“I wish’t we had time to ride up to Big Creek, Ma’am. Thar’s a fine store up thar—travelin’ men comes in thar from the other side, an’ sells all sorts of goods thar. They carry their sample things in the saddlebags same as Old Preacher Bonnell used to.
“But ye see, we kain’t read an’ write in these mountings. The storekeeper, he always has kep’ his books with marks, like, on the boards of his cabin. He makes a short mark, like, fer two bits, an’ a long one fer four bits, an’ he’ll have some sort of picture fer each man that he’s a-trustin’ out goods to. Sometimes he has to make signs fer to show what he’s done sold. A few month ago Arch Morrison come in, and they liken to have a diffikilty over his account. The storekeeper said he’d sold Archie a cheese, an’ Archie he done denied of it. ‘Thar’s a pictur of it,’ says the storekeeper, an’ sure enough, thar was a big, round thing like a cheese. ‘Oh,’ says Archie, ‘that hain’t no cheese I bought. That’s a grindstone.’ ‘Shore enough, Archie,’ says the storekeeper, ‘shore enough. I done fergot to put the hole in it.’
“No, times is right qui’te in here, an’ always has been, Ma’am! as ye kin see easy. In the fam’ly fightin’s that’s a good many killings, but we hain’t had what ye might call a real murder, not in sixty year. Ye see that house acrosst the creek thar?—well, over thar, sixty year ago, a fam’ly named Baker murdered a feller named Pruitt fer some land an’ money he had. That Baker woman sartinly was servigerous. Her man hit Pruitt in the haid with a hammer, an’ they left him out in the yard, but he come to. The old womern says, ‘Well, I’ll kill ye so ye’ll stay killed,’ So she taken up a ax an’ cut off his haid. That was a long while ago. Things like that don’t happen often. That was murderin’, not killin’.
“Fact is, times is gittin’ qui’ter even at ‘lection and co’te settin’s nowadays. Thar wasn’t nobody shot over in Leslie County co’te settin’s last term, excusin’ Mose Post. The depity sher’f, Wilson, went out to ‘rest Mose. He was about the fightin’est man in them parts. Mose was a-leanin’ aginst the fence when the depity come up, an’ his gun got hung in the palin’ when he pulled it, so the depity shot him a couple times. Hit hain’t much like old time co’te settin’s when I was young, Ma’am.
“No, I reckon it’s the new railroad that’s a-changin’ everything nowadays. We’re within twenty mile of whar it’s a-goin’ acrosst the haid of Hell-fer-Sartin. Folks says that farms is a-goin’ up right along nowadays, an’ timber, too. Land didn’t useter have no value here when I was a gal as old as ye air now. Folks jest moved out an’ set down on a piece of land, an’ cl’ared it up like—that’s the way me an’ my man done. I’ve seed a good farm sold fer a fiddle an’ a hog rifle—an’ now here’s that farm wuth they say maybe twenty-five thousand dollars, ‘cause they found a little ile on it. How much is twenty-five thousand dollars, anyway, Ma’am?
“Times sartinly is changin’! Now, in my time I’ve seed the hull upper part of Tejus Creek—they allowed over two hundred thousand acres—sold fer a rifle an’ a bell-crowned hat. What ye reckon that land’s wuth now, Ma’am?
“The Joslins had land over in thar, too, someone tolt me. Fer matter of that, Davy like enough owns or will heir from his granny a heap of land over on Hell-fer-Sartin, besides the farm he give to Meliss’ over thar on Coal Creek, whar he used to live. He nuvver would sell his land, an’ he nuvver would let his granny do it neither. The blacksmith an’ the postmaster tolt me that like enough when the railroad comes Davy sartinly will be rich. I’ve knowed coal rights to go fer five cents a acre, an’ old-time poplar an’ oak timber fer a dollar an’ a hafe a acre. Yit folks tells me that one log outen them trees would be wuth ten or twelve dollar down at Windsor, maybe. Ye reckon that’s so, Ma’am?
“Oh, shucks, I expect I’m a-makin’ ye tired, a-talkin’ this way. I’m just a-narratin’ along, ‘cause ye said ye wanted to larn somethin’ about our mountings. I wish’t we had time to git up to Big Creek. Thar’s a fam’ly of twelve people up thar, Ma’am, an’ every one of ‘em plays some kind of a musercal instrument. When all twelve of them people begins to play ye’d think hell was a-poppin’, Ma’am. Didn’t ye nuvver hear ary one of our old fiddle tunes?”
Marcia shook her head. “I’m afraid not,” she said.
“No? Why, Davy useter be a powerful fiddler in his time, afore he got religion so hard. I reckon he could play most all the old-time tunes. Didn’t ye nuvver hear ‘Barbara Allen,’ or ‘Lord Lovell,’ Ma’am? I’ve seen men set an’ cry over ‘Lord Lovell.’ Then thar was ‘Polly Allen,’ another ballet. Thar was some folks always that could make words fer ballets, an’ they’d sort of sing ‘em.