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A Knight Of The Cumberland
by
“Hello!”
You enter no mountaineer’s yard without that announcing cry. It was mediaeval, the Blight said, positively–two lorn damsels, a benighted knight partially stripped of his armor by bush and sharp-edged rock, a gray palfrey (she didn’t mention the impatient asses that had turned homeward) and she wished I had a horn to wind. I wanted a “horn” badly enough–but it was not the kind men wind. By and by we got a response:
“Hello!” was the answer, as an opened door let out into the yard a broad band of light. Could we stay all night? The voice replied that the owner would see “Pap.” “Pap” seemed willing, and the boy opened the gate and into the house went the Blight and the little sister. Shortly, I followed.
There, all in one room, lighted by a huge wood-fire, rafters above, puncheon floor beneath–cane-bottomed chairs and two beds the only furniture-“pap,” barefooted, the old mother in the chimney-corner with a pipe, strings of red pepper-pods, beans and herbs hanging around and above, a married daughter with a child at her breast, two or three children with yellow hair and bare feet all looking with all their eyes at the two visitors who had dropped upon them from another world. The Blight’s eyes were brighter than usual–that was the only sign she gave that she was not in her own drawing-room. Apparently she saw nothing strange or unusual even, but there was really nothing that she did not see or hear and absorb, as few others than the Blight can.
Straightway, the old woman knocked the ashes out of her pipe.
“I reckon you hain’t had nothin’ to eat,” she said and disappeared. The old man asked questions, the young mother rocked her baby on her knees, the children got less shy and drew near the fireplace, the Blight and the little sister exchanged a furtive smile and the contrast of the extremes in American civilization, as shown in that little cabin, interested me mightily.
“Yer snack’s ready,” said the old woman. The old man carried the chairs into the kitchen, and when I followed the girls were seated. The chairs were so low that their chins came barely over their plates, and demure and serious as they were they surely looked most comical. There was the usual bacon and corn-bread and potatoes and sour milk, and the two girls struggled with the rude fare nobly.
After supper I joined the old man and the old woman with a pipe–exchanging my tobacco for their long green with more satisfaction probably to me than to them, for the long green was good, and strong and fragrant.
The old woman asked the Blight and the little sister many questions and they, in turn, showed great interest in the baby in arms, whereat the eighteen-year-old mother blushed and looked greatly pleased.
“You got mighty purty black eyes,” said the old woman to the Blight, and not to slight the little sister she added, “An’ you got mighty purty teeth.”
The Blight showed hers in a radiant smile and the old woman turned back to her.
“Oh, you’ve got both,” she said and she shook her head, as though she were thinking of the damage they had done. It was my time now–to ask questions.
They didn’t have many amusements on that creek, I discovered–and no dances. Sometimes the boys went coon-hunting and there were corn-shuckings, house-raisings and quilting-parties.
“Does anybody round here play the banjo?”
“None o’ my boys,” said the old woman, “but Tom Green’s son down the creek–he follers pickin’ the banjo a leetle.” “Follows pickin’ “–the Blight did not miss that phrase.
“What do you foller fer a livin’?” the old man asked me 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.