Sam Morris come over there just as we left the supper-table, and said his mare colt had got out. Asked had we seen her. Told him we hadn’t. And when Sam started to leave, I asked him, says, “Sam, did ye ride over?” Said he had. “Where’d ye tie your horse?” “To a big saplin’ down there in the corner of your newground.” The boys and me went on down there with Sam and I says to him, says, “Is that where ye tied the horse, Sam?”
“Yes,” he says. “That’s the place all right.”
We looked and there wasn’t no sign of a horse. Sam had thought that cornstalk was a poplar or somethin’. I told Burl and Blaine to run for the lantern and my old rifle. Flashed the lantern up the stalk and there was the horse about eighty feet off the ground a-hangin’ by the bridle. So Blaine held the light and I shot the bridle rein in two, and when the horse fell Sam got on and rode on back home.
Well, in less than three weeks’ time that cornstalk was tall as three big poplars. Rest of the corn done all right too. But that tall cornstalk wasn’t like no other you ever seen. Sprouted a pretty big ear for every blade. You could see ’em start out everwhen the blades unquiled their full length, generally about a hundred foot from the ground. Slowed up some when the rest of the corn tosseled out and commenced silkin’. Didn’t grow but about a foot a minute for several weeks and fin’lly, about corn-cuttin’ time, it stopped. You couldn’t see the tossel on it even with a spyglass.
Well, we got the little corn cut in about a couple of days. Then we borryed a few axes and started in on that tall cornstalk. Took me and Uncle Jeff and grandpaw and Jeb and Everett and Tom and Matthew and Herman and Therman all day, and about sundown it started fallin’. We watched it fall a while but it got plumb thick dark ’fore it had fell all the way.—Heard it hit the ground about midnight. Made a pretty big racket—even woke up Uncle Jeff.
So early next mornin’ we walked up in the pasture-field on the hill behind the barn to see which-a-way it had fell. Hit lay across the creek, over Flint Austin’s place, ’cross the top of old Frankie Shacklebrain’s big house, and we could see it must ’a crossed the hard-surface road. So we got in the truck and drove on over there. Seen it there above the telephone wires and stretched across a thick woods north side the road. Well, we took out west till we got to Highway 25, and when we crossed Clinch River we could see it was headed for the mountains. So we drove on through the low country, crossed Powell River, and—don’t you know!—directly we come on a string of automobiles and wagons ahead of us and they told us there was a big corn tossel layin’ in The Cumberland Gap—right in three forks of the highway, had the traffic backed up forty miles in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia. So we turned the trucks around and headed back home.
Well, boys, livestock and folks lived good off our cornstalk all through that section of the country. What fodder we ’uns gathered up, hit filled the barn loft plumb to the rafters; and we had three big shocks out in the pasture, ever’ shock twice as big as the barn. And out of what’n-all we gathered, we sold the other half.
Well—we gathered that corn with teams and log-grabs—one ear at a time. Rolled it up with canthooks, piled it high as we could, and sent off for a circus tent to pull over it and keep the rain off. Didn’t take but two grains of that corn to make a bushel of meal, but you had to bust it with an axe and take it by the rock-crusher ’fore it ’uld go in the hopper at the mill.
We didn’t mind lettin’ anybody have some of our corn, but we gathered all we could as far as Tazewell, and there was one great big ear we wanted bad, but hit was stuck in the ground. When that stalk fell this one big ear had mired straight down, small end foremost, in a new-plowed field. We dug around it and tried ever’ way in the world to get it out and Burl rigged him up a kind of derrick out of the forks of a tree and a thick chestnut pole, and we got grabs in the end of the cob. (It was mired deep and we jest could knock the grabs in place.) Then we hitched a team to the lower end of that pole and they pulled hard but they couldn’t budge it So we got another team but they didn’t help much. So directly we had six teams lined up, and when they fin’lly give a good pull all together—don’t you know!—they jerked the cob out. Left a forty-foot well already rocked up.
Hit gave good water, that well did—all that fall and winter and spring, but way along late the next summer, July and August, the weather was awful hot and that corn got to fermentin’, and about September first you couldn’t draw a thing out of that well but puore mash.
