The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1910-09-20


Even in the best season transportation
is in the main limited to what a horse
can carry on its back besides It's rider.
In a trip OF $50 miles through the noun
talns we met only one wheel vehicle and
d few trucks for hauling railroad ties
which were being got out Of the forests.
Our own camp wagons, though carrying
only light loads. had to double their teams
In climbing the ridges. All that had been
done in most cases to make a road Owe"
a mountain was to clear an avenue
through the dense growth of timber, SO
that 1t proved as Il rule to be just short
of impossible.
For this reason the public of the
mountains prefer to keep to the valleys
with their streams, to which they have
given many expressive and picturesque
names while the knobs and mountains are
rarely honored with a name. We have
Cutshin Creek, He'll fer Sartin, BulIskin
Creek, Poor Fork, Sinking, Greasy and
Qulcksand Creek. One trail leads from the
waters OF Kingdom Come down Lost Greek
and Troublesome, across the Upper Devil
and Lower Devil to He'll Creek.
1.-The creek therefore, points the highway
and is used to designate geographical To-
cations. When we would inquire orr way
to a certain point the answer was, 60
ahead to the fork of the creek and turn
up the left branch not the fork of the
road and the path to the left. A woman
at whose cabin we lunched ore day said
My man and me has been living here Oh
On Troublesome"
Fine riders all, bestriding the meal
Dag, (which is the regular accom-
paniment of the horseman." Every
man shoes his own horse. The
country store" at the forks sells bel
lows. There is a forge in the she or
clubhouse of every cabin. Why do our
artists go to Holland or Brittany
when homely native pictures like
these are at hand?
" saw one day a family on their way
to the country store to exchange their
produce. The father, "A girl sn6 q LARGO
bag Of Indian corn were mounted on on.
mule, and the mother, a younger girl
from the saddle bow, On the other. 1t IS
no unusual thing to see a woman on
horseback, with a child behind her and
q baby in her arms, while she holds an
umbrella above them"
OF necessity scant travellers, many
or these mel never saw q town or
even their county seat, itself but a vii
lage. The most cosmopolitan of them
"a voyaged on lumber RATS or have
been guests Of the State penitentiary
at the capital for feud murders or il
licit distilling. The women are severer
home keepers. Some Of them have
not even trOtted over so much of the
globe as lies between their house and
the postOffice or Country store"
Twelve years married, one woman
had never visited the home of her
father and mother ten miles .sacross
the mountain"
Thus rooted in one spot, the fami-
lies of each district intermarry end
lessly and by this persistent endoga-
my are kept fresh the elan instinct
and the feud, to our mind the theatre
opera and novel of this folk. In
Breathitt county. a region long dear
to orr heart, IAN old Judge" whose
family had been pioneers on Trouble
some, said that in the district school
nearby there were ninetv-six children
or whom all but five were related to
himself or his wife" and a Perry
county woman say that she is ere