A Knight of the Cumberland | Page 6

suddenly.
``I write for a living.'' He thought a while.
``Well, it must be purty fine to have a good handwrite.'' This nearly
dissolved the Blight and the little sister, but they held on heroically.
``Is there much fighting around here?'' I asked presently.

``Not much 'cept when one young feller up the river gets to tearin' up
things. I heerd as how he was over to the Gap last week--raisin' hell. He
comes by here on his way home.'' The Blight's eyes opened
wide--apparently we were on his trail. It is not wise for a member of the
police guard at the Gap to show too much curiosity about the lawless
ones of the hills, and I asked no questions.
``They calls him the Wild Dog over here,'' he added, and then he
yawned cavernously.
I looked around with divining eye for the sleeping arrangements soon
to come, which sometimes are embarrassing to ``furriners'' who are
unable to grasp at once the primitive unconsciousness of the
mountaineers and, in consequence, accept a point of view natural to
them because enforced by architectural limitations and a hospitality
that turns no one seeking shelter from any door. They were, however,
better prepared than I had hoped for. They had a spare room on the
porch and just outside the door, and when the old woman led the two
girls to it, I followed with their saddle-bags. The room was about seven
feet by six and was windowless.
``You'd better leave your door open a little,'' I said, ``or you'll smother
in there.''
``Well,'' said the old woman, `` hit's all right to leave the door open.
Nothin's goin' ter bother ye, but one o' my sons is out a coon-huntin'
and he mought come in, not knowin' you're thar. But you jes' holler an'
he'll move on.'' She meant precisely what she said and saw no humor at
all in such a possibility--but when the door closed, I could hear those
girls stifling shrieks of laughter.
Literally, that night, I was a member of the family. I had a bed to
myself (the following night I was not so fortunate)-- in one corner;
behind the head of mine the old woman, the daughter-in-law and the
baby had another in the other corner, and the old man with the two
boys spread a pallet on the floor. That is the invariable rule of courtesy
with the mountaineer, to give his bed to the stranger and take to the
floor himself, and, in passing, let me say that never, in a long

experience, have I seen the slightest consciousness-- much less
immodesty--in a mountain cabin in my life. The same attitude on the
part of the visitors is taken for granted--any other indeed holds mortal
possibilities of offence--so that if the visitor has common sense, all
embarrassment passes at once. The door was closed, the fire blazed on
uncovered, the smothered talk and laughter of the two girls ceased, the
coon-hunter came not and the night passed in peace.
It must have been near daybreak that I was aroused by the old man
leaving the cabin and I heard voices and the sound of horses' feet
outside. When he came back he was grinning.
``Hit's your mules.''
``Who found them?''
``The Wild Dog had 'em,'' he said.

III
THE AURICULAR TALENT OF THE HON. SAMUEL BUDD
Behind us came the Hon. Samuel Budd. Just when the sun was slitting
the east with a long streak of fire, the Hon. Samuel was, with the
jocund day, standing tiptoe in his stirrups on the misty mountain top
and peering into the ravine down which we had slid the night before,
and he grumbled no little when he saw that he, too, must get off his
horse and slide down. The Hon. Samuel was ambitious, Southern, and a
lawyer. Without saying, it goes that he was also a politician. He was
not a native of the mountains, but he had cast his fortunes in the
highlands, and he was taking the first step that he hoped would, before
many years, land him in the National Capitol. He really knew little
about the mountaineers, even now, and he had never been among his
constituents on Devil's Fork, where he was bound now. The campaign
had so far been full of humor and full of trials--not the least of which
sprang from the fact that it was sorghum time. Everybody through the
mountains was making sorghum, and every mountain child was eating

molasses.
Now, as the world knows, the straightest way to the heart of the honest
voter is through the women of the land, and the straightest way to the
heart of the women is through the children of the land; and one method
of winning both, with rural