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diff --git a/78048-0.txt b/78048-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6deedc8 --- /dev/null +++ b/78048-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1900 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78048 *** + +[Illustration: THE LUMBEE TWISTS THROUGH THE SANDHILLS] + + + + + Sandhills Sketches + + + BY + WILLIAMS HAYNES + + _Author of “Casco Bay Yarns,” etc._ + + + ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS + BY THE AUTHOR AND OTHERS. + + + NEW YORK + D. O. HAYNES & CO. Publishers + + + + + _COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY WILLIAMS HAYNES_ + + +This little book is just what its title implies: pages from a note book +kept during a winter spent in the Piedmont Country of North Carolina. +Because the story of the Sandhills has not heretofore been told, it has +seemed worth while to collect them in this form. + +With one exception, the following sketches have been published in +various magazines, and my thanks are due the proprietors of “Travel,” +“Forecast,” “House and Garden,” and “Outing” for their kind permission +to reprint material that first appeared in their publications. + + WILLIAMS HAYNES. + +Northampton, Mass. + + + + + CONTENTS + + + DODGING WINTER 5 + + “THEM HUGGINS BOYS” 15 + + A SANDHILLS CHRISTMAS CAROL 31 + + “TAR BURNIN’” 43 + + SOME QUAIL DOGS AND OTHERS 54 + + THE CLAY BIRDS 67 + + THROUGH A JUNGLE TO THE OLD SOUTH 79 + + + + + Dodging Winter + + +A winter vacation is as seductive as the opium pipe. Slip away to the +sunny Southland just once during the winter; next season you will +surely want to do it again--one whiff and you are an habitué. + +How drear and dismal snow-bound January seems! What a torrent of +chilly discomfort is the sleet and slush of March! The golf bag, or +the gun case, in the corner by the fireplace is a subtle, suggestive +temptation, and even the cheery open fire itself calls up memories of +crackling pine knots that spluttered and blazed not in deadly earnest, +so that you should not shiver, but lightly and brightly, impregnating +the air with the pungent frankincense of comradeship. + +There is a glorious exultation in dodging Winter. You cannot really +fight on equal terms with the old rascal--a steam heater is such a +pitiful weapon after all--so there is a keen delight in snapping your +fingers under his frost-bitten nose. When you slip out of the freezing +grasp of his long, cold arms, you have cheated a cruel, inexorable +Fate. You feel like the hero of a Greek tragedy who has gloriously +turned the play to comedy, and there is a peculiarly delicious feeling +of freedom. The smelly coolness of the mid-summer woods is a respite +from the burning heat of the city in July; the tingling, briny +freshness of the wind-swept sea rocks is a reprieve--but the southern +sun in winter gives freely a full pardon to the weather prisoner. It is +he himself who weaves the enticing spell of the winter vacation, and +the minute you tumble out of the Pullman, from whose blackened eaves +the ghosts of icicles still trickle, you become a pagan sun worshipper. + +Some winter vacationists carry their sun worshipping to a fanatic +extreme. They are not at all content to bask in the sun, they must go +way to Florida or Bermuda to be fairly baked. This sun gluttony carries +its own punishments of lazy lassitude and all the risks of a sniffling +cold or hacking cough when one must, as one always must, return to the +cold North. It is wiser and more temperate to slip just far enough into +the South to find a friendly sun, but not so far that he becomes a bore. + +Isn’t the ideal winter play-place a country where it is warm enough +for you to feel the sun, so, if you are out-of-doors, you do not need +mufflers and ear tabs; where you can ride or motor, shoot or fish, play +golf or tennis without a bungling sweater clinging to your shoulders +and elbows; where you can sit under the trees an hour and read a +favorite book without your fingers being numbed to blueness? But don’t +you like a tang of frost in the morning air? Fifteen minutes in that +air before breakfast is worth a whole month of cold baths and setting +up exercises for starting the day right. In such a country too, the +nights will be cool and refreshing as spring water, and you will sleep +a sleep more strengthening than the most potent tonic in the whole +pharmacopoeia. + +Such a winter play-place is the Piedmont country of the Carolinas, the +Sandhills, as