The Newberry herald and news. (Newberry, S.C.) 1884-1903, 1891-04-02
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THE EASTER EGGS.
A STORY OF LOVE, POETRY AND
PROSE.
BEING 4 CHRONICLE OF TIE DUTCH FORK.
BY DR.. 0. 3. MAYER, SR.
I.-LOVE.


Midway between the points where
Crim's creek and Cannon's creek empty
their sluggish waters into the shining
rapid stream of Broad River, and near
upon its Lexington bank, is the locality
known SIS Cohees Hill. The oak forest
which :once covered it, corresponding
to that still holding dominion over the
adjacent hills and in the surrounding
country,-so beautifully green in sum-
mer, so ruggedly black in winter,-has
long been shorn from the sides and
summit of Cobees Hill. The curious
eye can to this day detect traces of corn
rows running towards the bank Of the
river,-showing that the level top of
this hill was once cultivated; but since
the last harvest merry-making all
vestiges of farm buildings have been
swept away. Cedars almost vieing in
luxuriance with the ancients Of Leb-
anon have long ago lifted high their
conical forms and interlocked their
wide-reaching branches; while in the
centre of the old field a shell-bark
hickory, after waiting long for the dis
appearance of the last apple tree, at
length broke ground, d,-grew to large
maturity,-yielded annually, during
the boyhood of him who writes this
chronicle, vast crops Of nuts much
and long time sought after,-and then,
languishing under the innumerable
clubs thrown among its limbs to dis
lodge it's fruit, it sickened, and died,
and passed away-buried under the
overspread of the cedars.
There is a legend that man by the
name OF Cohee once lived on this bill;
but the oldest men in the Dutch Fork
retain no recollection of him. There
are none to trace their origin to him:
nobody knows where his grave is.
More probably, the Indians gave this
name TO the beautiful shoals just here
in the river nearly mile wide. 1t
is known that Indians, before the
arrival of white settlers, occupied the
portion Of country known now as the
Dutch Fork; and Webster in his
Dictionary has Cohoes or Cohoze sig
nifying fail of water, in the languages
of the North American Indians.
Irregular masses Of coarse granite,
projecting from the river side of Cohees
Hill, convert its declivity into rough
diminutive precipice commanding q
delightful view of the Cohees shoals.
There, on the left and right, are the
pretty little islands with their images
mingled by the rippled surface that
reflects them. Hundreds of black rocks
divide the rushing sheet Of water into
as many sluiees along which the sum-
mer drake glides with his mate, and
the blue crane wades across them in
quest of its food. Through the space
where the point of Lakin's island (for-
~merIy Pearson's) nearly joins that of
Hampton's, PARIS mill can be seen
nearly mile distant on the Fairfield
side of the river, and in days long
gone by, before the age of innovations,
the old wooden water-wheel was wont
to turn necessarily upon its gudgeons,
glittering in the MONDAY sun like sill
yer and in the evening sun like gold.
Glorious old Cohees! How he who
writes this simple narrative does love
thee! The noise of the water tumbling
over the rocks of thy shoals noise
subdued by distance and intervening
forests into quieting murmurs-
often lulled him to sleep in his earliest
childhood, while nesting on the ma
ternal lap, as the twilight darkened
more and more into the night. It is
true, thou art no longer aided in thy
soothing office by the mellow sound Of
the boatman's sassafras horns coming
from the camp on the Fairfield bank of
the river where the cotton-boat was
tied for the night to slanting willow;
and true it is, that fewer than they
were are the trees that now shelter the
s'gauz-wing'd katydid", yet thy unas-
sisted roar, Cohees, is delightful to
hear between sunset and dark,-and
even at midnight, awaking from sleep.
Yes, he who loved thee when he was
boy, and who loved thee still through
all the distractions Of manhood, loves
thee yet, eveR now, when the roar of
thy shoaly waters is further softened
through the impaired hearing of old
age. Since the days of my youth
have seen many places famed in history
and fiction, and have heard many
sounds of tempests and breakers, all of
which are fast fading from my recollec-
ton, but Cohees, when thou: But
TO my tale.
One Wednesday afternoon before
Easter in the year 1880, a stalwart
young man was reclining upon rock
at the base of the Cohee Precipice. A
we'll kept rifle was balanced across his
lap; and a bunch Of squirrels, with
their heads shattered and suspended
from small hawthorn tree, was evil
dence of the steady arm and eye which
had aimed it. Upon a messy bank
near the edge of the water lay large
yellow dog. He looked earnestly in
his masters face, and wagged his tail
to attract attention; but the young man
gazed listlessly over the sparkling
shoals, and took no notice of bis dog.
The sagacious animal rose and recon-
noitred the watery expanse before him,
~This boat-horn was made by accurately
solitting a small sasSafras tree into halves
from top to bottom, following out the two
pieces, and binding them again together by