Uncle Jeff he had him a little still then, back in a holler and he run off several thousand gallons of it ’fore winter set in. Made pretty good likker too. Jest a little small dram of it made you feel high as that cornstalk was ’fore we cut it down.
Granny had been chuckling to herself as Tom’s tale was ending. “Kel,” she said, “you better tell Old Roaney just to make these fellers hush.”
“He’s been waitin’ out on us,” grinned Old Rob. “’Tain’t no use, boys! We might as well ’a not started.”
Old Kel pulled a long face and told—
Old Roaney
One time there was an old man lived on yonder side of the mountain. He was an awful hand to hunt, hunted all the time, never had follered nothin’ but huntin’. Him and his old woman they lived mostly on wild meat. ’Course they had to buy a little meal and coffee and sech. And this was back in old times when it was pretty thin-settled in here, and the settlement (that’s where the store was at), hit was plumb the other side of the mountain.
Well, one cold winter mornin’ the old lady raised up from where she was a-cookin’ in the fireplace, says, “Old man, we done run plumb out of salt I told you last week that salt-gourd was rattlin’ mighty holler. And besides that, there hain’t a scrap of meal left, and I cooked up the very last ground of coffee for your breakfast this mornin’, and we’re low on sugar, and I scraped on the bottom of the flour barr’l last night when I made up your biscuits. You done let us run out of rations. Now you saddle your old pack-mare and git on over that mountain or we’ll be eatin’ nothin’ but unsalted meat.”
“Well,” says the old man, “I’ll be goin’ out in a day or two, I reckon. Hit’s a-snowin’ pretty bad right now.”
“You git Old Roaney and fetch us in some rations today, old man. You can eat wild meat with no salt and no bread if you want, but I ain’t a-goin’ to stand for no sech a thing. Git out of here now and go on to the store like I tell ye.”
“Well,” he says, “I’ll go directly.”
That old man he wasn’t even studyin’ about makin’ ar’ trip out to the settle-ment, cold as it was; but when he went to fill up his powder horn, his last keg of powder had jest a little bitty dribble in it “Blame!” he says, “I can’t fetch in much game with that” He had to go to the store now.
So he pulled his old coonskin hat down over his ears, opened the door-shutter, hollered “Roaney!”, whistled a couple of times. Old Roaney nickered and directly here she come a-trompin’ through the snow. She ’uz an awful good old mare. Come on to the house and stood there to see what did the old man want. So he give her a peck of oats. (Only crop the old man ever did raise. Had him a little deadened patch of newground in the bottoms where he put in a few oats ever’ year for his old mare. He didn’t like farmin’; didn’t like to foller nothin’ but huntin’ and a little fishin’ ever’ now and then.) So he took the saddle off the wall and throwed hit on Old Roaney. Waited for her to git done mommickin’ her oats. Then he bridled her and tied on a few furs he had saved up, jumped in the saddle and hunkered down in his coat collar, and give Old Roaney her head. She ’uz a good old mare. She knowed it was about time to go out and pack in some rations and ammunition. So she took the old man right on over the mountain and on down to the settle-ment. Hit was a right far piece.
So when Old Roaney fin’lly stopped, the old man knowed she was at the store. Stuck his head up out of his old coat, grabbed up his bundle of furs and jumped off and run on in, throwed the furs down on the counter and started in tradin’. Wel
l, he got eight bushels of meal and eight big tins of bakin’ sody, a two-hundred-pound sack of tree sugar, hundred pounds of green coffee (that was back in old times when you had to roast it and grind it at home), three two-bushel pokes of wheat-flour, fifty-pound poke of salt, twelve fifty-pound kegs of powder, several dozen bars of lead (had to mold your own bullets back then; muzzle-loadin’ hog-rifles was all they had to shoot with), got himself twenty-four dozen twists of tobacco, and several little ar-ticles for his wife. Took all that out and packed it on his old mare. Crawled up in the saddle, says, “Git-up, Roaney.” And Old Roaney started on off toward the mountain.
Now, the old man had him a few balls left in his shot-pouch, and he’d done tapped the bung in one of them kegs of powder and filled up his powder horn, so he had his gun ready to fire. (The old folks they al-ways kept their old hog-rifles ready-loaded to shoot.) And when they got on up in the mountain he looked out and seen a big buck deer standin’ up the slope a little piece. Upped with his rifle-gun . . . BAM! . . . and down come the deer. Went and got it, dragged it out in the trail, skinned him a strop of rawhide off one of its legs, tied its feet together, heaved it up and hung it on the saddle horn. Got back in the saddle and on they went. Looked out before him directly and here come a great big old black bear a-shummickin’ right down the middle of the trail. “If I can jest git you now, your fat’ll season my buck.” (Well, the old folks always kept their long-rifles ready-loaded.) So he upped with the muzzle, squeezed the trigger, and at the crack of the gun down come the bear. Hit ’uz a big ’un too. The old man dragged it down on the uphill side of the trail, prized it up on a log was layin’ there about level with the old mare’s back, got its feet tied up, pulled Old Roaney over to that log and hooked the bear’s feet over the saddle-horn. Got back in the saddle—“Git-up, Roaney’—and Old Roaney started easin’ away from that log. Now, when that bear’s weight pulled off the log and struck Old Roaney she stopped and turned her head and looked back at the old man. But she was an awful good old mare: she stretched out and shifted her fore feet, put her old head down and shifted her hind feet, and picked her way up the mountain.
When they got up in the gap the old man thought he ’uld let her blow a spell ’fore he started down. And while he was a-waitin’ he heard a dove moanin’ right close; looked out before him and seen it sittin’ on a dead limb right over the trail. Well, he thought he’d take his old woman a little bait of fresh bird-meat for her supper. So he upped with his old rifle-gun (the old folks never did fail to keep their guns ready-loaded), and he took that dove right in the head. It fell and caught in the bresh ’side the trail, so directly he pulled on over there and reached down out the saddle to pick it up. And—don’t you know!—time he took holt on that dove, little as it was, Old Roaney scooched down and her back give away. Still, she ’uz an awful good old mare. She always done the best she could: she kept her head up and her rump up, but her old belly swagged on the ground. So the old man jumped off of her, seen the shape she was in, says, “Now I declare! I believe Old Roaney’s back’s done gone and broke. Now, what’n the nation will I do?”
Well, he unloaded her but she still couldn’t heave herself off’n the ground; so the old man jest knowed her back was broke, and he got to studyin’ what to do. So he split Old Roaney down the forehead, and cut her around the hocks, and then he slipped up behind her with a two-handed bresh—and come at her hollerin’ and swarped her good—and it scared her so she jumped right out of her skin.
So then the old man took Old Roaney’s skin and stretched it out on the ground, put them rations and all that plunder in it, and the deer and the bear and the dove, and tied the four legs across, got his head up through it where he’d left it tied jest right, took holt on a little dogwood tree and pulled up, swung that load around on his back and put out down the mountain.
Well, he got in home, jerked open the door-shutter, and went on in the house. Now, he’d forgot his pipe when he went out and he was wantin’ a smoke awful bad. So he walked over to the fireplace, got his old cob pipe down off the fire-board, crumbled some tobacco in it, scooped him up a coal of fire and got it lit. Started in walkin’ the floor, a-smokin’ and a-worryin’ about his old pack-mare. He thought the world of Old Roaney. Well, he tromped backerds and forrads a spell, a-smokin’ and a-worryin’, and directly his old woman raised up, looked at him, says, “Old man, why in the nation don’t you lay that pack down and go get washed for supper?”
So the old man he slung his pack off on the floor and untied it. Piled them rations in one corner, put his powder in a good dry place, throwed the bars of lead down one side the hearthrock, laid his tobacco on one end of the fireboard and his wife’s stuff on the other, skun out the deer and the bear and took the meat on out and hung it up, picked and cleaned that dove and handed it to his old lady. Then he took the deer-skin and the bear-skin and Old Roaney’s hide and throwed them down behind the door where he kept all his skins and sech. So him and the old woman they eat supper and went on to bed.
Well, ’way up in the night the old lady woke up, punched her old man, says, “Get up, old man, and see what that is pawin’ at the door. Sounds like Old Roaney, sure’s the world!”
