Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-06-02

EA trickling into town from the hills
E7 to vote and shop. Wagons, mules
and gaunt mountain men and wom-
en- dot the five roads. Wagons
creak down Main street and dry-land Sleds
crunch the mud. Mules and oxen plod silently.
Mules and lean horses carrying whole families
dump them in front of the business stores.
Both sides, the street is lined with beasts tied
to hitchracks Hogs wallow in their holes and
cows roam with their noses turning over rub
bish heaps. Some below for their calves.
Under the porticos of the business stores
men, women and children make groups. Some
stare silently at newcomers who hitch their
mules to the racks. Some whisper among
themselves. Legs swing over portico floors and
eyes stare from under bonnets and WIDE
brirnmed hats. Some hillmen and hillwomen
sit under the big elms in the courthouse yard
Men lie fiat and women lean their backs
against tree trunks. Men white or whisper.
Himen gather the boardwalk in front
of the restaurant and move from mule to mule,
from horse to horse. OK to OK. Hill traders
with more cunning than gypsy, feel over the
live stock look into beasts mouths. Unhurried
men, with expressionless faces, make terms in
low voices, trade buy without animation.
Traders mount horses and mules, race them,
whip them to a gallop up and down Main street.
Mud flies and hoofS pound.
TRADE in the business stores is brisk. In the
- general store old man Steele hustles from
counter to counter. Hillmen sit on counters
eat canned peaches and crackers, or drink pink
soda water from bottles
Steve Dodie, the town marshal, leans against
the easement of the general store The star
on his shirt glitters and the butt of his AS gun
taps the wall as he shifts his body.
Down in the picnic grove, under the cam
bpy of spreading elms, hill folks are heating
fotched-in yictuals wood fires Beyond
the picnic grove, where Meddlesome Creek
bends into town, hilmen are shooting rats.
-s<7 0F1d
boys sit on the banks of Meddlesome, hit rats
square and watch them pass with the waters,
kicking.
Men linger in the dark hallway of the
courthouse after voting. Throw suspicious eyes
around. New voters enter slowly and scrut1n1Ze
those who loaf in the hallway they pass into
the county clerks Office to cast their ballots.
In the voting place the judges and clerks sit
at long pine tables, fix their eyes on those who
enter. Alert eyes fly to the door. Hard eyes
Scrutinise. Sometimes hands creep nearer the
butts of piStol-guns on the table. A deputy
sheriff sits in the corner holding carbine.
He rises leisurely, steps over to a voter and
searches him. Finds a gun, marches his
prisoner to cell at the end of the long hall
way.
Tension everywhere. Because everybody's
concerned in way. Everybodys related
in some way to somebody up for election. Men
and women shut their mouths tight and watch
watch for moves watch for firearms, tucked
away in jean pants, calico shirts or wagons.
Women sit on the stairway that leads to
the courtroom upstairs Some chew snuff.
Some smoke pipes spit into boxes Of sand.
E New arrivals look in the big double doorway
and enter timidly Some carry saddlebags
stuffed with groceries Some look in the tax
collectors office long time before they enter.
When they stand before the table of the tax
collector they push their tax bills across to
him. The business is done without talk. Most
1y pantomime.
TN the sherifs Office, next TO the tax collec-
tors, Floyd Jett the county officer, High
Sheriff Jett sits in hickory-back chair and
cocks his feet on his table-desk. He looks out
his Office door at those who pass. Hnlmen
look in at him. Some speak. Some nod. Some
ScoWl.
Tad Daniels, the six foot and half noun
tain woodsman from Pennyroyal settlement,
swings through the doorway into the sherihs
office and sits down. He spits into a box OF
sand and moves his chair up close to Jets.
The sheriff bites the end off stoge and lights
it. Chances out the window down Main street,
out the doorway once then back at the hill
quiet election, Floyd" says the Daniels
man.
Huh Too quiet!"
r. Reckon yuh air a-goin' tub beat-win,