The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-07-14

after being used once, she refuses to
let you prove her theory by applying a
lighted match to the talisman.
In appearance the inhabitants Of the
mountain log hut are pictures of health
Despite the exposure they undergo both
INDOORS and out, they usually live to a
good old age. The men are large OF
frame, have ford compilations, and are
generally adorned with great boards
The women are red-faced muscular, and
gaunt. There are lew ''old maids" for
girl thinks it the height of disgrace
to remain unwed, and most Of them take
the first wooer who heaves in sight,
ready for all the horrors Of love in a
cottage" at any time after the four
teenth or fifteenth birthday.
The second class of mountaineers. the
smaller land owners, are almost as pic
turesque as the cabin dwellers Living
in their rough houses of two or three
rooms, filling their few fields of corn
and grain, herding their cattle on their
rough slopes, or those of their richer
nelghbors,5 thesee men seemed as happy
as though they were millionaires. Their
wives do the homework, their sons and
daughters help either at home or in the
fields and woods The house, limited
though it is, is never too crowded to
accommodate guest over night and
the guest although he may have to
sleep threaded" with some of the fam
lily and wash his face in the morning
at the family spring, is sure of plenty to
eat and warm welcome. On the dinner
table is piled an array Of food that
would pale the sufferer from Indigestion
but the mountain air is supposed to kill
that malady, and the stranger finds his
appetite voracious in the face of green
soda biscuits, greasy fried ham, ill-cooked
trout or bass, chicken, mutton, corn
bread, bad coffee and good milk The av-
erage farmer of the middle type will have
set before him all of these eatables at
the same time sometimes without condi-
ments or extras, more often supplemented
by the best Of fresh butter and such
home made seasonings as the different
dishes require
A traveller has to pay for his keep
in accol dance generally, with the lOca-
ton of the houses wherein he obtains
lodging. If his host lives near a railroad
station and has guests often, he pays
maybe as much as 81 per day. If the
house is far back in the mountains, iso-
lated from railroads and towns, the trav-
eler's expenses are appreciably lessened,
and it is not uncommon for one to stay
all night with farmer, eat three hearty
meals, and then be presented, apologet-
icaly, with bill for 20 cents If the
traveller has horses this sum includes the
care of them and the provender they con-
sumo.
The fields titled by the lesser farmers
are commonly so rugged that one Won
ders how they can be cultivated at ALL
1t is a saying among travellers that some
of the corn lands are on mountain sides
so steep that the cornstalks have to hang
to each other to keep from falling into
the valleys below. When a man plows
such field he has hard time. If the
horse is not of the strongest build it can
is added to the weight of the pillow the
strain of holding on to the almost vertical
field. Sometimes a plowman will tie a
long rope to a tree at the upper end of
furrow and then attach the other end
of the rope to the horses head, so as
to prevent the animal, in case of a slip,
from sliding all the way to the bottom Of
the mountain. An even more useful and
extraordinary procedure is the running of
a cord from the horses head all the way
round a tree at the top of the slope the
plowman's assistant grasping the further
end of the line and helping the beast to
walk upward by continually pulling, with
the tree as a kind Of lever.
There are many large tracts throughout
western North Carolina that are owned
by syndicates Of investors, and usually
the owners, while waiting for land values
to rise, give to some farmer the con
troll of the tracts Then the farmer,
whose little acreage adjoins the immense
domain of wooded country, uses the latter
for raising his cattle letting his cows
and sheep roam through it at will. He
also makes the best of any good fishing
streams on the syndicate's property.