The Van Buren press., 1893-05-27
coy.TAyLoR's JOKE.
How, when = Boy, He Directed the smsls
Stranger.


East Tennessee is truly the land OF
crooked highways they having been
laid off, on account of the undulating
surface of the country, wholly regard.
less of uniformity and symmetry, ana
unlike the more favored sections OF the
north and west, cannot be followed py
the cardinal points. 1t is consequently
difficult and mostimpossible to direct
a traveller with any degree of plainness
and intelligence in fact, and 1T is often
the source of great amusement to strah-
gers unused to such experiences. Inc
most noticeable feature of their ln1of-
nation is that it is almost altogether
impaired in the negative, as it were,
and the bewildered traveller, in trying
to keep track of the half-seore OF dlffer-
ent roads he must not take, iuvariaoiy
forgets the one he is to follow. and IN
his confusion knows far less than when
the sturdy old settler responded to his
nervous ''hello" some half an hour be-
fore. Then, too, you are confronted
with the necessity of being perfectly
familiar with the country in order TO
follow such directions as "turnln to
the right O. Tilson's farm or "takin
t the left O. gram pas medder' and
.skeepin' straight for'ards' where the
main road actually forks in two equally
divergent directions.
Then you turn off, or don't turn off,
as the case may be, "ferninst certain
landmarks that could be identified by
nothing short of Photographic sketch.
try to grasp literally, the ludicrous in
junction to take first IA house on one
hand an tree on tother," go over
the hills and into the valleys, past Ger,
tain stumps and rocks and trees which
you are to recognize by certain events
that have transpired near them genera
| tions since, and heaven knows what
not, till your brain whirls and you
turn doggedly away as if under the
spell of some hideous incubus.
The incidents illustrating such laugh
able weaknesses are numerous, but
chief of them all is one told of ex-iov
Taylor, Fiddler Bob, as he was called
at home. The eastern tourists aud
visitors down in the Watanga valley
some several years ago found such ex-
periences SO amusing that they had a
fashion of driving a few miles out OF
town and accosting the unsuspecting
inhabitants for directions to certain
distant and out-of-the-way places. And
true to their accommodating and hos
pitable instincts, it was always volum.
inously forthcoming.
1t CHANGED one day that one of the
hazing parties in question drew up in
front of the old Taylor homestead on
the Watanga and making their we'll
feigned pretense of being lost, accosted
a brown-faced, bare-footed lad, whe
was none other than the future gov
ernor of the volunteer state" In
quiring if he could direct them to such
and such place they had learned of
he promptly responded that he ''reck
oned as how he might" He had heard
it seems, of their pranks and 50 sur
missing the object of their errand, he
chuckled to himself in anticipation, as
sumed gravity befitting a judge, ant
began.
We'll, in the first place. you turr
round back o. the barn out ther, but
mustn't turn t the left ez that roat
amt open now: you keep straight "
thet hill over yander till you get t The
top; then you go down on t'o.her sid.
till you come to the woods; ther by ar
ellum tree you take path T. the lef
and you follow it till you come t th'
top O the hill in the thick woods
where my fathers hired man killed ;
bear one time; there the path fades GU
altogether. but jist go right straigh
for ards, about as fur as frum here I,
the spring, an you come to fence
look all about you and if you don't se
nobody git upon the fence an holler
if You don't git no answer. holler agin
an if nobody don't answer thet time
why, holler agin: an. then ef you don
git no answer b'gosh you're lost. De