the natives who “made cotton and corn on the clay” of the +lowlands contemptuously christened them years ago. This was the old +sea shore of the continent, and the sandy soil is even today, after all +these geological ages, almost as white as a beach. The Sandhills roll +away gently, not unlike great dunes, and through each little valley +trickles a little stream--“branches” the natives call them--on whose +banks crowd great clumps of holly bushes, bluegums, and magnolias. The +dry, sandy soil, like a great blotter, keeps the air as dry as cotton, +and the most soaking rain leaves no puddles or mud holes behind it. +This, as the Old North State’s hearty toast proudly proclaims, is indeed + + “The land of the long leaf pine, + The southern land where the sun doth shine.” + +[Illustration: Photo by Dr. Achorn +GRAPES, PEACHES AND COTTON THE STAPLE PRODUCTS OF THE SANDHILLS ALL +GROWING IN ONE FIELD] + +Even the golfer on the Pinehurst links, who is so strictly admonished +“to keep his eye on the ball,” carries away with him the picture of +the towering long-leaf pines with their great, foot-long needles and +their giant cones. The Aiken motorist, as he bowls down the hillsides +and rattles over the little wooden bridge that spans the branch, cannot +fail to distinguish out of the whirling landscape the sandy hilltops +and the green thickets along the valley bottoms. The fox hunter, since +Reynard will surely lay a line of scent ’way off the beaten tracks into +the heart of the pine woods and the magnolia lowlands, will know the +Sandhills better. But the one who tramps over the Sandhills behind a +brace of bird dogs will know them best. Up through the valley, skirting +the branch--over the hillside and across the fallow cotton fields--a +scramble over the rail fence and a plunge through the tangle of holly +bushes and briars all snarled with creepers--splash, splash, through +the stream and up the other side of the hill. He is sure to learn the +country first hand, and he will meet all sorts of interesting people. +A lusty negro boy will be perfectly delighted to stop chopping at +the black-jack stumps to tell him, “Dere’s a whalin’ big cobey ob +birds done feed ober in dat field ob cow-peas. Ah hyah ’em whistlin’ +’bout half an hour ’go.” On a level hilltop an old darky tar burner +will be his willing instructor in the mysteries of tar making. In a +little hollow, miles from the high road, he will come suddenly upon a +slatternly cabin with a curious chimney of clay and crossed sticks. +Here a trio of putty faced babies will eye him suspiciously from behind +the pig sty while their mother, a drab, timid woman, gives him a dipper +of water. + +The quail shooter cannot wander over the Sandhills without sooner or +later being reminded of the post card with the picture of the revenue +officers and the score of captured blockade whisky stills he sent +off to his particular friend the first night he reached his hotel. I +remember very well a suspicious old fellow, whose curt answers and +strange advice sent our imaginations weaving tales of the moonshiners. +’Way back in the hills the dogs found a big covey beside a swamp and +the birds flushed over the hill. We followed them to pick up the +scattered singles and found two before we noticed this old fellow +sitting on a stump at the edge of the thicket. We called in the dogs +and walked over to him. He sat there, his elbows on his knees, his +hands clasped in front of him, quite motionless. A rusty, single +barrelled shotgun, with a hammer as big as a clothes hook, rested in +the crook of his arm, and between his feet sat a thin, black and tan +foxhound, with a meek, sorrowful expression in her dark eyes. Neither +man nor dog moved as we came up to them. + +“Hello. Is this your land?” I asked. + +He had been peering at us keenly from under his heavy brows as we +approached, but now he dropped his eyes and mumbled noncommittally, +“Dunno.” + +“It isn’t posted, is it?” + +“Tain’t posted,” he replied shortly. + +“Are you finding many rabbits?” I asked him cheerfully. + +“Ain’t huntin’ rabbits.” + +“’Possums then?” I suggested. + +“Ain’t huntin’ ’possum.” + +“Does your hound point quail?” + +“Nope.” + +“Are you running deer? We saw some tracks back in the swamp.” + +“Ain’t huntin’ deer.” + +“Well, what are you hunting?” + +“Ain’t huntin’ nawthin’.” + +I gave up in despair, and my friend asked him very politely, “Do you +live hereabouts?” + +“Ovah yondah,” he answered without a sign, so whether his home was +north, south, east, or west, and whether a hundred yards or ten miles +away, there was no telling. + +“Are there many birds about here?” + +“Dunno,” he answered shortly. + +“Queen” had found another bird and was pointing beautifully. We went +over to her and my friend made a fine shot on a hard single. We started +on and the old man yelled after us. We stopped and turned. He was +hobbling slowly towards us. + +“Is it possible he has found his tongue?” I whispered. + +“The age of miracles is past,” replied my companion. + +“Them birds you-all is huntin’,” said the old man when he was close +beside us, “went ovah t’other side o’ the swamp.” + +“But,” protested my friend, “we saw them come over the hill and we’ve +found three singles already.” + +“Right smart o’ ’em circled ’round.” + +“Are you sure?” I persisted. + +“Sartin’,” he grunted. + +We exchanged glances, both wondering whether we were receiving a +friendly tip from a strange fellow-sportsman or whether we were being +gently warned away from the proximity of an illicit whisky still. We +accepted his advice and recrossed the swamp. We found just one lone +bird on that hillside where he had indicated, that “right smart o’ ’em” +had flown. + +As we went down the hill on the other side my friend asked me in all +seriousness, “You know something about this Tar Heel dialect--would you +call one, ’right smart’?” + +“Would you?” I asked, and we both laughed. + +If “the East is East and the West is West,” so the North is North and +the South, South. That, if you really know the Sandhills, is one of +the best charms of a winter vacation in that fascinating country. It +is a very different country with different trees and flowers and birds +and animals. The people too, are different. The Sandhill darky is a +type quite distinct, and the Tar Heel is as fascinating and romantic +as his cousin up in the Cumberland Mountains. You will not find these +things at your hotel nor in the shops at Southern Pines, or Hamlet, +or Aberdeen. You will not find them on the golf links or the tennis +courts. You are very apt to ride over them on horseback, and you will +surely pass them in a motor; but they are there, and over and above the +good sport of winter play, they add a great deal to the fun of dodging +winter in the Sandhills. + + + + + “Them Huggins Boys” + + +Everybody in the Sandhills, it seemed, knew “them Huggins boys”, and +nobody had a good word to say for them. Everywhere I went I heard of +them, and everything that I heard was ill. + +Just after my arrival, as I was superintending the loading of my trunk +onto a most rickety wagon, the station agent touched my arm and, +pointing across the tracks, said, “Thar’s one o’ them Huggins boys, +suh.” + +I caught a fleeting glance of an amazingly long and lank youth jogging +away astraddle a dilapidated mule. + +“Looks like Ichabod Crane, doesn’t he?” I noted casually. + +The station agent was frankly puzzled to find the resemblance. He +scratched his sandy head and spat thoughtfully. + +“Ah doan reckon,” he drawled, “Ah know What’s-his-name Crane. Is he +kin to the Cranes over in Scotland County?” + +“No,” I laughed, “he’s a school-master in a book.” + +This information relieved him immensely. He would have been touched to +the quick in his pride had he failed to recognize anyone in all the +Sandhills, but a character in a book was quite a different matter. He +grinned appreciatively. + +“Oh,” he replied easily, “Ah ain’t much at book readin’; but ef +What’s-his-name Crane looked laik them Huggins boys, Ah bet he wasn’t +much of a school teacher.” + +“Looks are deceiving,” I quoted. + +“They shore are--them Huggins boys ain’t more’n half as mean lookin’ as +they is.” + +It was my turn to be puzzled, but the trunk was loaded now, and by the +time I had given Uncle Willis his instructions, the agent had stepped +back into his cubbyhole office. I wanted to question him further about +“them Huggins boys” and find out the reason for his venomous words, but +there were many things to be attended to, and, resolving to drop in on +him some day between train times, I hurried over to the store. + +Ten minutes later I again heard of “them Huggins boys.” The +storekeeper, introductions having been completed and after he had +done his duty by the good weather and the abundance of quail in the +vicinity, remarked in his cheerful, talkative way that a neighbor of +mine had just left. + +“Is that so--who was it?” I asked politely. + +“One of them Huggins boys.” + +I began to be distinctly curious about these mysterious youths. + +“’Bout a mile away,” the storekeeper replied to my question, “but Ah +reckon you’ll find that close enough.” + +“These Huggins boys don’t seem to be very popular,” I said, hoping to +lead him on. + +“They ain’t,” he answered shortly, adding confidentially, “Doan you +lend ’em nawthin’ you set no value on.” + +Another customer interrupted us. I thanked him for his advice, and he +supplemented it with the information. “We-all doan give ’em no credit +here.” + +That evening my next door neighbor, who lived half a mile away, dropped +in to extend his welcome. He too, warned me about these boys. Later +I questioned his overseer, who had ordered them off the plantation, +and he characterized them shortly as “the damnedest nuisances in the +country”. Uncle Willis, after a deal of questioning, confessed, “Well, +Massa Billie, hit’s disaway, dey is jest natcherly meaner dan a mad +mule”. + +Bits like this, a little here and a little there, I gathered up +everywhere. In little scraps too, I collected their history. Their +father before them had been a notorious character, famous as a fighter +and a leader of moonshiners. All his life he had been a hard-drinking, +work-hating good-for-nothing, and his sons, according to common report, +were following right in his unsteady footsteps. There was not enough +energy among the four of them to cultivate their little farm properly. +They raised a little cotton and harbored a scrubby cow and half a dozen +gaunt, half-wild hogs, but land and stock, little cabin and dilapidated +barn were all going to rack and ruin as fast as abuse and neglect +could drive them. Failing to make a living out of what might have been +a good little plantation, they hired out for odd jobs and in the winter +burned tar. But their services were never greatly in demand, and just +how they managed to live, and their old mother and sister too, was a +mystery. Some people, with a great show of pretended knowledge, hinted +at a blockade still and raw corn liquor sold to the darkies for two +bits a quart. Others pointed out that whatever ready money they scraped +together was invested in the cheapest and most virulent whisky, which +argued against any home-made intoxicants. All this I learned before I +made their acquaintance, and our first meeting did not tend to improve +the opinion I had formed of them. + +One Sunday morning, as I was sitting on the verandah pretending to +read, but really luxuriating in the January sun, the Sabbath peace was +rudely broken by a quavering falsetto voice whining out a darky song: + + “De Lord he thought he’d mak’ a man. + Dese bones gwine t’ rise again! + Lil’ bit o’ earth an’ lil’ bit o’ sand. + Dese bones gwine t’ rise again! + Ah knows it: de-ed Ah do know: Ah knows it, + Dese bones gwine t’ rise again! + + Thought He’d mak’ a ’ooman too. + Dese bones gwine t’ rise again! + Cast about see what He’d do. + Dese bones gwine rise again! + Ah knows it: de-ed Ah do know: Ah knows it, + Dese bones gwine t’ rise again!” + +The mournful sound was getting louder and louder. Evidently the singer +was coming up the driveway. I laid aside my book and walked around the +house to see who it was. + + “Took a rib from Adam’s side. + Dese bones gwine t’ rise again! + Made Miss Eve t’ be his bride. + Dese bones gwine rise again! + Ah knows it: de-ed Ah----” + +I stepped around the corner and the song stopped abruptly. A most +remarkable vehicle, an ancient phaeton, all besplattered with red clay +mud and held together with odd bits of rope, twine, and wire, was +approaching at a slow and dignified pace. It was drawn by a little +moth-eaten mule who dragged his hoofs through the sand and flopped his +big ears in a distressingly spiritless manner. In violent contrast +to their melancholy equipage two cheerful figures sprawled in the +carriage. The driver, his great feet thrust over the wobbly dashboard +his head resting on the back of the seat, was paying much more +attention to the wisps of white clouds overhead than to his steed. His +companion, the singer, sat sideways, swinging his legs over the side +in time with his song. He broke off in the middle of a word when he +caught sight of me, and giving the driver a violent nudge, switched +himself around into the carriage. The driver slipped his feet off the +dashboard and hunched up into an almost sitting position. The mule just +stopped and, for all the world with the Dormouse at the mad tea-party, +immediately went to sleep. The singer, too, might have posed for the +drawings of