The Charlotte Democrat., 1888-02-03
Uncle Jaw.

in his day. He was as independent as a
wood-sawyer in a hundred foot pine, q
thousand miles from the woodman's ak.
He thought for himself, and said what he
thought regardless of the opinions of 9TH
er men, be they great or small. He was
purely original in everything he did or
said. He patterned after no man living
or dead. Fortunately, he was a man of
uncommon, good, hard, horse-sense, as the
saying goes; and better still, he was
man of deep, constant, uniform piety, al
ways ready to give a reason for the hope
he had in him. By common consent every
body both old and young, black and white
called him ''Uncle Jays" and why not? for
he made himself the friend, if not the kins-
man of every man he met. His heart
seemed to be as large as his body, and
that was immense-larger every way than
the average run of men iu this country.
Uncle Jay was the soul of honor. He ha-
ted little thing, OF mean thing, with
an inveterate hatred. Truth and truthful
ward parts. His word was his bond. He
would not have swerved an inch to have
saved his own life or the lives of all his
kith and kin. If my memory is not at
fault, Uncle Jay grew to young manhood
in Maury county, Tennessee, not far from
Columbia, in a region famous for the fer
tility of its soil. About the time he
gained his maj jority he, like the Prodigal
Son, took the portion of goods that fell to
him and moved to Walker county, Ala
bsma, and invested 10 a wide breadth of
level pine-land, known generally as spine
slash" 1t was at once intensely amusing
and absorbingly interesting to hear Uncle
Jay, in his own original and quaint way,
} recite this chapter in his early experience
with the world. He told it all over with
minute exactness and with the solemnity
and gravity becoming the pulpit, while
the listener was convulsed with laughter
at the inimitable touches of humor, both
in the matter and manner of the dear old
mans story. He never saw, or seemed
rot to see. anything amusing in what he
said. He had an impediment in his
speech-a peculiar impediment, such as l
never knew before, but it was as original
aud as interesting as the man himself. 1t
could not be transferred to paper with any
degree of accuracy, and the very best
, mimics made ga poor out" initiating the
good old mans peculiarities of manner.
He said, in substance: 81 left Tennes-
see and moved to Alabama because l was
n a fool, and thought had more sense than
/ my daddy. Most boys think they are
!, smarter than their daddies till they learn
Q that they are fools in the school of expe-
. rience, as l did. l bought that pine-land
because it was level, aud l thought it
would make a pretty farm-one over
+ which could look from my cabin door.
never once thought of the nature of the
. soil. Indeed I did not know but all kinds
OF soil were as good as that on my daddy 3
: farm. I'd never seen any pine, and my
n niggers were as big fools as was-they'd d
never seen any pine either. 1t was a
j. rainy, drizzly, cold day when We landed
I at the cabin on my new farm, or rather
/ where was going to open my farm.
told the niggers to make on a fire, and
E there was no wood, saving a big pile oi
- - rich light-wood at the gate. The fool mig.
gers, who had as little sense as their mas.
. ter, brought in great loads of that pine,
= and piled it on just as they would oak and
y hickory up in Tennessee. The grease ran
out of it, and it took me and the niggers
: the hardest kind of work to keep the house
. from burning up. Well, sat there and
: ing up the logs on the big new ground
. | was such fool l didn't know there wal
. any difference between the burning o
= green pine and dry pine and all this came
of thinking l was smarter than my daddy
Well, me and the boys went to worl
< clearing up farm and it was not long be
fore we had opened out wide field. Th,
y logs were cut and rolled and / though
70 what good time I'd have burning then
20 up. Pine burnt SO good and the straw
- was so thick I was afraid I'd burn up M
place. 80 / made me some rakes and raket
. up the straw. So one Saturday told th'
u boys to set the logs aire so they woul'
=, burn up so we could go to plowing earl.
~ Monday morning. l did not work on Sun
day myself, but thought the fire coult
le burn that day as we'll as any other, ant
n have things ready for my work on Mon
le day. Tve quit stealing time from CO.
since got religion. 1t don't pay, nohow
TX Sunday work is always a dead loss. Wei
d, as was going on to say, Sunday morr
Ii ing got up early and looked down t.
ward my new ground to see how my log
,e were coming on, and, would you believ
,e it, there was just little smoke curling u
from log heat now and then where ther
D. chanced to be an oak or hickory log in th
m pile. 1t looks like hard story, but ha
to take my wagon and mules and ha,
n wood to burn up those pine-logs. Pin
be beat any timber l ever saw-in the hous
n, you couldn't put it out, and in the fel
be you couldn't burn it up. Now all tn
ot came, as you see, of thinking l had MOI
sense than my daddy. Well, 1 worke
hard, and the first year I made nothin,
on but my neighbors comforted me by sayin
IL IN it was bad crop year. The next year
III worked still harder and made nothing, (
';e, next to nothing, and they said that was
III bad crop year. The next year and Il
year after worked harder than ever, ar
It's made nothing, and they said they we
IN, bad crop years. By this time my stu
was about to get under the hammer
the sheriff, all because thought kne
bit more than my daddy. was too prot
ct. and big to 60 back to Tennessee. IT
IN. folks would laugh at me. couldr
,se stand that. So l said, "WelI, l wor
,ed stay in no country where they have TO
bad crop years in succession" and car
over here sixty miles into the prairies al
& bought this farm on credit. From this
ha 1 am going to stay where the mud is dee
l. IL L. saf h. ~iaha