ord&iry coffee c . " i when I was I~orrl.'l'he house that I lived in.oncJ:$larwornan was a I huge log house. I t w-ns'wide. I don't know the n"rnher of feet, 11uf anyway - the beds sat like that [headtdbbards against the w a l l l i n the jrack and there was still pleniy of room in between them t n go in and out. I t a g still see it: I t wiis sraled with wide poplar I~uards. VVe IateFino<ed to Chechero because] we-didn't own'a goo -sized piece ' of 1a11d.Mother had I~eenraised here on 'Chechel-o, aiid she ha never liked living 01-er,thcre.She was always ;t.-li~~le.~romexi'ck for thE:plarc. Daddy got -@ ;r ch;rncc to buy this property here-all of. it; M'e \)ought this place whish ;\nd we moved irito .,the house where : !. -:\v;i[ ~ o t h e r ' sgranhfather's property. ., . , . Iny sister, Bessie, lives now. .,. '1-he.Godf~.eyplace, as it <.as called, had the first white settlers in t111h end I # , of the co~nrnunity..Therr was a fainil!-, the Coffees, that settled about where Kingwood [Country Club] isnow, and then t6e ~ o d f s e ; f$nile was settled here and it was
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near the ceriletery. l'heir little girl. played und-er a big oak tree [Ilea; the \ ceriieter+]. She had built a.,playhouhe and once, while he was gone l>ack..to( I~u~&upplies, she got sick a11.d died. Grandmother hathed a i d 'dressed her, and put her up on a lioard 1,etweeri chairs and she kept for three days till he got ~ I ; I C ~They . buried her under that b i oak ~ tree. 'I'hat was the l]eiinningi of that cerliiiij)-. :~ . ;\lost o f i h e Country was in little settlements. T h e first man w l ~ ogot up in rlie"mori~ing\ i o ~ $ d~ o J o u t s i dhis e d o o r arid holler just as lbud i s he could twb or three times to wake 'the.other. people: IA a little liit, you would hear from ailother housk;over on the ridge somel)ody had corneout an$ hollered off his f r u ~ i ipurch. And it was like that until every family had gotten up and had their 11io.rnin~hello I think now i f we heard it over the coinnlu. . . ty, we would 11e alar ~ e dWe'd think something was happening. T h a t was olie thirlg that was always done wHen I was a child. M'e didn't h a v e a n
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1 - T h e Godfl.ey ~ h n - i e t e rwith ~ , Malinda Godfrey's headstone in the fore-
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at olir house until lolra aft& 1 \v;ls n l a r r i r d . ' ~ a m ahad, oAe of, tl?ose gl-eat old hi? o l ~ e s .I thought that'hl;rrnm, clock was thr most treasured t h i n g - ~t11;lt you could l1c waked up any timr: you wanted to LC. --/' People ~ v h okeep , a mjxed flock of chickens [can use I-opstkrs as alarm vlocksi. So mmiy people don't keep.chickens*no\v. I d o d t k1;ow what it is allout it, 1x11 to hear t'he roosters crow just beforc .d a \.v n , l ~ r i n g ssornethi~ig I ~ n c ~ f r o lti nl y cliildhood. If you had';i rooster i11-~ At ocir holisc, we used t o sjn'g a lot a f t r r s u , p p ~ sr i t t i l l ~a r o u n d the fire. Ylorhel \ \ o l ~ l dproliahly h e - k r ~ i t i i n D ~ .a d d y would Imakc -axe h?~icjlesand e . harnlncr, 11a~1dlesa n d different t h i r i ~ slike that- at iii,ght. , f l e didn't 1,uy tlicm. Roys.g~-c\\. u p Feelin? likc they flail ;rcvxnplished something when they leal-ned to make ;r'good axe handle o r 2 ~ o o dhoe handle. T h e t:i,sks that we collld d o at night around th,e fil-6 and-there was a lot fello\vship it1 families: 'l'hcre was . a . h a l ~ i ta ~ n o n c ;people i11 o u r - a r e a ; we'd r c t a n early supper a n d ,go over and visit t h e ileighl)ors a n d stay until bed-. . tinie. hat \$.as quite a n event. If there were children, they got tozkther t o play arid the old folks talked and sang. ~ " r n c t i ~ n et\'uo,f
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PLATF, 2515 T h c view froni Aunt 1,ola's hor~se.{'I ivish I could put it on canvas dr p . paper to choiv all of thc people how heaitiful it reill)- is here." ' .. B
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.*-.. . together and sii~g.Stnailer childrci~wollld get sleepy quicker and probably, go to i~ccl,.;\~~ti .. sotilc ;imotig the srobp would stay. up as long 21s the paren'ts .~. ~,,
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It. \?ass r i ~ h tgood time to live then. Now you don't find a lot of fire... + places for families to gather ijround after supper. And so inany penpk-workp at differerli jol~sthat t;ike t h t h away from holne, that families hardly ever are ;dl at han?e at one time. I .[hinlc I\.< hjrd a closer farnily I-elationship . , those d a y < t h ~ npcoplr tlo tocia!. O n e thing. that we enjoyed ;IS y o u n g s t e r s - - - ~ e ~ ~ t I \ ~ had i ~ yaC:hristmas s church duril~gthe C:hl-istmas season. Most times it would be a day or @o Irefore C:hrist~r~as. MTc'dmeet several days before to decorate the l!se. 12'r'd crlt holly, whitc pine, and anything that was green, & each window and each corner of the [church.] house. TOkeep .: 't from lo&kipg!,arc: we stood greeuery up all the way to the ceili~lg.T h a t .iur- livcs: But'we stktched put L; day. Oh! y e thought we were:., ?up ~vhenwe cor~ld-spend1 whol? day decorating the churchY' . .4nd then we fclt we must'"go badk and clean iE up afterward, and that to&' .. another whole da)'. O h , wcwere justas Ilusy as youngsters are no\\ who ~v,&?-k. \ M y parr~co~~ld ~ . tell you exarily, l ~ u somehow t you just got up ,:e in t h e \ h o l : n ~ a; u~~ dthey nla?e vou fcellike this was another good day if you I used it \+:elell, and that's )\hat God wants us to..do:They stressed more; I think, to ;lie ~. xl~outthe thingsithat God wants us to d a that1 they did what you'd calr.religio11. Buttha; is I-eligio~l,isn't i t -what God wants us to do. And b f c o ' u ~ & ,we weni t15 ~ u l ~ d aschool y and to preaching service at the country chilghes. Back t h e ~ l weChad. preaching service twice a month. 7 The]-ewould he a Satytday service and a service the followirig Sunday, And the otlie@,>Cnd;tys we had Sunday school. .Mother alw;iys saw to it, and so I did Dadd\*, . <.;*,- tGt we hzd our Sunday school le k They t%ug&,11s a lot about God, religion, uture life in planting the ,,Gard6i.-arid the field;. ~ ' h a t & e r they p ey expected to get a harvest .from,,::?.)ecausethey planted it in faitg and cultivated it. 'That was one of th.c-t.things'that seemed [ t o leave] niore:~of an impression on mylif than anvf&?ng klse. S o w you plant this little, pitiful-looking sqed, a grain o .col.n, or -:iz3gear;, . 01- a pumpkin seed, and th&'think of what a harvest it wot~ldnl'xkee. :<~id'Iren~elnl~cr Mania t c l l i ~ anie ~ onc tinic that that was the i \ v a ) i y o u i . ~ ~\
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L$:hen I was little girl, 1 . u . a ~the only child for allout ten years and I had to figure-out my own amusement. There weren't any radios or television. I doii'l tliirlh 1:d.seen a pho~~ograpti'till_!.-wasabl~lulLen ).fa18 old, so I I I ~play was games my daddy would play with meafter supper every pight, like For . d - ~ e e s e + & ~ ~ i ~ g i ~ ~ , & ~ ~ d d ~o ~ ea object y ~ iinv i t l ~ ----the house. 0 1 i r 3erson would say, "I see something that looks 11ke something else,:' so then.the jest of them would try to guess what it was. Or,*I could say, '.r;n lookirig at something in this room that's Ryeen," and everybody would start guessing. O r f would say, "I see something in this room that's round," and the person whoyuessrd the most quctions won. That vas a great game. ~. ..inother pastilne at home Ilefore 1lrai~~tlecf t o read-was dolls. I want'ed' lore clothes for my dolls and my mother would lie Ilusy, so she cut me 'sohe little patterns arid 1 learned to sew. And when I knitted that doll a' sweater, I really thoukht I had made sonrething. Once in a while, we had company with a child my age and we made up. a group of little rag dolls and took thrrn down to the creek. \4c I~apfizecl thenr and we sang songs that they sing at church, -and then later we had ;\ hospiial. We knew nothing allout a. hospital except what we'd read.'There wasn't one in the coulity then. So we had the hospital and some of our pawould die and we tiad a I,urving ground for them, and the next time :, , these girls were there, we'd go dig up the dolls and see i f they were still ~
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There were no Ilought toys in my home. Of course, people near town had more of those thirigs, Iiut we made our toys. I made lots of corncol~dolk and dressed then1 up like pcople. \Ve ~ i i a d ecorn-silk hair for them. We learned to improvise. I guess it stood us ip good stead. It wasdeally good f o r . us, and especially when the Depression hit. We had to improvise so many of our things,;o carly trainihg of maki~ig;!oys i n s good for-11s. We girls would I~uild4ahol:ate playhouses, and work so hard our rfiothers would wonder, "How Ydid you get sodiity?" Usually we looked for a thicket,'a laurel thickrt was the nicest place to liuild I~ecausethe little trees
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players. T h e boys liked to have them joi116ecause they were good. T h c s.rliailer gil-is and l~ovswouldn't play I d 1 too ~ ~ f u c h . , T h ewere y apt to I the ,vay and get hurt. I went to school at \V;rr\\,on~an ni)- first years in school, iil'one ofthosr- ' , little \veatherl~oard,one-room s ~ h o " l h o u s e~~l l~- t h c - c h i l d i w \ + e r e~ I -t%L I >r;:l-tXti-tlie most pupils that were usua school were this*, o school frotqcight ;111ti yo11 kno\v it 'kept the tc;rcller pretty I~usy.M'e d a short llrkak in ., hut \ v c had;ln h o u ~.rqcess&t . dilltier t ve us time to go to tl!e il~orili~lg and ilfter110011,ahout"fjfteen minutes lked to school. t h e spring ;nrd get ~v\.,ier.'I'hcrc wcl-c no l~uscpJ\\: -111those ilays, tilere would Ije one timcplong in the autujnn \vhc~la trnvrlin:! p6oloS~.apljer~ v o ~ i l d c o m c the students' c t ~ r e1 . had aj&lple, hcro]. I don'; know' trenslrrec~thrin a lot r~b+v. I ilr school days \VCI-e out e;lr-ly in the fall. Later on, ~ v cgot tb
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tatoes, l ~ i l t ~ e rI,,uttermilk. ; I don't heli$ve we had much cake served at
vanted-thern.to fall, and what'they wanted done with'thrm. 'ilqey' cut tKt:
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taught little tasks. We had chiikens, and they were to he fed and looked after. Then there were always cows and calves. Cows had to be taken to one
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~.~.. __ . pasture and the cal;.es to another. M~anylittle. tasks to he done. ~ h k ' w o o a stoves were $1 thgrt y e had: up untilsorne years a@. required a lot' of pettir~g:withwood. you'd ha\:c to get wood for them so y&l'd hiye a good ,~ -. fi&. . = . . " . . . .. s It Grip right ahlilsing. 'l'hrre w ~ r elots of littlp things that .brought ilaugh in thoseida)-s.' ~ o l ~ o (kot d y their fe2ings hurt. If sohebody mahe some m i 9 takc orchid ,something not just right, why everyhod+ just la"ghedit off. Toda~ you all know how-it is when fbe boys reach a dating age, or before. 'I'heyke just , ~ o to t ha?e %Car.They just must have it. Well, hack in tliose d a y when a hoy I-eachedthat age, th'ey just had tc have a horse or a.mule. It wit^ the same way it is with cars now But -- to what hind' ).ou could~~zfford.
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they worked terribly hal'd then to get them a t~ug,gy..411d if they were pretty well-to-dd, they'd have a top on it. That was still a little higher up. Every fello~vh a d his buggy and kept it just as clean and cared for as the hoys do their cars today. 4 n 6 t h e harness for the 111ulks or horTcs was all shiriycl u p a n d n i c e for SiiYday. ~ ~ u e s s + h ~ o o l - herso l d h,zdd2a ----harder day on Sunday than they, did the fest of the week. We really had a time t h e ~ i-7. , .. hlothess at that time thought y o ~ J 1 ~ ~uI~I Ot Whow to card and shin, how to cook, how to quilt, and )'.ou must know how to keep o u r house neat and . clean. You nlust I~eliave mixed company very quietiy, and you were never to 1)c isol;lted with ail) man. There must i)e a group of you. I expect x ~ r e a nr;iliy t ,gisis'grew up [with] a kind of fear that they didn't know how ,. to go out to meet the world. Each girl was taught h o w t o save the field seeds . and the garden-seeds, and when the i~esttime for planting \v"as. Oile thing \vent in one tinic*and another at' another .tirne..'I'he older people used the s of the zodiac much "lore than they do" now. My mother wouldn't have ~ t c da hean at any other time than the arnis.[see Tlie F o x j i ~ r 'Book, page,. AIy father had . . a Time when he' plauted potators. He wbuld have. d a crop ratherthan plant at a different t i n ~ e . a e boys \\:ere'taught early how to chop properly and carefully, they taught methods of planting-, arid when to plant such and such; and if ; t h e father had a carpenter trade or othej,traie, they taught' th,eir sons that. hlosr cornniu~litieshad at 'least one or two basketrnakers. A lot 'of the boys liked to go to this l~asketniaker'splace a ~ i d t a k elessons from hilX,TIiat way they learned to do the work, not only I~askets,but chair-seating and making .stools. \ e r $ f e y 110)-slearned how to cook; They didn't teach I~oysas much J,:;cE, then ahout h o ~ ~ x w o r 'l'hey k. were taught allout cattle and how to no. , .( .. . tics for signs of. the mating season fbr the coivs and the horse.% When a roung map krew to where he could plow a straight furrow across a goodsized field, he was very proud. H e considered himse1f.a man. T h e hoys,were taught what tvpes,of firewood was l~estin the days when we all niade soap froni the wood ashes. Most-mothers liked hickory or%ak for their ashes to - . 9 make soap. T h e boys were caught hbw io'fell the trees; and how to make the& i q o whatever type &vood they needed.. No two fireplaces were, ex.. ,. ' actly the sar;le length. They h a d to know ho2t.o gauge their wood. And ? . you most always saw a littlei,oy with a'roll of hickory . , bark in his pocket. 'That was %,stringthen. You wet-that little hickory hark. You take it from a -little tree and peel it off in, tiny little sectiok, some you could take down to just adraction. Little boys iraded their hickory bark rolls sometimes. Sometimes one fellow didn't have &y, hut maybe h e had some marbles that an. ut11e.r fellow wanted. The). tradkl like that. T h a t was their wampum, really. As each girl grew up 'and began. to get to the dating age, she liked to ' piece q u i k Girls' pieced their tfbilts and had them all ready [for their own
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homes]. 'l'hey had &is sheets i n d pillowcases ready. \Vetknew nothing then i11 our part of the world about seanilcss sheets. You bought sheeting., It was in seiieral gr-adcs, thirty-eight or nlaybe fortv iliches wide, and you sewed two lengths together to make' your sheets. That's the way we made our sheets and pillowcascs. Most of us learned to crochet or einhroider to trini those pillow-c;lses. \\'k'took $dc in having all-the bedding ready that we A n d usiially the grd&m's.niother g a v e him a set of bedding,
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I niari-ied R;ileigl~,in I y r 7, ;ind we \vent to hor~sckeepingin that little
nr-cnty-four by sixt tee^;-!oat scho~lhouse.\\re didn't have a great deal, hut we got il iiil in. that housc and we. lived in it, like that, until ;I ye;rr later. \\'hell I wen$. to housekeeping, I h;id iiiacle four quilts, and I had some 1no1-estartrd.:I had six sheets ;;nd thaf was many niorc than lots of the girls f had. A lol of t h c ~ njust had two. I.thought that I had really set ~ n y s e ~up when I had six sheets. M'hcn 1 wt'lit to housek~epi~lg, a lady that mfhus.I,and .ivorked for (she spent her summers. up here) gave him two big ojd orchlikc rockers: I h a d a liedstead and hkbougLt a bedstead. 'I'wo was all ;e ,had rooin for in that little house, along with those two' rockers'. H e had i d dining t;rl~le_fcomwalnut, which was my treasure. I had a clothes press tbztrr).~~Tadd)had made me, a big trunk, and a tT~rylittle . 1 i h f 2 r - e i g h t cook'stoi'e. How we got all t h o ~ ethings i11that little house,;^ don't know, but we did. .P) 8 have all the cookwase and thingsthat. peo'ple have today. I set of blue cna~nelware. ~ h e was k a water bucket, a preserv4 ig spoon, and two little poiless.' Then I h a d ;i.few dishes that my grandmothe? gave me. But I didn't want to use thQs&they were-Bbr 1)est.lt was ver)- plain ware that we had those days. Now the ,more wearthy .$eople did ha\.e china and nicer things. , .. Raleigh 13~1ilta porch across one end and alor~g.one-side of the littl-e 'house. I was'so happy over that porch: One end of i t was surlny inathe morning and thc other end was sunny in the .afternoon which was vcry nice . when-iidren began to come along. Hi: put up a 'sort of banister around and we let 'them play out there. . ..! I Thefirst year we kept house, my husband l~oughta'pig. We raised it as a' P pet. il'e didn't keep the door shut so she canie into the house. Anywhere we found her outside, call her artd she'd lie down for you to scsach her. \Te spent hours teasing that pig. rind when she got .big enough to. &e b'aby : the pigs! m ~husl>ancl ' g?ve me one of nly own. I raixed it and sold it. With money from t h ~ I, bought sGme Alaska silverware ( I think that's what' -4 a they called i t ) , a .set of k~iivcsa ~ i dforks. P I don't rertlenibe; when we first got electricity. T h e libe canie hilt to the hurch. Then it was some little time till it came on out as far as^ .
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They kept promising, ".4s SPAas we' can, it'll be out there." O n e day m? sister and ,I st6pped in and\talked to the power company people and told then1 thkt if we.didn.t hi??; u p and zet electricity down in our section of
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find ronirthin: \letter." .. . I think t h d must havr Ixen my happiest timc of life. 1 didli't actually re-
SbnlGinies in the wi~ltex.,the punnp ~vouldl~efrozenm,d we'd have to
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ceiling. :bid when I finished, I had so much pride in it. I don't quilt now i' I~cr;r,uscI c;lri't see well enough. If I le;;rircd h o ~ cto h;tke ;r diffel~cntw k c and it tur lied out well, L.loved that. Just ;:l,out c\-el-)thing I did, if I had done it well, I thought I really 11i1tii~c.coinpli~hrd ~omethirlg. ~. ;\nd I liked \i-o(kiir~outdoot-s. 22 great nr;rriy wotnen Ilelped. to d o the '? outdoor MOI-k.;\,Ins ~ L t h ~ ~ n - i l l - icnvironn~e~it lly helped saw wood or chop,, % -wood arrd-iio irrry thc orrtdoc>l-t;\sks with the mcn. A gr6it many inothers. \rere ~r-ise.eliouyllto teach their sorrs to help in the house, too. Women ill t1rosc'da)-s did ;I lot or work irr fields alongside their nierr if there wercn't a sni;rll cllilti~ci~. If there were small children, ihey'd take a quilt, ;I l~oC: tlc ofirrilk, ;iiid ih,?yl,e ;i piece of 1)r'ead to thk field and find ;L shade to put the p;~lictilo~r-11 ini ;Inti then sit the l;ally on it while thry worked. Wonlet1 lit1 mom outdoor work thcil. People~wolkeclill those days fro171 early to 't ~+"asn't fi-om eight to four., People considered then~selves if they got to the fields I~eforesun-np a n d w o r k e d till ,
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then as they C ~ I I > O W . [.After- finishing ~ I X I I I I I Ischool], ~~ they went away to Tallulah Falls [far high school], all five ofkhe gitls, to hoard there. I :vbuldri't know Low to cope with youngsters today. I certainly wou1dn.t. I think that I would rather have raised t11y fanlily llack i11 thore . . ~t . was easicr to impress them with worthwhile days than today. I \h1n6 things of life, I~ec+usethe& weren't'so many distracting things. i'm sure t h a . I coi~ldn't cope jvith training youngsters today. They are given so much more p e r n ~ i s s i o ~ ~ ' wthey're h ~ n little feliows, and then when they get larger, I'm at a loss on ,how to handle them. hIy children- weren't the Ilest brought up children in the wodd Ily any means, Ilnt they did learn that "no" was "no" and that it didn't d o any.good to whine and ~.pout and cry like I see . some do today. I think" that saved me a lot of wqrry later and was better for
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I trsed to go to hed and cry when I n ~ a d ethe children do thing-s that were
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rd for theni. But today they te-ll me that it infiuerlced their later lives. ay, it seenis like. people are a little too permissive .with their children. Vhile they :{re snii;ll, that's the time to $-et in your Ilest training, IIefore they school. What they learned froril their parents';lie~i * really influences ~nlinners?nd good langudSe their lives. It's just as easy to teach th$n as it is to teach them I ~ a dlanguagr and had nianners. In's the early training in thr early years that really counts. . One of nlv neighl~orstaught school. Stie.said 'that when she had class every morning, she could tell which child had had discipline at h o ~ n e . i M'hen they, were $\,en their hooks, she could tell a child that had been read to and that had growil up with the influence p i pictures and books. She said it ,,:as very easy to pick out that child. J t goes to prove that the early part of their life is [the I~estt i ~ n eto train a child]. \Ye tried to give our 'children good training at home and a good religious 1)ackground. \Ye had an event iii churches then that I don't see so much now, C:hildren's nay: T h e churches a.ln~ostevery year had a Children's Day, sometime in May or June. The children wodld practice fo? weeks, and they'd go to church and their feacher'or irlstructor would meet them there onceor twice a 'week. The)! would practice their recitation, the songs arid thk plays that ihey'd use. \Ire'd go a d a y m a y h e ~Jeforehand,and clean up the church and decorate it with whatever was availa5le. That was a great event for us. People came from miles. and miles io the churdh for our Children's Day. T h e smaller child who could memorize some little thing would vrt up and speak his pi'rcr. M'hy; it helped their ego% lot.' 1 When we went to church, we went in when we got there and sat down: Our children didn't run around the churchyard laughing and playing and niaking noise. They went into the church very r.everently and then when the singing.wbuld hegin, the little lellows tried to sing. -4lI'they did was kind of
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a~-oilnd. l x l t at l e a ~ tthey ~ n a d etheir' noise. And betwe$en the Sunday school scl-vi~tc;irid the church scn-ice, we had wh;lt \\-as ckiled an intermislittle time to get out and walk about and maybe go get a drink of .. They nllvays looked for place to build a, church near a cqol sprin'k , . y could get watFr. 'l'lle~i they gathered, back in the chuYch and had s o ~ se1.x-ice ~g ;i:id the11 a preaching scr\.ice. rhildren had 21 letter ;ldiilst;ige than 1 d i d C I L I ~ C I -Ie \vils . abi; ith the111 every Sunday, and for the ]nost part, we bad two p~-e;ichit~g services .a nioiith. They had more chances to learn, m d back in those days !eligion was taught in the skhool a lot. Most of the ieachers either had the of chi!d:.cn stand up,, and they grouped around and sang one or two each morning and had the "1,ord's &ayes." 1 think that's rnostly andoned lately. But that was quite good and niore than once, we've h,ad teachers, since niy children were going toschool, who didn't rely on the "Lord's Prayx," hut prayed a little petsonal prayer. I understand that a lot dren don:t hear the Lord's name me~ltioned except profanely at ow. 1'111 sorry that [the p ~ a y c rand hy11111sl were done away with.' . There 14~ould11'thave to t ~ eany d.enominatio11 talli. It tould be just basic religion, helief in the Lord Jesus Christ. Being a bhristian is impqrtant to me. I have a friend up the road who ' o\vns a little apple stand. I taught him when he was in Sunday school; he teen or fourteen, at the age whkn l~oysare. apt t o l ~ enoisy. This group of 1x1)s arid girls were'ui~usuall~good children, 1 thought. I just loved them ever)-one. And when they grew up, some of then1 went to service and some didn't come back. ~ h this t bo! canle 13ac'k and he had some ncrve-rackins csperiencei and it left him in a nervous state. H e \went into busi~iessand after awhile, it dib~l'tsucceed. H e niarried and his marriage broke up: then his mind seemed to gd haywire all together arid he was in a mental hospital for quite a bit. I got his address from-one of his 111;others. = and wrote to him. I ,sent h i n ~a cop? of the Clayton T~ibunl.and he wrote hack and told me how m u c h he enjoyed it. \.\re sent him the.Tribune as-:..-'.".^''long as he stayed. Now when I meet him, he almost always mentions, that. ,/. If anyljody from this community stops by to I3uy anything, from him, he . g i v them ~ a l ~ a gof apples to send to me. And I feel that it is bread on thk . water'., .I'll tell. you aiiothel' one. W~I-rien, didn't have a'lot to .say about politics"' then.. They n ~ ; ~ y . l i a vi~lflnenced e -their family sornc, hut they ~levergot out and took.:iny pa;rt iil it. After they had the vote, you could hegin to see a , , .pickup in their attitude. I was old ellough to vote, when wolrien ,got tlbe , , .vote, hut I didn't vote for a i e \ ~years after it was permissible. I didn't realize that, even though I I&S not too well posted on -thi,ngs,my v o t e p i g h t do as well as anybody' else's. l h e first few time: \
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(then most every little rouiity had a voting spot, oi. a law ground and a law house) I felt a little bit out of place. I : ~ . e & ~ used ~ to votirrg. But now I think nothing ahout it -I)ecaLw-evei'?mdy --. . does., . 1 '> I e f i I went to-the elerlio~i.One of the n i,,a n q e r s slid , I,ola, I want yo6 to vcrt-e theright way today. 5 . r ':I\-', - ~ E ~ i~~ w-4unt I said, '.I\'ill you tell me hbw I 111ustvote to vote tlir right way?" hk 1,egan to tell Ine who to vorr for. And I said, "I'd already made up my nijnd hefore I came out here. I hadtalked to a prrson that save me an idea how to vote." q g said, "Who was that?" --\nd I said, " T h e Lord.'' T h a t man wilted like you had pourrd hot watrr o\:cr him. H e didn't say an)'niore to nie :~l,olitit !
