The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1903-08-12

MARION, N. G., Aug. L. Saturday
night. It's q long ride from Spartan
burg here, especially If one takes it
slow rs l ain taking 1t. The distance.
by way Of Hendersonville Is a little
over II hundred miles in snaky semi
circles. The road is an everlasting
winding and dipping through the
woods over the hills and across a thou
SAID creeks.
D Wv nayself and my three friends
@S%T de a man and two horses,
he z the wandering journey thus
fs 80 Jwell. Yes, we are all a little
s;ss&% and horses about equally.
VS. g1ed" out of Spartanburg at IL
O'Clock Tuesday morning. Each of us
have a pair of saddlebags and a rubber
coat. Wednesday night we stayed at
Lau6rum. At nine O'Clock Thursday
morning we were in Tryon where /
called on an old friend, a KentuckIap,
a real Kentuckian in the best sense.
He could not do too much for US and
among other things that he did was to
introduce us to Squire Mills who was
\ going to ride three or four miles to-
wards Hendersonville. Squire Mills is
> one of the fine old Confederate veterans
that one meets up here, a cousin Of
Capt. Columbus Mills who served on
General Gary's staff. The Squire rode
with us to Melrose Falls. First you
ride up the mountains. Then, il Squire
Mills is with you, you tie your horses
and crawl through the bushcs down IT..
If the Squire is not with you, you had
best leave the falls to visit some other
A tributary Of Pacolet River
leaps out Of the bushes on the noun
tain side and dashes into spray on the
rocks thirty feet below. All around In
q half circle are walls of rocks. In
front is a ponderous boulder around
which the creeks foams and dances to
another fall below.
This rough, rock room with it's furni-
ture OF great masses of broken rock, in
the sheer mountain side, with the sun
light leering in and making rainbows
in the spray, Is an excellent spot for
love making, | should think, provided
you have a girl with you ard q lunch.
Almost any kind of a girl would do, the
place is so beautiful, but the lunch
should be heavy-broiied ham between
slabs of buttered bread preferred. We
had the lunch but girls were nowhere
to be seen in this locality.
Crawling back to our horses Squire
Mills left us. Three miles further
through the woods we csme to a cabin
inhabited by a man and woman and a
covey of children. The man was q
COOL fellow and sold us corn and fod-
der for the cattle. We fed on apples.
1t rained tremendous. These folks
were about the poorest | have seen
ever in these mountains. Nobody is
as poor in Baurens County as these
d mountainous. do not mean the farm
ers along the streams. The valleys are
beautiful. There are many pretty farm
houses with good outhouses and fields
of corr and peas and broad stretches Of
meodow. Even in the valleys through
the crops are poor this year-poorer
thar In Laurens. But the mountaineer
on the mountain side, in his cabin,
with his little apple orchard and yoke
of steers-we have no white people so
poverty stricken as he seems to be. He
lives but | do not attempt to explain
how. Down in the valleys, with their
fine corn and grass lands, the chance
for success is below the Laurens farm
c~'s. The Laurens man can produce
any and everything, even corn, almost
ais we'll as the valley mountaineer and
he can produce cotton the safest
money crop known to mankind, be-
4 Sides.
& II the Laurens farmer could ride
from Bat Cave In Hickory Nut Gap
three miles into Broad River Valley as
l rode yesterday he would thank kind
Heaven for his home among our old
red hills and thin sandy ridges as he
never thanked before. He would find
beautiful corn fields along the Broad
where 1t Is u stream no bigger than
Little River at Laurens but he would
wonder how he got there and still
more how he would get out. On fairly
good saddle horses we rode or climbed
five miles In two hours. This, under
bU1uQ, was ONOI u PuOiio highway III
Henderson County-the highway over
which these valley farmers haul corn
and apples and chestnut oak bark and
wood. This bark Is sold for about six
or seven dollars the cord at the rail-
way stations to the Leather Trust
agents who ship it to a point
near here to be used in tsnnfnge-
We TAX about the roads in Laurens
but that road, from Bat Cave to-
wards Lukey's Gap and down Mejor's
mountsin, would silence our people for
ten years. 1t seemed cruel To ride
horseback over it-and yet one man
said that with a team of small horses
no had hauled 1000 pounds Of bark 10
miles. Hs did not say II the horses
had wings. You Laurens peopls know
the grade In Hampton Street at the
G~reenyille Railway crossing-this road
Is steeper for three miles steady, and
twists about like a cork-screw. Ii i.
nil 81 rocks and ruts too. Ys,