Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-08-06
WEAR|ED, CUBBAGE
T0LEAVE HOLLOW
Uncle lake Resolves to Aban-
don Lifetime Home, Where
He Killed Grandson.
BY WILLIAM HI. SHIPPEN,
staff Correspondent of The Star.

LURAY, Va, August 6-Uncle Jake
Cubbage is going away. He doesn't
know just where, but it must be some
place beyond the rim of Cubbage Hol-
low, where he has lived his 80 years.
The old mans homecoming late yes
terday afternoon was not as joyous as
he had pictured it, sitting in the hot
stuffy confines of the Page County jail.
The doors of that jail closed on Uncle
Jake on June 8, last, after he had walk
ed into the settlement and informed
authorities that he, few hours previ-
ously, shot his 19-year-old grandson,
Fred Cubbage, In defense Of his own
life.
Found Not Guilty.
Uncle Jake's story of self-defense
made such strong impression on a jury
of his fellow mountaineers, that yester-
day afternoon they found him not guilty
on the murder charge, The two days Of
the trial in the Page County Circuit
Court here had wearied the old man,
and when he tied his belongings into
a bundle and set out on foot for his
cabin in Cubbage Hollow, Is miles south
of Luray, he was glad to accept lift OF
a neighbor driving home from the trial.
Uncle Jake had supposed back in the
jail some day he would return to his
cabin in the mountains and live out
his remaining years In peace.
But when Uncle Jake arrived home
at sunset yesterday, high on the slope
of Grindstone Mountain, he found
something strangely disquieting about
the familiar scene.
When he stepped across the log. door,
step of the cabin, he remembered 1t
was beside that doorstep his grandson
had fallen, fatally wounded.
There, in the sun-scorched patch Of
rye that fringed Uncle Jake's yard, the
youth had lain, while inexperienced
hands sought to stop the f1ow of blood
from wound in his thigh
Uncle Jake went home with his 19-
year-old son, Melvin, and his young
daughter, just Is.
The boy and girl unlocked the cabin
and brought out a chair for Uncle Jake
The old man sat down and rocked
himself slowly back and forth In the
straight chair.
The children listened while Uncle
Jake muttered to himself, and they
turned anxious faces to the visitors who
arrived half hour later-two WASH
ington newspaper men.
Sitting there in his front yard and
tanning himself with his battered old
felt hat, Uncle Jake expressed his dis
appointment IN his homecoming.
1t amt the same, somehow" he
said. i've lived and worked In this
here hollow nigh onto a lifetime. It
was me that built them stone walls
yonder," he went on slowly, waving to-
ward vine covered wall that stretched
across the hollow below him.
I've nut In manVS the Q0n0 DAYS
work here. It's all I've got-that field
on the mountain yonder and this wild
land But the place don't seem right,
somehow.
I'm going to leave here. I don't
know where I'll go-most anywhere,
guess. My boy Melvin. here, and my
young daughter is all that looks to me
children, two families of them, but
they're all looking out for themselves
now.
Old Place Don't Seem Right.
II don't have to worry much about
myself. A little cornbread and a slice
Of bacon, maybe, will do me. But I've
here. Maybe I'll take them across the
hollow to their Uncle Albert, or maybe |
I'll move to the settlement. don't |
know where, but I've got to get away |
from here. The old place don't seem
right now that I've got back to it.
"Fred's blood amt on my hands. I'm
an old man, and he was a youngblood, |
He was pretty full of liquor, I guess,
and I couldn't make him behave.
warned HIM off, but he came on and
said he was going to break my own gun
over my head.
II shot down at him.. You can see
where the shot pockmarked that rock
there. didn't mean to kill him. I only
to stop him and make him leave
me be. But he made me spill his blood |
on my own doorstep. and that doorstep |
amt the same to me any more. got |
to be going now"