T h a t faith is one t l ~ i n /,h~n t ,rally .stcin/ls out about Azl?ll L o l ' ( ~ As . said at one fioint in t l i e ' i n t e r c i e w , " I / God should call me l o m o ~ r o w ,I'ue .had s o - & ( i n ,~g o d t k i ~ i , ~halipen s i t ~m y l i f t , I'd he rrtlily."
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.A//er tlic iirt((-le nbolt/ her ic/~pcnren'in o u ~ .nzagiiiine, .-ltiitci rer . irtii~r~ I O I I ;LI I ~ I I / -I.o/n rc1iic.h s h c slinrrd with us. I f saitl i n part. " T h e rnogai zinr:s came /orin!'. The!: Iiaii follorted m e bock t o .iny mountains. I: tuns so. l i n f i j ~ yrc*lir7r I r ~ n i i!;lur 7ioPc nt t h e beainni7ifi,cfor I lint1 ncr'er dreamed rc,h(.n I uceil t o zuo71dr1;'if I ze!r~uirlsee Eitlle lienrl~h p b h i i g . iirross t h e firld . this ilo?'.' llint it 11zeo111i ~ ~ i j : l h i n , q i ~ ~I~; iIi. >? Yr c~t Ih i i i just (I little tl'ifi outside. j,orir ( ~ u : ~ ! . j ~ l o ~ ~ , y rIc/ ~itt i ~r r~d .~ ~ ~ ~ i i i l i lo t i j,ou, ~ ~ ~1~( I I~I L twl ki j i! g ~ l in g d ; it runs' (7 /11.i,:7!tJ.)o/ i ~ Ii ~ I J do),. ' I " I t is slill o Iii;,cly t11i11,qt o ' r r ~ n e r ~ z b nil e r o/ you p~rr~e'ill;? u p i.nto su/-11 in7' . ij~l.rlj.io~i~: h~?p/illz t , o ~ ~ i :e n/ ~ e o p l ez ' h o car, help thc ulol-lri t o b,e a better l,/f,ct,i I : : , , I .... ri'lio lo~iozeio,jt.e~ US. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ nnii . / o p~ii.y'r.s r'e zbili 'n/ze:nlu be .l,O!!r.r,"
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he selectio~iof a site for a new farm was always l~ased,in part, on the avai1al)ility of a good supply of clean, cold water. "I've got a goo& hold spring," is n sentence we , ' have he:lrd hundreds of times, and it is. always sai4 with pride and satis-: faction. 4' . T h c methods used for tapping that water are l~ewilderinglyvaried. At oIle $11d of the spectrum is the systeni that is so simple that all that is i required to nlake it work is a ljucket and a pair of hands to carry it. .T.his.,is... ,,., ,.: the system that nearly all the earlies;, families used, and it is siill used by people like tlil1;wd GI-een..A,sprinz is located. 0 i t e n the l~asinis enlarcged, deepened, and lined with rock--not cemented, of course, so that water can c o ~ e i n t othe h;win not only fro111 the 1,ottom I I L I ~also t ~ o u &the sidesand this causes a s111:ill pool to form from which water can l>e dipped, orintA whi(.h r~nt;iiners(.all 1)e sit to keel) tlieir contents cold. T h e top of the ; hasin on the side out of which the overflow rur~sis kept level y i t h the original stream l)ed so.as not to interfere with the water'd natural flow. O n e thing that has always confused us s h e w h a t is why,,at khe vast majbrity of a l ~ a n d m ~ e~d r, i g i n a llog home places we have'esp1o1-c8, the hou'sc was set some distance abpve the ~prirXo~ a hillside orron top of a knoll f. <\,hen it cddld just as easily ha& be11 set closer to the spring. ~ o s 6ft the people we'xle askdd don't know, hut the .ones that venture a guess say that . since the spring is. often in low ground,. building a house t h e k would pre. vent the occupants from I~einga11le t o looli out over their land and fields and k e e p ~ s h e ~eye r on things. Being. . <. up higher let them watch tb see if deerhad gotten into their coim c;?op, or if visitors were c o m i ~ ~up g the road, and ; so 011. TVhatever the reason, &re were some disadvantages to this system. IVater had to be lugged uphill (there were no pumps), and there was al-. ways the danger that the spring could become contaminated by sewage fronj the ljal-11 and/or outhouse al~oveunless a good dissance separated *' , them.
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PLATE 299
Hillard Green still gets his water in buckets from a sprlng and carrles it
to his house seberal h u d r e d yards away.
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farnilics 11iusr have til-ed of findills leaves ;inti iiead .:~ni~iials in theil: 1111-
Ino.;t ti~-;\rn;itic;~lly 1v;w the cve~itualav:~ilal)ility of pipe. 3laLing woodcn
t o a sink in the house itsclf. Thel-e was
hehind her house.
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$LATE 300 A %rimitive reser- 9 i r . Water from t h e spring is *pea.. into a metal drum, and fqpm the bottom of the drum to '-tl'e house. \$'hen tliq drum is full, \! ~t.I overflo\vs , into the origil~al st?cam bed. .li
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L A T E 301
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S o e l Moore's cenicnt.:block reservoiy aircr a wjjlter of frccziiig ,, --~:ar~d thaiviilg. .
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PLATE 302 Noel Moore with, the round cement sections h e uses as a reservoir now.
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sinitjlJ: fifty-ghlo~iwoddcn I~;rri-cls:~il'h~ water' ran in at the top, filled the l,arreI, ahd o\,cr~o\\-ed [ r o d t h e top eitlick into the orisinal sti-earn err into a thanncl'that led t o that stream. T h e p i p c l e a d i n ~to the house exited fro179 the I~arl-elat a point some six or ei@t ,inches ;d)qve its bottonl'so that any sedirncrlt ~. that collected i l l the i,arrel o%:c.r titile wor~ldn b t get sucked intq the . . 'linc.'Laier reser\:oirs were nibre el;ll~oratc.'l'wo or tllree. 1,;irrels . niight be . , hooked togcti~er;for ctto~ii I\-ith sis inthcsof ccniellt. ; ', Son16 c l p e ~ i ~ n e nfailed, ts of c o u h . Noe1'hLoor.e'~first attelnpt a t - a reser\.air was doc>nied.Koel l ~ u d tit with cernc~it'irlo;ks, l ~ u t~ieglectedto fill t h e \ the fi?st winliohs in the blocks wfth cement. T.\'nter seepe n and, cIi~~'ir?g ter, frozr, expanded, and broke the sides open. Some people {till rise cernen: 4 loc!is,but they fill the center holes, plaster the inside walls with three ,
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P I Y E 0 . \ \ ' a l l i ~ u~p~ a s p r i 1 1 5 , T h r ,rater flotv.r nut iron; under n rock cliir at a point to tlrc f a r left, not visible in thc photosrapIr. I x r o y T i ~ is r p s r p a r i i i ~the exit ::rp;r f o r I I I P I L ~ I C I - ,xvhicli rill flow- out of a liole i n t h r 111iddIe of tllc \r;ill. Pl'hen li~risliccl,iluv sock \vall \rill close t l i r opcniiiq I,? t l r r s p r i l ~ #complvtely r s r c p l .for a scrci.nrd.door a b u v r the oxit hole tll;it iviJI per~r~i,t ;rrceTs into the spring for c l r a n i i i ~ . '
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g ~ o u n din a pip~linethat would bring- the water straight to the spigot that was n u d e out of'poplar,:ind then t o the springhouse (see ~ l a t k3 ~ 6 )They . found that these undergrourrd lines kould last fifty or sixty years. For a long tiliir we looked for soniebne who could show us bow to ni;lke ihrse pipes. Finally we-found G:lrnett 1,ovell who ca~iiefrom :r fanlily of hl:iclcsmitlis. Hiu father, (;cot-ge I,ovclf,, sharpencd the stcel for the tools used tn ~ i m k e~ a ~ ~ i 1 1 1 ~ r ~ ~Lake o u 1 l~tb~r' tso nDani. Bbth his f a t h e r and grandfathel., Elijah Lovell, had madc these waterpipes. In fact, Elijah had iiladr thc auger that Garnett stili h;rC Garnett agreed to show us exactly the a ) , it 593s done i f we would I,?ing a six-irlch diameter, ten-foot long pine 5.M'c i~roug'nrhini the lqg and he the pipes were made.
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PLATE 306 Garnett Ldvell. .-
PLATE 307 G a m e t t holds the auger he will use upright to show us how long it ,is. T h e auger was made by lLis grandfather, who was a blacksmith: , I
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PT.ATE 309 The drilling end o f t h r auger. Garnett's~ra~idfather flattened the end of a round steel bar, hentthe sides up to form a scoop, put the twist in the end, and then sharpened the edges of the scoop.
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PLI\T'~312 \l'lien tlie pipe is drilled, h e uses a drarvknife to ta@r ol?e eiid. C
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PLATE 313 Hc then takes another auger and .bores a c0ncal.e hole i.n the other end of tlie pipe. \
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314 The tapered . end of one pipe"6ts into the concave end, of tlie n e x t . ,Just before the p i p e are- locked: together underground, a rag is.,wrapped aroilnd the joint t o rniniinize leaking.
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SPRINGNOUSES
Long ago hefore electricity was 1,rought to the nlountains, people were faccd with the age-old prol)lem of presel-ving their [God. They came up w i ~ h Inany methods for dding this. Meaits we{-edried or sa!ted and smoked. Vegetables atmd fruits were either dried or pickled ill Ilrinc or canhed. l'herc was. still the prol~lelim,however, of keeping thinxs cool during the warnm-weather h~onths.Zlillc, cheese, a r ~ d1,utter had to 1~ kept cool, and many people pre- . ferred to keep their picliled and ci~lined.foods cool als(1. Thcy solved the brohlem 11y 1,uilding springhous'es. Springhouses are l~uildingsthat are coilstl.ucted over or :near springs. old wat?E?ins~rough them to serve the sanie fur~ctionas a present-day frigerator.This section is ;:l,out spl-inghouses, their design; their uses, and ir advantages and disad\~znta~es. here is ;inaliundance:of fresh sprilrgs, rocks, and Iunmber in the nlounins, so these were the primary materials used, I ~ u twe discovered that all pringhwses are not alike. We researched four spring house^. Two were conz , . A structed cnti1:eiy of rock, pne:was made-from wood, and the fourth was i)uilt of both wood and rock. >: M'oodcn springhouses were constructed faster and' with less effort, than rock springhouses, hut wood 1,uildings were nmore vulnerable to the weather and did nof last as long as rock ones. \\'e found that the deciding factors w6ich 'determined the n m a l s to h e used were the availal~ilityof eitG:r rock oc,wood and the.arnount df ti& availal?le to huild one. Rock l~uildings require nmore skill and time to construct. We k n ~ wof .one 'man who used pieces of old T-model Fords to sel-ve as a framework for the rocks to speed ' up the construciioi~process. In the next few pages we'll present the floor plans of .each spnnghouse, the people whdrememl~efits construcfion, and any small details that make each one "nique. The springhouses that we-documented were Aunt Arie Carpenter's in Coweeta, North Carolina, Harry Brown's, Rilrs.. O m a Ledford's, and Mrs. Jay Hambidge's, all located near Dillard, Georgia. 'The information given in this article was taken from interviews wifh Aunt ,Arid and ~ & ~ r or w n~. We hope'the following diagmms and
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Article and [~hotogl-aphsby G a r y WarJielrI and Claude Rickman. I
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Harry Brown's 4
I n Halls! Bro,vn's yard is a rock stl-ucturg half-lluried in the ground. T h e entire 1)uilclii~gis made of rocks,and cement a n d is i-o\:cred with . g ~ - o u ~ ivy. d , At fi~.stg1;rni.c one might think it is jkst :a nioi~nciof dirt, or c\.cn a l~omlr shrljcr,~.ir~i< closei inspection rcveals a clevcrly I)uilt springhousc. JI! 11% ssrlnilrler of ' 3 3 2 H a r r y Brown stal-tcdwork "11 the spsii~ghousc. "l'il-si 1 11~1ilt thc. lorn1 out of culled 111rnl)cr.'l'11c1i . I'd throw d o \ v ~ i;I s h v e l o i (.emept, ~ \ l ~ d - l h r r x v na~ crock in it. 'l'hrow nlc ;tnothc~.shovciiul or. two .1!1dth1-ow marc roci<s dow11 irlit. I didn't try to keep the outside sltlo(]r h." \\'hen H a r r y 1,uilt the walls lip to the desirecl height, he took "the fr;rmcs ; I I I ~axlcs from t\vo 'T-nrodel Fol-ds?tird l a i d t h e m - ' o n top.-'l'hen I ~ s t a r t e t l. ' ,.z duii~pirlgc-rlne~it11y t h ~ v h e e l l ~ r lo;rd r o a n d the11 threw-'rocksonit. 1 did .. -',notit of it I)! i~ivsclf.1 worked-qn it al~!outt.hree ~riunth.t.I'd set sock ;I few days, then rest ;l few days, the11 set niore rock. It's like wrhell you 1)uild ;I c l l i ~ u n e you ~ . haul what rocks yo11 need, then 1-011get that n1al:y morc,.thctl . !or! gct a few more t'fiilish u p ancl you night 11a\:e k l ~ b u g h r o c k'11 . was that x i y herc." I \\.c ;~skedH ; L I Iif- ~h e likes a rcfrigcr;~tormore than his springhousc. H e . f;~\.o~-cd t h c .sl~sinShous~. "YO; r a n kcrp thipgs i r ~her; [the sprinxhqusej for ;~liontfivc days. \l!e'vc put our nlilk.in hcl-6, ;lnd-gone off ;uid visited three" 01-four days ; ~ i i dconic I ~ a c k a , n d the nlilk .r\,oiJd still h e swcet." H a r r y mentio;le,ci ariothrr a d w n t a g e : "1f' you keep .your 'stuff sealctl up in ;I frigidairc a n d you ,put fish o r somethins like t h a t in there, everything see, the air's not vou'vcgot will taste lik,e~, fish: B i ~ tin a springhouse, coinp;rct a n d that don't happen: Anti the tenipcraturc wol11dr1't vary tell - . . > drgrccs." , . . In the top of the sp~.irrghouseis arl air vent that nle;l.yt~rei:;~lroclt?en 1)): twch-e inches. "'l'hat gives it air. See, if 1 h8d it dosed up in h ~ r e i't , wol~ld he like. a rdrigerntor. I t woilld yondense and"l~eginto get thick. y o u ' d have dead ail- ill here like in the r e f r i ~ e r a t o s.You . ain't got much space ill ;r I-cIrigerator a h d the saliie old air stagnates, while in here in the .springhouse, it circulates. A n d if it weren't for that A n t , there'd lye w+r drippillgin here. . . all day." thc4B&h&.l?;a?;a hiis a - ~ y i n d a wfar lighL &n~-_I n addiher-e-vmt, enti-ancc door, ; ~ n d . a ninner door. T h e inner do&f is used to keep t h e dogs out. "lf thcy's anything t'eat, a dbg'il s e t ahold of it." '
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Before thc Browns had electricity, Harry kept his sbinghouse full. "\\re ~. ke t our niilkhnd our l~utter,and anything you put in your refrigerator, liLF yous l,cans and your nleat, and evell if you got rnorc fish than you ran eat. You can even put thern in there. You u e it 'for nearly anything that you use rr refrigerator for." . .. Hal-rYsaid his springhouse. %;?:asgood all year round, T h e water' never froze in thc winter I~ecausejitwas iron1 21 deep 'spring, and it was always * cool in the summer for the sari; rc*ason. 1 he spl.iii:house is practic.ally the same today as it was when it was 1,uilt' in 1932. T h e shelves for storing canned goods have rotted out, hut it -is still usedwlien the power fails or if the refrigerator in the house is full. ..
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P L A T E 318 Point : I on diagram, view of the steps leading d o \ v i ~ to the springhouse.
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P L A T E 319 Point B, looking from inside the springhouse.
Paint C, view of water inlets.
PLATE 320 .
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PLATE 12'2 Point E, i i e w of outlet f o r water golng through the springhouse Y
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PLATE 3 2 8 P o i n t R, arlothrr vie% of Ledford's s p r i ~ ~ ~ h o u s r .
.:41-ieTs little farm, a springhouse tliat was ,l]uilt I,y h e r husband, lilysses, %sitsjust b e l o w k r house. T h e spri~lghousehas a sock floor. '. The lower half of the hack wall isjuilt I~rlowgroulld level' :ind is also nqde. of rock. The four walls and door are.hade from rough-cut lurnl~er,.and the qonf is covered with wooden shingles. \$'hen wf asked Aunt - A r k whether h e preferred ;I sefsigerator oh: a sprirlshouse, s h e quickly replied, "I wo11ldr1'i trade one fl
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Point .C, overall ?iexv o f tlic spriiigliuuac.
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'l'he ~;lri,;l~idge springh&usc w;~sI>uilt around I 9 I 8-1 !). I t wus ilsed to I and !,utter told'fnr thcHklnliidRe ~ente;.'(;;rnned/fruitdand , ' also kept roo1 on shdvcs irl the inner-rn~st.~l@rt of the ' 1 9 j.q thc s i ~ ~ i n ~ h oC Vu ~kSrcpl;~jcd h)- elec-trid meilns fdr ' cooli~ig. 'J'hr psi~jghousew ; Imilt ~ tompletely f; stone an2"has two rilairi rooms. . and , csritainsa holding,trough for The dutcrm"stjs .not complete'ly enclosed , the wa4i1to run iq Ikfore .entering the sprihghouse. Also there is a springhe;rd liest.:to the holdirlg 11-"dgh.,7.his, fs \rhere .people used to get A t e r for household 11ctfds. -. . w, The &her room is the l;irgest and was 6on;pletely enclosed so no aAin~als i c t in. 'It has one door and a vc$t i n the to . for air circulation. The entered the spihghouse from t h e ho.1dinqlrough through a fourd ~ c hpipe and emptied into thc trouihi in which milk and butter-&re lxlt.' '1-he trdughs irere eiKhtdeii inches8wide and had stdps which \kept them
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water~niovingand provided different le\<els of water. T h e water followed the "L"-shaped trough and drained. out through a fokrinch outlet" at the _/--. -~. I~ackof the ~ r i-- n , c h o u s e..-1 . . ,
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L~OWSING'FOR - -
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;Utes several inuriths if s e a r c h i ~ r ~ ~af 6well r dowser who would talk to us; >vc finally found one.-There are not too many traditional dowsers around 'our scrtion;~n).m&c, sci we were fortunate.to meet C . M . Arrowood who h a d ~ areputition for finding water with a prohingrod and a "V','-shaped stirk. H e t a l M ~ q ~ i t efreely with us, and ever] came to the school i o demon-strate his skill to our class by finding all the school's mairi water lines. As everyone rspressed amazementat the "V" stick which bent forcefully to-the ltct or r i ~ h t r z c htime Mr.~Arruwoodcrossed a water'Source, he said, ow how it's done, i-iut 1, can d o it. Back befor<' you kids was I ha,cl ;I good i ~ l ) ,I ~ u tI lost it. So I I~uiltInc :I log hduse myself, amid 1' van't,;~l)le [financia+ly] to have a well d u g , , ] went to see a nlan d how to dowse and he found ,. where the water was so I could rn);self. M'ell; I forgot where lie niarked tde ground. So I got nle ;!.stick ;urd retraced &re he'd been and' found'it myself. I dug sevenI day a n d - h i t water. Well, iyhe,ri I got down to the teen feet ~ I Christmas watm, my father-in-law come and said his -weit Gks nir~ddy,so I had dug right.into his stream. I been doin3 thissin.ce-allout fifty-five years." \'hen asked how he could 1)c sure the stick wa5-working, Mr. Arrowood replied, "\.lihen I h&e it in my teeth and oil nmy thunil~,.Ican't cbntrol ii. I t h;ms to lie free. The.pressurc +vbuld l~rcakthis stick [when,.water is pres~nt]if t. Aho~itthe only way to tell how n ~ u r hwiter is down there is 1. the stronger the pressure or pull." red if it mattered what kind of stick t ( ~use. Mr. Arrowood n't think it did, as lona as it was green and plialile. "I never go hunt one itick in $"l-ticul;ir. 'l'he stick is easier handled, thouSh, ,~" if it is forked-in a
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H c also puts ;I linifk, opc~m,in the straixht part of the ctick. When asked why, he said,'"l\was just taught to use the knife.'~t'll-workwithout'it, but it wor;ks~l,ctte'l-with it. Ii moves cqsier." Then he added, "I don't C,i,r.rch;trge ;mything fol- this. O h , if the.people - ;ire s;rtisfietl with thc well [after. it's fi.nished], the\: might give me ten or fifteen -tloll;trs. ;uid I t k n ; ~ r o l ~ nand d givc it to the"chi1rcI1. 1 don't do this , . ;is ;I way to malie money for inyself. "They is \v;mtc~-all under the c;irtli, 11t1t \ o u c a ~ l ' taflord to di,q here when the water is over yotlder. You've got to pi~ipoint it [to save time and ~nontq].I just find tki! water and tell then1 to d i I've ~ found hundreds of them. Misxd one. ' l ' h e ~drilled for it. Might have niissed it six inches. I've zllso hit in Ather counties where it ir not d a m p as here in RaRun County. I got 171)' hrst wcll over n c i ~ rD a w ~ o ~ ~ v i Georgia." lle, ..
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PLATE 340 First, Mr. Arrowood cuts a "\'"-shaped
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PLATE 311 H e sticks ;he blade of his open poc etknife into the part o f the itick just below the fork to give weight to the end and ake it more sensitive to movement. T h e n he places one end of the fork between his te th and the other end presses against. his thumb. This is done t6 prevent his hand from having any control over the stick's L. movement.
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crosses back LATE 342 Mr. Arrowood fbllows-a stream of water near his. home: and forth over thestream, the"stick' moving from side t? side as he: crosses back and . forth over it, to pinpoint its direction of flow? .
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PLATE 343
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th en Kistner, one of
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- After , the,water is f,ound, the well is dug [see followirlg section]. H e can't
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tell you how deep you might have to dig. 1tco;ld vary greatly. We had a chance to see a well fdund by Mr. .\rrowood, and we. talked with the diggers, Tom Rarney and Harold Embrey [see following section]. s'~Monev .. is why we dug the well. He found the well with a probing rod. That's a copper wire. H e can also use a peach-tree lin~l?or a clothes hanger. I d$t klmw anyliody who is as accurate as Mr. Arrowood in finding wntq. 'There [poirlting] is a stream, and bere is ;I stream, and they cross htlhere yhere Ae told us to dig. We hk'i?, a. too. h i e are going to d i s four to make i rcse~voirfor the water to store in." or fiv,e~rnitr&fettu Aftci waicl~illgthe process of dowsing for water, we all agreed that we c'ouldi:no; explain it- We just had to l~elievei t works. As hlr. Arrowood said, \: "I-fs~Tusta gift from God is all I know. It don't matter what kind of stick you use. 1 think the main thing is t.0 believe in it y~ur:elf." '
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Interr'ierut blr Barbara Taylor, .~.$yllisC a ? v e ~ , : a n i lh l a ~ y T h o m a s ,with elp from .Slrrilri 1'inson.. ,,
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our schooi's main wntPr line uiing i piece of rCire PLA'1.E 314 Mr. .A~so\+,obdfour~d -which swung f r o n ~side to side as he rrisscrbssed o \ ~ the r IiAr. tlr used this coathar~per to l o r a k thr spot \rhere T o ~ nRarrlry a n d H i r o l d E:;r,brry should di- thldr well. 93.'
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PLATE 345 .
Buford Gamer showing Bit C a ~ how g t s find water. T h e stick is a green peach-jree fork ,which Mr. Garner is holding straight, but the h a t e r belbw it is causing; it to bend toward earth. His rnethbd.of holding the 'stick.is differentdrom C. M. Arrowbod's, but it works. As he moves away ffom the water, the end of the st~ck' comes back up of its own accord bntil it sticks straight out in front of him.
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DIGGING A *ELL
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IVlienever ;I house was huilt where there w a s ;. ~ l ospring close Ily, the people d u g i ;well. . . Digging a well was *;I dangerous task. T h e men we interviewed told us . thilt there wcre lot of prol~lgpisin digging one. They could I)e digging and . h;tvC s o n i e t h ~ ~ ~ ~in.on , f a l l them. When you're down sixty to seventvifive feet ;\nd a rock falls ih;alid'hits ybu, $u're as good as dead. O r otheis could be hauling you out in the 1)ucket; and just as you'get'to the top, the rope could Ilreak and Irack you'd go. OrypU could hit a gas pocket and pass out. . One thing that scared K e ~ i n yRunion was looking u b when he was way down. in the hole digging. He said the hble at the top of the well l ~ o k e djust , . like i n auger hole. H e felt like he was trapped. in there. Mr. I ~ & d b e t i e r agreed: "\\'lien you're down in thefe anddhe sun is shining oil top, the hole .. on't look much 1)izger than a nickel. Som'e .people say that when you're ep enough to hit water, you can lo$i up and see stars, 11ut'I never have." ,:. Starting a well usually required three people: one to do the._*digg-ing and , t,&.o to wind t h e w i n d l a s s ' t h ~ tcranks the I~ucketup, and also to.k.eep the r z i of t h e well cleaned off so that-nothing would fall-in on the e s s o n dig- .. . ging it. T h e 1,ucketis'used to bring t h e dirt u p to bring the man u p when he is finished. sometimes men used horses to'pull the1,ucket up. M r . ~ e d b e t t e r . s a i d ,"I pulled the.dirt out of m i well at +hbme with a mule. 'Sdmebody used a horse gnck and . ran a L o ~ ~ n d _ 4 v j t h ~ ~ h ~ u t a r i ~ k i s & & - - .. ,
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a b o u t to- take from her \\ell
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al&ndollc$ well i n the
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of a wagon whee and traced.around it. 'l'hen they started to tunnel their way down, The tool's used in digging a well were a short-handled mattock and shovel. They dug straight aown until they hit water. Kenny knew a gut that had to go with dynamite, until he finalli hit water. Once thci hit w:rtcr, they would co~ltiqueon down about another, eight feet to ni;ike sure the); had a good strong vein and lot of storage space to hold the water in. Then they'd rock the walls u p to four feet atlove water level, or all the way to the top if the walls were weak. The well was ,then ready to use. In doing this article about well digging, I gained a lot of respect for the men who drlg fos a living-it's a dangerpus job and wouldbe scary: 111
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I ~ ~ t e r r , i e wbs y Dale Fel-guron, Randall Harrlj!, Alike Dmke, Donald Wrighl, Ford 6lizNer, R i d g h l a c A r t l ~ u r K, e i t h H e a d , and T,okmy Lamb.
