San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1889-02-19
LITTLE MART D0DSON

Among the Red Knobs Of the Tennessee
valley the people are mostly of the poorer
class of small farmers Along the railroad a
"Red Knobber" is known by the purple hue
of his boots, usually well stained by the hem
attic dust of his patPmonial acres. Lying
at the foot Of the ChilhOwee mountains, the
rocky Businesses behind them were long the
congenial sphere of the mOonshiner's hidden
toll and trouble.
Little Mart Dodson had peddled wildcat
whisky" from the time he became able to
take a three gallon keg along the country
bound over before commissioners, tried, re-
leased or convicted so many times that the
varied phases of federal justice or lenency
had long lost the spice of novelty under
monotonous conviction of their tyranny and
general futilty as related to mOonshning in
general and Little Mart in particular.
But one summer there came a lady and her
daughter from Chattanooga to board at
Hawk Cliff, a ragged spur of the Chilhowees,
where mineral spring or two bubbled out
from beneath the precipices
Mrs. Baird needed some pure whisky for
medicinal purposes Following the instruc-
lions of the "Widder Green" with whom
they boarded, Agnes, the daughter of the
former, left bottle and some money one
night in cleft of a large rock, called the
Devils Anvil" On going back the next
morning she found the money gone and the
bottle filed with mount'in dew.
Little Mart air always up ter time" said
Widow IIa criro 70 hot
rock every Chuesd'y night ez regular as
clockwukn
There was no society in social sense at
Hawk Cliff, and Agnes, lively girl not yet
out of her teens, when not reading to or wait
ing upon her mother, found herself at some
loss to pass the time. There was no one to
dress for or flirt with, and the country folk,
ever suspicious of social superiority, were
shy and evasive. She sought solace in long
rambleS over the mountains, and though
warned against the danger of getting lost,
ventured further and further with feminine
perversity, until one day she found herself in
that inevitable predicament
A thunder cloud had yelled the sun, the
blue sky was vanishing, and the very depths
of the mountain seemed to moan softly as
though the earth was feverish and in dread
Agnes stood at the juncture of several wind
ing ravines, all equally wild and misleading,
with great forest trees frowning over her,
and without a definite idea as to her proper
course.
oval, mis-, air ye sure huff lost, or what
air the matters"
The sound of any human voice was vel
come i'll that solitude Turning, she saw be-
fore her short stout, freckled face young
man, having a sack swung over his shoulder
with key in each end OF it. In a few hur-
ried words she explained who she was and
that she was lost.
"YOre a good three mile from the Wilder
Green's" he said, '''n' was n goin' the
yuther way"
Agnes instantly suggested pecuniary in
ducement as reason for guiding her home
but the young fellow looked at the clouds
and said hurriedly:
you jest wait hyur minute"
Then he disappeared round a huge bowlder
before Agnes could demonstrate In two
minutes he reappeared minus his sack and
kegs, with the remark:
Now, miss, we mus hurry ter git ter the
Hangin' Rock afore that shower vets us"
They plunged into a wild gorge-tho very
one Agnes would not have taken if left to
herself-and soon came upon a trail that
wound here and there among the ridges, over
rocks through shadowy laurel brakes and
across several small brooks. The rain ap-
preached, and the guide kept Increasing his
speed, until Agnes, painting and stumbling,
was about to ask him to go slower. But at
this juncture a sudden turn round a beetling
crag brought them out OH a rocky platform,
fronting the valley lying along the foot of
the mountain.
Overhead the cliffs projected, so that the
wer9 sheltered from the drops already fall
ing. The young man brought her a drink
from spring near by, and she sat down to
survey in security the solid wall of gray ran.
now sweeping over the distant knobs and up
the intervening valley.
81 don't believe | know your name, she
remarked, as he stood awkwardly azing at
her as upon a new revelation in ne line Of
feminine lOveliness.
"Im Little Mart, be replied
sob, to be sure; you arc the ,,.rson who
put the whisky III maU.~ra's bottle"
Wal, l.o.. 49,. miss, II re purity fool ten
CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE