THE queerest people in this country, I fancy, live down in the southern part of the Blue Ridge where that magnificent range of mountains passes through the northern parts of both Carolinas and of Georgia. Even their houses are small and queer, and all their tools and machinery of the most primitive description.

The farm-houses through the mountains are made of logs, and, as the weather is not usually very cold, the chinking of mud and chips between the logs is very likely to fall out and be only half replaced, so that in the storms of winter, they must be comfortless abodes; but, as I said, the cold comes mainly in the shape of sudden storms after which there is a warm spell. You remember, that when the stranger asked Kit, the famous “Arkansas Traveller,” why he didn’t patch the hole in his roof, he answered “that it had been so all-fired rainy he couldn’t.”

“But why don’t you now that it doesn’t rain?”

“Because now it don’t leak!” cried Kit triumphantly, and went on with his fiddling.

Well, that is a very good example of the spirit which builds these houses and tries to keep them—not in repair exactly, but at least upright. I am speaking of the ordinary farm-houses in the mountains. Now and then you will see more snug and pretentious ones, but not often even among men who own several hundred acres of land and a large number of cows, horses and sheep. Sometimes they build two log huts pretty close together, and roof over the space between, making an open hall-way or store-shed, where saddles, and dried fruit are hung, and where all sorts of things are placed out of the rain or sun. In nearly every case, too, the roof of the front side of the house is continued out into a broad shed, where benches are placed, and half the household work is done I have often seen the loom upon which they wove their homespun clothes filling up half the space in this broad porch, and shaded by masses of morning glory, Virginia creeper or columbine. A low log house with one of these long-roofed porches reminds one of a man with a slouched hat pulled down over his eyes.

Whether the house is large or small; such as I have described or better than that; you will be sure to see the chimney wholly on the outside. It stands at the end of the house, and is a huge pile of stone set in mortar or perhaps only a conglomerate of sticks and stones and mud, half as wide as the house itself at the base, and then narrowing somewhat to the summit six or eight feet above the gable. The great summer house of Mr. John C. Calhoun, the famous senator who died about twenty years ago, has two of these big outside chimneys made of brick; and this mansion was considered a very grand one in its day.

If you should go inside—and the women and children are very hospitable to strangers—you would find little evidence of what we in the north call comfort. There will be one large room, serving as sitting-room, dining-room and kitchen, nearly one whole side of which will be given up to the vast fireplace which is hollowed into the broad chimney. On the opposite side from the fire, perhaps, will be a little bedroom partitioned off, but often not, and the only other room in the house will be the rough boarded attic overhead, reached by a ladder. Lathing and plastering are hardly known outside the few villages, and carpets are still more rare. A bedstead or two, some splint-bottomed home-made chairs, as straight-backed and uncomfortable as possible, a rough table and some benches complete the furniture. Stoves are not yet known to the mountaineers. They cling to the old-fashioned way of cooking at the open fireplace, hanging the iron pot in which they boil their food over the fire upon a swinging iron arm fixed in the side of the chimney and called a “crane;” or if they want to roast a spare-rib of beef or pork, hanging that by a hook upon the crane, and steadily turning it round until it is evenly done.

Another favorite dish is the hoe-cake or corn-dodger, which is a batter-cake of corn-meal baked before the open fire, or in the bottom of the iron pot. Wheat flour is almost unknown in some of these mountain districts, cornmeal and sorghum molasses wholly taking its place. The mills where it is ground are the most picturesque and seemingly useless affairs. Every mile or so through these rough hills there comes tumbling down a clear and rapid stream, so that water-power is plenty enough for each man to have his own mill, and most of them are essentially home-made. I saw one over near the sources of the Chestatee which from the outside looked far more like a heap of old drifted logs than anything else. The man who ran it built the whole affair himself, with only an axe, a saw and a two-inch auger for tools. The entire running-gear was wooden, yet this mill had stood many years and ground all the corn of the neighborhood. Such machinery is slow and weak of course, but the people who use it have plenty of time. They can’t understand the hurry and anxiety to save time which characterize their more thrifty neighbors who live in the world instead of alongside of it.