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T h e foul- nzen we interuiewed wei-e K e n n y R u n i o n , Harley R o ~ e r s L, a b ton R T O O ~and S , A i r . Leclbettel-. I n the followin'S >Inyes: earir of t h e m tnlks . .-, a b o z ~ lIris , i ~ z d i ~ ~ i / lexlel-iences. ual KENNY R U N I O N : When I was a'teen-age;; I- usedf; go from $lace to place ivitb nrf father digking wells. We'd dlg tlienr a l ) ~ u tthree feet across through the cenfer. The way me and my daddy dare, we used a wagon tire.' Jl'e'd just lay that down and mark it plumb iround and' c,ut into the,, ground about three o r ~ f i u rinches. Then I'd follow that to get started. If f eGc~-got d o w ~ r a f o o deep,, t I h i d it made. .4 man could diq.his ~~ length a day :ih dirt. And when I got ddne with that thinq it would bc as round' as a dolas a gun barrel. .. lar at the hottom. Itound 7 Ahoi~tthe anly tool I'd &u would hi.: shovel with a foot-long handle. If , ' the whole handle was broke out; you'd I,e better off. -kt's so narrow 'lo there you just can't use one. And you, can dig three ways:,on your jide u p agaii~st-" , the hank, on your knees, of stand on your head and'sho~lders.~And if you hear^ that l~ucket:a'corning, you hit on :y.our.head- and shou'ldess or it'? sonha knock a place on your head. / IVhrn we started, Dad would help me as deep i s where it got to,his heid. - Then he wouldn't work no more down in there. It was alk u p to me then. ' I'd stay with it. The first day or two you could' go pretty fast I~ecauseyou , could s h o d the dirt up arid throw it right o u t . But now ihr next dav you a. wel-&stuck. You would have-to ha?^ the 4irt Pulled out with' a winch. , Dad ~ . @:would do tbat and I would shovel. There .was a~ rope 'tied ,to a @ *bucket> and when it came back into the well, I'd fill it with dirt and i.okks - a~ndhe was on top and would rollit our.,All. I'd have to do was dis, shhvel,, load u p when he sent the Iyucket hack. ~ o l l a ar foot. And now the' walls h a d to l,e straight to whete the bucket, wouldn't hit then,-ad-dtunk-out rbc& &weit++-It h a w & & k e ->trr- ba'rrel. .4nd it can't angle. If it does, it'll slide ouk on you or the water:ll hit ' th&t high place and get muddy every time. It's got to be just as squ*Je as . square itself i f you're to get goodwater. If you come to rock, you h v e to blast.,You used to get dynamite. It looked jike sa~vdust,lint, I~oys, it 'was more than sawdust! And black powder-you could buy it in twenty-five- or fifty-pound cans, ahd it was as'. @ad, if not bettes, than dynamite. Now digging the holes ior the dynamite was slbw, I reckon! It'd take you a day or two tolget them holes down. They had to go d o i n a b ~ u two t feet to get that dynamite 21 there. I guess you c o d a just drill one hole in the ..
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WATKR SYSTEMS
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:3-1!1 ~ t i l k s ' too^ u visit Mr. *Ledbcttrr who .was &&ing a 'well in Knrtti C:imliria. lierc Dale Fer~usoii,Mike Drake,, Lakc Stiles, a11d Mr. 1,edhet~er : look dois11 iriri, rile h;iil-fi~dishedi;cll. '
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. 'rnitldlc. I x l t i t w&idd tear u p the hottom and leave it in a l7ad shape.' You ., .\v-nnt to blast it to where the bvalls are sniooth, so );QU shoujtl drill ;clean . arounkthe edge - and put in about' six holes. Put ,about a half-'stick fo ~ a c h hole; and then the dpn?nrite would just I I & W I~ackto the \\:all if you drilled right.' .., . I "drol~lwith, a hammer. H e y a s T o drill4thos?-holes, i~ fhllow tur'ned and n small fcllolv; and he sat4flat down'aud hc'd put that-drill right between his , ' ., 0 ' l&s. H;" dou1,lc .up so&; way 'or 'another, 'and I'd put thP eight-pound harrimel. to it.. If I'd rnissctl, I'd of hurt him, I guess, but J nevbrdid. Anc~ . , a k-&Le . halladra+u+t&own __-*-- itid t~_ .on&k i i r t ~ h a t i ; r u e g 1 a ~ ~ ; o c k ' C o u r s e if it. was soft, it.d go quiclier. After you:gdt the holes drilled, )lou'd take dynamite dbwn, fill'them'hlF full; put in your cap, light it, and get out if y$u . \ ' could! You'd lrettcr get out. 'l'hat stuff bums about a foot a minute, so you'd put al~out?hreec? four feet ot fuse. It'll g?ve you time to get out if something don't happen. Now if the ropebreaks; you're a gone man! You w o ~ ~ l d n ' t h a wtiie'to e tie i t ~ ~ a cand k , you.couldn't put the fuse out. A' man - might j e i k i t out, but the ),lamed cap would.blow. YOU just can't put that " fuse out. And that cap is might'.- nigh as bad a~the"'dynamite;Tear your ~ ,at town-him and another boy got o u t -head off! I've see'd a T e l l ~ &h&e some dynarnitc c a p s ~ -. i n dwas hitting th&i, a n d every one of his fingers is off
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and his tljurnh too. ~ h a i ' sone thi*g, bays, ~ygy've,gott 2 h e careful with. an't light them wiih a miitch, e?t@el-.',Yau.>.got . *, to get a stick of .&fire and ,,. just take the coal and stick that coal to t&fusean$ sh$:s g,one! , . .some po&dek,iri a l~ucket . and . " . O r if you were using powder, fou'd take it down ifi the well. You'd pack it'in the hol& Thit's a da11Terous ,&. , thing, ain't ii? If the powder don't go'~$~,:t':sdan~erptlsto gdp1 there. Yhu ,' : * s,. 4 c;ln't get it out 'cause it's packed. ,'( ' ,. t. And after you I)listed, you'd have to s t ~ . o ~ ' ? " a c ~ ~ ! e hbuis. ~ ' o f Thatsdynamite smoke'will hul-t you. Can't get yo"r-,brfi+iti.'IXirr.r fhe'retoo.l>igvio L: :,'v . lift o;lt in thc i)u,ket, youhave to dust it di1h.n himkits.' / Now how deep you . ~ depepds o on when yo8 hit w ; ~ t e ~ ~ Y o u ~ c ogou l d / dowh anywhrre frprn thirty feet on. I'v{l)een in theni wade& that if you .9i 1oo.k u p toward the top, it lo& like an ;user hole-nl~out ;the st& !,f a silve'doilar. l h e hest thing, boys, is to never look up. Look.ddwn. If you look bp, it'looks rnothersome. You 11e down selenty-five or a huJldikd .-i fectdow.11 .. .. . in.the ground in that small of a hole and it'll smother you if ypu aln t cnkful. You'l! gct scared,. 'l'he '1,est way t b do is doil't nrver looh i ~ p!lo difference wllat conres in. 1 \Yhen you first hit water, go right,& down: Sonler people want 1;ou In * *~ . I * have at leasi six feet'of water in there, I)uttyoucould get out wtth fops. 1.f the wateris boilin,g rizht straight up, you've got it. If it's runnihg odt of rock, it's prettv doul,tful that it might $0 dl-y during a dry'spell. Then when i t ' ~ - d u g ; ~ o want u to wall it. You start at the bottom juld *@ around and 'around:ft3s hest not-to p u t % flooring on the'l,G;om tk?a6se you need to lit the water come in. P o u i i c k the rocks in the mud all the way u p and the *all . .will hold up itself. At the last round, you want .tolean the rock back,toi3 wards the'dirt and that'll 'hold it. If you wall a well right, it wonit ever give you trouble. You don't-have' tq wall "f aH the way to the top, h u t ' ~ ~ h a v e ) . dqne it that way. There's a well up here in town where ~rrc2nd my daddy L. i --. wallsd - - it to the top and . put , a rock curbing on it. We ~ -took ~ - a big rock atld cut Y. it thrre on thr side where she eould sether i>ucket. And then you have to k e ~ pit clean. I've cleaned out a lot of wells hkfore. You get i lot of jans and bbttles'in theni. &%'henyou go to clean a well out, you draw the water out of it to where you can see what's 'in the I~ottonl, * You"l1 find dippers and hotiles and no,telling what in there. .. It's d.angerous work, but you bnlymade forty cents a day on top, anil you could make fifty cents a foot through dirt-and a dollar through rock . digging wells. But you were always takin'g.chances. Rope break while you were be in,^ lowered into the well, and you'd go to the bottom &nd I don'ta mean maybe. I used to just go down the rope-just swing down it, slide
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dew;; it to the bottom. 'That's pretty dangerous. O r that bad air down at
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L.4W'I'ON BROOKS: I've dug four wells myselt I'ke cleaned out several of thein, hut I've dug four from the start to the finish. Usually tit don't%take I ~ u threti t meli-tw@ to rope and bne to do thk digging. Can't but one work 4 tiown in these anyway. Ain't got room for two down in there. ' ;'To start, I always just lay. out about a four-and-a-half-foot round circle. ' The11 1'coirmence in the middle and dig out to the edge plumb around there. Then I i c t it started and k s ~ pit down straight'all the way. ~ f t e 'you r deep,or a little I~etter,.the11 ~. you can tell liy',looliing a t your d-ifeu-crything ------is going straight. ~ o u ' d i gdown about two -.fi~ .~. o r ~ h r foot e ~ with the mad'dock; then take y o u r ~ p a d & a n d " ~all e t that out and straightc11 your walls. ~ k n h ' u p i o u ror five bucketfuls of dz % i i C ~ h k r - d dig. T h e fellow up on top i s a'rcsting while you'rc a'digng.'The man who's digging is the man with all the work because h e h?s to ' oad, and.all they have co do is roll up the dirt. While $re talking or smoking or even eating. c art with a four or four-and-a-half-foot circle is because you've got to have room s o you can use your short-handled tools in there to < ees dbing the digging and the shoveling. e n you're smoothing your. banks'.[walls] t rnadd'ock because you 'haw t o dig- sit. down. It's pretty k like you would if you had a long-
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ter, y'our dirt will go to getting cramp; ingia little bit .wetter. After a while, n one side and.maybe on the' other keep on going dqwh until after a while you will hit.a g o d down allout three feet below it. Then you will never h+%e coming in. ,i most of the time when you dig a well, you hit,kock. boy'd,ug ongin solid rock.Me and him dug 4 ; l e for .a fellow, and we just I,arely got under the top of-the ground and jht solid rock. H e told me to go rightion anil'dig.He wanted that well right*, so 1 did what he said. We just put in a little piece of dynamite and bloyed o"t two or three little chunks. Then we drilled another hole and blowed out an-
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other 'chunk or two. Kept'on going a y n d and around. Blow out airhunk ? or t1v.o and throw then1 out; theri drill another little hole ahd take a piece of a stick of dynamite and blow out another chunk or two. We done that till we got on down there and hit water. Now it h& R rotlgh l>i~r~k. 1tdid11't a have no smooth bank. ' ~ ; o u ~when ie it would stick,.out tbo far, we'dtake . liammer anti heat some of that off t h e l ~ e s twe could: Rut it was a jdl) getti.nk that onc dotie. But wc didn't have to wall it since it was a11 rock tJostart
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%oii~e!inrr$whe11 you'rc":getting pretty cloee to water you miglrt: hit a streak of sand, and it might just cave out. When you dig down and it goes to doinithat, yo11 might have to wall it with i.ocl<.Just take you so11ie rock aiid come in right down-here at the ijottom and lay your rock around and o 011 around with it-wall it u p just as high as it's caving and + 1ittle~;il)o\~ethat. T h a t rock will keep it. from caving- anymore. And the water won't-let your rocks fall out of place if you place then1 right. Make them fit just as best as you can, but don't put anythins like cement Ixfween them. Your water has to come through there. And you dig it tp w h e y you have anywhere from six to eight foot of water in your well. You ought to have 'that much water in your well! for a good well.:Then your water dpn't get muddy when you go to drawing, you kifow. ~hese'ladies used to have to draw . the water to wash with, andsit took i lot of l,uck,etfuls to do a good washing, i o u know. If your well wasn't ' pretty deep, then you going u < a n & ~ - d ~ w nwith that old bucket so many times would get it muddy. But if you gotplent).~of water, you ain't I~othered with that ~ r i u dor nothing. M'hen you finish the well, it just takes a d8y or so for the mud to settlk to the bottom. T h e next day you r a n go out and draw the water out. Then let it fill back up. Then it w41 seitle down again and the water will he jus\ as clean as it could be l~ecauseafter that your bucket never gbes down to th:e hottom. You'll have anywhere from six to.eight feet of water, and you never ,
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. , let your lxic'kkt go down and hit thebottom until it has to i ~ 'cleaned e out. Stuff ~villfall qff thc 1ja11ks and get in thcre aud that's what causes you" to ha\-e .to go 11;rck and take out all that old mud and stuff out h2ck td the l p t tom. Then you'll have your clean water again right off.
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H,-\RLEY ROGERS: ~ h e n e d e rI-,dug a well, I dways chal-ged hy t h e . I foot. If I was to take a contract to dig it, 1 might make a little on it, or lose' : a little on it! ser? So I always dug it so much a foot. ;\nd ihc only tools I use is a shbve~and a ~ i a d d o c k I. cut the hindles off i h e n ~ ;\nd . I cligthem three, rrraybe three-and-a-half foot in diameter-just
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as h c i n and still w o r i in them: How lhng it takes depends dn'how deep yo11 ha\.e- to KO. You might dig one here and go down mayhe twenty& .fifi\-c or thirty fcct; :rnd.the~ianother one might go fifty-five or sixty'. Then it stasts~ettillga little bit slower. Y o i ~can't work near as fast. t ,I struck water. The last But I very seldoln had to go over thikty f ~ e till \cell I dug, I believe it was twenty-nine feet, and it was high up 'on the mour1t;rin. I reckon we just hit a vein or something down in there. You c& go pretty fast in.dirt. T h e first day, two hands can go down twelve or fifteen foot, and theh frorp there on you gradually go off a foot or two a day. Some days you don't get mayl.,e three foot llecause the dirt .get< harder down in there, you k~iow,and you got all that that has to' he loaded
PLATE, %5? Harley Roge scrib&' how to keep the round ~t,hiledigging a ivell.
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hai;lkd out; and tkat,:t.ikks; a little time." You ha& tb)do that with a 1 windlass and .abig [ope an&aibucket: You ridc down in the bucket, and stay down u'ntil'you dhange shifts or get tired, and, another one ioes down and . -you conie LI; and boll the dirt out for him. I generally. stayed down bizre' ~liostof t h e t i n i e myself. It's easier down in there than it is, to load and; tqload oil top. And you really need two men on top-like .you iiecd two%urgems whcr~thry're operatilig on you. One man coi~ldj ~ u l irne up hi~nself, bufionlething c6i1ld hit him.on the ;Srm,".or it cramp or,soniet6inS;a~~dit ' -, would ju.? jerk ri.-ht q dut of his hand. ,So you ,~ qot . the othe;r~ia~ion this side I who :ar',ies ~ O \ L O Iout ~ where it could have dropped 1):1ck t o w n 'a~rdkilled , you: 'T'hat'b the only reason why you got'two 111n: to help yo;. And then after you go,do~wn,%ay,.twenty foot Qr so, I've illways f o u ~ l d thar you've got to take it steady. $& can't hit that lick or twd real fast. If ' u.do, well, your 111.eath is ali gone. .And don't never smoke a ciga~.ette own in a well l~ecausethat+ seems l i k e it. takes t ' ~ i h - , o ~ ojit ~ e nor some., . + ]ins. It just fogs it up. 0 Then if you. hit d c k , you have to drill. I always' just used a hanrnier 5nd a piece of steel. T always had somehody th chuck ~%y steel for nlc. I xiever fI P r o ~ ~ gct l d 11ol)odyto drive lor nir. I ;~lwa)phad drive nrysclf. Af~.:~idthey wouldhit me. I didn't care if I hit tllein! l'hen when it goes to getting,damp, yodl'ye q t i ; . If the dirt is soft, they tile,~.the, walls now;ldavs; hut used to-yo~fjust dig it plum11 o n . down ancl the; rock it up-wallit.uP. T h a t ouyhtttb bc feet 1,elow wlkrr you first ' 1 hit water. Ought to hai.e sir foot of s t o l a ~ eoil account of you use n1or.i. ' watrr now than you usid to. You used to just draw it out in a bucket, and if i could 'make it with one lmcket, you bade Z?. But now you don't care how much you use. And if the w~hlsarcgobd, hard clay, you're T~. okay. Just rockit up, say, two or three feet . al~ovethe wate",levil.Then it'll never cave. You don't use c r ~ n e r ~You t . just l a y t h e r o c k in there: 'Go right to the Imt,' tom, and then lay soilre rock in there-down intijihe l)o$tom, yorl know-. the sand tmp. - ' .. a once ill, a while you have t , ~ c l k ~ nit out. You .$r$w all ?he water ' out just% fast you can,' and .~.< then yo-; godown ia there a l d clkan it out. Get the. dip&rs.*$d everytliing. It used to be we might get t e n or twelve I dippers out of the well. w h. e n 1 was a boy. You'd keep dropping one and leaving it-just go get another one. You'd have those to getout. .
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\l1ell digging was just about as hazardous a job as could be fouhd in thk mouritains. O n e Inan we talked to told us about a friend of his who a l m o ~ t
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killcd one y : "He was clca~iirigout his d;iddy's well. 'I'hey were i~ri~iging him up, and he gbt t6 the to$, i,;rndWjuSt as he got to the top the rope I , 111-okeailti he w c ~ back ~ t down--him, the l~ucket,and all. It, broke his leg i twice, k t , he fi~iallygot ;~ll,:right.H e liinpcd ;r11 the rest ;of his days thdugh. 1 don't know m;uiy lee1 it was hc fell, llut'just as he started to ~ l i n ~ b : on the bnrlic ;rntl thc 'rope l~robealld l~ack,he werlt .l111ckct; u ~ dall. That's what got rncstudyinfi-.;rl~outthat, too. 1 w;k kind of ,,sc-;rrctl;rftcr that. But it was ;I jol,, ;ii1t4 jobs w5s kind of h;lrtS tq gct and I . ~ f >+ . . h;!d !u tio somcthi~lgto live, so I worked at it.. ' * . ~crh;;p's thc no st ierrifyink ppsiliility \V;IS th;
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with the jol, w a s that of p s i n d Another common severd 'times: "%ye had an .old had air. Lawton home place, and we hadl a well there that my daddy and I dug right 'on top of'a mountain. I dug,eidhty-two feet and 1 hit had air in there and that liked to killed me. I didn't fijish i t u p . I t wasn't hut allout three ,&ore feet to dix 611 the water was there, taut he went aid.got this old colored man that dug wells to come on over !there a?ld help. ~ u I t liked to passed out. I hollered and'they sent the down. I got to the top and couldn't get out of the bucket. They had me out-laid me on the porch till I ~~. Anally come ~to.'It'i a funny feeling. I t felt like me and, the w e l l - a n t ? ~ e r y t h i +was just a My head f,htas hig as the top of that tal~le.It s-s~n1ekind of dead rising .air, and it just makds you feel fl'urnll old funny. as I,ig as that was judt bucket that I was ,riding up and down in. I t moving-wheels-like you were rolling on iarth. "My daddy wo,"ldn't let m e go back down in it no more after that, ljut thisold colored ib$ , , came and he said, 'Well, youjre getting pretty close to water.' Then he &ked if we had an!; newspaper. or anything, and they s$d, 'Yiah.' So he win,t and.got hinlseif a hig o!d hunch of newipapLr and lit it and threw it d d d n in the well and l ~ itt h"sn. Then h e k o t in the hucket and said, 'I'm reidy to go down.' And he went o n down there and -dug . on down, an4 sur$ enough, he hit ?at&. It was still &ood old well Ghen I left 1 i nq more trouhle with it. home. Never "But ill tde old well .diggers I have talked tosaid thgt if youli.e going to hit that air, i o h will hit"it within two ii,ihree feet of tl%W%er. ,It could kill you if you dbitt , , get but arid ger ydu somc'air. They have l',een people killed with it. I had' a lot of well jolx offered me after th'at, hut my daddy said, 1. 'You ain't doing to dig any more wells.' .?liqi , i l ~ I lisiened to him." , 1 1 1 ' . Kenhy Lldo b3n into gas .. sometimes. "Une thing I dreaded was that 'gas. If you h&a mqustache, i heap of times you'd 'come ,out of there and it wouldbd, dlack a <;;ow. You'd haveg%on-y,oqr --. heard. Yeah, that gas'll ~~~
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talk Lone when ;&'re diggilng a well-only when );uruhnvc_~~~ ~ 6 u ' &suciing that gas in your lungs. You'can hear that gas - -. ._, ofi the, hanks every once m , a whlle. When you get to *ere you 1, spew I throw F,ewsp
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PLATE 352 We visit7h Harold Embrey and To; mney who were diggins .a weIL i$&*county. They had hit \%sate$at, forty feet by the time we /got tkere and
bucket is be"g loweredd into the hole to b e , oaded with dirt and i rock.
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PLATE 353 Harold Embrey being lowered into the welk-,.t6i continue working. T h e Em- : brey/Rarniy well .is 52" at the tdp and tapers to 42" at the bot:tom. T h e first five feet w e g through dirt. Then thcy hit whit? flint rock and had to.use a ham: mer and chisel. After four or five . hours, they cut through .that and had dirt again inti1 they hit solid rock abovc the watcr level. They had to blast with dynamite twenty-five times to get through it. Below that' level was water. running at a rate of five gallons a minute.
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burn newspapers in there, that'll help you can hkar her a'spiwing. If s o ~ n ife yqh c a n get a match to. strike. .A blamed, match ju& won't hardly strike-down there. *..mp "That's one place you won't smoke. If you're a smpker, you'll n$~,-ke in there. You'll chok&. ,. - .. "See, no air can't hit you. Just what you suck in from the top. I believe a nlari digging a well needs air pumped into him."
I've had my head cracked a time or two with little hitty rocks. 'They weren't
about a foot out fro111 the side. I t was so Ilig, you couldri't get it out. You had to bypass ic. .After I ,~ qot down helow,it in under this rock here i n d looked'up and just seen the 'bo*ton~ of that thing there with nothing underneath to hold it up, 1 just thought, here ain't a thing to keep you from
it-and the cylinder fell out. Just as it happened, I was standing up against the h a n k a n d it mired up in that dirt, l>&lieveit or not! If I'd been over thatawa);.at work, it would hav; Gilled me as sure as you're setting there:
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PLATE 354 A finished well. Nrite the handmade wooden windlass, a n d , t h e sliding rodden door that covers the \\,ell itsclf.
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"And one tinie a boy caught an old cat and put tha? thing in a sack and > . shook it down on me. That thing tore me up! T h e first time, he'didn? lack over-ten feet getting out; but after a while, he was just down therewith me. And ratch that thing-you cou1d11't. I said, 'It's going out or me.' I hated to kill it; My sister-I guess she. was 011 top. crying about it--hut I finally . sent'him out in the hucket. If I hadn:t had on a new coat, it'd'a'tore me to pieces! 1Ihad on a jacket; and it hit me on the back with, its four feet. A cat's eyes sparkle in the dark. I was down in the dark., and you collldn't see , a man digging down in there. T h a t thing tricd its best to tear me all to 5 . pieces. I was scared, and I couldn't run. I had to kill it % ~ t ha shovel: . , "I don't rcckon I gof out ti1 bout dinnertime that day. I'd a'whipped ' that boy or he woi~ldme. I G s wlld. ~'d'a'torr'hirnup, and he knowed it, too. H e left. The? wouldn't let me out of there till he left. I hated 'they didn't throw a d o g in on me. I could have caught .a dog +nd held him. i'hem blanle cats are toukh. If I'd been outside, 'they'd a ' M n somebody w . hurt. ,. "Then I >ventone tlmc to finish,up a well. H a d twoold boys there, and it - , was deep.' They \aid, 'Get in and we'll let you down.' Habe you eveiseen a L well windlass! Well, when I got i n the I~ucket,they turned me l o o x Y o u . t,llk ;rhout hitting the l ~ a n kand bottom, I hit i t ! T h e bottom was rock, by the way. a I)ad way for a man to get water. There's too much water on toRfoi a Inan to risk his life in a wdl."
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crry I3uc:kets~;\re tmditio~~;il i,m tiliners made . of " I~ark. J$lsoyi l'ownscnd's parent; used tkcrri. for pickinz l~errieson Grandfather Mountain. Jason has cotlti11,;led to ma e them, as there is n l)ig tourist dernand.,for them. While they ~ ' ~ 1l)e 1 made from the hark of tulip poplar, chestnut, white w a l ~ ~ uhickory, t, dy Iqs elder, the most popular, and the hark Jason uses exclusively, is. that thc t d i p ,!:a poplar. Jason gathers the hark when the sap is upV(ai)outthe,fii.st of Jupe , .
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. . . -I n ord'er'for hi~rito make the l)ucLts, J a s ~ ~ ~ ~ #needs' l s o hickory l)ark for .,.
