Springfield globe-republic. (Springfield, Ohio) 1884-1887, 1886-09-26
IN NORTH CAROLINA.
SKETCH OF THE WIFE AND DAUGH-
TIERS OF A MOUNTAINEER.

Bringing Their Goods to Market-A Filthy
Habit-Trading at the General store.
A so-CsIled Home-The Kitchen Out
ht-No Hope.
The streets Of Asheville are wonderfully
quaint and picturesque. They are so, partly
by virtue Of their unlikeneSs to anything else
with which the northern visitor, accustomed
to industry, thrift and the life and stir Of
business, is familiar. Poverty and content
ment go hand in hand. YOnder barefoot
darkey, with crownless hat and dilapidnted
trousers, chaffering with cOuntryman over
| watermelon, "compOsesr well, but the
| Anglo-SaNon seems an alien element. Pic
turesqueneSs is not his forte. He is lean and
scrawny, while Cuffey is fat and shining.
| Cuffeys tones and laugh are mellow and
| unctuOus; the soul of good nature and
love of ease flow through them. The coun-
l tryman speaks with a sad and gentle drawL
He may not know it, but he was made for
better things than to pick the banjo and lie
with his feet to the fire.
| His wife and daughters-there are three
OF the iatter-arc all tall, thin, angular, with
no hint of womanly grace in their forms and
| little in their faces. They are 50 lean that
their dresses fit, the old saying has it, like
sack on a bean pole" Each has bit of
wood three or four inches long sticking out
/ Of her mouth. There is, or has been, snuff on
/ the unseen end Of t. Sometimes you may
see a brown rivulet of the snuff juice me-
andering down their chin. Some of these
| poor women, however, are evidently indus
trious, and as clean as a filthy habit, which
Is almost universal, will al ow them to be-
Ii it is a bright day-and By far the greater
number of the days are bright in this genial
climate-there are from fifty TO hundred OF
| them in a town Some have walked in
three, five, eight miles-Hith a few quarts of
berries, a few apples, potatoes, chickens the
aggregate of their goods probably worth less
than 81.
A CALICO DRESS.
Others have come in the country teams,
long, low, canvascovered Pennsylvania wag-
/ ons, sitting in splint chairs, drawn by mules,
or, possibly, by steers. They wear calico
dresses and calico cape-bOnnets They never
had anything better than a calico dress-not
one in hundred of them-in all their lives.
Not one in a hundred of them can read or
write. Not one in hundred ever attended
school three months. They stand about at the
street corners, gazing at the paSsersby with
wide, staring, injurious eyes They trade
at the general store their rag carpeting, their
tallowy butter, their homespun yarns for to-
bacco, Rio coffee, calico OF gay colors. They
it about on upturned boxes in the stores,
their trading finished till it pleases pater-
familias to start for home, Not infrequently
you may see one on either side of the husband
or brother, who has got at the bar-room close
by more than he can carry, supporting his
staggering steps, and hosting him into the
wagon, where he lies in the straw upon the
floor while the women drive home
Home! The house is of logs, with probably
two doors, possibly board window Should
it be built of boards with glazed windows, it
is spoken Of as "A nice house with glass
lights" 1t is apt to be about sixteen or eigh-
teen feet square, and may have a lean-to,
which may be used either for a bedroom or
cooking room Uusually, however, the SIM
pie family cooking is done in the great stone
fireplace at the end of the family room.
There are often three beds in a row on one
side of the room. Perhaps there is a loft
above which is reached by ladder, or, as In
one case we knew, by one of the boys climb
ing on a table, clutching a rafter and swing
ing himself up. In this one room all ages and
both sexes sleep, from childhood TO old age
The furniture is Of the simplest. A long
for use at meals, is often seen There is,
rarely, a plain bureau, but this is in the
homes of the wellto-do. There may be q
spinning wheel in the corner There is no
china closet, for the whole table service
would not furnish forth modern camper-out
for a weeks outing
THE KITCHEN OUTFIT.
The cooking utensils are an iron teakettle,
frying pan and a bakeoven, the latter a
ieep, iron vessel, with a hollow cover which
holds Goals for browning the opof the bread,
and coffee pot. There may be pot to boil
the DINER; if so, it may also serve to boil
the family washing. Bacon, fried in the
frying pan; corn bread, baked in the bake
oven; beans, string beans and roasting
ears, boiled in the pot, with plenty of bacon
for reasoning" are the staple articles
Of the family fare, accompanied three times
iaily by black Rio coffee. usually taken with
out milk or cream and almost always without
sugar. This menu is varied occasionally by
fried chicken, more rarely by game which
mi ght easily be had with little trouble What
is known as raised bread or yeast bread
sIuong US is spoken of south as hight bread
il contra-distinction, probably, To the ordi-
1 ary buttermilk biscuit, which is either sour
md heavy or sodden and yellow with soda
rke art of making light bread is not
familiar one to the woman We have been
speaking Of She knows nothing of the
niceties of cooking, nothing Of dainty house
keeping.
She was raised to field work She milks
the COWS, feeds the hogs, plows, hoes corn,
builds fence, hauls logs, pulls fodder, digs
potatoes; in short, does any and all the work
a man may do, its amount only limited by
her strength II her hard, rough life has LEFT
small room for the graces of life, what won
deri Into her darkness and ignorance no
Journal comes, with its sympathy
and stimulus Should her husband sell q
piece of land, she makes her mark in the
proper place. Her little girls are growing up
Just as their mother did There is a POOR
apology for a school, taught during two.
three or four months in the year, somewhere,
two, three or four miles away. That even
his, rightly 1Sed, would lift them out Of the
slough where the difference of mankind has
placed them how should they know! How
an you reach them and lift them to a higher
evelNAsheville IN. c. Cor. Womans Jour
.
The Rare Leather-Bsck Turtle
The leather back turtle is a rarity.
though the specimens are seen nearly
every seaton of the Atlantic coast, and
little or nothing is ksown Of their habits
except that they live on the high seas and