Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1894-07-28

Tor
He was q. great talker. and IT required
but little announcement on my part to
elicit his whole history. He had tried az
many occupations as the traditional New
England lad portrayed by Emerson, who
teams 1t, farms 1t, peddles. keeps o school,
breaches. edits q newspaper, goes to Con-
gress. buys q township, and so FORTH" the
difference being that my drivers occupa-
tons seemed to indicate a lack of the ideal
or progressive tendency. He had farmed it.
driven hogs. bought cotton. invented a
plough. learned phrenoiogy from an timer
ant lecturer. and had practiced and lee
tured on the art himself; he had organized
q negro minstrel troupe, with himself as
middleman, and had given shows in the
country towns; he had joined a horsebac ok
party of his neighbors which had followed
horse thief into Texas and hung him to a
limb: and now. at length. he had reached
the position of man-of-all-work for his
brother-bartender, hostler. horse trader.
driver. He was on hand at all country
dances and celebrations, and, according to
his account of himself. he was great
favorite with all the girls, though not with
the fathers, a fact which he did not seem to
think was to his discredit.
He was a skiliful driver, and yet he drove
with the utmost ease and nonchalance
talking continually and keeping the team in
a rapid trot, although the hubs of the
wheels frequently barely escaped the
stumps and trees among which wound the
devious road.
At noon we stopped for dinner at a log
farm house by the roadside in the woods.
And here I noticed. for the first time, a
habit of the people which / frequently OBJ
served afterward in the country and in the
country towns in the south. namely, that
they seldom take the trouble to close door
after them, even in the coolest weather. 1t
was freezing cold. and / FASTENED to the
open fireplace to get warm, but when one
of the boys in the house went out to get
some wood to replenish the fire he left the
door wide open, and when he returned he
did the same During the hour that We
were there 1 had to close the door myself
repeatedly. Afterwards in towns in Ar
kansas. Mississippi and Georgia 1 saw that
the doors of stores were invariably kept
open. and there was objection to having
them shut, lest people should think the
store was closed up. / mentioned this pc
culiarity once in the collectors office in
jackson, Miss, when an old gentleman
who was present told me the following an
ecdote, affOrding an amusing Illustration of
the prejudice against closed doors:
The weather was very cold and court was
in session. A northern lawyer who was
present trying case requested the deputy
marshal to close the door of the court room,
whereupon the judge directed the officer to
leave the door open. The lawyer protested
that the room was uncomfortably cold,
when the judge declared that the door must
be left open, because" he said, the law
requires that this case shall be tried in
open court.
We set out Immediately after dinner and
soon we began the ascent Of the mountains.
The road was fearfully rough, and the
weather was growing colder. but my driver.
who frequently fortified himself from his
bottle, was laxative, and so entertaining
that my mind was quite diverted from the
hardShips of the journey.
One of his narratives in particular, though
interesting, was under the circumstances
anything but comforting to me. Pointing to
a crag not far distant, overlooking a mar
row valley below, he told me that ii had
fOr a IA
of a desperate moonshiner, who had sworn
that he would distill all the Illicit whisky
he wanted to. and that he would not be
taken alive. He kept a supply of weapons
and ammunition, and himself or one of his
sens was always on the lookout for any
officers who might approach his place. One
day, during the previous summer, while on
the watch with his rifle beside him, he saw
three men on horseback coming up the val
ley. Assuming that they were revenue Of
ficers coming to find him, and thinking it
prudent to take time by the forelock, he
called his sons, and, levelng their rifles,
they fired, killing two OF the riders. Instead
Of being officers ii happened that the three
men we're inoffensive itineraut Methodist
ministers on their way to u conference
meeting in q neighb3ring town. When the
one who was unhurt made known how his
companions had been murdered the people
were all aroused and resolved upon the
moOnshiner's capture If the two men who
we're killed had, in fact, been revenue Off
news with satisfaction, or at least with in
difference, but the murder of their parsons
called for vengeance.
Some fifty of them rallied on horseback
for the capture, all well armed. For several
days they pursued the hunt, and at length
they found the hiding place to which he had
fled. The desperate murderer fired among
them repeatedly, but they were too numer-
Gus and too resolved to be diverted from
their purpose. and at length. after a des-
perate struggle. they captured him. Taking
him to the nearest jail, which was a small.
rude wooden structure. for fear he would
escape-so desperate was he known to be
trey chained him to an iron staple driven
into the floor of the Jail, attaching the chain
to his person by iron bands around his
wrists. While he was thus imprisoned an
other culprit, for some minor OffenSe, was
brought and shut into the room with him.
This new prisoner, having a match, set fire
to the door of the Jail. in the night, and
when 1t had burned through ne escaped,
leaving the moonshiner to burn up or escape
if he could. Rendered desperate by the fire
he tore one of his hands through the band
about his wrist, and being able to reach to
one of the iron bars across the window he
wrenched it off, and with this he succeeded
in prying the staple cut of the floor; then,
carrying the chain with him, since it was
still attached to his other wrist, he escaped
and fled to the mountains. The people again
turned out in pursuit of him, and tracking
him to a cave, where he had hidden, they
camped down in front of it, until at last,
being famished he showed himself at the
entrance, when they riddled him with bull
let's.
These events occurred in the region in
which / was new travelling, and a more
lonely and uninvitins place 1 had never
visited. We had seen one or two solitary
log cabins with no life about them, and dur
ing the afternoon We had passed but two
persons, two forbidding-lookiug men on
horseback. with guns slung across their
saddles. l began to be anxious about our
stopping place for the night.
The driver had already informed me that
we were to stop at Widow Meeker's.' who
lived in a log house en- the mountain, and,
incidentally. he told me that the widows
late husband had been killed by one of
his neighbors, with whom he had had a
quarrel. Hiding behind a tree with rifle in
hand. this neiShbOr had shot her husband
as he stood in his own doorway. 1t was
growing dark when We reached her house.
1t was a rude log cabin, with one window,
standing in the edge Of the woods, with
partly cleared field behind il. Stopping the
team in front of it my driver called out:
''HelIOa"' In a few moments a tall lank
female appeared in the doorway, with a
deep. calico sunbOnnet on her head, so that
her face was hardly visible
Good evenin', wilder said the driver
'Can We get 10 stay here tonight?"
After long pause, forth from the deep
sunbJnnet came in solemn tones: Come
in and the widow turned back into the
cabin. / descended from the carriage, and