Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1871-08-20
LIFE ON CUMBERLAND NOUN.

ter. They both wore hcmespun, as near
ly all mountain people do. l asked if l
could get dinner and my horse fed. 81
reckon you can" said the old lady; Shut
| my old mans gone after roots for dye
stuff, and you'll have to put up your
horse yourself. But we havn't got moth
ing but oats for him, as wen have to save
our corn for bread next year. The
drought is just running everything about
here" "You'l find the oats in the fur
der loft, " said the daughter, as l led my
horse away. l went to the 'furder
loft" and found oa's of as good quality
SIS are raised in the valley.
Presently the cid man and his two little
boys came, having been four miles after
roots to dye homespun. Plain people,
those, whose necessities compel them to
live almost independent of the world
With the exception of coffee, salt, and
lea her, they raise and manufacture about
all they consume.
elbow long have you lived on the
mountaiD?" asked of the old man.
"Nigh about all my life.
show far is i. to your nearest neigh
bor2
"Well, from four to Sven miles,"
'Don'tyou get lonesome2"
'tNo; we've got used to it.
Chow much land have you here2n
"About one hundred and fifty acres"
"Do you manage TO make living off
from it?"
eyes, by a tight fqueeza; but the
mountain is mighty poor. A man can
make living by hard wolk, but he can't
do much more"
"You say you have been here all your
life. How much do you consider your
self worth2'
"Well, l am worth this pace, which
might bring q hundred and fifty dollars.
lis hard to sell mountain land for more
than dollar an acre, whether it is cleared
or not That is all. If | had settled
somewhere else might have zone better
that is, 1 might have had more to leave
my children. But we have all had
enough to eat and wear, and what more
need We WANT"
thought his little boys looked as if
they mex did schooling, and upon asking
them about it, learned that their educa
months schooling in two years. But
they were good, and, as their father
proudly stated never went 10 bed with
out saying their prayers" He was bring
ing them up right, if i. was in the woods
and without the advantages of books,
newspapers and schools. His idea
seemed to be that "high learning was a
good thing, but that man could be right
COus IS well without as with il, and bet
ter, perhaps, IS il such cases there are
lesi doubts aud difficult questions spring
ing eternally in the mind. l thought of
POllok's familiar lines:
THE word philosophy he never heard,
Or science; never heard OF liberty,
Necessity or the laws OF gravtat'On;
And never had an unbelievlng doubt
| Beg ond his native vale he never looked
But thought the visual line that grit him round
| Toe world extreme; and thought the silver moon
That nightly er him led her virgin host,
No broader than his fathers shield. He lived
Lived where hts father lived, died wners he died,
Lived happy, died h'ppy, and was saved"
The people upon the mountain have
few religious advantages indeed, but they
improve what they do have far better
| than the inhabitants Of more prosperous
sections. An instance of this was brought
to my notice by the old man at whose
home l was, telling the boys to hunt up
the steers, and have them all ready for l
O'Clock in the morning.
"YOu surely will not start out so ear
ly," l said.
'Oh yes; we have to this hot weather;
the team can't stand the sun"
"But where are you going, that you
must start 90 early2"
"To preaching
"Ynu don't say tina, you have to getup
at O'Clock in the morning to go to
preaching
eyes, we do, for it's long ways and
it takes US good six hours to make it. If
we waited ill about day light we wouldn't
! get to hear any sermon ct all. .
From some specimens Of Cumberland
Nountain preaching have heard, the
loss of a "sermon" might be borne.
After dinner of corn bread, wild hon
ey, chicken and milk, l left the kind old
man and continued my journey through
the wilderness. "YOu'il not Sic house
or human face fer eight miles," said
the old man as l rode away, ''but Ie-
member you're on the mountain, and
don't be surprised" Sure enough, for
eight miles l rode through the woods
without coming to q clearing or meeting
a human face. All was silent, lonesOme>
ly silent. The shade was refreshing,
but would have preferred the suns
rays, if with the rays there could hsYe
been more life, a, not such picture OF
solitude and desolation.
CLEAR CREEK.
Late in the afternoon l crossed the
stream of that name. 1t is a clear,
or ;stal stream of water, running at the
bottom of deep and wild gulf, upon the
declivities of which is dense growth of
timber. My horse was cooling his dusty
limbs in the limpid stream, when l heard
voices in the road that wound down the
daclivity through the dense timber and
underground. The voices were of males
ard femaes, portion of whom we're
singing as they j0urneyed. The songs
were eighty divers fl d, the portions that
foated to me seeming to be fragments Of
John Brown, SOUR apple tree, and Old
Hundred. The crowd of merry songsters
numbered over dozen, and filed out
across the stream, stepping from rock to
| rock, and holding each others hand with
that disinterested carefulness which young
men usually bestOw upon maideDs when
there is no possible danger. And they
went up the opposite bank, all hoiding
hands, with apparently no regard to
position, other than to have each boy
sand Wiched in between two girls. Such
Is mountain style, and it is style, too,
not devoid of attractiveness.
Then came half dozen or 80 small
boys, laughing and running along, stop
ping occasionally 10 throw out irritating
remarks to the older oues ahead, such as:
''YOu, Bill, let Sal alone; she don't need
no help" (Sally did not look as if she
did, but yet, somehow, she did not OBJ