from Fiddling His Way to Fame
We had fallen in with a party of Alabama boys, and all having the same end in view—a good time—we joined forces and pitched our tents on the bank of the Clinch, the prettiest stream in Tennessee, and set about enjoying ourselves after our own approved fashion.
Even the important-looking gentleman, sitting over against a crag where he had dozed and smoked for a full hour, forgot, for the nonce, that he was other than wit and wag for the company; the jolly good fellow he, the free man (once more), and the huntsman.
Our division had followed the hounds since sun-up; the remainder of the company were still out upon the river with rod and line. The sun was about ready to drop behind Lone Mountain, that solitary peak, of nobody knows precisely what, that keeps a kind of solemn guard upon the wayward little current singing at its base. Supper was ready; the odor of coffee, mingled with a no less agreeable aroma of broiling bacon, and corn cake, was deliciously tantalizing to a set of weary hunters. But we were to wait for the boys, that was one of our rules, always observed. The sun set, and twilight came on with that subtle light that is half gloom, half glow, and mingled, or tried to, with the red glare of the camp-fire.
While we sat there, dozing and waiting, there was a break in the brush below the bluff upon which we were camped. “A deer!” One of the boys reached for his rifle, just as a tall, gaunt figure appeared above the bluff, catching as he came at the sassafras and hazel bushes, pulling himself up until he stood among us a very Saul in height, and a Goliath, to all seeming, in strength.
He took in the camp, the fire, and the group at a glance. But the figure over against the crag caught his best attention. There was a kind of telegraphic recognition of some description, for the giant smiled and nodded.
“Howdye,” he said; and our jolly comrade took his pipe from between his lips and returned the salutation in precisely the same tone in which it was given.
“Howdye; be you-uns a-travelin'?”
The giant nodded, and passed on, and our comrade dropped back against the crag, and returned to his pipe. But a smile played about his lips, as if some very tender recollection had been stirred by the passing of the gaunt stranger.
It was one of the Alabama boys who broke the silence that had fallen upon us. He had observed the sympathetic recognition that passed between the two men, and had noted the naturalness with which the “dialect” had been returned.
“I'll wager my portion of the supper,” he said, “that he is a Tennessean, and from the hill country.” He pointed in the direction taken by the stranger. He missed, however, the warning—“Sh!” from the Tennessee side.
“A Tennessee mountaineer—” he went on. “His speech betrayeth him.”
Then one of our boys spoke right out.
“Look out!” said he, “the Governor is from the hill country too.”
The silence was embarrassing, until the man over against the crag took the pipe from between his lips, and struck the bowl upon his palm gently, the smile still lingering about his mouth.
“Yes,” he said, “I was born among the hills of Tennessee. ‘The Barrens,’ geologists call it; the poets name it ‘Land of the Sky.’ My heart can find for it no holier name than—home.”
The Governor leaned back against the crag. We knew the man, and wondered as to the humor that was upon him. Politician, wit, comrade, gentleman; as each we knew him. But as native, mountaineer, ah! He was a stranger to us in that rôle. We had heard of the quaint ease with which he could drop into the speech of his native hills, no less than the grace with which he filled the gubernatorial chair.
He had “stumped the state” twice as candidate, once as elector. His strange, half-humorous, half-pathetic oratory was familiar in every county from the mountains to the Mississippi. But the native;—we almost held our breath while the transformation took place, and the governor-orator for the moment became the mountaineer.
“I war born,” he said, “on the banks o’ the Wataugy, in the county uv Cartir,—in a cabin whose winders opened ter the East, an’ to'des the sunrise. That war my old mother's notion an’ bekase it war her notion it war allus right ter me. Fur she was not one given ter wrong ideas.
“I war her favorite chil’ uv the seven God give. My cheer set nighest hers. The yeller yarn that slipped her shiny needles first slipped from hank ter ball across my sunburnt wrists. The mug uv goldish cream war allus at my plate; the cl'arest bit uv honey-comb, laid cross the biggis’ plug uv pies war allus set fur me. The bit o’ extry sweetnin’ never missed my ole blue chiny cup.
An’ summer days when fiel’ work war a-foot, a bottle full o’ fraish new buttermilk war allus tucked away amongst the corn pones in my dinner pail.
“An’ when I tuk ter books, an’ readin’ uv the papers, an’ the ole man riz up ag'inst it, bekase I war more favored ter the book nor ter the plough then my old mount'n mammy, ez allus stood ‘twixt me an’ wrath, she riz up to, an’ bargained with the ole man fur two hours uv my time. This war the bargain struck. From twelve er'clock ontil the sun marked two upon the kitchen doorstep I war free.
“Ever’ day fur this much I war free. An’ in my stid, whilst I lay under the hoss apple tree an’ figgered out my book stuff, she followed that ole plough up an’ down the en'less furrers across that hot ontrodd'n fiel'—in my stid.
“I've travelled some sence then, ploughed many a furrer in the fiel’ o’ this worl's troubles, an’ I hev foun’ ez ther’ be few ez keers tur tek the plough whilst I lay by ter rest.
“An’ when the work war done, an’ harvest in, I tuk ter runnin’ down o’ nights ter hear the boys discuss the questions o’ the day at Jube Turner's store over ter the settlemint.
“'Twar then the ole man sot his foot down.
”‘It hev ter stop!’ he said. ‘The boy air comin’ ter no good.’
“Then my ole mammy riz agin, an’ set down ez detarmint ez him; an’ sez she:—
“‘He be a man, an’ hev the hankerin's uv a man. The time hev come fur me ter speak. The boy must hev his l'arnin'—books his min’ calls fur. He aims ter mix with men; an’ you an’ me, ole man, must stand aside, an fit him fur the wrestle ez be boun’ ter come. Hit air bespoke fur him, an’ ther’ ben't no sense in henderin’ sech ez be bespoke beforehan’.’
“She kerried, an’ I went ter school.”