A boy who was not born in the mountains, and was used to livelier motions, took some corn to one of these Georgia mills to be ground not long ago, succeeded in waking the miller up, getting the wheel in motion and his grist in the hopper. Then, expecting a long delay, he wandered off. But when he came back his meal was not half ready and he became impatient.

“My chickens—and thar ain’t but two of ’em either—would eat meal faster’n yer mill’ll grind it!”

“How long could they keep it up?” asked the miller.

“Until they starved to death,” replied the smart boy.

This is the only boy, however, whom I ever heard complain of the slowness of life there, for none of them are accustomed to anything faster, except when they are on horseback. Then the young chaps make the road fly from under them, and ride their fine horses with great spirit. On horseback is the usual method of travel, indeed, for the roads over the mountains are exceedingly rough, and to many farms there is hardly any road at all for wheels.

One day we were riding gayly along on a couple of the excellent saddle-horses that are so common among these hills, when we came to the banks of the Etowah river. There was no bridge, and the road led right down to the low banks, and through the amber-clear water we could see the tracks of the wagons which had crossed before us. I had heard of the Etowah many times as one of the most beautiful rivers of Georgia, and I am glad to pass the reputation along. I remembered, also, that in place of the beads of wood, soapstone and various sorts of shell which are dug up as the remains of some Indian girl’s necklace, or red man’s earring, on the banks of this river beads of pure gold had been found. The Indians here were rich—they had golden ornaments instead of shell-wampum; but their gold proved their ruin, for the poor Cherokees were driven away as soon as their wealth was discovered and white men hastened to wash the sands of this troubled river. But I did not set out to describe the gold mines, but only to show why the Etowah particularly interested me, and why I was glad to find it equal to its praise.

However, I was not given much time for quiet delight. On the bank, by the side of the road, sat two lank and rough-looking Georgians with scowls on their faces. As we trotted near they rose up and came to meet us, while one sung out:

“Say, mister, can’t yer set weuns acrost tha’? Weem ben waitin’ hyar I reckon about two hours, and them lazy fellars”—pointing over to where half a dozen men lay stretched out in the sun, smoking, with a small boat drawn up on the beach—“wouldn’t pay no ’tention to our yellin’. Just let go o’ your stirrup will you?”

Evidently he did not propose to lose this chance, for before I could move my foot he had pulled away the stirrup, seized the cantle of the saddle and swung himself behind me, astride my surprised horse. The other man did the same thing by my friend, and there we were, captured by the long arms that reached easily all round our waists, and had several inches to spare.

“Get up,” my passenger shouted, digging his heels into my nag’s flanks in a way that started him into the water with a very sudden splash, and on we went. The river was pretty deep in the middle, but we picked up our feet and got safely across to where the smokers grinned at the trouble their lazy discourtesy had forced upon us, as at a good joke. Then my man skipped off to the ground, and sliding his hand into a ragged pocket, asked with a whine:

“What do you charge?”

I doubt if he had a penny about him, for he seemed greatly relieved when I very quickly assured him he was welcome to his ferriage.

“Do you know who those fellows were?” asked my companion, as we cantered up the gravelly hill; “my man told me that they were both preachers.”

“Preachers!” I said. “I took them for moonshiners at the very least.”

But now and then a vehicle so strange as to bring a laugh upon the faces of even the neighbors will come down from the backwoods. The cart will have only two large heavy wheels, and these alone of all its parts will be shop-made. The massive axle-tree, and pole or shafts and the rough box were made at home—perhaps wholly chopped out with an axe and fastened together with wooden pins. You must not expect to see a horse or a span of horses drawing this odd, unpainted cart—if the owner has horses, he probably considers them worthy of the saddle only—but oxen, or an ox and cow, or only one of either sex; I heard, indeed, of one case where a cow and a donkey were hitched up together, but that was certainly extraordinary. A single cow in the traces makes the funniest picture, I think. The harness will be partly leather, partly rope, perhaps eked out with twisted bark, and from the horns a single thin rope goes back to the driver, who can thus keep his beast awake by frequent jerks. Sometimes when the mountaineer and his wife go to market they place a couple of splint chairs in the cart to sit on, like a small edition of the celebrated Florida “gondola,” but as a rule there is no seat—to make one permanently would be altogether too much trouble,—and the man and his family all huddle together in the bottom of the jolting box.