the Mad Hatter himself. He had the same lean face with +high cheek bones; the same bulging eyes and prominent nose; the same +protruding teeth and receding chin. Nor was the driver unlike the March +Hare. There was a strange mixture of brazen effrontery and extreme +timidity in his manner. His shifting eyes and shuffling feet belied his +bold speech. + +“Good morning,” I said. + +The singer nodded embarrassedly, and the driver, his eyes scanning the +landscape, grunted, “Mawnin’”. + +“What can I do for you?” I asked. + +“Is you the gemmen’s rented dis place?” asked the driver bluntly. + +I told them I had and they exchanged glances. + +“Ah’m Jim Huggins,” the driver replied to my question, “an’ he’s mah +brother Tom,” indicating the singer with a side-wise jerk of his head. +“We live ovah yondah.” + +“Oh,” I exclaimed, “two of the Huggins boys. I’m glad to meet you. I’ve +heard of you.” + +They shook hands doubtfully, and Jim questioned me with open suspicion. +“What’d you heah ’bout us?” + +Tom, who had not spoken till now, shifted uneasily, and before I could +reply asked if I didn’t want to buy some eggs. + +“MacDougall’s sellin’ ’em at the store,” he added, “fo’ fo’ty cents a +dozen, but we-all’l let you have ’em for thirty-five.” + +I had bought eggs from MacDougall just the day before for thirty-five +cents. + +“You say,” I said, “that you’ll sell me eggs for five cents less than +the store price?” + +He nodded eagerly. + +“Well, then. I’ll give you thirty cents a dozen for them--if Sally +wants some.” + +Again they exchanged glances. + +“Ah reckon that’ll be alright,” said Jim, looking everywhere but at me. + +I called Sally out of her kitchen, and she explained that “’deed, Massa +Billie, we-all has all de aiggs we kin use till ’bout Wednesday,” so +I told the Huggins boys to come back then. Their almost proverbial +meanness flared up at this. They considered my refusal to buy of them +an insult and a great injustice, and muttered threats and abuse. + +“Here,” I said, “stop your grumbling and clear out. I didn’t ask you to +bring me eggs, and I’ve ordered some for next Wednesday though you lied +about the price. Stop your grumbling and get along with you. And next +time you come round here leave that home.” + +I pointed to an empty flask that lay neglected on the floor of the +carriage. Jim kicked it under the seat, jerked at the reins to wake up +the mule, and with something about “Jest’s you say, boss,” drove slowly +off. + +So these were the far-famed Huggins boys. I watched them half way down +the driveway, and then went back to my sunny seat and the book. As I +settled myself, the quavering tones of Tom’s high voice, taking up +again his interrupted song, came floating to me. + + ‘Put ’em in a gardin fair. + Dese bones gwine t’ rise again! + Tole ’em eat what they see there. + Dese bones gwine rise again! + Ah knows it: de-ed Ah do know: Ah knows it, + Dese bones gwine ’t rise again. + + “Sarpint wound around a trunk. + Dese bones gwine t’ rise again. + At Miss Eve his eye he wunk. + Dese bones gwine rise again. + Ah knows it: de-ed Ah----” + +The words faded gradually in the distance into a thin minor wail. + +[Illustration: THIS IS A “FRUIT-STAND & PORK”] + +The very next morning I had another visit from “them Huggins boys”. +I was out riding at the time, and when I came back I noticed someone +had driven in and out of the driveway. It had rained during the night +and the fresh tracks were plain in the sandy road. The hoof prints +were long and narrow, evidently of a mule, and I wondered idly who my +visitor could have been. Sally told me. + +“Hit’s dose shiftless Huggins boys again. They was trying t’ sell mo’ +eggs, an’ they got out an’ cum right in de libin’ room. Ah couldn’t +stop ’em nohow.” + +Evidently they were going to make themselves a first-class nuisance +unless I put my foot down firmly. Resolving to read them the riot +act next time they came around, I tied the pony and went into the +house, Sally protesting all the while against “all dese heah pore +white trash”. I went to the mantlepiece to fill my pipe. There was +the tobacco pouch, but my pipe, my favorite briar, which I was sure I +had put there just before I went out, was not there. Sally remembered +seeing it, but had not touched it. + +“Hit mus’ a been them Huggins boys tuk hit,” she suggested. + +I hurried out and jumped on the pony. + +“Ef dey’s been drinkin’ look out fo’ ’em,” Sally called after me. +“Dey’s pow’rful mean in liquah.” + +“Don’t worry about me, Sally,” I called