As Sanford’s horse struck against an intact row of bars which closed the trail, the savage yelping of a body of unseen dogs startled the quiet of the scene. In an instant a bare-headed woman, with a pan in her hand, appeared at one door, and at the other a bushy-headed man leaned outward.
“How are you?” yelled Sanford. “Do Jake and Quil Rose live here?”
“Shet up, ye hounds, ye!” addressing his dogs; then to us, “I reckon they do. Who be you uns?”
By that time both doors were crowded with young and old heads, and two men came toward us. After a parley, in which we explained who we were, and the object of our visit, the bars rattled down, our horses stepped after each other into the clearing, and in succession we grasped the hands of the Rose brothers.
“Ef yer hunters,” said one, “we’re only too glad to see ye; but at fust we didn’t know whether ye war gentlemen or a sheriff’s posse, the road-boss or revenue galoots. Now lite, go to the house, and take cheers while we stable the nags.”
As directed, we entered one of the two rooms of the cabin, leaving behind us the night, the quieted dogs and the October chill that comes with the darkness. A hot log fire, leaping in the chimney place, around which were ranged four children and a woman preparing supper, threw on the walls the fantastic shadows of the group, and enabled us to mark every object of the interior. On the scoured puncheon floor furtherest from the chimney, were three rough bed-steads, high with feather ticks and torn blankets. Against the walls above the bed-steads were long lines of dresses, petticoats and other clothing. No framed pictures adorned the smoky logs, but plastered all over the end where rose the chimney, was an assortment of startling illustrations cut from Harper’s Weeklies, Police Gazettes, and almanacs, of dates (if judged by their yellowness) before the war. A few cooking implements hung against the chimney. Over half the room reached a loft, where one might imagine was stored the copper boiler and other apparatus of a still, slowly corroding through that season immediately preceding the hardening and gathering in of the corn. A table, with clean spread on it, and set with sweet potatoes, corn-dodger, butter and coffee, stood in the center of the room. At this board, on the invitation of the brother known as Quil, we seated ourselves to a repast, rude to be sure, but made delicious to us from a long day’s travel. The wife of the mountaineer, as if out of respect to her visitors, and following a singular custom, had donned her bonnet on sight of us; and, keeping it on her head, poured out the coffee in silence, and, although seated, partook of no food until we had finished.
In the lines preceding these, and in those which immediately follow, the writer has attempted to present to the reader a true picture of an extreme type of mountain life,—that of a class of people, hidden in mountain fastnesses, who, uneducated and unambitious, depend for scanty subsistence upon the crops of cramped clearings and the profits of the chase. Their state of perfect contentment is not the singular, but natural result of such an uncheckered existence.
The Rose brothers, are known as men good-natured, but of desperate character when aroused. They have been blockaders. Living outside of school districts, and seemingly of all State protection, they refuse to pay any taxes; having only a trailway to their door, they pay no attention to notices for working the county roads. Thus recognizing no authority, they live in a pure state of natural liberty, depending for its continuance upon their own strength and daring, the fears of county officers, the seclusion of their home, and their proximity to the Tennessee line. Only one and a half mile of mountain ascent is required to place them beyond the pursuit of State authorities. One of them once killed his man, in Swain county, and to this day he has escaped trial. They are men of fine features and physique. Both wear full, dark beards; long, black hair; slouch hats; blue hunting shirts, uncovered by coats or vests, and belted with a strap holding their pantaloons in place. High boots, with exposed tops, cover their feet and lower limbs. They are tall and broad-shouldered. Thus featured, figured, and accoutered, they appeared to our party.
All the children had been covered with feather beds, when we six men and two women formed a wide circle before the fire that evening. Naturally, our conversation was on hunting, and Kenswick opened the ball by inquiring about the state of deer hunting.
“We allers spring a deer when we drive,” responded Jake.