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the laces. When he gathers it, h e niakes a slit '*s'&$nd t h e tree and yanks upG i r d . if t.lie~.l&k i,e?b~Gstoo hard to l~eef$@e ,+. waits Gll the new moon when the bark iigairi loosens. H e "i6sses9 or tikes off t h e top layer of lmrk, for the lacing, tlie hoop; :uid the i~ail(hanarid uses 'the jecond or sa e x t h hickory sirips in rolls ;i~ldw r t i tlie~ii dle) of the 1)uckets. H as h r ~icrdstheni. 1 ' , * Herr is hnw~~lre_~dbcs ligth and the sarne ~ r i d t has lie wlnts-the / I-Ie cnls rht:-l,at bucket to he. H e shapes the Itvcket l~ottonl'I,y cai.ving a deep oval us circuIz~rslit around\h,e .. outside center (see~lat&356)'1, intn l ~ u inotthrough the I)at-k. ~ a s o t ~ ~ - f i - e ~ hupl dthe s sii4e,',creasing the 11;u.k at the slit. 71'lley ;~ldbe even if the ovalhr circle Was 'cut in the correct place. He trinis off ' le rough,edges on thc bottom of* the 1,ucket with his pocketknife, rind lches five holes on each side and a row of holes aliout 611 inch apart :dl way around the top (see Plate 35k). Using a strip of hickory . . l;;trk, rhe arts at the I ~ o t t o ~ofn the bucket and l:rc:cs it up, like a shoe. &her! I ~ o t h , es a r e laced, lie has enough hickory 1)ar.k le\ tcf \ace around the top rim iriside the 1)ncket. T o make the rim, he takes a 'hickory ! split al)out a11 inch wide alld a little longer thTi1 thr circu~nfrrrnceof the top of the l)ucket, and ovel-laps the ends into a hoop that,will just fir inside tlie I~uckettop. H e placcs the rim inside the l~uc~ket' and lac,es the hickorv 1)ark all the way . around in onc direction and the11 co~l'ics Inck the other so the laces cross. * , For the bail, :he uses hiclpry 1)ecause he tourists like it. klouritairi people used to use cloth s o it woyldil't cut into their ~houlders:ove~;lll'galousies (strag?) were ideal. . * < --
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Phofo,yi',nphsb y Ken Cronic. .
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homes. She's that kind of person.
how they make tottaAye,.cheese.
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PLATE 359
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.band was out working. around ,their farm when we arrived, so we went straight u p ;o their house where she showed us into her spotless, sunlit kitchen. As we.took pictures, she showed usthe pro.cess she follows for making the qlocks of cheese that she and her husband like best. Spe has occasionallysold some to bring in a little extra money. 1. . Mrs. Reese begins with two and a half gallons of refrigerated, whole milk from their cow. She pours this all into a large pan and heats it on her wood stove * (Plate 358) until it is a little past lukewarm. She prefers a wood stove as it gives a slower, steadier heat. I Y p n the milk is warm, she takes the pan off he stove and adds onefourth of a Hansen's Cheese Rennet, Tahlet dissolved in one teacup of water, and one-ei$hth of a H a p e n ' s Cheese Color i'ahlet dissolved in one ... teacup di water. 136th these tablets are.-available . .. in drug stores, and di~. rections'for their use are listed o n the containers. She lets the milk sit for frbm fifteen to thirty minutes until it stiffens, and gets jellylike. Thenpshecuts it with a kn~ifeor spatula into tiny squares, also running the sb;l't!iia under the surface as if cutting it into layers. Letting it sit briefly, she then works the mixture until it is all broken up out the size of grains of corn.' Shc works it g ~ n t l y ,
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(Plate 3 591, squeezing the custardlike substance until it is completely 1x0ken apart. '1;hen she puts the pan back on thP. stove and heats the mixturk slowiy unqil it is almost as hot as the touch can stand-hut not boiling. Tl'hile it is reheating, she stirs it constantly so that the curds will stay separated and not melt Imck together. She then removes the pan from the stove and lets it sit for from fiftden t o thirty minutes to cool, and then strains the contents through cheesecloth in the coiander s h e - h a s ready on her sink B lets it drip natu. (Plate ,360 j. She ddes not squeeze the mixture dry-she rally.,and then returns the mixture to the pan, adds a heaping teaspoonful of salt, and rriassages it in well 1 Plate 36 I ) . Finally she.puts the contents of the pan into a home~nadepress which she. I has lined with cheestcloth (Plate 3 6 2 ) . Adding weight in stages (Plate 3 6 3 ) , she 1r;lvrs' i! i i i the press overnight, or-twelve hon,rs, topress t h i cheese down into a Ern1 Illock. She then ren~ovesit from the press (Plate 3 6 4 ) , and dries it for a week in the open air with a cloth underneath the cheese to i alxorl, 'any additional moisture. S h e t u r n s it two times a day during this drying pi.ucess, clul.ir~gwhich thc cake of cheese f o r n ~ sa dry cl.ust on the outside. 1t.should keep finewithout spoiling for a mo,nth or more. Before rennet tal3lcts were available, cheese of this sort was still possible
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PLbTE 363
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to h a k e . ~ k d r aHarmon remembers ' t h a t when they killed a cow {or l~utchering,they would get the stomach out, cut! it open, a n d clean it will. Then 'they woulchtretchit out i n om-piece t o d r y lik([email protected]$tt was thoroughly dry, they rolled it up and hung i t in ..a bag from a'convenicnt--rafter.--Whenever-h;?mother mad.c Eh-EEG6fthe sort just +scribed, would use a tiny piece of the stomach lining' (about the size of a t h u 4 b nail) to curdle the milk, just asythe rennet tablet's are used.nnw. d e 2)so remembers 6is moiher using a small piece of the stomach lining when mbk_i ing light bread. He' remembers it givkg the bread a sour taste. I T h e cheese his mother made was pressed 'jnto wooden hoops that whrk from twelve to fourteen inches in diameter. Tfie cheese would'be set ud i the attic t o d r y f o r s& to eight weeks before being cut, and he remern$ers., . . that the older the cheese got, t h t better it tasted. I Mrs. l'hilma &rp; also introduced to us Ily. Milton Hodges, make'? >> different kind of che&e. I t can 11e eaten rightSkway.In fact, it was s o g ' od that we wound up taqing half a cake along with us in the car and nibbmg . i 1 , . . 011 it all the wayhome.
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CHEESE MAKING
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now, is feed $ to ihe hogs," she laughed.;Going outsid6, she p o u r e d t h t i . whey into theblop.bucket. She the* p ts the curds in i howl and adds one and one+iif teaspoons of salt and a r a t egg. She prefers barmar$, eggs to store-hobiht ones as they ake the cheese yellower. S h e mixes it all in with her hand
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of butter about the size of a large heL nd melts it. She pre'fer%a wood cookstove b .-The electric-stoveused~~here belongs heese too fast'and got some burned
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ised in with it. , r : i '\ IVhen the biltter is meited, she. adds the curdsand keeps turning the& in \, '\ heat (Plate 369). When all .the curds are melt& . ,I,' :, into a cake, she puts them out into a dish-'to'cool I' . . (Plate 370). .4s they cool, they automatically form a cake. She recdmmends that you, " d o to. eat@ on it" (Plate 37 I ) , hut you can ait sevemi days. It should not he refriieg-erateda s ~ ~ i t ~ s f i 6dry - out some.. what. After a short while, it~getsh a r d enoug;h to cut into.fsl~ces.I t should " keep about a week. i ,
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We asked Mrs. Harriet ~ c h o l ;o s tel1,us how she mikes cottage cheese for her family and 1,elow are her directions with some additional comments from Mrs. Nora Garland. Mrs. Echols was unable to get raw milk to actually show us the steps at the time of the interview, s o w e do not have pict u r e df .hEr method, IYut felt that her, instructions would he quite clear to .
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To begin the process of makin6 i - cotfage rh_Ees~-pourallout a gI:~llu;~:of~: - . . * ' whole milk into..an enamel or other metal p a n . ' A ~ ~ y amoumt ef rnitk nlay Ii~eused.,'~h?arnourrt usedhere is-what is preferred by Harriet Erhols for her family. Mrs. ~,cRolsletsher pan -of milk sit on . . the 1,Bc.k of the wood stove in the winter or just out on ;I kitchen tihi> d l ~ r i n s warm weather, so that it tarrso"r slowi)i. This process may only take one YT p r h a p s two, according to the temperature. Mrs. Echols does not, ..z ,milkat all hefoie ii clabbers. When on .the :Ctove, it is not over di" ct heat-o~ily in a warm place. After the ~nilkclal~hers,the cream is lift&" off and: refrigerated: he ay lhe used later' as sour creLin in any ,recipe, or it may he mixed in with&he cotmge cheeseafter it is &ade to.&ke thgifieese,er&rnies. ., .The skimmed, clah1,ered milk is the!l heated bver a low fireeuntil it cur,, dles. I t is remoded ftom the heat. and poured into a colander~archeseclbth c' to drain all the water. This usuallv takes a couple of hours. I t may also I)e huhg in cloth overnight. Mrs., Nora Garland renreml~erst h a t she put the curdled rnitk into a clear1 flour sack and let it drain overnight outside. Both Mrs. Garland and Mrs. .Echols told ~ t h & t ~ t hwou\d e y then wo&---the cheese i,y puttlnp it 1,ack into a pan or 1)owl and sque'ezing it witl; their .a hands or a spoo11 or seatula, ~ e t ~ i n -out q any.xenrai~ttllgwater;Mrs. Echds . ; k the cheese'too vigorously or .get the curds too fine.. ' . . "hen a little salt may he spri~ikledin to taste,, and to make the cheese creamier some of. the sdur cream may be mix& i;l with'it. ?'he cottage i cheese is theh packaged i n,..s p a l l contaifizrs anh refrigerated. It will kkep 0 several weeks in the refrigerator. Mrs. Monroe Reesealso makes cottage cheese, I)ut her niPihod is' slightly different. She removes the 'creani first, lets the ~iilk.clal?ber,warms it on the stovh; s t r a i ~ ~ sthrough it cheesecloth, addsxilt and pep<er to taste,.and then , adds some of the cream.~)ackto keep it from getting dry and hard. s h e eats it either warn1 orzchilled, Gld tries to finish it within, two days. \ , -
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u f u s M ~ r g a n . semireti~erl , Episcopal minister and' natiue of . M a c o n Cou?~ty,,,North Carolina, ir now ei,qhty-nine years old, somewhat h a d of hearing, a n d with such poor eyesight that h.e subscribes to the L i b r a r ~ ~ o~f o n ~ r k s s talking 's bqoks for the blind. H e r e c ~ g n i z e shis friendsand aiiuainbances . only w h e n they step close t o 9 i r n . Inispite of these apparent handicaps, Ize still hikzs the AVnnfiihala iWountains within s i ~ h to f his h o m e , and the S m o k y Mountains, ; with his hiking fjl-iends. H e still. ministers t o t h e small S t . John's 'Episcopal .. C h u i c h -of C'artoogechnl)e. H e ha; such a wonderful m e m o r y and su'ch a w a y o f telling about euents Q in Ids lije that w e asked h i m to slprt at the hegi"nning of his life,,Oc4ober 15, . . 9 ,1885, a n d tell us ;all abou$ himseli. Since his great:grandp;are~~t~-.per-e' .. rn some of the first settlks o f this area, we were a8le to tie in IlidiarC.hislory ' a n d other early stories that he had been, told b f t i s p a ~ e ~ tand s grand; ,. -, . pa>ents: k T E Z T i i T s o mucF%iTuian, i a t e ? a t i n c m nD g - t. i E t t t m tQ,., e share it all with you so that. you m i ~ h feel t what w e do about h i m . -L~ Dr. Morgan.js;a tall, fine-looking m a n w h o speaks zn-a'delibirate, kind * " mcinnei. H e has a son and a daughter andseuijl:al grandchildren and. ireat- ~. " , CI nmndchildren. H e has m a n y cousins, nieces, nephews, and youFg;'fGends w h o m he.hentions;.often {n rnnv&sation. .. I,ucy Morgan, one of Dr. Morg&'s'sisters, helped. to estahlisfi the Penlndd ,School of '&an&crafts in Penlsnd, N o r t h Carolina,'and, has 1ed.a .most inteiestini and produqtiue life, also. S h e has n o w retired a i d lives in' . Webster, korthCarolinn. ?'heir brother, R a l p h , was educated as a fthdrmacis(, and t k o of their other sisters went on to college, too, IVe a s k d Dr. Morgan w h a t he Jelt had influenced so m a n y of the chilhard hi t h e j ' h a d to, t o g e t a (IreF in his family to leave h o m e and work higher education t h a n t h e y could xet i? theii. local grea, w h e n this was' definitelyjlot a t k l i t i o n hete ,. i n the early 19oos: *~
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PLATE 372
R e v e r ~ n dMorg-an
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Our i+mily was always very conscious of educatio* motherhahat.. . RAJ -t e n d e d t h e 6 ; Mary's School in Raleigh, prohahly under the influence of
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father, w b ' h a d studird liiv a t the Uhivzrsiry :of ~ o r t .Y+rolina h at Chapel 13ll. My great-grandmother Siler was a sister,of the then 8bvernor of Npith Carolina, who had also served as President of the U~iiversit):of ., ~ort~ h a r o l i n a d u r i n gthe War Between the States: My oldest twosisters went to a ichool that our aunt conducted, a giils' * school down i?;Hickory, North ~ a r o l i t a It . wasn't cpllege, lmt it covered , some of the territory t h a t now is coileke work. My h e r
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livedx% the a e n i i n a - y o of m';- classmates also got a fellowship a n d we rooll>ed'?cethrr. 'I'hr I,i~ildi'n,g\vas four storirs high kind !lo elrvators. T h e ~~.~~~~~ roonis ~ v c r cin qroup?-:t\io bedrooms ; ~ n da v i rooni. '1'11~.lient was from a grntc ;inti thc o;ll was in thc J,;tsr~ncr~t ;11ic1 w r hat1 to ~;lr-ryit u p fonr flixhts of .st;iirs. Rut wc did li;~\;crn;~iclswho lookrcl ;iSrei- 011s roonls. I 41ad sonir ~ompl.iintsI ) \ thr m;iicl to thp scmin;~ry;~uthoritiestlrat she just couldn't look after nry rooni, I~ecauseI just froze her out. I ' d leave my wind o ~ i soprn. She didn't like that especially. ; T h e shower I ~ a t h swere in the t~asenient~ too. I'd go do\rn there and take a shower the fi;st thing in t h e mornin: and IT!- rhe time I xot out and hack u p to 111y room, thel-e *re iciT l i e ~ n i n i s t r \iirh ~ - \ i l i o n ~I lived o n r ye& when I was at \l'nyrlesville liad gone Imck to his iintix-e state .\'eribrrt. H e h a d a church u p there i g S\ra~iton,\'ernlorit. H e invited m e t o conie u p a113 hrlp 'him for the sumle I was still at seminary. I went u p and hel'ped with the Sunday school, painted the church roof, various other-thinas. Theri I dis.. ,. that h r had invited cover-ed that ir \ i a i j u s r out of the kindims of his.b&it me t o come up. H e dfdn't have enough work for n%? So I got a jol, in the marble mill down ' b ~the - kfissisqubi River, and I ~vorkedthere in the drafting room+actically all summer. I enioyed getting down t o the river, arid' then so~i1etin1@?6ut on to Lake C:ha~nplainirr a canoe after work was over. I ' d t a k e a s a n d ~ i i c halong and share it with the mosquitoes, of which there k,
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So I \\.orked there until nearly time to go Ilack to the seminary. \.\'hen I---told the inill authori~ies,they offered Ine a permanent joh ih the mill a t a re than I received Sot- the. first stveral years in the ministry. The. wiriter l~efore,I had met a young lady in New York. H e r family had . 'a sllnln1rr h01~1ru p allovc Glovrr~villc,New I'ork, atit1 w c tho11:'ltt w r $ere lo\,e. I-Irr f:t~lrily invited i j ~ rto ctr~rlc11y on ~ n w;iy y I ~ a c kto atid n1~1.i;r then1 4 visit in thrir surnniet- h o n ~ I. went, going do\.r~nthrough' Lake ~ ; h a r r i p l a i ~ , j ~ George---a &e 1,eniltifpl trip. \ f e got t o talkin? rhinzs ove; and her niother didn't like t h r idea of her daughter marryirla a miiiister. H e r mother was s o r n e t h i n ~of a rlinil,er, and so she talked with me and N-irh her daughter. She said, "I won't.allow it, unless Rufus \rill proniiqe t o d o all that he can t o zet the best position that he can in the rniriLqrry." \Yell, that's not my idea qf the ministry. She ~vouldlib-e.to have h a d m e a bishop or something of the'sort, and I wasn't a l ~ o u tto d o it. So the \-oung lady said, "\'ell, whatever hftitlier says, 1 have to do." I said, "\'\-ell, i f that's the \cay you frel allout it, it's all oLrer as f a r a.: I'm ,. ' / , concerneti." L . .. . do\vn to C;lo\~rrsville w h k h is al)ovc'.4lbany. So I went ~ i e r tnigrnin,q . I ~ o u ~ ha t fr!.iliy pan : ~ n dL 1 1 1 1 1 t t o t 1totlti11,g eI.s~,. ~ ~ I I Lstartcd I out ,
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\\.:ilhiny it off. I \calked from there.10 Boston, two hundred and seventeen lrliles. sleeping out ;it night, a\,eragi~igmore than forty miles a day. I got to rlic uu~skir(s01' Uosto~l;ilid found ii sc.stilur:~il~ and aot supper. I !had walked lortv-rlirce nlilcs tliat day. Then, when I bad satisfied niy hunlger, I went okcd for a policeman to inquire the w;~yto the nearkst "Y." H e sct rion.. and then as I started off, he noticed that I was a little I ~ i t stiff, and he said, "Look here? lelln." !. stopped. H e said, "Have you got 11gh to get out of here*oli?" I told him I th&ught I had.: I still tease some of my Boston friends ahout their tryill:? to run me out of town the only time I was ever there. So I toured Boston that day on a sightseeing bus and th?t night I took t h w the A l l River I.iine down to New York, hack to t h e ' s e ~ n i n a r ~ . \\;is stud~irigat Columl,ia University aiming for a Ph.D. in Political iie't moqt of the requirements, but I had never stpdied German. I t;lkc.n a lot of French and. Latin and Greek and fiebrew-]lever good then)-hut -I had never h a d , a n y Gerrnan. Rfy sister Lucy had e Deaconew School on the Cathedral grounds there near Columbia and I as in and out there, and she or s ~ m e h o d ytold me there f the'students there who had dsrudied German; lived in Germany or several years, and s h t heard that I needed Germdn and she v ~ l u ~ t e e r e d to help me. T h a t broke my doctorate, and I 'married her in$cead V7 of learning any .German to'amount t o anything. I never did get m); .Ph.D. L'ater, the seminar\. t h~. e r ' e w a r d c d - m e a ~ h o r r & i = i q - S[Doctor ~ of Sacred -Th- eolo~y;, - - - \chich i . the.only one that I ever received.
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T h e ichool at Penland was my interes't when I started out in tlie ministry. 12hile i was still in the seminary studyipg for the nfinistry, the man who Teas hishop over this section of North Carolina talked over what I wanted to , do: md.1 told him I wanted to con15 l ~ a c to i the nrountainsto do what I could here. He gave me a choice,.,l ' h e ~ ~ i s c o p aChurch l had a school founded in 1842, T'alle Crucis, in.ivhat is now M'atauga County. It was first . s t a t e d a i n rraining school for ministers who w,anted to go to work in the
to be trained, hut who didn't have money enough to'ko off to sch'ool. T h e church owlied quite large iract of land ,there, skveial hundred acres, and the school was started and the Bishop was interksted in it. H e g-otpeople t o
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His sister there ~ v a sin charge of the school. locally, Illit 11e w;uited a minister tl1c1-e. He utTel-ed nle the choice of that position in this old cstal,lislied school or a farm at Pentand whei-e a nlan had tried to establish a school for mou~ltain vouth and had failed to make a go of it. H e had just planted some apple ,. trceg on ir I)ecause the one ;it \'a!lc Crucis had dqnc so well. I chose Penland Ijccause it w a s virgin territory-so far as the Episcopal -C:hu~-ch1v;ts concerned, and I could determine the policy of it. I had been at \'alle Crucis one summer studying, inte~ldingto write my P ~ . D.thesis : on that community, and one phase of the work there really distr:ssed me. 'J'hat i v n the ,"old clothes room" where people from the cities would send." ., their old garments t; be given or sold to the people-thedso-called poor m o u ~ ~ t a i\\-11ites:I ri did~r'tlikc that approach. I preferred the idca of training the rnonntain people iii thingsthat they could niake a living at themselves and gi\.e them a sense of dignity. There havc always heen those who have laughed at the idea of h e l p i ~ ~ g rnoiintain people becon~eeconomically self-sufficiei~t.You- probably know that President Theodore. Roosevelt appointed a commissibn to study the :a .' , - , southern .-\ppaIaihians, and they made a report on the conditionsand some. . of thc things that ought to I)e donc, like preserving the forests. Most.6f *hose. t h i n ~ s\\;ere good, I thought. There was one man on the commission that disaSiecd with the findings of the majority a n d resigned. H e wrote a 1)ook ~ n ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ & k ~ & ~sure' that & that i tbook e. is. out of eyister~ceat the presrnt time., I donlt remember the man's n a n i ~ * s i n - t h e - - seminary at the time and a friend, of mine who was studying apt was cdmmissioned to paint a pirture for the -cover of the I~ooli.T h e author's point was that he thought this was no'place for people ta live, and he urged that the population of the southern mountains Ije moved down to the cotton mills, where they could find labor and cnon$h to 'eat. Well, I thought of cour:'e that it ought to he i o n e ahout in a different way. People said, "TVell, they have the mills down south. T h e mills can make the cloth and other products much faster than people can make them by L . . ~. hand, so 11bvould never pay to develop the old crafts and teach the peop1e.l Even some of our church authorities were perfectly willing to asli the people in the cities to send old clothes and that sort of thing to help these "poor, - 1 m o n.n t a i ~ivhites." Hclp them:outiin that wa); and givs them charity, socalkd, but not help them ljecomk less d6pendent. They too!< that stand ivherl my sister Lucy arid I concei\.ed the idca of diveloping the crafts at enland. '.t I\vrtys ., . 1~10re in favor of the approval of men like John C. Camp1)ell. \vho was a Presl~ytrrian minister. 'l'he leaders in education, public health, ci;ifts, reclcation got together I~eyinningIxlcli in 1 9 1 3 unde; 'the '
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leadership then ol Dr. ~ a m p l 1 t ~and 1 1 explored througf; this m o u n t s n sec- 6 tion to st.? \vh:rt the needs I-eally were. :\lid Dr. C;tr)ipl~ellenvisioned the Jt~linC:. (:;~iiipl~cil Folk School at R~.;~~stown. I.!nfortp~iately he died hefore it was ;~i-ru;ill\.put on thr map, I ~ u this wife, Olive $ a n ~ e Campbell, went nhPad ;rnd \\lh othel-s'who worked with her, estahlished the school [$till in existence t&;i\l..lIeaiiwtiilc~ .. Dr. Camphqll brgan$ed what was called then the .\Ior~n,nin\+'o~-kers'Confe~xnce.It met in I ~ in .4tlanta. I ~ I was still in kemiii;iry. But the next year it met in Knoxville, ,,..:. . and was a n~emljerand oft.en a -rhe~nl>er of the of the hoard-until after the Second \\'orld \Vai:, and that organization put , out several reports On health, education, and religion. .\norhcr ci~riificantthing that c;tnre out of thai cdurrcil wgs and is the Southern H i ~ h l a n d rHandicraft Guild. They'laid stress ah quality work of hinyticr;lfts throushour the mountains. ; \ n j they've estahlished shops for hand'Ihig. the crafts. l'Ficy h \ . e 'c'!erta'in rdTuirements for meri~hers. Sally Kesier is a member a n d J o h n B u l ~ i ndo\$ ' in Franklin is one in wrought iron. There a r ~ ' ~ u i ta, enun,her. T h e Guild has prospered. You'll find shops throuphout ,~. the mountains that handle the products of these members of the Southern Highlands Handicraft ~ u i l d . ; [ T h e i rannual fairs in the sQmmer in .4sheville and th.; fall, in ~ n u x v i l l eire the niost popular, well-attended crafts fairs in the' niountains.] i From thar a~igle;tbe mountains arp coming into their own, that is reviv1 . in: the things that are their heritage here in.ihe mountains. So, a_13id, 1 c h o s r ~ & u L a ~ i d c i t-+ e A p p a l a h School. I spent tlic suninier of '19 rg-there, a l t h o G h I was going back for further study a t the seminary and Columbia University; then I came back spl-ing of 1g1.4. I fixed up a n old log house there quite comfortat~ly-it was just a plain callin. Then there was an old fwn~houseon the place, and I made it o\.ei- into a school building with space for a couple of teachers t d live and the c-l&srooms. During 'that first year or two, we did what we could to put in plunibirig. There -~ wasn't~. any electricity then. We bought a site do\rn on-Fhe Toe River, intending to put in a power plant for ourselves and rlie co~ilnlunity. -. \I.? started in giving the first'students, who were boys, a chance to work there on the f-a~'m-\h.orkin~in';the orchard, helping with the plumbing, putting in a pu$:pix:.:ctatidn d ,,->... for the watkr, pumping it up to the buildings, ll'e put up a liuilaig@&vecalled ~idg;k&&,&ll, and then put up a simple, v . . "z?,. but more suiial~le,ldilding for a family >,!. t w..:, $ h e log cabin. Later on, it w a i used as a dorniitory, and the people @h$~ollowedme named i,t Morgan ' ". Hall. Instead of continuing,. as I had planned it, a school for hoarding pu- .... i. pils, l e a r ~ l i n ,farmipg, ~ orchardry, so forth, they discovered there was a greater need for smaller children f ~ o ml ~ ~ o k ehomes, fi and so it was run by ,
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-. . ~ltrnrbciof yc;~rs.'l'l!cn the church felt t h a t the Xlr-. Pctel- ~,;lrnl,el-t pul,lic si.Iiools ;tit$ ol.ph;un;lgcs ;rdcqu;l;c to t ; ~ k ecare of that type of\\-ark: 50 this \vns discontinued. , . :\I1 r11c Anre I \vas planni'iig with nly s i s t e ~1,rrcy to put iil crafts, reviving., , the old hand weavink, spinking, .basketmaking-tga~hing the womb-1 oft$ \ conilllupi& these arts so they could earn money for things they 11eeded in tlrrir 1rorne.s- - t o givythern a greater feeling'of worth. But,,ifter ,I had beea, @" there for four )ears, I felt that 1 woulii have to leave Penland. 'i$e Bjshop :kanted nle ro trayel, 'raibng. funds and -beggin< rl?oney, L p i r r g " t p 9 h i ! a 3 . ~ ,,delpllia and ~: . c Yofk w ar,d other .cities in the Nprtti: There we* others ' doin: thc came kind of thing, and I was h;lvi'ng to f6llow them. I hidn't api *' prrckte thc nlythods some people used, and I felt that I couldr~Yt . do this. 'Penlarld coritinlied with Lucy heading it up.,She had already taken'some tl.aini'r~gin Chiczlgo in wea\rit~gfrom 2 Mr. Worst. 1,ater he came down to :~et;iar;d to help her set u p addi~jonaiwtavitlg 'l'het~she got a lady,'
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PLATE 378 Reverend Morga
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reunion.