back. “They wouldn’t hurt +anybody.” + +By riding ’cross lots I came out on the road to their farm ahead of +them. The telltale tracks in the sand told they had driven out, but +had not yet returned. I rode back to meet them. Half way to the main +road I came up with them. They were coming along at their usual funeral +pace, and the musical Tom was whistling a jolly jig tune. I rode up and +stopped their mule. + +“Good mawnin’, suh,” they chorused. + +“Which of you boys smokes a pipe?” I asked. + +They were surprised and outdid each other in looking as innocent as +lambs. + +“Whichever it is, hand over my pipe.” + +They shifted uneasily, but neither made a move to restore my property. + +“Come, be quick,” I said, moving the pony in closer to their carriage. + +Tom slowly reached in his pocket and drew out my pipe. He reached it +out to me silently. + +“Thanks,” I said. “Now understand this: the next time I catch or hear +of one of you boys on my place except on business I am coming after him +with this.” + +I shook my riding crop and they nodded solemnly. The pony was dancing +about and I rode off, leaving them looking after me surprised and +disgusted, a little mad, but properly scared. After that we became +friends. + +Till recently the country where “them Huggins boys” live has been known +all over North Carolina as “poor old Moore County”. It lies in the +very heart of the Sandhills, and the farmers who “make corn and cotton +on the clay” have long scoffed at the sandy slopes where, so the joke +runs, “you can hear the cotton grunting trying to make a living in the +poor soil”. Too poor even to give a decent stand of grass--except the +coarse, useless crab grass--the Sandhills supported a fine growth of +long leafed pine, and years ago the Huggins boys’ grandfather and his +neighbors eked out their thin crops with the tall, straight timber and +with turpentine. Their sons, the best of the timber gone, hewed out +railroad ties and burned tar. They were poor farmers on poor soil, a +ruinous combination. The roads were bad, and the Sandhills’ natives, +having little to sell and nothing with which to buy, lived sufficient +unto themselves. Theirs was a narrow life and a hard one, a life of few +pleasures and almost no advantages, of much labor and little reward. + +[Illustration: Photo by Dr. Achorn +DESERTED TURPENTINE STILL] + +A score of years ago new factors entered into the life of the +Sandhills. Inspired by the few passengers and little freight on this +division of the road, railroad men turned their attention to this +country. They sent agricultural and industrial experts who reported +back that all the Sandhills had was a glorious winter climate. So the +general passenger agent and the traffic manager consulted physicians, +and the Sandhills became famous as a resort for tubercular patients. +But wiser men nipped the growing sanitoriums in the bud and planted in +their stead great winter resorts, big hotels, golf courses, hunting +preserves. + +Men and women came from all over the country to slip away from Jack +Frost and play in the open, and the mysterious spell of the Sandhills +was thrown over them. + +Under this spell a little group of Northern men, fresh from college, +ambitious and full of energy, decided the Sandhills should be good for +other things besides golf and quail shooting. Agricultural experts from +Raleigh and Washington said things that confirmed this belief, and +these young men turned Sandhills farmers. The Huggins boys’ father and +his neighbors in poor old Moore County laughed at these soft-handed +agriculturists; but they fattened cattle with great profit over at +Jackson Springs; they grew tobacco at Samarcand which brought top price +in the open market, and their big dairy near Hoffman sold cream to +the railroad and fed hogs on the skimmed milk. The pioneers have been +followed by others, and most of the Huggins boys’ neighbors from good +examples have learned to get bigger crops and sell them for higher +prices. + +[Illustration: AT THE PINEHURST FARM] + +[Illustration: LORD OF THE PINEHURST DAIRY] + +But in among the hills, a little way back from the railroad and the +new automobile highways the old life, the hard, narrow life, is still +lived. “Them Huggins boys” and their poor, old mother and drab sister +are still drudging along in the old way. That, after I knew them, +was the only real fault I found. They are not vicious or mean: they +are frightened and suspicious. They are not clever and they are very +lazy, so they have no