“Old Roaney—the nation! Old Roaney’s up there on top of the mountain with her back broke and no hide on her. Go on back to sleep, old woman.”
The old lady she tried to go to sleep but she couldn’t. And directly she heard it again: pawin’, pawin’. So she gouged the old man with her elbow, says, “Old man, you get up now and go see what that is. Sounds pint blank like Old Roaney, the way she does everwhen you forget to feed her and she comes a-pawin’ at the door after ye.”
“I done told ye, old woman! Old Roaney’s up there on the mountain with her back broke plumb in two and her hide a-layin’ there behind the door. Now, you hush up and quit botherin’ me.”
So the old man he rolled over and commenced snorin’; but the old lady couldn’t get to sleep and couldn’t get to sleep, and then she heard it again—pawin’, pawin’, pawin’ like it ’uld break down the doorstep; and that time it nickered. So she raised up and jerked the covers off the old man, set in to punchin’ him and shakin’ him till she got him woke up, says, “Now you get right out of this bed, old man, and go see what that is. I heard it nicker jest now, and I tell ye hit is Old Roaney. You git your britches on and go yonder and open that door, or I’ll not give ye no more peace the rest of this night.”
“Old woman, you’re crazy as a betsy-bug! Hit’s a heifer plunderin’ around out there, or some other brute done broke loose from somewhere. Well, jest to pacify ye, I’ll have to show you hit ain’t Old Roaney.”
So the old man he crawled out. Put a chunk of lightwood on the fire and when it flared up he went and opened the door; and Old Roaney stuck her head in the house. There she was, the cold snow a-foggin’ and a-pilin’ down on her, and her jest a-shakin’ and a-shiverin’ with no hide to her back. So the old man he reached down behind the door right quick to get her skin and put it back on her. Got out there tryin’ to get it stretched out to cover her and it didn’t seem to go jest right. Well, he ’lowed he’d have to tie it on, but he didn’t have no hickory bark twists handy, so he reached over close to the house where he knowed some blackberry bushes was at, broke him off a handful and wrenched ’em and twisted ’em till he’d fixed him up a withe. Tied the skin on his old mare with that withe. Went on back and jumped in the bed. Old Roaney didn’t bother ’em no more, and him and the old woman slept right on.
Well, the next mornin’ when it got daylight enough the old man looked out to see about his old pack-mare—and he seen what a bobble he’d made. He’d killed a big buck sheep a couple of days before, and instead of gettin’ Old Roaney’s hide he had grabbed up that sheep-skin and tied hit on her. He went out and tried to pull it off, and—don’t you know!—hit, had done took root and wouldn’t come. So he jest left it, and hit growed right on. Covered her bodaciously all over in jest a very few weeks. Growed down her l
egs and underneath her, wool patches on her head, and the biggest sheep-tail you ever seen a-hangin’ down behind. And they tell me the old man sheared her twicet a year. Got more wool off Old Roaney than forty head of sheep. Peart too, but she was sorty sway-backed the rest of her days.
And I have heard it told how that blackberry withe took root around her like a bellyband. And the old woman never did have to go out in the bresh no more after her blackberries. When blackberry time come she ’uld jest call Old Roaney and pick blackberries off her sides—got enough to make several pies, ever’ pickin’. But I’ll jest tell ye now. I never did really believe that part of the tale.
“Hand him the cake! He’s took it!” And Big Rob laughed till he nearly bounced out of his chair.
Harry slapped his knees and laughed till his eyes watered. “Uncle Kel, I been knowin’ you ever since I was a little chap. Why in the nation ain’t you never told me that tale before this?”
“You never asked me.”
“I just recollected one,” said Granny, “about an old woman and some rogues.”
Old One-Eye
One time there was a rich old lady, lived all by herself. She had a lot of money; kept it right in the house on the fire-board. And every evenin’ she ’uld sit by the fire and card wool. Had her a big dried fish hangin’ up one side the fireplace and that fish didn’t have but one eye, so the old lady called it “One-Eye.” Well, she ’uld sit and card wool of an evenin’ till she gaped three times, then she’d eat her a piece of that fish and go on to bed.
Grandfather Tales Page 14