GENA of the APPALACHIANS

By CLARENCE MONROE WALLIN

Cochrane Publishing Company Tribune Building New York 1910

Copyright, 1910, by Clarence Monroe Wallin

To Alma, my wife, and the thousands of other noble daughters of the great Appalachian country.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

If, in the lines of this humble narrative, the reader should find anything of truth; anything of uplift; anything of human life, then the author shall have been fully repaid for the time employed in writing it.

Clarence Monroe Wallin.

Gena of the Appalachians

CHAPTER I The Burial of Lucky Joe

It was late in the afternoon of a cold winter’s day when they sent for him to go and perform the last sad rites at the burial of Lucky Joe.

Lucky Joe had outstripped the law in his crimes for more than forty years—hence the people had well dubbed him “Lucky.” For more than three decades his name had been the synonym of dread and fear among the people of the hills. He had at length whipped them into granting him whatever he exacted of them, whether the thing in itself was right or wrong. But one memorable day, the tardy finger of the law apprehended him, and he stood up before the bar of Justice and heard the court pronounce, “Joseph Filson, guilty!” Quickly he was ushered away to the penitentiary—down to a Southern jail and to hard and endless toil for the remainder of his life. The gates of the prison closed and locked their iron jaws behind him: his keeper admonished him to be obedient, and he immediately chose to work at the blacksmith’s forge. Day after day, he swung the sledge in silence. Then the days crowded into months and into years, but he pounded away at the anvil unmindful of the end. Finally death came and knocked at the door of his narrow cell and took him away.

The news of the great outlaw’s death flashed back to the hills, and horse and rider took up the message and[8] sped over the peaks and down into the narrow gorges to tell the mountainfolk of the end. Many a mountain mother and son ran out to the roadside to meet the rider, and received the news with gladness. Men and boys gathered in groups about the forks of the roads and doubted that it could be true. But, when the remains were forwarded to the railroad station nearest the mountain home, doubt and distrust gave way to the evidence, and all were satisfied.

“No, he wouldn’t come,” said the man at the gate. He sat there, on his horse and fumbled at the horn of his saddle for more than a minute, all the while trying to find words with which to make further known his mission.

“I say, thet we took ’im to the school-house yisterday, but the preacher wouldn’t come. Don’t think thet he wanted to come nohow, cause you see, Lucky wuz allus a purty bad man. But we’ve brot ’im back to the school house today, an’ we want to put ’im away nice, an’ as we knowed that you wuz here, we’d like to git you to come. We knowed thet you wuz not a preacher, but thet you wuz a kinder public Sunday-school speaker—an’ we want to put ’im away nice—an’ like to git you to come.”

Paul Waffington saddled his horse and led him out into the deep snow, mounted, and followed the stranger out into the storm. The way was dangerous, but the two men picked their way along the mountain pass as best they could. The roar and the fury of the storm increased as they went, and the cold wind cut like the blade of a knife. Many times they were forced to lie down in the saddle with their heads against their horses’ necks to protect themselves from the cutting sleet and driving snow.

True enough, the man had said at the gate that Paul Waffington was not a preacher. Nor was he engaged in any preparations to that end. But choosing to remain[9] a layman, the Sunday-school and the children were the direct objects of his Christian activities. But when some human heart was sore and duty called, he responded without a murmur. Hence throughout the blinding storm of this winter day he rode with the stranger to the burial of Lucky Joe.

Despite the midwinter storm that was raging, he found the little school-house overflowing with the people of the hills. Great bunches of mountaineers stood about in the deep snow, on the outside, while the house was crowded to the door with thinly clad mothers bearing in their arms their children. All had come, alike, to get a glimpse of the face of the dead man whose name, to them, had been born of destruction.

All the family were there. The two young sons sat on the front seat with ruined hopes. The little daughter was there alongside the brothers, clinging to them in grief; mother was there by the side of the children, and father was there—in the casket.

It was with great difficulty that Paul Waffington made his way through the throng, to the front. It had not been his lot to meet with Lucky Joe during his lifetime. But now, as he approaches the platform, he turns and looks into the casket. He beholds the face of an old man—past sixty years—with pinched features and a long, white beard, with deep lines in his face that the chisel of sin had hewn with no uncertain hand.

With a warning to the living and words of comfort for the bereaved the little service closed. For hours during the blustering day strong men had worked at the grave. Rough, uncouth mountaineers, many of whom had hated and feared the dead man during his lifetime, dug up the frozen earth and rock in perfect silence. It mattered not to them now, whether he had been a friend or an enemy during his lifetime, their respect now was[10] for the dead. The infallible rule of the gentle people of the Appalachian hills is to respect and honor the dead, friend and foe alike, and to “let the dead rest in peace;” therefore, when their feet on this sad day became benumbed and stiff with cold, there was not a murmur from any lip or rest from any stroke until the grave was finished.

Kind hands laid away the remains of Lucky Joe. Strong men braved the winter’s gale and did their part well. When the last shovelful of half snow and half frozen earth had been placed upon the mound, the people gathered themselves together by families and dispersed in silence. Paul Waffington lingered and comforted the mother and the two sons. Then he took the beautiful hand of the little daughter Gena and held it as he tenderly spoke a few words to her. Her big blue eyes looked up through the hot tears wishfully at him as he finished:

“Good-bye, now. And be a good little girl. I will come back, perhaps. And if—if I come back, I will come to see you and bring you a pretty book. Don’t forget now. Good-bye,” and he patted her on the head as he turned to go.

The storm increased its fury and night came on as death comes—swift and sure. Then, with a heavy heart and a picture in his mind that shall grow plainer and brighter as the years go by, Paul Waffington mounted his horse and went out into the night towards his own place.

CHAPTER II The Hamlet Blood Camp

Far away from the great press of population and the busy throngs, in that part of the beautiful Appalachian country, better known to the tourist as “The Land of the Sky,” in the very evening shadows of Mt. Mitchell itself, the mighty Snake lifts its domes. Standing alone and a little above the surrounding mountains, with its sharp peaks pushed up into the eternal blue a little more than six thousand feet, it has for fifty years smiled down upon a little hamlet at its base, and that hamlet is Blood Camp.

A dozen weatherbeaten houses, an unpretentious store, post-office and blacksmith shop was Blood Camp fifty years ago. With few changes, a few faces missing, and a proportionate increase in the number of graves in the little chestnut grove on the hill, Blood Camp is about the same today. In fact, it had been freely circulated “out in the world,” as Granny Green would say, by a commercial traveler, that Blood Camp was finished. For three decades he had traveled through the hamlet, and during the time had failed to hear the sound of a saw or a hammer,—hence it must be a “finished” town.

However, that may be, there had been some wonderful changes in the life of Blood Camp since the death of Lucky Joe. Immediately following the burial of Lucky Joe, there had been organized the Sunday-school in the school-house by Waffington, who put the school in the hands of a faithful few and departed. At the end of the year, a freshly made grave that lay along by the side of Lucky Joe’s told the story of the mother’s broken[12] heart and death. The two sons disposed of all the things that could be found, saw their little sister Gena bound out to old Jase Dillenburger, and departed for the West. Old Granny Green, fortune-teller, conjurer and real local paper, had recently been found dead near her pigsty. Some of the careless ones of the neighborhood had said that “It was sint on ’er. Beca’se she kept bitin’ dawgs, an’ dawged peoples hogs all ’er life.”

Lately the constable with his deputies had come up from the lower settlements and locked up the little store by order of its creditors. The people considered this the greatest blow of all to the neighborhood. For twenty years the dilapidated store had stood on the state line, half in Tennessee and half in North Carolina, with an open door for all Blood Camp. The same lean and hungry face of Slade Pemberton, the store-keeper, had for a score of years looked across the box-lid counter, and dispensed to the natives brown sugar, coffee, tobacco, snuff and “plow pints.” The store had been the undisputed meeting-place for all Blood Camp for years. Hence they found it hard to give up their old resort. But since the officers of the law had closed and locked the door, the fathers of Blood Camp resignedly retreated to the shade of the big apple tree by the blacksmith shop, there to play marbles and engage in idle talk on Saturdays and Sundays. Old Jase Dillenburger had openly rebelled against the closing of the store. He had been the bosom companion of Lucky Joe, and together they

had “moonshined” at night and quietly disposed of the whiskey at the store during the day,—hence the reason that old Jase liked to linger around the store. In the event that an officer from Tennessee tried to serve a warrant on him, he went into the North Carolina end of the store, and vici versa. But the new rendezvous[13] at the blacksmith shop was situated wholly in Tennessee, which fact made old Jase a little uneasy.

“Don’t like this changen bizness much,” he growled, as he came up under the apple tree and took his place with the others. “Gimme a chaw terbacker, Fen Green,” he continued. Then biting off a large piece from the offered tobacco and handing it back he finished, “Heve you put up any rocks to your mammy’s grave yet, Fen? You orter tend to it, Fen, ’fore you fergit it. Some didn’t like yer mammy—some sed she talked too much, but I liked her—an’ you ort to tend to it ’fore you fergit it, Fen.”

“Think maby I will, Jase,” replied Fenton Green. “How’s Genie a-gitten along, Jase? How’s she a-liken her new home by this time?”

“Oh, she’ nearly tickled to deth to git to live with me an’ Ann. You know, Fen, thet we haint got no children nor nothin’ to bother, an’ she’s smart too, Fen. Why, she haint but thirteen agoin on fourteen, an’ she can bild fires, an’ cut wood, an’ milk, an’ drag fodder, an’ cook—an’ I left her a-cuttin’ wood when I come down here this mornin’. Oh, she’s a fine gal, an’ you look sharp now, Fen. Of course she takes a few spells a-cryin’ an’ awantin’ to go to them dang brothers away out yander in the West. But I knock that out with about three licks, an’ she’s all right agin. I’ll make a woman outen her, Fen, I will. Lucky an’ her mammy is both gone. Course we can’t help thet. An’ them two boys is gone, an’ I’m dang glad they aire. Genie will be fourteen nex’ spring, an’ a mighty fine hand she’ll make next summer with a corn-hoe in my new-ground field up yander under the peak. An’ another thing, Fen. She’s got a mighty good home, ef I do say so myself.”

The marble game ended. The heavy shadows of night began to hang under the peaks of the mighty Snake, and[14] the crowd dispersed. After the others had gone, old Jase arose, ran his huge fingers through his red mop, stretched his great limbs, and looked up the mountainside towards his home. Then giving a last stroke to his woolly red beard, he began the ascent.

Hundreds of nights had been spent by Lucky and old Jase in the moonshining business. In a little secret cove upon the side of the mighty Snake, Lucky would keep the still going while old Jase with his rifle kept the watch for the government raiders. But since the imprisonment of Lucky Joe, and finally his death, the old still up in the cove had been idle for a long time. There was not another man in all Blood Camp that old Jase Dillenburger was willing to take in partnership. But the smell of the mash in his nose and the longing for the old business had led him lately to resume the operation of the still alone.

This very night we see him slowly climbing up the mountainside towards his home. The eye follows him through the twilight as he slowly ascends. But before the eye can wink again, he quickly turns to the left and is lost in the woods. No human eye sees him as he emerges from between two huge boulders just under the dome of the mighty Snake, and drops down into the little cove by the still. He begins his operations for the night, moving about with apparent ease. Removing the burlap covering from the still and brushing aside the dead leaves which had been spread in heaps over the coverings as a blind, he proceeded to build a fire under the copper boiler with great satisfaction.

“Pale moon tonight,” he drawled out as he walked over to his gun, and again examining the magazine before replacing it against the oak. Taking a small keg from the hollow of a moss-covered log, he pulled out the corncob stopper, placed in the hole a funnel filled[15] with charcoal, and put it in place under the end of the worm. Hours dragged slowly away as the still boiled. Old Jase sat at the base of a giant oak, with his gun across his lap, staring into the furnace of fire, thinking, reflecting. Just now he was reviewing some of the grewsome scenes of the past that he knew so well. Yes, there was the first hold-up that Lucky Joe and he had ever made. It was the stage filled with summer guests for Blowing Rock. How clear tonight is the voice of the lady from Pennsylvania still ringing in his ears, as she begged and pleaded with him—but he struck her down with the others. Then the bullet that went through his leg! Drawing up his leg he put his hand on the scar for the thousandth time as he growled out:

“Not well yit. Never has healed up jist right, noway. Mighty sore and tender yit fur twenty year healin’”—then he went on with his thoughts.

It was old Jase in the first place that had suggested to Lucky Joe that they engage in the hazardous business of moonshining whiskey. It was old Jase who laid the plan for the hold-up of the stage. In fact, his cunning brain had laid the plans for all the heinous crimes that had been attributed to the Blood Camp folks. Yet the fingers of the law had failed to apprehend him and take hold upon him.

“Oh, well,” he said, pulling himself up with the aid of his gun and peering about, “Joe’s gone. The ol’ woman’s gone. Them dang boys is gone, an’ I’m mighty glad they aire. Nobody left to do nothin’ but me. I’m agettin’ too ol’ to steal corn an’ pack up this mountain to this still. I guess thet I’ll have to quit—still’en.” He stood by the little furnace and looked long into the dying fire, then continued, “Ef thet Genie wern’t agettin almost too big to manage in a bizness like still’en, I’d make her keep the fire agoin’ under this still every night[16] while I kept the watch. Ef she wuz jist a leetle younger, ef she wuz jist a leetle younger! Well, she’s mine by law, an’ I’ll make’er do it yit. She’s got to do as I say—I’ll mak’er do it yit!”

He went to the side of the big oak, made a hasty observation and saw that a new day was now at hand. He hurriedly threw a little damp earth into the furnace to make sure that the fire would go out, replaced the coverings on the still, returned the keg to its place in the hollow log, and made for home.

CHAPTER III The Gathering Clouds

Immediately after the burial of Lucky Joe, Paul Waffington had seized the opportunity, when all Blood Camp was seriously reflecting upon the frailties of human life, and organized a Sunday-school in the little school-house. The superintendent, Miss Emeline Hobbs, had promised to faithfully stand by the little school and keep the spark of life going until the end of the year, when Paul Waffington had promised to return.

Miss Emeline Hobbs was rather large, with stringy red hair and possessed a deep bass voice. She had been born a cripple and walked on a wooden peg. But a kinder or better human heart never beat than her’s. During the long winter and throughout the hot summer she, with a few others, had kept the spark of life going in the little school. Each Sunday morning she went to the little school-house, arranged the three classes, balanced herself on the wooden peg and proceeded in a profound way to explain and “teach the Scriptures as I understand them” to the little band.

Aside from the Sunday-school, there had been but one other new thing that stirred Blood Camp during the year, and that was the coming of the old fiddler. Yes, he came. It was just about the middle of the summer, or “corn-hoeing time,” as Fen Green would say, that the old fiddler came. Nobody seemed to know whence he came nor did anybody care, so long as he would be sociable with the “boys” and play “Old Dan Tucker,” “Shortening in the Bread,” “Cripple Creek,” “Eliza[18] Jane,” “Shady Grove” and a half score of other similar tunes. He had told the people at the store that his name was Bull Jones, and that he was an old worn-out man—an old member of a marine band, and that he had once had a brown stone front in the greatest city of the world. But, ah, temptation had come, and nothing was left but his dear old fiddle. He said that his home was now wherever his hat was on his head. This was too much for the fathers of Blood Camp, and with no further investigation they took him in to their homes. He was

the center of attraction at the store. Hours at a time he sat on a coffee bag in the store playing the tunes as called for by the boys.

“Greatest fiddler I ever saw, an’ I guess the greatest ’ne thet enybody else ever saw,” exclaimed Fen Green.

Sometimes the old fiddler went home with a farmer of the hills for the night. On the morning he would go with the others to the field, and pay for his keep with the hoe. Another night he went with the blacksmith and made himself “handy” with the milking and other chore work, as pay for his night’s lodging. He was always happy, lodged with all, made a good workman at whatever was needed to be done, and, best of all, he could always be depended upon to play the fiddle, and to play the very tune that each individual liked best.

Bull Jones looked to be a man of some fifty years. He wore a grey beard, a suit of well-worn clothes with patches, and chewed tobacco and “swapped” with the boys. Bull Jones, the fiddler, was soon in great demand in the settlement. The fact is, that he had not been in the neighborhood a fortnight until he had more invitations to “stay all night” than he was able to fill for months.