.. r onr 01 thr fctv- oriyinal people w l ~ bis stilj'iliurc, to ci"th'c spinning and \vca\.ing, :illti \hr, tr;lined tl~e~ly,cal women 'in s h l c of the crafts. They ere' ,; , tiell ;iljic. r t , rio ' t h i ~ i ~that s the); co%ld~u?t'do ot'h~rwiie--il>l~rovet h e i ~ I .. housfs, ~ n a k curt;!lns . for~"~t6eill . h ~ n ~ s , . . ~?heir i ; ~ childre,ri deital'work, ., and d5 ail saris o f , i ~ g g st h i t rnlide. life somewhat~better.O n e of the'first things;> -,' t' that. slie.did was ro hive ;L log raising where,the men bnle-ill and- hrouglp , % ,+. 16s: to ni;i!ictl:is l a ~ h ~ u s c - fthe q ? \\,caving n! sp~nriin$,a n d basketmaking , :;~~d.bt!ier ,craft?., 'rhrn- she wor~rti.va!iantl\.replacing one hvilding that h a s r - on :hc property thai had 'l,u~:ned d 6 y n ; and era& a .4tone; building/that' ihe); ralled ' T h e Pines." T h e n (he r&?n helped l , u & ' a larger 1% IfuadinS , > [ t i - ~ tissrili L I > C C ~ . and the women helped by feeding them. /'" l'liey. !la\-t; R I I L I I ~ ~ ~ ,of ~ ; hui[diri$s now. Instead of reniaining 'as a co,gl- , niur~it\... proje& \vhich she intended i t to be, people l~egancoming to ,iake rrainihg fsorli otltside. Thev'd,le&ned about the.ichool because. Lucy 'had to riiarket t h i ~ ~ gthat s were m i d e there in order to purchase the materials and ruri the school. She attended the'general church c.onvention, yhich meets I once everv _ a , . three ?ears, N&\VOrleansin 1 ~ 2 ~ , ' a took n d so_m,t of the materials, ai-tiries [hay, had 1,eeywoven. I b a s a dele&t&o that convention so <'. I \$eqt down and helped her all I could in the marketing. After that, she went to various other conventions and people'qot acquainted with what > Penland was dsinz until, before she retired;-people were coming from fortyeight different 'countries besidcs-all over th; United Siates, some to learn the. clxftc a i d some to teach, .>Frorn . the Scandinavian countries, she got severaL-~
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I went down to South. ~:aroiinalandministeredto three small churches in neighboring towns f o r a c A P l e od',).ears. buring that time,; there was the fld epideri~icof the First i l ' o r l d ; ~ . \ ~ & ~ ~ 6 T h a t x-a+ r g r 8 a h d ~*.~~a$thin);.pthre ,ears. dld. I lived in the lirtle town of ~ a r n \ + e l l ,a" chGacteristic lower Soue ~ ; r o l i n a town. Sherman had . 6 ' Y" ' \ I ' . r b m e through, during 'the JVar Betwe& t$5~$.ti=tats. Heuse&'the Episcopal . .4 chuich to stable his horsts. I,,also had;churches:@zliftlg town sou&bfthatp jnpch nelvei-,':lllen?ale, and another town a b o & &he sarnejist,ancep&i&n. miles maybe, =ch one-hii&iti & k n t s of int~r$:t. were-the %"th y# , b r b l i g a type i f communities. There in Bar~~wel&~eor~,~sfrer 1 d a h i t , ~ Iwas . ' , t o , ha\.e.an eveny~xservice. I w e n t d o w n to thkSchur;h a n d r a i g ~ i h efirst l?eil haM',an h z r l~efoceservice, turned on 'the lT,ghts, g o t +, r e,a d y , a n d five , n?inqte.s'hefore the service raqs ailother I)ell, and noi)ody. c'afne. Well, I a m ." batger a c,rank. I ,gur~i,,jl,outpromptness, so I waited about..fifteen minutes '& , , l i afier ,a ;he time for,the service-no congregation; S o 1 s t turnedToff the light>,:closed j, the door, and went the strket.1 .met . a grhup of the con-,. - ,..
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I a;lid. "1 intended to, I)ut there \?;\sn't ;rnyl)ody tilere at service tin~e."
"\\.ell, \ve \\.ere going to church, and thdugllt we ha> plcrity *of t i n i ~ . " So I \vent hack ;und h d d. - t h c service. .After that,'tliey were prompt. One thin,y ?hat interested me t h e r ~ l E c a 5th:ltLs ~ -low-corlnt~y with. , sandy soil. They don.t have clay the way we do here. Instead of just di&ng a ,yravc for a funeml, they dig it and thc11 ;I 111-irkrrlaon 11~1ilds LIP t h e walls . . of the gra\.e' ior fearit will cave in. 'l'he11 after the casket is in place and the se~\.iceover, he I~uildsan a r c h ~ a l ) o \ ~it? e so that it is encased i n brick. That was quite new to me, 'of coiirse. T ~ sc~ h o o lauthol-i&es where I was li\:ing in B;irnwell were without a f& the h i ~ hs'[email protected] ilsked me to pinch hit for them. I said, ''I\'ell. provided you get a man just 'as soon ab possible.'" For the whole year, they didn't find anybody else. Workers were scarcc. So I did church work a n d - the school work together, and during the flu epidemic I ministired . ' thl-ouzh the Red Cross and. saw; more people d i e , I think, that year t h a n I . .have in a!1 the rest of niy life. 1 minkered to the people out in the c o u n t r ~ and i n t h e to,vn. and'then to the chain-"gang Negroes, who lived in metal \-ails. I couldn't see why they didn't freeze to -death. -:I \cent from there to Chester. South Cal(oliAa, a mill town, a n d was there for 4,s yrars. 'I-hen went to Columbia [SoGh C;iro!ina], aild ;here I was execi~tivesecl-ctar?and e n e r a l missionary for the diocese of upprr South - C:arolina-:I visite?i3miche~-ttnthHtkee1&har without a minist&,and .didvarious thifigs-rcorganiziAg congregations, etc. After fivc ycars of that, , e I l',ecamr::rector of St. John's Church there in Colurnl>ia. I enjdy&d ten \-ears there. The). had a comparatively new stone chul-ch and were still in , del?t, a ~ i the d ve%trywanted-me to jump right in to raising money to pay the debt on the Church and on the pipe organ. I said, "Are the). pressing us for .* the debt?" /I .. " \Yell>not Esactly. There it is and we're paying interest on it." I said. ".4; I understood it, you called me here 2 your spiritual leader, %rid that's what I propose to t r i to be. If we take care of the spiritual life, t h e money p a 6 will take'care of itself.?' So \ve \vent ahe;iTiind 1,~Alrup.thework in theSuuday school and th-e congregation. I spent ten \rery pleasant yeays there. O n e think that I remem1,er with a gieat geal of pleasure was that ,. ~. I did 1 son16 planting around thc. churchyard. There were some great stohes that. . had bren left ,over iron; I,nildin,y t h e church and I managed, -with some--~.-_ help, to get them ,arranged in q circle serving as seats.;+nd . v e q - o f t e n we'd have our young ptioplc's meetings there in that circle. Iplanted^sorhe roses back of the seats ;\lid later, after I had left, they put up 21 parish house right , ,
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where thnt circle \ins. "Sornc of mf friends \vho,werc interested in flowers 'and s;rrdening rbscuei orie of the roses, took it ho~ne;and whcn they ha& a n *a . o$l:ort~rlity. thry x ; t v ~it to ni< 2und it's f e t of my J: pnrc.11.I p1:irrtcd inrother rose tlrerc next ~.uttini:sfroni i t ;u;d hiivr them XI-owirig thos? of us \v110 w&e 'ititcrested in flow& "
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I tht chtirc.11. ~: '.* - . a u r i n i j t ~ i r i i l that i ~ I w;is ,tl~cre,, I servsd also as I > U S ~ I I C Ganager ~S for our sui;irner coriference %rounds, Kanusa 1,ake outside of Headersonville. 1 had 11ad no r. r a i i i and the) 5i:ished out the dam to the-lake. We had to have that rebuilt.' .' I've kept in contact withniany of the 11oys and ~ i r l s .Sonie of the men have xone i n t o t h e niinistl-y; one or two have!)ecome-l~ishops. Itrenovatea . the life of the vouth of the Church in the Carolinas, especially. Soine caniefrom other states. \\'e \+-ould bpend surnniers there at ~ a n u g a ,except I would go hack '. d o x n to hold serviccs ;it St. Jnhg's Church. All that time 1 was homesick, for the riiountah~s;and the work'ir%thi$section here had gone doltqt:teiril,Ly. . .. . ILhewd-+hemm -tent Si. Agnes Cnurch m i-rankIin wasleaving, so I gotqin touch with th; Bishop and I came up to take charge bf the work. The first day of Nove~nber1940, a very significant day in'our church- c-alendar, -411-Sairiis Day, w:~s t h i day I -ret.urned to 1;r;~nklin a n d . Macon County, Korth Carolina. The work in this sectio"ka.d gone down, nlostly through neslect'in'our church and in some of the-others. We treat the countly work as a stepchild, do not support it, do not send good men, so so& of the churdhes that our first rninistry here in this area had established.had been ahandoned, some of em torn dorin. I wanted to hegin to get them on their feet so I could re; orestahlish new ones. Bishop G r i l ~ l ~ itold n 'me, when he a s k e d me to&nre; to take charge of tlie church ih Franklin, St. Agnes;"and . . . . the Church of thr Transfi,guration in Highlands, and temporarily hold servn dMurphys ices ol.er at illurphy. \\'ell, that's a stretch-froin ~ i ~ ~ l a to of about eishty miles. So I started in with that a n d t h e n -1'siw other needs. -'I'he man who was conducting service at the colored church, St. Cyprians, lil.ed in ~ < h s J i l l and e came over to Franklin once a rnonrh. I asked . them if thry ~~vouldn't like to havhservice every Sunday, and I gave them
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rioth her w a s , a contributor. hat was 'the ljeginl~ingof Reverend Deal's ! work. H e says in the preface of the Ijook, Parish R e g i s t e ~ ,that he went .Korrh to qet money to help 1,;ild the original St. ~ o h n ' s .He came in 18.77 and&&& the church allout I 8 j9.'7'he first wedding that was performed in the church was that of n'iy father, Alfyed hlorga~~~.a31d-my~notherj--F-a-t~fifiy
I~ornthe]-r in 1885. I was baptized in the church. .
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w e l l . ' ~ sfar as St. John's . was' to Cherokee ~ o u n t y I. remember th.at concerned, it \vent along fairly smoothly until that f i r s t ~ ~ h i n i s t e r , ' ~ ereal, $1. There is nci further record or services there, I,u,t the congresation 5vent down through neglect, mostly. I can't find,out just how,, . . long the ch~~rch'stood. After the ...: building, was torn down, the place was . r~eglectcd,and rffe people who had. l 6 w d ones"buried there-most cif . them-moved tHe grave$. Tka.e.were ,. :.. a,few left, tRdse ,..,' of Chuttahsotee and . his wZe, C:unstaiih, a ~ d m y n i h t h e ' c ~g sr w e and two infants'; and Mr. and . , T ~ r s . ~ ~ i ~ l & p i eand ~ %h1.r~. & ~ , Oliver, and j u s ~ o 4'or two others. People .~. he'thurch groundi~would:golhack'into wilderness ,and that ~
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k i n g in Sou$h carolin;, 5, heard that' the chuichauthorities :. were p l a n n i n ~t o , ~ e l the l Ian8 where the church had been. J wrofe to $hem . .: and asked them tb'ple,ise not sell it, but if they did, tb giveme the chance of i19e; when the. graves were- moved, some of dur:relatives :' . ~ t e dto mu\-c rnv mother's grave. and 'the two infants, and J.protested, so. idn'f. I started &henever:I could on vacations, l~efori:I mo UP - : 'd ur the underbrush and, dreaming of building a church hack. t Ihy r a k i n and scraping, getting'up whatrnateri~lsI could, I started the e held- our first servic;s there in 1 9 4 j . . . ' ~ had rqoved hack in 940. AGr have sontinued since with just a ,handful. Last Sunday, for instance, \ce:had x v e a in. the congregation. Sometinie'in the summertime, . entv-five or thirty. T h e church, with crowding in, will hold , al)oilt ion!--five people. I had tzo rerirr fi-om the orher churches officially w k n r b m < ~ e ~ ~ n t y - t w o , " l~ecgu:e that.:. our ase )&i~it"in the ~ ~ i s c o Church. ~al So thatas been my oni\ charse i i x e that , .~ t'rme-from seventy-two to eighty-trine. I. say my gnly ,charse 1)ecaurc ~he;&is another little chapel that we've finally bullt, nine miles I~eyondSr. John'<. in Rainbow Spring< I'd 1,een holding services in the remnant of an old schoolhouse, one r h m , anih then the people over there, the few of r h e m wanted a church. JVe bad no money for it until ' I 962. 1i.e gur topether enough stone and started building just a very small chape1;~rhich is an open akr chapel-ho walls to it-just a stone floor and stone altar;\vith I O C post5 ~ to hold u p the roof. The wall'around the floor is high enough to sit on. Durin :the summertime, we hold services up there, :. from May to Ocro1,er. ;?-hat costbnly a little over a thousa~iddollars-tb build, but I t o ~ kthar ou?of rhe offering., that St. ~ o h n ' shad given. In regard to money, St. John's is unique in the way of a church. JVe do not take up colleirion~~1.q they do in most churches, except when the BBhop is here. \:e always give to the Bishop; for his discretionary fund, the offerin~-.when,he is here; so in order to have i t , we pass the plate. Otherwise, we just put a,hnndmade pewter plate on the organ and those who know our .,
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PLATE 379 Vicu of St. john's^ 5 Church at CktoogechaYe from ; the -road.
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PLATE 383. T h e church bell is tiouscd in ;I urrique belfry at t h e rnd of thc walk leadins to the church.
PLATE 384 Dr. Morgan's gravesqone is already in place in the church cemetery. T h e hack side, in simple lcttcring, reads: "Alhert Rufus - hlorgan, 188iThanks be to G o d who gives us the victory:"
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~urtoiliand \cant rd put in somctliing put it in after the servicci. So theie's cr~ou,le f6r a k~ack~ro;t~d fun2 to h d p look after some1,ody wh: , . woul$volunt&r to db the same 'thing 1'i.e 'done just to s e g e in a voluntarj. capacity to hold~servicesu p t h e r e after I'm gone. W.ell, the principal of thnt fund, l ~ h ethe remet&\ fund, is not to he spent. Onl) the interest. And since it is for the continuance of the work after1 die;even tk~cintereqt,is not i u he sprrit llnii! I hXve to give-up. Kot long ago; a meniher.,of the church died who had heen'jery faithful. he and he? hushand had volunteered to clean the church evtry llftle while, o repair the cushions, do various lpbs that ther saw needed to be done, and her tape recorder to the church and then after a while, she brought, 8 recorded rhe sen-ices. .After her death, we received sev.era1 gifts from five to twenty-five dollars .in her meniorv for this' fund. I have a friend down in S o u t h Carolina icho, &hen she has a' friend b h o dies, instead of Sending flowers, tends a small check in memory of the friend for that fund. So it's sloi;l!- growing. If we get a gift not designated fcar anythink-special, we just :dd it to thesfund. I'he present church has heen usedabout the same length of time that the old church was used. In the record.for the ol&church, there were eight weddings recorded. Recently, I perfornledthe f~orty-firstwedding in the presen< church. , There are various things that are of interest tp me. . . One, is ,that a.fe\v . . . .'' :years ago, I~safiiedthat people in my fa&i&'wou!d wonder what k b d of marker t q p u t a t grave, so I decided to make that decision for them. I ,sot a.lovely stone 'hack in the mountains, got the monu.ment man to put the .]kttering on it and to erect the stone where I want to be buried. There &e some hoswoods on the church grounds, some of them were. z eiven by a couple for whom I performed a wedding tqrernony-one of the ,> oldest couples that I've served in tfiat way. The man was seventy-flve when 'he got married to his second wife. Others were given hy,a family for whom I performed thr marriage ceremony for their daughter. They do not belong to the Episcopal Church--orye is Presl~yteri;in,the other Roman C:atholiGb u t they wtrc doing some work around their'place and they h:id. sorne&,nglish !~osicood.s,and they asked me if we coiild use them at the c h h h and 7 d i i . Besides that; I had done various piantinks--hull,s, &aryllis, dog; 4
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w-oods that-.ion~rhc'dygave me, hydrangya:, and thendwhere I needed a ' l~rc;~&J,i!,.I hctige, I pl;ilrtrd one IittJc hed& of k h i t c pines and another o i ( : ; ~ i i ; r J i ; r i i hcn~l<;rLs. ?.lic~~I pl;uitcd sori~rrliodoclc~~drons ; I I ; ~v;trious other pl:ir~rs.\ \ c J c l t . q ~ ~ i;rt cI I I ~ I I I ~ CoI -i trccs ;I]-ound the (-hu~-c-h,+[icc.;~i~sc I doii't -. liLr ~ h I,.lrirn r ioo: of ;I Iiiilldozcd I;LWII. 'l'%;lt's OIIC tti,i,~ig that has attracted, -. . pcoplt, to drcicie th'rt theywant to lie I)uried there. . \\c tl-v to ~ a i i ~ i > tto e r people no matter what .church thcy I>clong to. \ire .; " , \'. i li:~vepeoplcl,uried here who arc Baptists, Roman C;~tholics,Presl~yterians, ; I Chrisfian Scientists, whatever, IIL. b i j o i r they dic, rc try tp n i t e r t o , . . 4.' them. too. \;oni&til?i&~ c chive sroups \ c h i come in rheie wlio are on a r e - ' ;, ,, .. .. tre;it asLi~iy1 1 1 pcrnlksiow ~ lor i~lcditations.and sonictimes they request that 1 - ': I givr rhzni ;~-lic'Isc o m m u ~ i b neenc-ar~-):i~i~ on these last few years. I haven't n l e ~ ~ t i o n eadcouple of things that gratified me. O n e is that several :ears 2gdl,mavbe twenty-five .. ?carp a ~ o I, was chosen as the rural p a t o r of the year for ihe,state df ~ o r t hi i k o i i ~ l a .This w a s not denominational hut our of the whole I>ul~ch. . , and that pleaqed me. ' , -And aftel-l'd I~eenout of the seminary for thirty ,eats; th:~eneral Theological Seminar).; from which I graduated, awarded m e the honorary dkgree of Doittor of Sacred Theology, a n d that's the reason that a good many d people rali me ..,Doctor." ,. * Rut nian! of those who knew me hefore I received the doctor's degree ~. j i l u r call me l l r . Slorg;;n. Sbme of then1 have'the hahit df calling me uncle Rufu~?.or if they are approkchilig my w e , of course they call m e R u f u s , so I = come to ;in! of the (;t1(s. S o n ~ epeople (.;il! mc other thing.< that I d o not like so \rrll. Sonic < ; t i 1 nle Preacher MorXan, and that scerns to indicate that a nii~iistesdocunt d o anything I ~ u tget u p and preach once a week. 1 think a ~
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c;tlisr I li\-ed,tio\vn there for ;I few y a k ;~fter 1 c;lme I m k . I went &t with .. . tIiem,ii lot caliiping arid studFng Mild-life ;\lid sbforth.. I \*;IS electcd district ch;iirm;~rifor thr Ro).Scouts in this district, and tlicn I!rca~pe a iiienihc!- of t h e 'I);tnicl Bootie (:ouncil, ;li~dlater-I was :llso ' o n tlir. b f i ~ r dof thc N;tnt;~h;il;~(:outtcil of thc C:.irl. 'Scol~ts".They Irrtcr nies,<ed with thr Pisgah Council, which-now include8 this territory. I\'? hiked the ~i>ountains-the Boy Scouts and I. I used to get them to help nit. with the Xppalacfiian Trail maintenance that goa:.the length of *.= tl?i. \ . ' a i ~ i a h , ~ l n ~ .
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Di. ;lfo~,:ori 110~also been all q r t i i , e ' r n ~ n l b e ro/ t h e ilp$nlachian T r a i l C o ' ? ~ j p i ~ r/ iofr~ rnnny hnb.hiked paris of t h e jppalnchian. T r a i l in., \ .f : l I.erniorif,! f ..i ~ , ~ Teiznessee. He's l ~ j k e dpractically "riia,i .%and ~ r:ll~',r~/ if in .\.orfh (;nrolina d n d d o y n to t h e end of t h e T r a i l i n Georgia. fie 9
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ir itil! on u i i d hiker, in spice .:of z.er$poor cision.' 1. ! - 'The fit->: m~etirrgthat I attended of the Appalathian Trail Conference, \\-;is ;I! ~ o n t a r ; aDarn; North c a r l ~ n n 4 . t i h a t meeting, a change was decidcd 11pdr~ ~. li-hirh displeaa$dme tJ errand has ever since. I've been over the ' ,.yectiori of thr Trail thraugh theSpioky ~ o u n t a i n sNational Park and loved: --,-: ~ , it :-el.\ much. . i t t h a t tiin6,'tjhe-Tr6/1 extended from the northeastern end of the park to the soutffern e h d , g ~ i n g over Gregory Bald and Parsons Bald - . down to iheFhighway leading to!Maryville, Tenness,ee. Fontana J7illage, a resort village, \\.asoff the Trail: Probably under the influence of the place of . out- ;neering, - " a motibn was'made that the sok~thernend of the Trail thro the park be'changed, and cqme,down a s i d e ridge of the Smokies whic -. called ~ k u c k s t a c ion , across the Eontaka Dam, and thencome into the T as it then wasi on Yellow Creek. Well, to me, Gregory-Bald a n d Paisons Bald are t w u of the most Ijeabtiful sections of the Trail. I'd been over them arid rerneint~erexpecially'one.trip~whena Xroup of us camped at a spring on having no tent ~ L $ Tjust sleeping.out. U'e built up the side of Gre@ry ' -.a fire near the spring, and a l ~ o u ten t o'clock rain came. UTell,we got up and ..., chunked ;lp the fire.3ri.d.t.
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to ol.iec;..~ gut? I \\-as the only native nountziineer in the gro@ Anyway, Ithz~t'sthc onl) sectio11of Trail; that. neiv route, in the souihe;ist - dowrl into C;eor~i;i.th;lt I've never been over, and I doubt if I ever will. (;oilr~ziio11~thr ,\ppai:~chi;ln Trail, you gct all of the l~cziuticsthat youcould ; ~ s kfor in the ivay of majestic trees, wild Rowers of various kinds a t diffel-ent tinre. bf the.year. Going north fro171 the southern end between Silel- Bald and C:lingnians Dome, the highest peak i n t h e Smokies, you come across M.ood lilies, p u ~ p l s - f ~ i n g orchids, id and all sorts of other wild flower6:, Going on fkoni ~ l i n g l ~ l a nDonle s to ~ e w f o u n d-Gap, I re,nrember one mcrnor.;t\,l~ rrip under the leadership of Arthur Stppka, who was formerly the tiatul-aliqt in the park. i4ll along the wayfrom Indian Gap to Newfound i?;ip, dui-ins chat rate ..\pril day, we came across carpets of spring beautytrout lily. trii1i;ltri: and other wild flowers. Then going on no~.thfrom there, < you strike othrr areas just as 1)eautfful-witches hobble - barely coming o u t . ;it tll;tt timr of yrar coming into full bloom later, thenchanging later still to ,, ' the foliage that turris sometinles a . yellow, sometimes t)rojlze, 'like others of the vi1,urnum family. Then, of couise, at different times 8 the e .a. r you run across rrees in l~loom-sarvis trees, as wecall them,' or service as they are . bthErGse called; silverhell; and later m u n t a i n ash; Then, in their turn, the shruhs, like the red elderherq with i t s beautiful white blooms'in the spring +and t h i n later on their brilliant fed berries. Then tlje various rnenl1,ers ui- , - the'hcarh family? ilkS the azaleas and, rhododendron,-'sand myrtle, and such a'sreiit variety of thP5yild flowers. If yougo north on the &pilachi& .I'rail for two and a half miles, there' is a trail called the Boulevar?l Traif, that'turns left a n d follows a spur ridge itltd Trntlcscc. wt!ich leads out t o . ~ t LeConte . which is the third highest mountain in the Smokies. T h a t is one of my favorite mountain climbs. I t is 6,593 feet. It has many advantages-wonderful lookout to the west to . ?h the s u n k , artd theil in the morning the beautiful ,coloring before suni --and then the sunrise itself at Myrtle Point,. so-called because the sand \ I: yrtle g r o w beautifully up there. And then there is a.lodge on top of ., '!, Gorite.arld a shelter for hikers. There used to be a campground, but t$ canilfers 1cft.so much litter thaffinally 'the Park Service forbid camping,.but \ 'if you pet ;;head of the, other fellow, you can make resq%atioqvand g e t a permit to camp in the shelter. . . . Q . ~ Another advantize o i \ ~ t~. e ~ d isnthag g it is aicessihl-e only by trails. no road up there. I like that 11ecaus.e. a n automobile ida&stroys, the spirit - of the mountain$. O n e of the trails, l b i n b o w ~ a l l ~ ~ ; a isi l the , one that the pack hokes come up to hiing pmGisions for the lodge. You have comforta l ~ l eaccommodatio&'up shere ;
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385 Rufus Morgan on up Mt. 1,kCoote
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harm !-ou;although sometimes . ~ - they rather resent in terference, hut as a rule they're just looking for something to eat. That's not a very serious thing unl e h they get at your ,supply that ?&'G& depenaing on for the next day or a
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A s you look out to*ard the sunrise, you're looking towar8 the main iidge 4 of the Smokies,*and the sun rises sornetirues to the right;sometimes to the ? left of a mountain which is the second highest-in the Smokies, Mount = . Guyot. It's a pyramid sort of peak and you a l w q s look Grit. T h e Appala- . ~.. c h i a n c ~ r a idoesn't l actually go up to the top of ~ t .Guyot, ' but cirClm around to the left as you go north. You can break through the;,fallen timber . " and seedfirfg firs or balsam and get up there to the top, but yoA-don't get a ver)- good viewbecause of the seedling halsams, but it's nice % co get up on top. l are very lovely. You go farther northP There are sections of the T r a ~ that out of the park and find Roan Mountain. Many years ago, there was a .
