"LIGHT AND SHADE."
MRS. IDA V. WOODBURY.
The title of this rambling sketch of Southern travel does not refer, as might be understood, to the wonderful picturesqueness of the Southern mountains and valleys, their ever-varying beauty of sunshine and shadow, nor to the spiritual, moral or intellectual condition of the people; but is a salutation, embodying in its brevity an invitation to the stranger to dismount from his horse, or step down from his carriage, and rest himself beneath the shade of the trees. "Light, stranger, light and shade," is the laconic, epigrammatic but cordial and hospitable greeting.
In response to such a salutation, I "lit" from the buggy one afternoon a few weeks ago in front of a one-roomed, windowless log hut in the Kentucky mountains, where lived a man, his wife and eight children. I was urged to "set by," so I went inside the house. The mother was lying on a bed in the corner, and I said to her, "Are you sick?" (You must never ask a mountaineer if he is ill, that is equivalent to asking him if he is cross.) "Yes," she said, "I'm powerful puny." "Have you been sick long?" was my next question. "I've been punying around all winter." "Has it been cold here?" "Yes, mighty cold." "Have you had any snow?" "Yes, we've had a right smart of snow twicet, and oncet it was pretty nigh shoe-mouth deep."
These people rarely admit that they are well. The most you can expect is, "I'm tolerable, only jest tolerable," while often they say, "I'm powerful puny, or nigh about plum sick." And then with an air of extreme resignation, for they seem to enjoy poor health, they add, "We're all powerful puny humans."
We had supper on the night of which I write in one of these little cabins—the young missionary of the American Missionary Association and myself. The conditions were very primitive, the fare coarse, but the welcome hearty, the hospitality bountiful. Then we had a prayer-meeting in the "church house," and between fifty and sixty people were present. The men dressed in homespun and blue jeans, the women all with full-bordered cape bonnets and home-knit woolen mitts. It is a great lack of "form" to go with the hands uncovered, but the feet are often so; and I will venture to say that the missionary and myself were the only persons in the "church house" whose mouths were not filled with tobacco, a custom very much in evidence all through the meeting.
I talked to them of our work among the Indians, and after the meeting one man came to me and shook my hand right royally, as he said, "I've never seen you before, mum, and I reckon I never shall see you again; but we've been mightily holped up by what you've been saying, and I reckon we ought to be doing something for them poor humans." In his poverty, in his need, his heart went out to those who seemed to him to be in greater destitution.
As we went to our buggy at the close of the meeting, the people gathered around to say goodbye, and many were the kindly words and the God-speeds. Many, too, were the evidences of hospitality, and one insisted that we should go home with him and spend the night. He said: "It's a mighty long ride to the school, and you'll be a mighty sight more comfortable to come back and sleep with us." We had called at his house in the afternoon. There were twelve people—father, mother and ten children—in a windowless, one-roomed cabin, in which were three beds ranged side by side. Just what sleeping accommodations they were going to give us I do not know.
Where were we? Who are these people? Right in the heart of the Midland Mountains, among our native-born American Highlanders, people who have had as great a part in forming American history as any like number of men in our country to-day, people who gave to this nation Abraham Lincoln, who also produced Jesse James—they are capable of either—who for a hundred and fifty years have been sitting in the shade of ignorance, poverty and superstition, but are now coming into the light of the school and the church as provided for them by the American Missionary Association.