"I shan't, an' I won't—I won't, I won't, I won't!" exclaimed Sis, clenching her hands and stamping her feet. "I'll die first."
Teague had never seen her so excited,
"Why, what's the matter, Sis?" he asked with unfeigned concern.
Sis gave him a withering look.
"Pap, do you reckon I'm fool enough to traipse down to Gullettsville an' mix with them people, wearin' cloze like these? Do you reckon I'm fool enough to make myself the laughin'-stock for them folks?"
Teague Poteet was not a learned man, but he was shrewd enough to see that the Mountain had a new problem to solve. He took down his rifle, whistled up his dogs, and tramped skyward. As he passed out through his horse-lot, a cap and worm of a whisky-still lying in the corner of the fence attracted his attention. He paused, and turned the apparatus over with his foot. It was old and somewhat battered.
"I'll thes about take you," said Teague, with a chuckle, "an' set up a calico-factory. I'll heat you up an' make you spin silk an' split it into ribbens."
It was a case of civilisation or no civilisation, and there is nothing more notorious in history—nothing more mysterious—than the fact that civilisation is not over-nice in the choice of her handmaidens. One day it is war, another it is slavery. Every step in the advancement of the human race has a paradox of some kind as a basis. In the case of Sis Poteet, it was whisky.
Teague got his still together and planted it in a nice cool place, where it could be reached only by a narrow footpath. He had set up a still immediately after the war, but it had been promptly broken up by the revenue officers. Upon this occasion, therefore, he made elaborate preparations to guard against surprise and detection, and these preparations bore considerable fruit in the way of illicit whisky; the ultimate result of which was that Sis went to school in Gullettsville, and became the belle of the town.
The breath of the mountain was heavily charged with whisky, and the Government got a whiff of it. Word went to Washington, and there was much writing and consulting by mail, and some telegraphing. The officials—marshal, deputy-marshals, and collector—were mostly men from a distance, brought hither on the tide of war, who had no personal interest in judging the situation. Naturally enough, the power with which they were invested was neither discreetly nor sympathetically exercised. They represented the Government, which, they were taught to believe by the small men above them, was still at war with every condition and belief in Georgia.