Until lately these mountain people made nearly all the clothes they wore. They had hand-looms which they built themselves, and it was the occupation of the women at all spare moments to spin the flax or the wool, to dye the yarn and weave the cloth. These looms are just the same rough picturesque old machines that used to be seen all over the country before the Revolution, but which now exist only in some out of the way corners, like this Blue Ridge region. Before the year’s weaving begins the whole house presents a gay appearance, for from every peg and place where they can be hung depend brightly colored hanks of yarn ready for the loom.

The ordinary dress of the men now is this tough homespun dyed butternut color; nearly all the bed-linen and under-clothing, also, of the mountain people, is still made by them. But the women’s calico dresses are bought at the village store and made after very wonderful patterns. The only head dress is the universal Shaker sun-bonnet. On Sundays, however, if some travelling preacher happens along and holds service in the tumble down meeting-house at the four corners, you will see black store clothes of ancient make, while the gayest of ribbons and flaunting feathers bedeck the red-cheeked and happy-hearted lassies. But this happens only once in four weeks or so, for the neighborhoods are too thinly settled and poor to support a steady minister.

Though so far behind the times in all that seems civilized and comfortable, though so ignorant of what is going on in the great world outside of their blue, beautiful mountains, and so utterly unlearned, these mountain people are warm-hearted, generous, independent in thought and faithful to a friend. They know that they are strong of frame, and have a profound contempt for those who live outside in the lowlands, even for those who live anywhere in towns, of the ways of which they know and care nothing at all. What is a man good for, they wonder, who can’t ride a wild colt, or follow easily the trail of a wolf, or even track a bee to its tree? Even the women regard the men of the lower country as effeminate. A hunting party from South Carolina were up at Mt. Jonah one day, when they found themselves being greatly laughed at by a young woman there, who proposed to take the largest of them on her shoulders and then run a foot-race; she said she could beat them all, thus weighted. On another occasion this same girl was seen coming out of a gorge with a rifle in her hand, her sleeves rolled up and her arms covered with blood. Upon being questioned she carelessly replied that she’d “killed a bar jest beyant the Terapin!”

Their ignorance of town ways has been the source of much amusement to city people when occasionally some of the mountain folks stray down to Atlanta or Greenville. There never were any rustics so rural, I believe. It is laughable merely to look at them. What would excite our respect for its strength and honesty on some wild hill-top, only makes them doubly ridiculous in the city’s strange streets. A good story has come down from the old days before railroads, on this point.

A large party of “Hard-shell Baptists” from the Blue Ridge went down to Augusta, in wagons, one August, to buy supplies. While there, one of the brethren lost his head through drinking a glass of brandy which had been mixed with ice and sugar until it was very delicious. On his return home he was dealt with by the church. He freely acknowledged the fault, but said that he had been deceived by the “sweetnin’.” The church council thereupon forgave him easily the wrong of being drunk, but expelled him for the lie he told about having ice in his tumbler, in midsummer, when everybody knew it was colder upon the mountains than down at Augusta, yet there was no ice!

But little by little this old, charmingly ignorant and simple mountain people, are being modernized by the running of railways past, if not through, their mountains, and the increased number of visitors that go to see their bold crags and lovely valleys. The old men and women still cling to their old ways. “’Pars like ’twould take a power to change me,” one dear old lady said to me. But the boys and girls are getting more “peart,” are anxious to learn and see, and are not afraid of a little change. When the Piedmont Air Line proposed to put a branch back into the hills toward the gold diggings around Dahlonega, I heard a mountain family discussing it. The daughter and pride of the household, a gushing damsel of seventeen, put in her opinion:

“Uncle Jim saays if he was to see one of them railroads a cummin’ he’d leave the world and take a saplin’. Dad saays he’d just lie right down flat on the yearth. But I want ’em to come. I’d just set right down on a basket of cohn turned ovah, and clap my hands. I ain’t afraid.”

Then she caught me making a note, as she thought, and instantly begged me to stop.

“Some of these yere folks are right foolish,” she said, half ashamed, “and maybe you’ll make a heap of fun outen ’em; but you must brush ’em up a powerful lot. You musn’t give ’em too much of their nat’l appearance.”

Well, I hope I haven’t!