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hotel right up on top, I n t i t burned "down or was torn down. I've been u p there when that way the only siglC.of h;ivitlg hcen trodden upon that was th;fc: 'l'here had Ilecn ;I fu&ace room under. the old hotel, and I've slept i ~ t j& ~ d c p r e s i u whel-e n the fusrrace I:oom w;~s,and let the wind blow over me. On one trip 1 canie across a nlari who lived not too far awa); and he told nie al3out h h father telling him that-he had been up there ..m . m y tiines when the mountain graG, was Iuxuriant,and he could see- the deer, especiallywith their antlers, going thiough the g r a s , and you cou@ jhst sce the - movement of their bodies. 1 was interested i n the southern! approach to Roan Mountain one time, and saw that's the only place in North ad scen it u p in the alfce up there. rid 1,rechuts in Sorth L:arolina, but theyvery seldom mature. They don't . ,e an,y nut inside, Gut u p r h s r c i n Xirgkia, they bere veryabundant. r ipi%e.of the meeting of the Appalachian TFail C61ifeFince. Mre meet three years. I t is a ~ond;rful felldwship and the group is'madeiup of--' sentatives of the,-hiking clubs thqt m6ihtain the Appalachian Trail 6% prn hlaine to Georgia-two thousand miles. They m e e a t barinus p.oints from north td south. T h e last meeting, 1 9 7 2 , ?.as u p in New Hampshire. I %ventup to tdat, did a little hiking on the Trail u p there. A f e y years before, ,;* in \'ermont and I attegded -lvania and before that in th6S'irginia mountain; and then- one in Cashierk in our adjoining county, T h e next meeting is to he in 1975 in Boone, Korth C:arolina, inZht V'atauga section. I hope to get to that. [He, in fact, did make the me'eting.] At several of' these meetinas, they allow me to conduct the sunrise service which is.a priv:, ilege I appreciate very much. Boone, \,.here this next meeting is to 11e held, 8 near the crest'of the Blue Ridge Mountains and hikes along there, especially Grandfather tell us, the oldest mountain mass in the w o r l d . ? ~ h ernountains thrbugh there, have been told, were at one time higher than the .Himalayas are now . . . perhaps ,3g,ooo feet, whirh is quite impressive. randf father Mountain was my pet mountain to climb he&re I ledrned about LeConte. On the Monday after 1 ' the meeting of t b A. TJ, Conference, I have a date with one person to go up Grandfather Mountain, and 'since.the)- "civilized" 'that one end of the I :' mountain, I go up the other end. 111 a way, I like that even better. There's thc (:allows)- Trail, not used rnuc:h now, riear the beginning of an old trail, L~ Linville FaMs, and thih is where we'll go in. It gocs up to the Calloway Peak, ,' whirh is consideral~lyhigher than t'he one they've niessed up. T h e balsams . / and the mountain ash grow up t h e r ~'l'hc . I)a!sams, 11y the way, grow as far ',
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ways he-just as interested in the conference a n d the Trail. It's difficult to keep the. Appalachian rail as a wilderness foot trail be-
intcrfcrc with thc Trail. And then there are always people who want to hring
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ginia, which is right on the,Trail, and which is much more satisfactory than ter atmosphere for the meetings.
to my grandparents' home when I was iwelve or fifteen years old, sonic-
father, \Villian~ Siler. H e ranged cattle back in there and was one of the prominent citizens of the area. T h a t was prohal~lythe reason i t was named
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hookshe1~-essometime, you'll see that I have several wild-flbwe~:book and some on trees. There are sb man); things that you can pi& u p 'if you just keep your eyes open. I've also hadethe good fortune t o know people who, were botanists, or knew quite a lot-about it. I- knew MI!. Arthur Stupka'for ~. ~!ears, a naturalist for the Smoky Mountain National Park, and I shared . ~vithhim some programs at the PenIand School. Then I used ti, attend'
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burg the last week in ,Ap?il. Members of the botany faculty at the Universit); of Tennessee in Knosviile used to lead some of those hikes, and so' I knew them, gotz; little information from them. And if you once become &it-
turned to recent highway deoelopment that' has taken place right :at his property line. A super-highmay has been built i n his front yard. The building of this new four-lane highway has distressed me. And all that goes with it. I've sometime said that 1 wish a bulldozer had never been in~ented.I c& sa)- that with a good deal of conviction. There is much in our present world that distresses me, because it seems to me that the empha-
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come in, by the tourist trade that wants the most direct route to get 'in, the
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the three states, Georgia, North Carolilla, and South Carolina. It includes much of hlacon County, and you know what that would mean, of course. C:omniercial interests would come in to cater to the tourists, and just spoil the whole area. I've nel-er been e~la~noured very much by the tourist idea. For instance, when I was connected with our church camp and conferences over near Hendersonville, every little while s.omel)ody~wouldwant to organize a group lo go to ,the Va~lderliltestates ( i n ilsheville). I'm sure they're very heautiful, hut they're manmade, and I'd much prefer going hack into pisgah Forest, which Vanderbilt also owned and turned over to the go&n&ent, so I've never been to the Vanderhilt estates.
let us realize that it's given to us to supply our nee(1.r: I quoted St.>Paul, "Let hiin that stole, stelil no more, but rather let him labor, working with his haqds that'he may have to give to him that needeth." And then Christ, "Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; or yettfor your body, what ye shall put on."
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- . $, , rindthat, to ni!. way of thinking, is exactly contrary to wRat we %re act& ally cligaged'in nor\. \Ye are heginning to discover that that can't satisfy our needs. The fact that so niiny people are held'for ransom is a n indication-that the pepple who are trying to get it fram'the millionaires, realizethat :he millionaires shouldn't have it. :Ind the .hijackings are ,in the same "category, as is thwscandal in our government. It's all the resul$ , . of t us not lo'do. man's being,cornpletely occupied ig the thingthat ~ h f i s told Of couqe, it leads to the downgradink. in our estimation of God's creation. I n Imilding our roads, we are influenced by politicians, by big business, by people who make the mod& machinery to graae the roais. They grade the roads in ordci that man niigfit have higher speed: We come up against the situation that lve have, for we've just been overreaching ourselves, cheating oursel\.es, by going too fast, too far. T h a t sortof thing is distressing. Sometime Imck I lvent in to see a lawyer th. get a deed made, giving to nly daughter and her husba~ldtheir part of my property. I have very, very little. I \,ought some of it for a from' Ylorida son1 e
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Well, I think I could get twenty-five th'qusand for it for you." I said, "So, it's not for sale." Il'cll, of course, it's for sharing.. My dauglXer a n d her husband-he's retiring-are moving.11ack here and I'm giving that part of it to them. I love 'm y place, and I've planted most bf the trees a n 4 the shrubs and other . . plants on it. I'\,e loved eaEh 51ie"of them, and that's what-it means to meit's God creation. IVe go roughshod Over the whole thing. T h e busines$Feo.. G ple and thnse who live on 1)usiness are against theaidea of saving those things \ , . . , ,. or establ~sh~ng.\+ilderness areas. T h e Franklin Press, our local newspaper, fights against the idea QJ ~wilderiiessareas, which might be kepi f.&;our:de%endantsin all their primitive. heauty and grandeur, because i t will take a few dollars of o u ~lax . nloney which comes back to the county when we cut down the trees in the national forests. It's that sort of thing, you see-we'rq just in it for the dbllar, for the accumu1a;ion to ourselves, regardless of the destruction that we're bringing on our world. ~ h .hope 1 we'll wake up in tinie. I h the rnrantime, I walk alon -* trails i n the'Smoky ~ o u n t & nKational P a r k a n d niy companion stops ,hc says, "List;en to the silence." -,\\'e . ha? left the.bulldozers, speeding . y . here. il'e go up therr. where there's peace. otlier m i c h i ~ ~ c ~dolvn W h a t hrought me 1)ack to these mountains was my heart. My'mother l o ~ e dthem inten\cl~,d s had rn) grandparents and great-grandparents. I t
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was just inbred. I ' i e loved this place a?l my life. hrhen we used to come 1 the county line is back a n d forth fl-orn Cherokee Codnty, over here ~narked (hefween >Lason' and Chdrokee counties) way we'd . get down and kiss the earth, l)eiause we loved it so. wouih get down and kiss Macon County gocid;l~y. - JVhcn I was fifteen yea;s old, I c a ~ m - ~ the ~ ~ mountains ~ss for a wedding in the Samily. \Vhen I went hack home, I took hack with me threeseedlings of the Canadian hemlock; and planted them'out over there. One of then1 is still living atmthe old homeplace. The cahin that my daughter and her husband are fixing up is the krst honie that I can remember. hly people moved i n ~ oit when I was threc >-earsold, as I've told you. When I was a child, we used to play on the I?ig rocks that are still in the hackyard. We'd rake up leaves and play various hem. -4 group of us would,l,ury some of the rest of us u n d ~ rthe t h e n when they were ready, we would say, "Rise, Jupiter, snuff the moon?' And those under the leaves would get u p and scatter the leaves' everywhere. Oh, there are so man; memories! Climbing tfie chinquapin aren't any such now, but there was one hack here on the knoll - . - re w a s another one over at t h ~ m t j W e t i % r witsed e teelimb a n d . ,~1hinqha$ins down. It's just"al1 in my I)lood. I've watched my here in ths room with his post office there in the. corner, , , at- , r e n d i r i ~to the mail, ,and I've love#those white oaks out in the yard- three^ lovely ones. .And the hemlocks!, . ~Tl'ell, to me it's just too beautiful for words. Thcy havc succeeded iq ie of it, like tiuilding the roads, but they c-an't take away the 43 . . mountains as &ey:stretch along here. I can't express it, hut somebody will have to prove to me that it isn't as lor.ely as I think it is I~eforeI will 1 3 1 convinced. These last years, since ig40 to 1975, have l ~ e e nparticularlyhappy, both within the church and in my relationships w'th other people in activities that I'x-e heen able to carry on-climbing m u n t a.l n.~ ,studying ~ God's hand all been very in His creation, and the increasing number ,of friends-it's ,
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-4 little question in our prayer book, fn the section called "Offices of I n struction" is: "What is your hounden duty as a member of the church?" worship ~ 6 d . ansu-ckis~:X y J & d q ; i s . m ' b t 1 0 w Christ, every Sunday in His church, to work, to pray and to give for the sprkad d His kiqdom." ~ ~ t d - ~ ~ + ~ ~ e & : ~ ~ ~ ~ r ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ h nothing finer than tbat which is called the'Pra)rsrof St. Francis of Assisi: "Oh, Lord; our Christ, may we haye thy mind and thy spirit, make us instruments of thy peace. Where there is hatred, let us sowlove; where
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ince publication of T h e ,Foxfire Book, Fosfire 2, and Foxfire 3,. . ~, . we've k o m e across additionaI innferial-or hail n e w experiences-that relates to subjects covered in those .i!dumes. 171 some cases, information was sent to U S b y readerswho, by virtue o j their ba&,ground or research, had accurate knowledge of c'ustorns or b e i i j s cgmrnon i n our part o f the mountains, a n d their expertise was wel.. ..~ .corned. -
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S.4SSAFRAS TEA An unespected visit paid to pearl Martin might .find her i n the woods .behind her house digging roots for tea-most likely sassafras roots. Sassafras is a wild plant that grows in. the 4ppalachians. Left alone, this plant grows into a medium-sized tree with an irregula1.1~ shaped irunk. The splc!-, distinct flavor of sassaf?iSXal;eatheea-la p ~ p x l a r b e m g q s m + x hot or cold. I t is also used frequently in the Appaladlians as a'diaphoretic and diuretic medicine. Pearl makes sassafras tea, and she also uses the tea to make jelly. Mint and spicewood teas, although not Pearl's specialties, are also made in her , ,woods. home from mint leaves and spicewood stems she gathers ~ I I the Pearl has a fieldhehind her house which she keeps bogged down (cleared of ! brush) to allow her sassafras to grow freely. When the saswfras reaches i ih freight, she digs itf o r tea. ) a PearFtold us that she could gatl<erthe soots ar y rimc of the-year without affecting the tast?of the tea. However, the ~.ootsshould he gathered young, so thev will he tender. '
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390 She hrings thr roots to a boil in watrr. T h e lbnger they bre boiled, the stronger the tea. T o make a gallqri o t tea, shc boils Lour a v e w e sized roqts in a gallon of water for fifteen to txenty m i n u t r . She then strains it, and serves it either hot & iced, stveetened with either ~sug* or hone>T-~~-
PL.\TE 389 Kext she scraprs off the outer layer of bark and discards it.-Either the roots or the /;ark can he used in making the tea; hut Pearl prefers the roots. They can be used dried or green.
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Pearlis r'ecipe for sassafras T o make the jelly, mix one, 1a .~ . g. saucepan. e Bring quickly to a hard boil, stirring4ccasionally. Now add
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Bzt ~ a ~ i innd i r Annette ,Cutherlanil. Photo,omphs by Russell Arthur.
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Sc\.eml, \reeks a f t e r ~ ~ c~. .ki, r y e showed r us how to build a'still f u ~ n a c e . . . .. . .... C / (,see "5uilding a Still Furnace;'),$hecame by and asked if we had .notic& . the ginseng plant down by the, Still. W e said we hadn't. So Buck said, "Let's ooc at ii." ice-all webt down'to the still. Bnck wouldn't showthe pla'nt to US: he wanted us to spot it our: leu w r couldn't find .it, he pointed tbward it and smiled as we all.' edit: HC-said.he'thought we ought to hove it tdanother place, "To , e m being tramped d o h . People will always be in here looking this 11 over, axid ever so many of them won't-know whal sa11g is and will step ,
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Buck ~ v i t hanother plant he foUnd nearby. H e said, "I have dug them Tvith ju5t over. < h u n d r e d herries on them. [ T h e hall o j berries then] is higger than a golf hail. They're a prctty thing t o look at, too. It's ;I henutiful thing."
-PLATE 392
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I. o f i t . :\lid then ;I f c ~ vof thcni will know what it is, and they rrilght stick it in thcis pockct'irlri. take it off." .'Ruck ibiti us to pick the 1,;rsies oiT the p l j ~ n t , . a ~ Ii dstuck therh iii one of i ~ i ?top shil-t"poc!icrs: then lie dug tlic plant up atid took off the fat roots, \vliicli I , p i ~ in t m); othc'r shirt pocket. Then he gave us each a few leaves and sent 11s cut into the woods to see if MY find a n y m o r e plants. We fou,n< four or five plants that day and dug therri up. Buck told,us to repla e\-e en that stup. There's peopfe that \rill steal that stuff that . . ~ 'Otv ot% u l t steal h e a d to eat. That's 'caase it's, so e x p e n s i ~ e . ' ~ 4 ntdh e big reason it's so expensive ik that it's so scarce." H : sli&\i:cd 11s how to plant 130th the roots and the l~erries,setting them \ out just i~riderthe ground a i d raking 1eal.e~lpack over them. And while we.," vese plant in^ ihem, he told us what the rooti were good for:. 'Kcxv I'll tell yousomething'that stuff will do. o n e morning about thirty ars ago Ive li\.cd ox-er $ere at Brian ~elly', and I took a. notion to go up : :cr in Joe, Cove sang hunting. I said [to mb wif,?], 'I-Iave you got anything eft from breakfast t h i t I could takk for lundh?' "She said, 'I got a-few Inked sweet potaotes and a few rashers of h e a t and 'sonic biscuit5.l A "I .said, 'That.s apienty. T& ,them,together.' "So she split some of the biscuits, a n d put some meat between rhem and throwed in t ~ v oor three h k e d sweet i;otatoes. And 'my ulcer was giving me a fit at that time; and. sweet potatoes woufd set it afire. Well, I never thought, yo11 know. ' - "\Veil, I went on o v a these in that cove and dug a pretty good bunch of - sang. Come di'rinertime and I s a t down and eat. Well, when I ate them sweet potatoes, just in a few minutes I was a'burning. O h brother, how sick I was. I throwed u p my ~ o c l ~I sthink. Down on my hands and knees a'gaggin- and retching and tr).ing to vomit and: 'sometimes I could and some-
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helow me in a field cutting some tops, and tell.)-ou the truth, a time or two' I thought I would die. I was so sick I come in a little of hollering for Pappy to cdme up there a n d h e l p me get out of them ~voods.I was afraid to start out of there hy myself. I was so sick I cou!dn'tsee tiothing, and it was just as full of rattlesnakes and.copperheads ;IF it could l ~ c in that cou~~'tr)-. "I t h o u ~ h t ,e l Lordamercy, Pappy's working atid I don't want to lrothcr him.. I'd cra\vl out to the branch and drink water every few minutes
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i I'd just throw it up, and and here it would come just as s4on as it got the burning in that stoma+, oh Poy, was just likea hall of fire in there. I "Afrer :i \.r!lile, I got to, stud in& '\Yell, rnayl~eif I wash a root of this ., s x l g and chelv it, it can't mak it no wol-se and it might help me a little.' . And I crnwled out t h e to the branch and washed a root o f t h a t stuff- good and clean. took my knife and cut me off some little hites,apd put them'in m y ~noilthand chewed it and swallow%dthat juice and spit the purnn;ies o u t . T h e pudmies wouldn't have hurt m e a hit.to have swallowed them; they probably ~vouldhave helped me, but I didn't w+nt to swallow t h e h so , I just spit them. And you know it wasn't no time till I didn't hd\k no pain , ., in . my stomach or nothing. ".L\nd I got up from there and I went on xnd.sang hunte.d until durn ' near night. .And that's how good that was on that. It's the only thing I took, . and it'; all 1 had to take. Boys, I was rniserhle, I ' m telling yoi.~.I thought niy time had come there. ".And then you can ch.op it 'up right fine, br let it get good a n d dxy and put ii on a food chopper or 8 s2usage mill and grind it up and. drop it into a . Imttle of %,hikey.-4nd you d0ri't takt: a I,ath in it! You just ;our jou out a little of it if you takediarrhea or dysentery, and I mean you can have it 11ad.Pour you out a little of it in a teacup and'strike a match to it and set it afire. It'll catch afire and burn. Burn it until tha; cup will be so d a ~ l ghot you can't hold it to your lips.~You'llhaveto pour it over intb another cup th+t ain't had the fiie in it. Drink it. while it's ,good and hot. It's a hitter dose-I don't mean mayhe. And you. don't have towdrinkmuch of it. Two ') or three swallows. T u r n it u p and drink it, and if that don't stop that diarrhea youi,etter get to a d r u g t o r e or t o a doctor's ofice and don't lose no time getting there. . .'.lnd another thing-Id-timers used to go a'courtir~g,a n d they were nearl?: always ashamed to eat dinner with their girls'and so forth, you know. qef empt? '121iey'd~~ ' .And their intestines wolild get to growling h k a u s i thev'd , alwavs carrv a little piece of san3 in their pocket and chew them a little piece of that sang a n d they'd stop that. Theyj called it guts growling. An'd
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said he guessedhe'd eat a p o u n d of it t o keep them from g-owling . in-front of his girl." Buck tolcl us to get some water in \\.hen we had them all huckets from \Tig's,house. When we brought it, he poured it ge~ltlyover the loose soil to help settle the dirt and give the roots a good stal t. TOM POWERS
drtzcle by T o m . P o m ~ ~Jse,f f flay, M'c.ndy Guyaus, and Lynn Butler. <
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the plocess of canning took awa) the "flesh apple" taste of the cider. She prefers freezing her cider in plastic containers.
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Aunt Xrie told us how the old people used to make their cider wit&& a cider pr-ess. .5 wooden tl-ough with holes drilled .ill thebattom,. was filled with ipplcs. ;\,'maul was then used to nlnsh or crush tRe apples. Then a plank wac pressed down on top of the apples to squeeze the juice out. The cider tvas then stored in wooden b&i.els, sbme in the Springhouse for drinking, and some to beused for vinegar after aging. SO& of the class was curious abqut the difference between the taste of >apple cider-which .. we made-and apple juice. According to some of the ladies in the conimunity, apple juice is made by slici*g thg apples and boil: ing them in a small akount of watei. Then the liquid is poured ~ ~ this f f and either canned or frozen. Apple cider is the juice extracted' from the crushed apples, as we ha\;e explaiqed above. " v ' :
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PLATE 394 Tom Carlton and .Bit Carver feed whole apples into the hopper., .. .
395 T h e wooden disc . placed over the pulp in the slatted t$ and the tub' is positioned ugder the *\ screw.
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R1,EACHING APPLES jl'e'have mentio~ledI~leachingapples as a means of preservation (?',he Foufire Book, pages I 8 1-82 )$tit had nevep h a d the frrocess demonstrated to us. Recently we heard
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399 :\line-Richards and E,dith!Parker beg'in by peeling, coring, artd ,quartering the apples. T h e Parkers prefer Ben Davis apples as they are drier,,stay firmer, and thus preserve hetter. They are unblemished apples that are not fully ripe, and they do not xvash the peeled apples befdre bleaching:, this wi1l.make them soft, and they^ won't last as long. a , .
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PLATE 400 ~ ' h i l ethe apples are being peeled, M r . Parkrr has built a small fire in the yard. When the first batch of apples is ready to he bleached, he and his wife put some hot coals from t h e fire into a shailo\r dish. J
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PLATE 401 T h e apples are pushed u p to t h e put &to a box sides, leaving a depression into which . powdered the dish of coals is s ~ t Then sulfur is sprinkled over tfib;coals. T h e r e is a short hurst o f hlrlc flame when the sulfiir hits t h e coals, hut thc apples don't 'scorch as it d o ~ snot last long enough. ?'he lid of the h o x i s thcn shut, and t h e ~ v h o l ehox is cornplatrly cov; ered with a heavy towel to hccp air from escaping.
,PLATE -102 T h e apples are smoked until. they b c ~ o n i e white (about thirty-forty-five minutes). After abont t\re.nty minutes, Edith lifts the lirlcto s e e , IIOIV thi~igs'are going. It the smoke has, thinned out, she adds niorc sulfur. s 1 n . i n 6 s o i ~ i e ~ v ~ cluri~ig ~at apples .. process., \ ~\ s l ~ the!; 6 are c\mpletely bleached\ t k apples are remob d from the box' 6ut into a crock churn, covered with clean cloth, a n d kept there until used.R e - s l i h r h e i ' b kee6 insects away f;bm thern. . . , :
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I n cooking the bleached apples, use as little water a s possiljle. Water brings back the taste of 'sulfur, which is not noticeal~le at all wheh the ',- apples tire eaten:The Parkers enjoy apple pies made with l~leachedapplGs because th\ey, seLeral cups taste so much lik~~~$resh apples. Mrs. Parker's recipe is to of bleached apple pieces in a n uncooked pie crust and add hutter; sugar, . and cinnamon to taste..The pie can be covered with pasts.>.s, t r'p~s or a second crust if preferred. Bake in a preheated oven at 35a0 for 30-js'minuta .. ,. or until the crust is a golden brown. ' . ~
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Photographs by Rusty Leggett.
A L I ~ ERICHARDSO
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' . Six of us went to Blanche Harkins' house the other day to'watch her make fried-apple pies the way her mother did when Blanche was young. I : 'I'o make the apple pies she uses either dried red or yellow apples. She re- II , .' - ally prefessg\ellow apples as she feels they make tastier pies. ' T o dry the apples, h.Irs. ~ j r k i n sfirst peels and c6r&them, then/cuts them into thin slices, soaks them in salt water, drains them, andlaysithem I ' - .out in a single layer on eitiier a flat board or in a pan o'n a white cloth. She I! puts thert: cltfside for several days in the sunshine' to dry, and they shrink to I
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FRIED-APPLE PIES
to dry the\ apples, Blanche first peels, cores, and slices them.
PLATE 403;. IrI order
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PLATE 404 T h e cooked abples are spread onto half the circle of dough, and the other half is turned over them to enclose them in a half-moon shaped envelope of dough. Then thc pies a r e fried. ,
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about half;h?ir original size. When completely dried, she stores them in ./" sacks in dr)- place until she:s.eady to cook with them. 'To prepax-e fried, pi$,- sxe'adds a small amount @ water to the dried s,'coaks them until they are tender, and then mashes them up with a ow11 . She says, "Add enough sugar a n d cinnamon or allspice for For four small piGor tarts, use one quart of dried apples." Mrs. Harkins' measurements for the pie,.crusts are approximately '4 cups self-risinq flour, $ cup Crisco, and I cup water. 'She makes the crust L&g..z~_ '~ regular pie crust. She divides the dough into balls about the size of h2i'fist for each pie,. rolls the dough out -into a very thin circle; then places the . i Cooked apples on one half of the circle. She then folds the ;rust over the apples and presses the edges together wtih either hGr fingers or a fork. She makes tiny holes or slits in the pies-either with 'a fork or knife-to let the air out as the pies cook and to prevent the edges from turning up. She put. enough Crisco into a large iron frying pan to almost cover the piesas they c o d . They can be baked instead, i f preferred. T o .make the ,' crust c r i ~ pshe , spreads <ed butter on the pies before she putsthem in the .. oven. L ' . . ~ .
