XII.
DICK M’COY’S SKETCHES OF HIS NEIGHBOURS.
Last summer, I determined to visit the battle-ground of the Horse-Shoe, to see if any vestiges remained of Old Hickory’s great fight with the Indians of the Tallapoosa. Fond of all sorts of aquatic diversion, I concluded to take the river four or five miles above, and descend to the “Shoe,” and I therefore employed an old crony of mine, Dick M’Coy, to take me down in a canoe. Dick lives on the bank, and has all the qualifications of an otter, for river explorations.
For some miles above the battle-ground, the river is a succession of shallows, broken every mile or two by lovely patches of smooth, still water, generally bedecked with a green islet or two, around which the trout love to play. The banks are generally large, irregular hills, that look as if they were struggling to pitch themselves, with their huge pines, into the stream; but, once in a while, you find a level strip of alluvial in cultivation, or a beautiful and fertile declivity, shaded by magnificent poplars, beech-trees, and walnut. Now and then you may see the cabin of a squatter, stuck to the side of a hill, like a fungus against a wall; but, generally, the Tallapoosa retains the wild, pristine features of the days when the Creek hunted on its banks, or disported himself upon its waters. A little way out from the river, on either side, among the “hollows” formed by little creeks and smaller streams, live a people, half-agricultural, half-piscatorial—a sinewy, yellow-headed, whiskey-loving set. Those south of the river, are the inhabitants of “ ’Possum-Trot,” while those on the north are the citizens of “Turpentine.” Dick M’Coy is a ’Possum-Trotter, a fishing fellow, fishy in his stories, but always au fait in regard to matters of settlement gossip.
Seated on a clap-board, a little aft of the centre of the boat, and facing Dick, I was amused for several hours with his conversation, as we threaded the intricate passages of the shoals, now whizzing by and barely touching an ugly rock, now spinning round in a little whirlpool, like a tee-totum. The skill of my Palinurus, however, seemed equal to any emergency; and we alternately twisted and tumbled along, at the rate of two miles and a half an hour.
As we came into a small, deep sheet of water, Dick pointed with his paddle to a smoke issuing from among the trees, on the “Turpentine” side of the river, and remarked:
“Thar’s whar our lazy man lives—Seaborn Brown.”
“Ah! is he lazy much?”
“Powerful.”
“As how?”
“Onct he went out huntin’, and he was so lazy he ’cluded he wouldn’t. So he laid down in the sand, close to the aidge of the water. It come on to rain like the devil, and I, seen him from t’other side, tho’t he was asleep, and hollered to him.