confidence in themselves to cope with the keener +competition that the new life has brought. They have neither the speed +nor the stamina to stand the swifter pace, and they balk. Underneath +their diffidence and sham effrontery they are helpless and hopeless. +They are the tattered remnants of an out-worn age. + +[Illustration: OLD SLAVE QUARTERS] + + + + + A Sandhills Christmas Carol + + +“Chris’mas gift, Massa Billie, Chris’mas gift!” + +Aunt Sally, black and beaming stood at the door of my room, trying at +once to waken me and arouse my Christmas spirit. I opened one eye and +she redoubled her efforts, laughing. + +“Merry Christmas, Sally! What time is it?” + +“Merry Chris’mas, yo’self, Massa Billie--’deed hit’s ’most aight +o’clock.” + +“The dickens it is!” I cried sitting bolt upright in bed, “didn’t I +tell you to call me at six?” + +“Yassah, yo’ shore did, but Ah jest knowed you’d not want to go +shootin’ dis mawnin’. Hit’s rainin’.” + +Sally was right; it was raining, a steady, soaking, most +un-Christmas-like rain. Out of the little windows I could see the +Sandhills drenched and dripping. The great long-leafed pines, so proud +and stately in the bright sunlight, stood dejected and tawdry. Even the +jovial little holly bush at the corner of the porch had quite lost its +gay, holiday air. Down in the valley, at the head of the branch, the +rich, warm greens and olives of the magnolias and bluegums seemed grey +and melancholy in the fine mist that spread over the lowlands. “Sam,” +the most sedate and dignified of pointers, strolled into my room and +put his head on the side of the bed. + +“No hunting for us today, old man,” I said to him, and he sniffed +sympathetically and blinked his yellow eyes as much as to say, “I know +it--ain’t it the devil?” He was so very sad about it that I could not +help laughing at the old sportsman. + +Indeed it was not a pleasing prospect. A rainy Christmas--no +shooting--and stuck off in a tiny bungalow, several miles from +anywhere, with only the remnants of another man’s library for +company--Ugh! I dragged on my clothes without any enthusiasm for the +day. But Aunt Sally’s breakfast--golden scrambled eggs heaped up in the +center of a fringe of crisp bacon, with corn bread, and steaming +cakes smothered in molasses--cheered me wonderfully; and then, after +breakfast, Uncle Willis, her husband, came shuffling up from his cabin +for his “Chris’mas gift.” + +He inspected his present thoughtfully, and thanked me with verbose +formality for it. Then he began talking. Willis is always an +entertaining conversationalist, though I fear he is not a thoroughly +reliable source of exact information. As Toby confided to me one day, +“Dat nigger’s de wo’st liar in de Sandhills, ef not on de whol’ state +of No’th Carolina, an’ thar’s some tol’ably good liars down disaways.” +His vivid imagination made penniless, ragged Willis a Midas. He knew +more about cotton than the whole of the Department of Agriculture, and +as for tar burning, he could sweat more black, sticky stuff out of a +cord of pine wood than any nigger in Moore County, though he would +begrudgingly acknowledge that Jim Watson could go him one better in +this. There was a wonderful, childlike simplicity in his optimism, but +his absolute faith in your belief of his yarns was irritating till you +recognized the artist in him. I remember how out of patience I was +with him when he solemnly informed me one day “dat ’bout fo’ y’ars ago +he’d been huntin’ b’ar wif Massa Teddy Roos’velt down in Drownin’ Creek +Swamp.” + +“Willis,” I said to him sharply, “you are an unmitigated liar!” + +“’Deed I is, Massa Billie, but Ah jest thought you’d like t’ heah ’bout +hit.” + +So I did, but this Christmas morning I was in no humor to listen to his +prattle, and until he got on the subject of “hants and conjurin’,” I +gave him but scant attention. The sly rascal knows this way of arousing +my flagging interest, and employs it very effectively. + +“Massa Billie,” he said, “Ah doan’ su’pose yo’ done heah dat sumbuddy’s +been conjurin’ Lee Gordon, has yo’?” + +“I haven’t, no--who is Lee Gordon?” + +“He’s a cousin of mah Sally’s over at Cognac. He’s been a-workin’ on de +railroad wid de section gang, but he done move to Hoffman las’ night.” + +“In all the rain? On Christmas eve?” I asked skeptically. + +“Yassah, right in de rain an’ on Chris’mas eve. When he come home last +evenin’ he done found a conjure layin’ right on de front do’-step. Ah +doan’ jest ’actly know what kind ob a conjure, but