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i R T I C L E BY B E T S Y MOORE, C H E R Y L S T O C K Y , AND S U E VAN P E T T E N .
Photographs b y D a l e Fergusqn, R i d g il.IacAi-thur, Robbie M o o r e , a~iid Randall H a r d y .
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\Yhcn I first staried this article, I had no idea what I was docu.m&n\ing. for a:square heam as i no , . . opposed to a round log. I soon found out. Beams are used for everything from mantels tp-gooring supports, benches to stairs. Besides these, there, are hundreds of othcr uses, most of 'which ).bu wouldn't think of until the need arose. 'l'he particular heam we documented was used with its duplicate i tofor111 the sides for a staircase: : The inaii who showed us how to hew was,h,iilrard Buchanan. Millqrd -~ .App:&& * k f s.t i ; . m ~ w o r f i e d ~his s and can do everything for a trafitting the last stone of the chini. . -~
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entire hewing operations ( T h e Fovfirr Rook, page 41 1 : a douhle-bladed axe and an adze. I t took LiIillard ahout fifr!. ~ i ~ i n u t etos hew this log, but it would take a novice an$where from t ~ hours o to two days; dependirt(g upon his skill. W h e n the hewing was finished, it was very smooth, except for dccasional places where the adze bit too deep. " P L A T E 406 Millard first splits the poplar lo^ in half and h e w the inside smooth.
P L A T E 407 T h e n he turns, the log f l a t side down, and, straddling it, begins to srnpoth ~ h ?rounded. side with powerful strokes..;.He works forward,,t a k i n ~out large chunks in 4" bites and leaving a trail of. chips behindhi&.
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FOXFIRE 4
I .'.*,, T h e . a d z e \ ~ a estre~nely < sharp. Millard proved this to us'by shavingahoyt an irlch of..hir~off-hs.am. He- said hc had to sharpen it before each',log or "it wouldn't .ivo~-!iproperly. Even with sharp tools, it is still hard work. The easiest wood for hewing, he said, waswhite pine, and the hardest, oak 013 hickory. This bean1 was made of poplar, which he said was about as easy as pine: a ' The photographs show Millard at work on one of the beams. $
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P I N G CRAWFORD
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PLAT'E 408 Now, working back~var$, Sometimes stinding beside the log and sometimes. straddliqk it, he goes over the rough-hewn side once again witK sqaller strokes to take off another z".. (thus grtting the beam down to the thickness he wants), and smooth the side.^ \
E 409 From thk, center of 'the fog, he measures off the width be wants the to be, flips two chalk lines as guides, raises the log onto sau~horses,and slice.< off ec iviih an axe. H e first scores the sides, then goes back pnd hews to the line.
THE SADDLE LOCK NOTCH
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PLATE 412 T h e top of the plate sliorvs the notches with the pegs used to hold thd.'rafters still in place. After this article appeared i n Fosfir'e rhpgazine,' o n e of. our readers,. ~ohn',Kline from Reamstown, Pennsylvania, wrote a n d told u q "This n o t c h i s L m ~.-";on i r l ~ o l dbuildillgs in my area. Ii was used not only in -?log buildings hut alnlost all types o f - ~ t r ~ c + ~ s b t t i l + b e f o f t t 8 6 0 ~r . ~I-bey lieve this is a Pennsylvania German innovation, and your example could have heen built by a Pennsylvanian who moved down there."
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WITH CORN SHUCKS -
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and various other cloth and
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at least equal what someone e quality of their possessions of genuine quality, when ~~~
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can':be found, are priced out of reach. Mr. Harry Brown, Sr., still maintains-an-old craft twdition of &gh qud-ity a t reasonable price. o n a warm sunny daytin-September,he came to the campus for a11 inteniew with the journalism 'class. H e was glad to share a bottoming with corn shucks. ple made most af their furnianyone how',to make a chaip -
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I~ottoni--he just picked it ilp a s a hoi~hy.Mr. Brown wo\:e his first chair bottom in I g r o out of white oak splir at the age of twelve (?'he FoxJi1.e Hook! pqse I 3 7 ) He has been making and caning, chairs since that time. ..O'riginallv, hg m a d e his chair frames only frombak, b u t he now useseither.... . . i oak or cherry. It takes al>out four to fi\re hours to complete2 chair bottom using .,, corn -%liiicks.. T h e completed- chair h a s three layers of woven c o r n shuc4s- and.' is : really a strong seat. Mr. ~ r d w njokingly 'said that it would look li corn shucks when it was finishedi It doesn't though. , The \ceave that Mr. Brown used is called a raffia weave an comn:o:i!y. The m;iteri;tls rieeded to niake a' corn-shuck chair botton~.;re.: ..a. bucket. for soaking thz.shucks, ~ c i s s o ~tape, s, ciofhspins, clamp, corn 'sh~zks,'and p l e n t ~of patie~ice.The corn shucks should h i v e dried naturally, t u k e d bro\,p and crisp. Do not use fr-esh green corn shucks. M r . Brown said the longer the corn shucks, the better. AIr. Brown ~electddthe l o n 6 s t corn shucks, put then, into a bucket, and < poured w i r m water over them. H e let the. corn shucks soak for aboilt f i f t e e n
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PLATE 413 T h e patiern f o r t h e weave. If the chair y o j ~nre working on is wider at the f r o n t t h a n at the rear , ( a n d most \
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-a. M T h u L - y o u ~ . m h t h a t p ~ d_the_ , original pattcrn no longcr ~vorbs. Sirna*' ply loop ;rrnl~ncl the frame in a figure e i ~ h tr n n n i l i ~ bct\veen the longer ends of the frame. \Yhen finished, tic the end . to one of the strands on the under side of thc chair bottom. -~
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UPDATE \\'11oi they were ready, Mr. Brqyn took out a shuck d d cut the shank (the part of the shuck that isoriginally attached to the corncob at the base) off so it would be even. He then tore the shuck into strips of about 3/4-to-1''
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Nest Mr. Brown took about three or four strips, placed them tokether .:and twisted them in a clockwise notion, much ,& you would wringing out erne articleof clothing, to form a "rope." ~ e ' p u at clothespin on the end. o keep the rope froni unraveling. Mr. Brown continued adding strips to the pe, staggering them every three or four inches to keep the rope as uniform 8 as possible. ~k placed clothespins oh ,the rope khetiever he needed to. :hen Mr. Brown had twisted ahout two feet of rope, he taped the end of. e rope to the left side crosspiece about three inches from the front. Mr. own then started the weaving process. He told us that in starting the - v e not to'pull the rope very tight because, as thk rope dried, the corn ks would constrict and pull apart. Also as you weave more and more nto the chair, the weave would tighten naturally. Mr. Brown continued adding corn shucks to the rope, and, as often as he ,. could, he wove the."rbpe onto the chair. Every time that he wove ther'rppe on the chair and pulled it around a crosspiece, ,he took a clamp and . , clamped the rope, to thecrosspiece so the weave would not loosen. ~ V h e nth> chair is finished and has had sufficient time tb dry completely, he puts a varnish on it to prolong the seat's life. Mr. Brown said that'we . c o u l d -pfobsbivfihd somichairs around that had been bottomed with corn shucks that were fif,ty years old or older. '
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7'ext by the jou~nnlzsmclass. ,
Photos b;. Rus?)~ Leggett and Phil Conner *
PLATE 414 The sh ucks are soaked well b~sfore being used.
PIATE 4 1 5 . . As' t h e rope getk nsed up, M r . Rro\\.n fl\:ists nlore ihucks, leaf hy ,lcaf,..it;io it.
PLr\TE 416 He ~ ~ ~ a ka e long s section of rope, clippins it at i l l tenrals u-ith, clothespins tn help hold it togrthcr, and then I\-ea\.es another ~ o u n d .
.4 TRADI'I'IONAL LOOM
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I F i r 2 !,p;lge 2 i 7 ) , w c , s a 1 1 ;I ronlpositc photogs;~phof ;In q d loo111 o\vned 1jy <;el-tl-ude I i e n t i ~ s 'lhc. p h ~ ! o ~ ~ r a p>v;is h not a good one, ~ o \ r e v e s , ljec-wuie the c-o~iditionsunder which we Ge~reshootipg made it almost i l i . possiljle for us t o get thc photograph we wanted. - Recently, Harry Brown, Sr., was brotqht a simil;ir loo111 for repairs. It was constructed 2 1 6 years apo I?y Levi Swairr out of yellow pine, a n d p u t togeihqr wit11 w o o d e n pegs. Mt. Brown called us so that we could get photopraphs of it t h a t woZId be I ~ e t t e rt h a n what we had in stock..Then, over a period of sevei-a1 months, he m a d e a copy of it for us, a n d helped us move it to our center. where students now use it. ~
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PI,.4TE 422 Marinda, Harry's wife, threaded the loom and wove $ rug on it to make ure it was in working order before it \vas returned to its owae:. ;
PLATE 423 IIaFrY reassemhlinp the copy he made in a log building at our center.
CASKETS
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6 s late as the-early I ~ ~ O many S , people of the Appalachians were Imried in hbrrieniade caskets (see Foxfire 2 , pages 304-23). Usually some of the,. nien in the community built the caskkt after h person had died; the ladies would sew a lining for it while the men built it so that it was ready by evening. There were se\~eralnien in the comniunity who were regularlv called on to make caskets. -1'hey kept lumber. cut and cured,ready to he used when ~i,eedzd;*' - One such person in our community was Harley ' ~ h o m a s a , man wlio. makes spinning wheels, repairs and l~uildscahinets and gun racks, and can9 do almost aiiy other kind of woodwork, including making fiddles. Some people liked t o build their owri Casket or have it madk to prder lohg l~eforethey needed it. It was usually kept in the hayloft o'l the barn. Various peopl; in our community told of having seen onk stored 'in one -of the farmer's I~arnsnear here. We inquired about its history and found that ithad Ijeen made for this farmer's uncle, but he was: staying with a daughter in another state w h e n h e died, and the family h i d him,, buried there. T h e 'ds rerncrn1,ered the casket hi-ing up in the barn for years' after that, 13ut it as since disappeared. tl'e asked Mr. Thdmas, since we couldn't find one already'made, if he would make, us a child's-&ske't, so that we c o ~ l dsee how they were niadr and how h e decided on the mea-yrements. It took him quite a while to acquire some suitable whitp oak w o a , and he never was Able to procure the 1,rass hardware he ?8nt&d for the'handles. So he improvised, as he would hai,e done fifty years ago, and'made wooden.handles. .. Mr. i'homas told,us t h a t d u i i n g the .Depression, when the CCC campsr were located throughdut this area, he had a contraa;w?th the government d'. to ijuild caskets. His regular joh was running a sawmill and building cahi-' nets and furniture, I ~ u he t made caskets ai needed. \l'hen we lifted up the casket he made for us, we,were startled at how . heavy it %-asfor its size. H e stained the white oak wood with .a light brown 1.
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&ish a n d lined the inside with cotton I ~ a ~ t i niil~d g quilted whGe satin tacked on o w r that. M r . 'l'homai shaped ;the bottom of the casket with the sides ;ingledput = soniei.h;it to make room 'for the. shoulders of the Imdy. H e used t^o decide . how loilz the ,casket would l,e by adding a few inches fb the length of the perron to $e lhriiied in it. T h e widest part of the wsket isone-third the way down thc lenath o f i t . It then tapers I ~ a c ki n y y d with the foot of the czisket I~rini.the Fame width as the head. ~ ' h e i i e c e sf i r the ends of this-casket are 6%'' wide and 8%'' high. H e n g e d these onto the hobtom first. H e cut two white oak pl;inks 8gt'X33?' loili.. '1.0 \,end these pieces to fit the l,ottom, he'cuts three grooves w i t h l a hand s;iw o f p&cr.s8.w..~.from . top edge to liottom edge ;il)out y2";~pzirtand ; ~ l j o i half ~ t way through the-l;oal:ds, as shown in .Plate 4%. H c then gailed on one side;-startins a t t h e head and forciriz the side to meet the bottom b>-placing the nails ratlies closely. by the time he reached the foot t h i l ~ o a r dwas securely attached to the hottom a n d bent a t the desired anzlc. H e then nailed that side to the end. H e did the other side the .s;ln~e - ~7%-a)-, -and whenfinished, the entire?-aket has the shape of the I)ottont. H e shaped a:top to fit th r q l i e t , g i t ~ i w*a-milllcr pieceof-_wood s h i p & likc the top as a drcoiati\.d''tauch. '1.h~ top is &ached to the casket 8. with thirc scrcws pla(-cd on rither sitlc. H e used two wooden ha'ndles on c a ( h sidc: of thc c.;\~lict.;ilthough when he;c.oi~ld get it, he used to use I~rass, ll~~l~cl7v~l1-(:.
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7'crf and p/iolojikp/l.i hy .ll Onkm; P/lil Conno-, ( ~ n dClirryl .Stocky. .
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e half-joked ; ~ l ) o u t ~ t i n g ~ r n e oton l)uild c us an actual-size p h o t o ~ r a p hthe steps. 5uddenly our wish came true, a n d : tilere \vas Buck Carver, one of our no st 'faithful an? most Kenerous cont;~ct.;,dowri in ;I four-foot-1))-fo~tr-foot hole, I~uildiris;I duplicate of his-old iur~1ac.ck r us slid :tadins y whqle new diiiiensin~ito the work we had .al- ,.! nioons11irii;i~ (7.1; ~ o . i l ; r eRotik, p;~gcs 301-45). I n t h e . : \ ,, 1c"new setlo! tiicks came to lisht. From Buck:, "1-ice the ope!ling foi. th? .firel>ox dow~ihilltoward the stream as ,there's i1~1t;111y :I I>SCCLC i c o l i i i t ~ "1)~ the I ~ ~ . a ~ i c hfeed . t o the fife. \ 8."l'ic liolt. ililt4rc rhrmit needs- tb I)e aliout the sariic s,ize ;IS the opening of [I f s o n ~choki~rgthe fire. "<;ct ;+s many rocks :ri; )'ou.thilik you'll need; then lay in two or three i d i f you't-e lucky you n l i ~ h tnot have to go back for more .. ~ . r m eor two loads y o r e !" ., : A i d this : .4fwr we llad niade :a-'fl:ip lo tl!e sife, Buck !~oted l ~.i o. w ~ p e o p t e e told therri it.oldy took a couple of tripsAn-~tbmake,'a really . then lboked l,ack&ird&: dl~viouspath for law officers to follow. ~?-s'@Gd, n he septured q i t h a grin' tq.rv&d tEie very ol,vioi~s trail stfetch'iJag out ., , ' . , . .. I~rliindus thro~i:h the woods., . .
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TI& first ~ t ? pi s to choose hillside, hiddrn in file !\.?oh. I 3 u c k + n h ~ ? ssets hjs stills into n hank so that lte c a n s!and o n t h e round hchind tLc,.~stilfiand' ~ r to t it vitht)ot r ~ s i na ~ Ini!cler. i r h r site' qclcrted, hi* and Jory Fountqiri, one of thc F o r f r r students: dug o;t the holc for +e furnace.
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PLATE 427 'liere
Buck and Joey smooth up the hole, the floor of vhlch t1~111be the floor of th e still's firebox.
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PL:\TE 428 Sext. Buck cemented into place 16e first t\v.c'fcourses of flat rocks thus. :
outlining the firehox walls. .Years ago, red clay would h a v e 5 e e n used initead of cement. and the S t e for the still would have been partly determined by the availability of clay. In.the left foreground, notice that the flat rock a t the back of the firebou is set on its edze and sloped hackward slightly so that it will deflect the flames upward -,--' -- - .-- - - - around the-itillLk also Plate_& ,-
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PL.4TE 429 14~henthe walls o f the. firehox were high enough (see >late 4 3 1 for '
rneasuremrnis';. R u c k x t the iarxe flat rock he had (chosen for a hrdstone into piace so that i i ~ s p a n drhe firehos.::-\s it wasn't quite long enotqh, he set a ~cco!ld,~srnaller i o c k - i n t ~ , l i ; < h e h b ? h i i ~ ~ ~ n cemented d tGe two together to m a k e onc flat platfor111 , " for i~ ---~the still to sit on.
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PLATE 4 i 0 T h e h o l e left at t h e hack of',the platform is for the flames, which will come uj, iron? the f;reho~._hylos~-.a~d-~~~m~--nrn~~nd-tt~sti~~;.heating th, /.boil.
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PL.\TE 43 1
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The.next step >ra+to set the siiil itself, thirty-fire-gallon copper "utfit, in place on ihe bedstone and ,<ark the spot where the slop arm would stick t h r o u g h rhe furnace wall. T h e n he started putting the 'next layer i f rocks into place makin sure to leare space for tde flames betwsen . . thk still itself and thc rocliivalls of the furnace.
PLATES 132-433
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p 2 . 4 ~434 ~ When the ~ v a l l s . were ~ t pabout. a foot-above the bcdstonc, Buck removed the copper still a n d l~l;~c?-d n 3"-thicd 1.C ~.,. ) L I of red clay on top of the hedst~me.to inrr~rethat no fl;unrs er,er hit thc boftoni of the still and burned a hole in it. T h e n h e procccdcd wit$the.next n ~ u n do f rocks, leavinS a n I 1 %" hol; in front. for the scuttle holc or smoke I -vent. ' -~ -~ ~
PLATE 435
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PLATE- 436 When'the rock sides were high enough to reach the cape of thc still, Buik set it back into place. , .,
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PLATE 437 Then he sealed the hple'around theislop arm wi& red-c1,ay k u d while one of the &dents helped by lining the sl ped inside back wall of the furnace with cement'and rrnoothing it up.
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PLATE 439 .
\\'hen the rocks were selected a n d in place; he cemented them in completely'to seal dt, t h e furnace except for the firebox hole and scuttle hole in the front. This'forceS an); fire huilt in the firebox to expend its heat around the sides of the still beiore x ~ n t i n gout rhe front. T h e operatio* is now . . . $ - ready.for the addition of the cap, ca$'arnis, and so on. . After the still xvas cemented idto place, another reason for the use of red clay &e; cement hy many moonshiners became obvious:' most wanted the mobility that comes from beinq.ablc to dismantle tKelr operation quickly and move t h e copper still to o. safrty when in,da%er of being h i s c o v e r e d . " ~ a l l scemented.with red-clay a;ldd a& easily knocked dosvn. .
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e of ~ l t - e s i;ail i ( T h e F c ~ ~ f i iiook, ir pap; iiih ), we've secn was tho.wn to 11sd u r i i ~ g.a ~ i ktoi ~ o o k o u th-l o u ~ l i & i n'I'enness<,c; , :* , to talk with potter C:harlesCounts. W e w i r e stayina at the Fairyland ~ o t k l , a n d i n t h e h a c k yard sat the ash hopper pictured here. ,I; was !Gilt Ily M a r tin Pil$irn, no\\-' deceased-an; old mountain man. who helped t h e owners.. ity I;iy out t h e stone paths through tlle rock cliffskf their tourfst ~
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T h r hopper, roofed with shingles, has a hinged roof for*e;lsy cntr!;,'a~lda tin spout at the llottorn froni which t h e lye dripped whenever water was tired onto the ashes.
.-Lrtirlcs orid photographs by R a y :McRrii/e arid Ilon iklacNeil.
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'l'onimv Barlies showect [IS his metllod of .l)r~ldingI,ows for ox yokes F o t f i i e 3,p a y s I 15-16). Recenily, TYill Zoellnri., n local I,lac.ksmith, sho\vi.ti u.; iinc~thel.. i
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*.l,tit./c n i ~ d!)l~oto:r-npl~shy J n r X East; A n n e t t e S u t h e r l a l ~ d ,allif Sterje IIoi/nn. ~-. ,,---.-
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b o i l * ~ t h 6 ~ h i r k oi,i r y w;lter in a troughthe d e , ~ i ~ n pfdo r this pip o . ~ r . , H o i l irhe ~ r \rood makes i t temporaril!. p1i:ihlr a n d p e e d u p the curing .proces?. fil.?r
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PL.ATE 443 He then takes the wood to a pipe he has mounted horizontally onto the 'de of one of his buthuildings. He places one end of the bow into this pipejand the ther end into a second pipe which he uses t o pull with. As he pulls the section of c k o q into an.arc, it S ~ l i t sa little as is*normal. At thi point where it begins to split, e attaches a "C" clam^ to help keep it from splitting any further. ~~.
PLATE 44+ \Vill inserts a piece of board in the cun-e to keep the bow from snapping, and bends it .on around. \Vhen it is bent far enough, he holds the bow in place \vith his left leg while he attaches a \\-ire to keep it bent.
PLATE 4 4 5 , Then he sli s the how out of the pipes m?-rlarn$ivili be left attached until the how can either be placed the wire removed, for later use, leaving the wire on to hold th'e cunre.
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THE DISHK~IGGOURD
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the p+t, sollrc families in our area raised Lzaffn r y l i h ( l i i r n , using the youfig gourds fo~:fnod. ;lnd thc old, niatrlre fr-uits for sponges. \2:h;1t hap~ , unusu;il plant develops a tough. fi1,rous inside that pens is that as i t ; ~ s e ,this du~-:il)lp; a n d ideal for use in scrul)l>ing dishes imd pans clean. T o is spongy, gct ;1-fzii~~iliesin our area huy the seed for this plarit from the George W. Serd C:onipan~-,Greenwood, South Caro1in:i 2q646. O~jianirGnrdenhzrs, Iloni time to tinie, ~ u r iabicles a l ~ o u tthe 1utf;r ( J ~ m e .1974, Ior esb c ) for thosc \,,ha-desire more information. 111
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AFTERWORD
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bjj Richard AB. Dor:co71
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ithout conscibusly intending to do so, Elidt Wigginton in I his admirable development of the Fosfire coricept has i.entured deeply' into the,province of folklore studies. As a liniversity folklore teacher and scholar; I welco~netherefoiti his invitarion to conilnent on the Foxfile l,o6ks.,?nd the Foxfire concept. 'The Foxfire idea began, as Mr. h'iggintdn tells As, wit6 his realization that high school students were piiinfully I~oredwith ;he cor~vetitionalsu11jects I ~ u tresponded eigerlv to a new direction. l ' h a t directiontook them' to .\ . . their grandpacents and nrighl)ors, and to their stor~es and crafts. In folklore ' ., coui-se. taught at thk college level- --atthose too few rchlrges ar;d universities where such~coursesare taught-students have for so1n6 tirrie responded kith high enthusiasm to a suhject matter that acquaints then1 with the ways of hunianity. At IndiaAa IIniversity, for'exarnple/where 1 direct our Folklore t . Institute, there'~~e~nrorestu&n.tsperi:ici~lty menl1,er in the folklore departIlient than-in any other department in the College of Arts and Sciences. We teach undergr2duates who chiefly take electives in folklore- but may. select folklore i s a major, and we teach graduate students who seek, M.A. and -' Ph.D. degrees in folklore.' O u r graduate students are heing trained as professional folklor-ists, 11ut the under~ratluates,who re far more numerous, are , . Iring taught for the s a h e ends 2,s any othcl-.lil,eral arts subject: to sharpen L, '?heir mihds, stretch ;heir horizons, and enrich thei,r l~ves-to reachErnerI. son-s goal of "man thinking." High school students. takiug Foxfice-type courses are also preparing for lives as thinking, perceiving, and aware human I~eings.The)- may profit in certain ways, which I shall here suggest, from what folklorists have learned, but these suggestions are not intended to mzke them folklorists. Rather, they arerileant to let them know that there is such'a subject as. folklor&,which has beell' well studied, a n d ' i h i c h aan enhance the Fosfire projects they are pursuing undercourses titled jdurha~is'm, I .hist&v, literature, social studies, or whatever: / ' First a word concerning the ternis.and- concepts of folklore. Students today are often turned off by thestifling jargon of educators, but rightfully used, terms may introduce ideas; clarify distinctions, and hone mental skills.
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i e a d c r of thr Foafire Ijooks and teachel-s and students qf 1;osfire cburses should kno~v such terms as folklore, folklife, oral history, personal-experiellcc storirs. i s a p , loc;rl legends, tall t;~lcs,,local-character anecdo(es, and Aliirchcrl or fail-y tales, in the,same way th;~tthcy learn the fications of flora ;r~ld'fnun;r~G~to !)ring to focus the objccts of their at11.~the;\visc, all is a I)lur. Fdklore in the scholarl) sense ~ ~ s u a l signifies ly oral .cultural traditions, as ,opp(:'fd to formxlly learned kno>uledge. The distinction can he made hetweeli,:,a h ~ i ~ rrmedy al known in the family and a doctor's pres&iption, or I)et\\.ee:~;in o?al talc or song that vBries with each teller or singer and a fifed 1itrr.il-r.piece. Folklife is a more recent term that designates the tarlgil ~ l e,pro$ucts 2nd processes of preindustrial cultural Gditions, such as hog ciing. quilt making, or log ,,callin ~iuildin~.' Frequently there is oral . and practices; fbr example, the bere co~ulcctedwith folklife. oljjects ief that ''telli~igthC 1)ees.l about a death in the housemust be done to keep he Ijee s\v;lrnl from flying to a new home. Oral history;like Forklore, lives by vord of tnouth, i)ut it deals with presumed actual events. A good deal of klol-e nevertheless creeps into oral his&)-, especially in th'e form of the d told as an actual histot:ical occurrence. The student. of folklore can ize that the event which was reported as taking place never dfihp: pen. Personal-experience stories have recently begun to intkrest t h t folk-' lorist, el-en though they are not folktales in the sense of being told by-many different people at different times and places. But they are,.repeated hy the original teller, arid the)- display the same features of folk narrative art as appear in regular folktales,The hunting yarns pririted in the Foxfire.hooksare good ex;imples of such-personal-cspcrie~icestories. Still a ,~raconteur . sometimes tells a tall tale or a humorous anecdote, which the folklorist k n z a s ~ h a s I~eentold l ~ !othel-q, as a personal experience, so it is the task oij the f.olklor'e student to scparatc the personal from the folk narrative. ..,.... H e is,f&!liar . with t h e tall tale, w h k h burstsinto a n impossible exaggeration, as a comic story I . told 011 the level of r e a w l o c a l - c h .a r a c t e r anecdote as another ki?d of funn)- s t o n ahout the sayings -act~lal, some emI~ellished,6ome apocryphal-of cccentric'persons in thk rM c-n the fairy tales or magical tales or Mikchen, t'o ufe the ~ g r m - d nword, this; rarely surface nowzdays, for in America the personal eexperie'nces,tall tales,. and anecdote? of local characters are better adapted-to a rationalistic world. But whet1 they do turn up, as ,in the cycle,of ~ a t ktales uncovered in the b a rare treasure. southern mountains in the I ~ P O S thcy , exclte the folklorist T Sii~ilarll:, the songs of mountain people can he divided Into those originatinn in England OF in the UnitEd States, and into further subdivisions of the ballad that spins a talc or the lyric that sings a sentimtnt. T h q mixture of all t h e ~ eforms within one househ'old can l)e called familysaga.
