“As fer fiddlin’ tunes, thar’s so many I kain’t hardly recollect. Thar was ‘The Flowers of Edingburg’—I don’t know whar that come from, but they says it’s old, an’ like enough come over the mountings. An’ thar was ‘The Deer Walk’—I don’t know whar that come from neither. Then thar was ‘The Hog-Eyed Man,’ an’ ‘Jawbone,’ an’ ‘The Puncheon Floor,’ an’ ‘Jones’s Still House,’ an’ ‘Sugar in the Bowl,’ an’ ‘Suds Over the Fence,’ an’ ‘Turkey in the Straw’—didn’t ye never hear none of them tunes, Ma’am?”
“I’m not sure, Granny,” rejoined Marcia Haddon. “As you say, I’m powerful ignorant, and I’m afraid my education isn’t very wide in these matters. Go on and tell me some more.”
“Well, thar was ‘Round the Sugar Tree’—that’s another tune the boys played at dancin’s—and ‘Notchy on the Hill.’ That tune come from the raftsmen. They tolt us thar was a river called the Mississip’ somewhars, an’ a good many tunes come up from down the Mississip’.
“Then thar was ‘Sally Ann,’ an’ ‘Ida Red,’ an’ ‘Shreveport’—like enough ‘Shreveport’ come from the raftin’ times, too. Then thar was ‘Dan Hogan’s,’ an’ ‘Old Ned,’ an’ ‘Gall of the Yare’ (Guadalquivir?). ‘Polk an’ Dallas’ was a ‘lection tune. Then thar’s ‘The Campbells Air Comin’,’—why, law! Ma’am, I could go on a-tellin’ names of fiddlin’ tunes fer a hour yit.
“But hain’t this a purty country, Ma’am, we’re a-goin’ through? I think it’s right purty, an’ I always done so, from the time I was a gal, old as ye air. Davy says he hain’t seen no purtier country’n this, an’ he’s been Outside. I wonder how much land he’ll heir from his granny—mother of Preacher Joslin? She’s ninety-five year old, if she’s a day. Wouldn’t it be strange if the new railroad would make some of us pore folks rich atter all? Ye don’t know much about Davy?”
Marcia Haddon had turned away her face from the scrutiny of the old woman’s keen eyes, but the latter went on:
“I always did wonder what Davy done when he went Outside. Do ye know? He sartinly come back powerful changed. He useter be a right servigerous kind of a man, like I said, the fightin’est of all the fightin’ Joslins. But, shucks! he’s so different now ye wouldn’t know the boy. He’s as mild as skim melk He always was good to Meliss’, too. Her gittin’ a divorce from him when he was away—an’ all he was a-tryin’ to do was to git a education so’s to he’p pore folks like me! ‘Pears to me like Meliss’ Joslin got entirely too much attention paid to herself along of that divorce. She nuvver was so much noways. She couldn’t neither spin nor weave wuth shucks, an’ besides, her two babies both died on her. She wasn’t so much.
“Law, I could tell ye a heap more things if ye liked narratin’. Fer instant, here’s whar the men in my grandad’s time chased the last two Injuns outen this country, an’ kilt ‘em up on Redbird. This creek was named atter one. Thar’s a hole up the river called Jack’s Hole, whar the other was shot. One Injun was named Red Bird, an’ the other they called Jack. They cotched ‘em up above, but they used to live in a cave round here, not far from whar we air now.
“Wasn’t Davy a-tellin’ ye about the cave whar the two wanderin’ wimmern lives? Well, that’s the very place whar them two Injuns useter live years ago. Hain’t he never tolt ye about ‘em?”