The daily herald. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1886-1887, 1886-12-23
IN NORTH CAROLINA.
SKETCH or THE WIFE AND DAueH-
TIERS OF A MoUNTAlNEER.

bringing Ahcif OOouS 20 hhfhct~-Th fhtny
Habit-.Trnding at the General Store.
A so-Callcd IIome-The Kitchen out
nt--No Hope.
Tho streets of Ashoville ore wonderfully
quaint and picturesque. They are so, partly
by virtue of their unlikencss to anything else
with which the northern visitor, accustomed
10 industry, thrift and the life and stir Of
business is familiar. Poverty and content
ment go hand in hand. Yonder a barefoot
dnrbey, with orownlcss hat and diiapidated
trousers, chafforing with countrymnn over
a watermelon, compose well, but the
Anglo-Saxon seems an alien element. Pic
turesqueness Is not his forte. He is lean and
scrawny, while Cuffcy is fat and shining.
Culfcy's tones and laugh are mellow and
unctuous; tho soul of good nature and
love of ease flow through them. The coun-
tryInau speaks with sad and gentle drawl.
He may not know IL, but he was made for
better things than to pick the banjo and lie
with his feet TO Tho FIRE.
His wife and daughters--there arc three
Of the latter-are MI tall, thin, angular, with
no hint Of womanly grace in their forms and
little in their faces. They are so lean that
their dresses ft, as the old saying has it, alike
n sncl 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 IL. Sometimes you may
sec n brown rivulet of the snuff juice me
andeiing down their chin. Some of these
poor women, however, nre evidently indus
trious, and as clean as q filthy habit, which
is almost universal, win allow them TO be-
If it is a bright day--and by far the greater
number Of the days are bright in this genial
climate-therc arc from fifty to a hundred of
them in town. Some have walked in
three, five, eight miles--with few quarts of
berries, few apples, potatoes, chickens, the
aggregate Of their goods probably worth less
than 81.
A CALICO DRESS
Others have como in the country teams,
long, low, canyas-covered "Pennsylvania wag-
ons," sitting in splint chairs, drawn by mules,
OF, possibly, by steers They wear calico
dresses and calico cape-bonnets. They never
had anything better than calico dress-not
one in a 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
tallo~v butter, their homespun yarns for to-
ItiCCOs AZ tOntt. NiilltO VI ku1 tbiOid IutJ
sit about on upturncd boxes in tho stores,
their trading finished till it pleases pater-
familias TO start for home. Not infrequenty
you may see one on either side of the husband
or brother, who has got ut tho bar-room close
by moro than he can carry, supporting his
staggering steps, and hosting him into the
wagon, where he lies in the straw'upon tho
floor while the women drive home.
Homol The house Is of logs, with probably
two doors, possibly board window Should
ii be built of boards with glazed windows it
is spoken of as "a nice house with glass
lights II is apt to be about sixteen or eigh-
teen feet square, and may have lean-to,
which may DO used either for bedroom or
cooking room Uusually however, the sim
Pile family cooking is done in the great stone
fireplace at the end of the family room.
There are often three beds in n row on one
side OF the room. Perhaps there is loft
above which Is reached by ladder, or, as in
one case we knew, by one Of the boys climb
ing ON table, clutching rafter and swing
ing himself up In this one room all ages and
both sexes sleep, from childhood TO old age
Tho furniture is Of the simplest. long
table at one side, with low benches beside it
for use at meals, is often seen. There Is,
rarely, a plain bureau, but this is in the
homes OF the well-to-do. There may be
spinning wheel in the corner. There is no
china closet, for tho whole table service
would not furnish forth modern camper-out
for weeks outing.
THE KITCHEN OUTFIT.
The cooking utensils are an iron tealsettle,
frying pan and ballcoyen, tho latter a
deep, iron vessel with hollow cover which
holds Goals for browning the top of tho bread,
and a coffee pot. There may be pot to boil
the dinner; 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
cars boiled in the pot with plenty of bacon
for Seasoning are the staple articles
OF the family fare, accompanied three times
daily by black Rio coffee. usually taken with
ont milk or cream and almost always without
sugar This menu Is varied occasionally by
fried chicken, more rarely by game, which
might easily be had with little trouble What
is known as raised bread or yeast bread
among us is spoken OF south as eight bread,p
In contra-distinction, probably, TO the ordi-
nary buttermilx biscuit, which is either sour
and heavy, or sodden and yellow with soda.
The art Of making slight bread" is not
familiar one 10 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 tho hogs, plows hoes corn,
builds fence, hauls logs, pulls fodder, dil |,
potatoes; in short, does any and all the work
man may do, It's amount only limited by
her strength If her hard, rough life has left
small room for the graces of life, what woni
ders Into her darkness and Ignorance no
household journal comes, with its sympathy
and stimulus Should her husband sell
piece of land, she "mnkes her mark" in the
proper place Her little girls are growing up
just as their mother did There is poor
apology for school, taught during two
three or four months in the year, somewhere,
two, three or four miles away. That even
this, rightly used, would lift them out Of the
slough where the "teference Of mankind has
placed them, how should they lmowl How
can you reach them and lift them TO higher
leyels-Asheville IN O. Cor, Womans JouI-
mil
Fishing for Dog.
A citizen of Clayton, Co., lost valuable
dog, and suspected that he had fallen into dc