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Once th$se distinctions abe grasped, the Foxfire stildent ? citi,lg trail that will lead him to simila1; le~e~lds, Ixlief?,
&I follow +I? Ed+:md practiCes ~II
ot~hc~ pits of rhe country and in other countries. One nw;iiljlis ~hc coliect”,- “f folklore and human rrperiences t]lc stc~ry lie ~]I;\-\xcoded
in ;I sixcjfic
locdit)~,
of the grea{ thrills is ~ec”gnizillg;tl~at
and whi(:h
11~~has \XY~ told
h;tppencd ri+t three, is attxhed t,” man) other- pl;re:. Ilaiile an “Id lolrsterma~~ “nce rela\rd t” ;me how Yoho fron? tvhrx
WC \vcre mlkin~:, had gain+
only the lord f,iLy &rs r”\,.ed after
“Y&o”
:ql
with
:ti vill&r~ ejrl
ofi wirh her, tir~hi> qqc the rerrca;ins
b”$
on
~~~_
ii1 our midst;
,,
GIII ~the .Foxfire
How
._~&rded
belongs
two
there,
about
n hundred
alrducted;~
when
n rescue
he had
he tnre their
reported
Icarri
miles and pariy
“ne half
t learned
iI Kentucky,
that. riianv
that
Catinda,
of the stories
.
3~~
! niountnins, are f”lkl”r:,. or not the ,itcin he has
whetheo~
or falklife,
account
of
who uttered
1~~1,~in two kind threw this grim
in the cities /IS weli
t” folklore,
Cove,
down
investigating
student
,the cqnst
L4 wild nun
similar versions “i’the %“h” man had h&n and Persia. ‘l~‘“d;tv the studrnt cif folkior-e ctilariilg
on
its name:
I~jved in the woods
i
“1‘ oral history?
Here
he C&I t,aste
th?~lea-su~es of the library, n&v that h6 has his own persona1 quest to pm’.5uc. ‘i’he te&@~r ~willQnd ;t critical edn;ation$l task before him since .t+l~ook~ on folklo& I _~
coined
the work
me~ir;&d siudent~
are so ~&&en~~qld “f;Lkelore“
the materials ill the rl~sr”om
~suqe&d
T\‘ithout
of folklore
and inaccurate&L-------~ ~~‘~~ :%&zi~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~ that d~storte&,~@ sentl-
and misinfo&S
or tile ~cneral
puhficz.The
t” thr sul,jrct
[” ilidii.;lte-i~nl~!.~nes t~oo much
so misle&lin~
to den”te~t~iose.~,gqks
as an inrrod,ucti”n
Bi\lli”qraph~
dften
apology
mat&
art! available
1, will-Ix@
their of folklore
and ath&
&says illustrate
i_s.~~~~~~~ ’
and fblkl~fr. :
’
with some “T ;ny “WT ho&.
rc,.rnt One is I:oiklore-
w%~~L.~__ 6f ix+&
in paprri~~ck)
m”~
;i~ildies on ii sound
readers,
f”ll”wir$is;
University establish
~the theorics
Amy
/
P~cs~? folklore
‘. ~‘-
and rexa&
methods 0i the foltilorist. Two similar volunles of nly collected ~writings ‘are FoikZort*; .Sthc/eti ~:ssqs (Indiana Uuivelsity Press: 1372 ) and, Americas ~~FoII;Jo~P c~nd the llirtoriart J University of Chicag-o ‘Press; I 97 I ) .~A general, s~~rvcv of fhe discipline f,~oducfion
‘CI.niversity
which* eighteen
on an .advanced of (:hicas”
professionals
Press,~ 197~)
contrjbuted
.eaCh~ chap& ;\Iy ~il~Gcnn
contains an annotated Folklo,-e* (Utiiversity
iri I.e,q&”
[ Panthc&,
with
comparative
khapters
i 9,73), dis~cuss’the
notcs,,,df
an/l Folkli/e,
which or
select I,ihliography of Chicago Press,
people within a hi\toricalframe,wo~k, lam in the T,‘niterf .Slaie.r* (Uni~~f-tit) amples
level is Folklore
foWtraditi”ns
I edite\, their
speclnl
an. Inand
to
traditions
.‘.
fields;
for fuither readings. I gig), and Anzericn”; 0:~ the i\meriGan
and Hullin,q the Winil; Re,$ional F&of C:hic;igo Press, ,I $4) proLIes ex-
those
*~~” ~..
,as collected
in se,ven re-”
:
A4F'1'ER\iORD
485 )i
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Bioods/pjpcrs and Uenrrc.a/ko-s* ( H a n x r d Urriversity Press,
.6952, repr. .' -
~vidrly11scti introductory textl~ookis Thi. Stz~d1'of j1,nericnn folk lor^ Jan Haroltl Brirrrv;tncl (Nortoll, 19(iH),which presznts the categories of b. folklore in thc Uriitzd States. Brunvatrd has-also brought .out Folklo~.e, n Rr.ri,n~rhC;zrid:;" (St. Marti~t:sPress, 1976) to ot-icnt tearlicrs.and students new to thr sul,jcct. more adva;ice$,work is Tlie S t u d y of flolklork edited 11y ':\lar, Dunde.; ( ~ r e n t i c e ~ ~ a1965 l l , :) 3 h o reprints s>holarlq 'lssays lzy a numkei of folklorists.' ,4merican Folklife, e&tcd, b)LDan.Yuder (.Univers+of ?exas Press, !976), contains articles espeAiirlly written for that volumc by sperinlists on folk crafts and miterial culture. '4 symposium devoted to z,lnzerircii~Folk Le,?end pl'odgced an esccll6~rtscricx of papers, pul~lishcdin a book rvith that titlc, edited by \V;~ylandh a n d (University of C:al;forrria Press, i'97i ) . Dundcs has also edited a klektion ol intdrprcta~ivcessays on >Z~ro-.%nleric;lnfolklore in Mother Wii jroni thc 12nz~,ghingBarrel*, (Pren-
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Turnin:: to field-~vork.collections a n d writinqs, ,I rccoinnreiid first afl older title that. is ;L 131odel'for the regional collector. E ~ ~ i c l yE. n ~ardnek's ~ol'iriore fro,zr / h e .Schoi~nrie(Hills, ~ ' e z uJ ' ~ T - X - (University of ,Atichigan ~ . & , i ~ ~ jnotaMecoliection j.;t .of f a m i 6 Fags froni ~. Kentucky is Leonard ~,~.,. oherts' Snn: Urcinch Settlel's ( T J n i ~ r s i toiiiTexas ~ Press, 1974). T h e traditions of fisherrnen 611 Alaryland's eastel-n shore a;eadeptly presedtcd h i (korge Care? 'in Fnrnway ?'i& and Place (Luce, 197r ) . A work of folk history con?t,ininq orkl and docun1ent:iry sources t o reco&truct ', . the history of a vanished Kentucky scttlrnlcnr is Lynwood The Sa,ga of (lo? Ri(1,qe f University of l'ennessec Press, 1 ~ 7 ; ) . Wow historical evenrs and p c r s o n a l i t i c s ~ ~ c n cfolk r ~ e legends is dcmonstrated'for the Mormons 1))- Austin arid Alta Fifein Saints of Sage and Snrldle ( ~ n d i a n aUniversity Press, I 956). 1nirnigr~ntand cthnir folklore' has hot yat been well collected and studied, 11ut Czirla Xianco in ?'he T w o Rosetos (Indialla Urliversity Press, 1974) ha$ made an authoritative contril,utio;l, in comparing ', the folk traditioils of Roseto, Italy, a ~ i dits colony Roseto, Pe11,ns)-lvania.A fine stud\. . of a Xlrsican \?allad and folk hero reliihrated in the southwest is hy Arniiico Paredes, " W i t h His Pirtol I n His Nqnd": A Border'Ballad a n d Its Hero ( L-;iiverity of $exasapress, r958'),, dealing with, Gregorio Cortez. 1 . Tkie 101-eof occupations is also underc'ollected, but a skillfulinterpretation of one is l l o d y C:. ~ o a t i i ~ h t Folklore 's of the Oil Industry (Southern I I \h,fethodist ,Uni\.ersity Prcss, 1 ' ? ~ 4), .~ , . Y'hese title\ and their I!ibLio:inphies can lead readers intd the charmed - . gzlrdeii of /fil$lore. ',I ;
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ont tell"^
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~ o i k e dby EdMaine, 1971 ) .
faund extremely useful is A ward D. F s ! S o r t h a s t Archives 01 Folklore and
-Ed.
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INDEX OF PEOPLE ,.
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-- Joey Fountain
THE KIDS
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Louisc Frecrnan \\:endy Guy;l~ix. Rand;lll Hardy Jeff ~ ' i y Keith Head Ja~,,Wlt q'innis Horton Del,l~ieJarnes Doug L. James ; Anita Jenkins Sid Jones f
.,
Russell ;irthi~r hlarie Auten . . . Claii-e Bender Scott Bible ? C:am Bond Scutt Bradley i ' a,.'
?,,' /x
., ., ...
,
Tom C:arltor--., Bre~idaCarpenter.--\ h~~avbellc . . Chrpentrr Bit C;irver Kay Carver Phyllis C a n e r L'lary Chastain ' Vicki Chistain Phil Conner. Doug Cornell ping Crawford Ken Clronic I
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Debbie Crowell Wendell C:ulpepper Roy Dickerson Mike Drake Jack East Jeff Fears Dale Ferguson
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Beverly Justils Ken Kistner ,, 1omrrly 1,arnl) Jeff Lane Rusty Leggett Rol,l,ie Letson Don lvfacn'cil &&n LMattliies ~en11.i-asw well ' Ridg hfa&btlu!r Ray TvlcBride. ,-. --. XelI-;i -.\Gena M c Scott McKay Roljert M c L a ~ i a h ~ ~ n Betsy Moore Karen XIoore Rol~ertMoore Susie Nichols -11Oakes Boh O'Dwyer
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I N D E X OF PI:,OPI,E
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. Ford Olivw,
.
Shcllcy P;tct Richard Page Jolit~Pope Sharon Pope ,I'OIIII'OTVCI~S 3 1 ~ 1 -Qn u r c l ~ I'c~cI-ReddiuL j:l~ine[tc Recii~s J i ~ n~ r ~ ~ illine Richnrds j l l i s o ~Ruthelford ~ Stcpllanie Shuptl-ine D v ; ~ > - nSkcnes c
*
3
4
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Loy Smith . : Ste\.c Smith C:het-yl Stocky * "
. :\nnette Sutherland Barbara Taylor Dcl111ic l'hornas Afar); Thornas T'erese Turpin ',
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;-.SueVan Pettcn Sheila ~ Vinsoll
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Linda Mrarffeld Lynnette WilliamDonakl Wright', . Matt Young t,
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, INDEX OF P E O P L E .
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THE CONTACTS Jue .4rl.o\vootl
Blanche HLirkins 5. I,onnie,Harkii~s ..
B u r n e ~ t" ~ -"-~
Xlnrilida and
"
hlrk. Cecil Cannon .
rpenter
u c k Carver
'
John Hoi~ck .4nna:How~;~rcl. Conway and Park Hughes AdaKelly - . 3Irs. Ray Kelly Ted 1,anich h~Ir.1,edl)etter ' ?ma I.edfo~'d, C. P. Ligon Fave Long Garnett Love11 L k i e Lovin -41es Martilr Pearl Martin Gay h,IcClain ' -
Alack ~ i ( . k c r s o n '
R:. .\l - - ..llickrr.~o~i 'erry llickrrso~i Barnarc1 Dill~it~cl ... Bobbie L)ills Lon Dover Thad Dowdle Belle D r y i a n Hoh Du7:all Charles Enmhardt .\Irs. Thelma Earp Harriet Erhols Harold Enllirey JViIli:iti~ Flo\vcrs -4da1n Foster Simmie Free
1
Jirn hlcCoy . Ulyssrs McCov . ., hlyrtle i\.lcl\lihon
1
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H a ~ v e yhlillrr Belzora Moore .>soel Moore Rev. A. ~ u f u s - i t o r g a n: hfrs., ~ e o r Nix ~ e i\ddie%orton Margaret Northn, Richard . d Mrs. Edit11,~Parker i %arl "Preach" Parsons . Laura Patton Annie Perry
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or ton
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Esco Pitts hlr-s. J. D. Quinn '1-on1 Karncy C:l;irclicc Katlil~<,iic H;I~\. Reid I a l i Keid
J S i l l Scagle 11pll:i~Slieppard \.in3 Speed U.J. Stiles I ~ h Stilcs c ' ( l ' h o n ~ ; ~Stuljl~s s <;l;ldys S\v;r~lson Alrs. Oren S~vanson
Gl;ldys 'I'cague . C;rl 'l'hornas Harley-'1'11orn;w Nell '1hom;~s Jason Townse~!d . . JVilljk ~ ; i d e r w o g 'h,frs. Birdie M a e \ .;
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A SELECTED LISTING OF PERIODICALS .
ANB-42-OURCE
MATERIAL
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3
There is no charge for a sul~scriptionto this jourhal, which cpmes out ever)- other month and deals-with the e c o n o n i i ~ ~ ~ asoeial n d development of ..Ippalacliia. I t is published i ~ yl ' h e Appalachian Kegional Commission, the government agency that devotes ,its attention to the improvement of the quality of life in the A4ppalach~ans, Write t o : Appalachia, T h e ,\ppalachi& Regional Commission, 1666 Connecticut 'Avenue: T\'ashington, D.C.
'#
n
- l l i p a l a r i ~ z aH~ ~ r z t a g eis a quarterly, hon-profit jodrnal dedicated to the presentation of .the life and culture of t h e people of Southern Appalachia, both old' and nelv, in a ple;ising real-life way by means of stories, sketches, 3 =says, tales, songs, sayings, poems, and pictures. A central aim has always , been to correct the stereorye (116th. unpleasant'arid untrue) image of t& Southern ~ o u n t a i n G e and r tq r e v a l his humanness,ahd individuality. "SVhile Foncerned with thE Appalachian regiorl.in terms of history, folklore,>crafts, Ausic, etc., this h'as l ~ r o a denough appeal to h ~ , ~ a l m oas tgeneral Y. magazine in the cate-gqry of Y a n k e e , or In thb &me area as Foxfire. I k h a s . . a11 intrinsic honesty, tlnusual for r e g i o ~ a l magazines, which are unders 6 i i i i b + a n c ~ n e dwith additising the area rather t h a n pointing @ its defeck. i.ilso, it i>a,no,Tlprofit affair, and the editors are.'desirous of makingjt stand-on its own t~;hixql feet.' ~ i b r a r i a n can i do everyone a favor by dding their hi; $this r e g a ~ d . )1t also. includes poetry (bassable) and sqme qood short stories. 1 Jt. .IS particularl) valiiahle, +ttjtaining, and highly inf o r n i a t ~ e though, , for recoll~ctionsand locil. history, e:g. death.,and burial custonls a n d sketches of the mountain people, ' ~ h i i ' % p ~ c,'makes t it a . woAhy addition fdr any-1ihrary: .. ~ o o dill~strati6ns,,?oiob." ' LB;K. ,.~ i b m j j ., _ /our?lal, April 15, 1974. ' For inforination, write:. -fi$$alachi& Heritage, Box 132, Pippa passes, . : * '* Ky. '4 1844: ,
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of intcrest ;isc his to^!-^ ;uithropolc~:)-, folklore, geo,qxphy, cco~loniic-s,poliI t i c s ~ccilit-zltioi;. .sociolopy, ; ~ i i t l : & o l o ~Ilrcluded ~. are. poctr)-, shol-t fiction,.
ilroad storics. 'l'he sul)scription rate is
APPALSTTOP
K a h n ) , H o i u Can I K e e p from Singing (John McCutcheon), and
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PERIODICALS AN
'
book; a history of the small railroaci thirt served the-arca-the Tallulah Falls Railroad j an4,has begun a recording company, the first albun~sfrom \vhich al-e now available. For announcements of offerings, send your name !o be placed on our mailing list. Mkitc: Foxfire, Rahun Gap, Ga. 3 0 5 6 8 (:OLUt;SSEAL
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h i O U I T - i l h ~CCALL, THE
the heart of the Lllirrgo Count); bills in southGestern M'est Virginia, T h e Afounlain Call is a unique, ncw-dayapproach to :\ppalachia and. Mother Earth. Desixned as a nioulitain magazine, it i s a coming-together of old and
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,"
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~,qeof culture. cilia11 liill.~." 'l'lie magazilie ;11so continues its perel I;& a \-?;IPSsili~scription,send $5.00 to .44oun/(1ilr rile mnd Work, Dmwer + X, (:litit\\ootl, T7n. 24228. . ':l'.lic .'1(j:tj-j7 C:;~talog/Bil~liogmphyon the i\ppal;~chi;lll Soutll," pul)lished 1,)- the C:ounril (JI the Southern Monnt;~ins,describes 11ver 1,000 l,oois, ~-rc.ol-ds,paniphlets, and filprs ;~v:~ilablct h r o u ~ l iits Bookstore 'in Rrrea, Ky. T h e 80-page tabloid ;ncludes m;~tcrinljndexed into 1 7 c;ltcgo. sics: [:ox, Histoe/Bil)liogmphy, Sociolog-y/No~l'-fiction, ~ o u n f n i l l \,Tomen, H p I d i i Parriphlets, Photo Essay, Fillns, Canlping/Hiking, Nature -Studies. C;r;tfis lid Choking, Fiction, (:hildren, l:olklore, Poetry, Music, and Rrcnrtls. I t also includes a history of the Council ; ~ t i c ( t ~ i o g r a p h i d i n ' . forn~;ttiorlof authors atid artists whose works are indikenous to:the rnoun: .,.~ tailis. ?he BcYokstore offers thk.larsest collection of l~oo!tsatid rec6.ds ontthe Appalachian South availal~leto the general puhlic. Thr' (:atalog can he 01)tainrd for $ i . o o froni: ( S h l Booksibre, (:PO 2307, Herea, Ky. 40403. IVrst I T i r ~ i n i1Jniversity a has recently l)egun a liook clul~specifically for readkrs intermred in .4ppnlachinn materiais. TI;?). send'n hi-n~onthly?amlogui of av;iilal)l~matrri;rls, ton~~rnlx-m; For irlforrnatior~,write WVZJ R r gio~ialBook C:lub, M'VU Book Store, C:olleg-e .4venue, h'Iorgantown, W. '
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-.ilour~toinRez,ierw is for Appa1;rchians of,;+ll ages Rnd I)ackgrounds, and ol1ir:rs interested i l l ljfe in theniou~itains.'l'llis.q8-pase l;rsse-format quartcrly publishes artic.les, short fiction, poetry, photography, ilrd ar!work by people, wliic-h ;rre~rcflrc.tii~e%l ti~~e-her-c.-It~tC:tr+)~ f v t u r e s jour,~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~i;rIisni: L ~ O U I I special C~ topi(.s, ~.llildrcn'sstories, studcrit workshop writing, :I pfioto portfolio, ; l l i d ' I ~ ~; IkI I ~riiovie IFvi$ws. illourrtain Reriiew is hot out to glorify tile past or 1.ck2nsll.worn stereqtypcs--c?;1c.l1 issue 1i;ls new :111d excitin,? ni:ite~-ial-l~y nlouritairi writers resulting in a Ili~li-qualitymagnzine for rnourlt;tin re;rdrrs. - . Single issues are $ I .50 ea;h, su11sc:riptions are $5.00 a yrar lrom Jlountoi~lR e z ~ i ~ w Box . 660, Whitesl~urg,I C y , o q ~ 8 5 8 -\
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Tlie I?k)ii, is a morithl~newsmag-azine for Pul~lislird in .Al~iri:don, T7irgini;i,. I J a~ hen-profit orsanizatiorr, i t , uses a~ -3+pa,qe t;ll~lt~id f(11-nl;rtr u - & ~ u tke (once~-nsof peol>le tliroughout=the /
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niol~ntains. Each issue cornl)i~iesfeatures a l ~ o u tmountain liisio~y,tradi: lion.?, crafts, n~usic,and culture with investisalive artitlrs allout concerns such ss i t r i ~ ~ - ~ ~ i ierierxy ~ i i ~ i gpl-od;ction, , liidth care; tourism, and the age-
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PERTODIC:.\I,SAND RES0URC:II MzYI'ERli\l..
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old esploit;~tio~l of the I-egior~l ~ poutside interests. Single-issue price is' $:.35; 'the si~l~sc-riptioil rate is $4.00 per year. Write: 7 ' h ~ . P l u w . , ~ P . 0 . ~ B o i ~ 1- , ,~ 2 2 , " . \ l ~ i n g d o ~\';I. i , 242 1 0. ... . ,, 'i
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Sollthern ;Ipp;rlachian klinistrv inhHigher Educatioll is a n orgarnzatlorl that spoi~sors.i l l part, the pu1)lication of 1)ooklets c o n c e r ~ l i nApp.1~ ,I n ~. h i a n soci;rl issncs. j111c of the nlmt rcrcnt offerinss is a 5 ~ 1 d of y land development. iri the-mountain 11v Anita Parlow. ..\nother is a catalogie.called ~ p f i n l a r./zion I.rsues on11 Rt..cou~ces. It's a n 88-page listing of just about ;very resotlrcc in the mountains. Write: Southern Appalachian Ministry in Higher I
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"s'Ortfht~r?z~ ~ f ~ o J zisl ra equarterly journal that lets the South speak for itIf. ~oi-rletiri;rsit's t h r o r l ~ hthe xoice of a I~luessinger or the testimonial i f tobacco f;~i-nlcr.01-n ~ a y h eit's t h r o u ~ hthe words of older Southernek, \\-hcthcs rninrr or minister, who made their contril~utionlong ago to a b l t ter Sonth tod;ry. I n additiorl to oral history and intinlate interviews froin I\Iiri~~i(. Pearl to Julian Bond, ,Southern Exposure uses investigative j06rnalism.to p!.ol]e I~chindo l ~ v i o uch;rracteristics ~ ~~~~~~~r of lifyz-k:this-~egion,fo ekpl~ote--thc drepcr political alld c c $ i o r ' ~ i ~ E i ~ shaping ~ e s its future. We place ;\ppa";;rthi;~ within the l a r ~ c sc&text of th@South, and cr;rfts and music within the s ; m c cillturc that includes labor unions and anti-strip-mining groups,. Pre\ious ;rrticlcs in the journal have ranged fronl an ip-depth oral history of the Davidsozi-IYildes rnining I~attlesof the 1930s and 'Bloody' Harlan C:ol~nt).,rq3o~-j+ to ;I photo essay on the crafts of the Tennessee Valley,', from ;I portr:~it of bas con^ 1,ariiar 1,unsford and mountain Ijallads to ail inVestigatiqn of 1;1rid ownership and second-horne de\:elopments in Appalachia. Our rcg~11;ii-re;iders 11;n.e coale to expecjt almost anything from qu,tr tell! joi11n;~l.It ilia)' I J ~a irlusic I~ookon{ tin~t?or a research repor Pncsgy conglomer-ate the next. What ties it {ogether is our passion for this plat-c and its pcople, 0111- I ~ e l i e t i n h e i n,root=d ~ in a culture in order to trahs- : ' form it into ;I new future. \Ci view our cultdre in its I~roadestterms, and like the popnlists of old, we're not afraid to n,anie the culp;its.'wh~chronically destroy it. nor too meek to recommend few alterilatives lor its improvir ~ t c r ~ t . ~ ~ I f - \ -tikc~to n u ' d b ~ o w m o r c;iliout.ihc Soutir:e,.n Expojure, write for a frcc I~rochured c c ( . r i l ~ i nthe ~ issues pulllished of sencl $8.00 lor a ye;ir's, suljscription to P. 0. Bas 230, Chspel ill;^.^. n.jjr4." ---From a descrip~~
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The Souther~?Regional Council is a non-partisan privatelyfunded researrh and action organizatid.n, f o u ~ d e din 1944. C:ornposed of a 120- .. ... rnernl~ergoverning board driwn.from eleven Southern states, the C:ouncil is ~vorkii<~ to eliniinate institutio~ral racism and poverty by rnakini the region's own institutions n~oreaccountal~le to ill the peoplr they are supposed . t o serve. T h e ~ : o u n c i laccomplishes its work through a snrall core staff a n d , ' special-project staffs thak analyze issues, monitor governmental responses 'to 1 these issues: a n d docurnerit and pul,licize their findings with the goal of in-: creasing citizen dwareness of arid influence on puldic policy at the national, , state, :ind local le\:eIs. Put)licntions of this organiz;ition deal with educktion, ,employment, health, housing, rural and agricultural development, etc: 4 complete list of spccific p u l ~ l i c a t i o ~is~ savailal~leon request. M'rite: Southrrn Regional C:ouncil, 52 Fairlie Street, N.IY., Atlanta, Ga. 30303.
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I.XITF,D X f l S F . WORKERS JOCTRSAI,
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I\-hile the r ~ t i WJournal is partry dexzoted to educating the u n i o n niem11e1-shipon jol) health and safety prol)lems and contract issues, this unusu~ilunion magazine alsB regularly carries features on the lives a n d proh'lems of coal miners. Top$cs range from miners' attempts to improve housi n schools, and health &re to what it's like .to lle a coal miner or a coal n~iner's\\-iff. . every two weeks and the sul,scription rate is This journal is pul~lished . $5.00 pcr yrar. i t : United kiik Workerr Jou~n(11,900 15th Street,
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