hit war shore a +mighty pow’ful one.” And sure of his audience he launched forth in full +details of how the darky had moved his wife and numerous children, all +his goods and chattels, right over to Hoffman and was staying with his +wife’s brother, Noah Wilson. + +“Why did he move last night?” I asked to egg him on. + +“But yo’ shore doan’ ’spect him t’ stay in dat cabin wid a conjure +layin’ on de front do’-step, does yo’, Massa Billie?” + +“Why not?” I replied, New England fashion, to draw him out. + +“Eff yo’ steps ober a conjure,” he replied earnestly, “yo’ is laik +t’ die, an’ eben eff yo’ doan’ step ober it, yo’ is laik t’ die +anyway. But dey all moved out de back do’,” he added reassuringly. He +digressed to tell how all the household goods had been taken out the +back way, stopping to recount the history of a certain bed, a family +heirloom of slavery days. Finally, however, he got back to conjuring, +and, expressing in the same breath his most abject fear and his +utter contempt for all Black Art, he told me considerable about this +mysterious matter. “Eff yo’ has de conjurin’ pow’rs,” so I learned, you +can kill your enemies by placing a conjure where they will walk over +it. If, however, you are not so terribly vindictive, you can merely +drive them crazy by placing a hair of their head in the tough bark of a +little, twisted black-jack oak. Should you be very merciful indeed, and +if you merely wish to get some objectionable person out of your path, +you can pick up a bit of dirt out of his footprint in the high-road and +throw it, accompanied by proper chants and incantations, into running +water. Henceforth that person will be a hapless wanderer over the face +of the earth. There are, I gather, other awful powers that obey the +commands of the conjurer, and his poor victims can only be freed from +his spell by applying to a witch doctor. He, his palm having been duly +crossed, will first determine the exact nature of the spell. He takes +a little iron kettle about the size of your two fists, and mounts this +upon a little pyramid of dry pine sticks. In the kettle he places cold +water from a running stream and into it he throws salt, herbs, and +sundry mysterious powders. Then he kindles the fire. While the little +blaze crackles, he chants, and then, if the kettle falls off the sticks +before the kettle boils it means “yo’ is shore conjured”--a thing that +must assuredly happen if the doctor is careful to use dry wood that is +fairly steeped with rosin. Then you must cross his palm again, and he +will throw about you a counter-charm. + +At this point my lesson in Black Art was interrupted. + +Jerry, a half-grown negro who lived over by the Tower, knocked on the +door, and I could never get Willis to resume his course of instruction. +Jerry, grinning and bobbing, delivered a formal invitation from the +switch operator over at the signal tower on the railroad, half a mile +away, to come and share with him a Christmas box he had received from +his wife. I accepted, and we set off, the boy and I, through the warm +drizzle that enveloped you and soaked through your clothes as if they +had been tissue paper. + +The Christmas box was not a perfect success. It had been packed in +cardboard and had been sadly damaged in transit, so that you would +bite into a crumpled piece of capital, homemade cake to find the +frosting--and maybe a brick-like gum drop--embedded in the center. But +my host, the operator, is a communicative, ingenuous soul whose spirits +no amount of Christmas rain could dampen. On Christmas Eve he had spent +two hours of his spare time ploughing through swamps to pick a great +bunch of holly. He had even found a mistletoe, a sprig of which dangled +at the end of a silver cord, relic of a box of candy, over the levers +of his switches. The day was close and muggy, but in honor of the +occasion his little, pot-bellied, iron stove glowed ruddy with heat. +Over his telegraph instruments was strung a line of garish Christmas +post cards, flaming with scarlet and emerald green daubs of color, +besprinkled with tinsel, declaring, as through a megaphone, “Peace on +Earth--Good Will to Men.” The stuffy little signal tower fairly reeked +with the Christmas spirit, and as we sat munching fruit cake I looked +over at my happy host and was ashamed that a little rain should wash +all the warm, generous Christmas out of me. + +Yes, this was decidedly better than moping alone in the bungalow. +With every freight that came to a screeching, bumpy stop beneath, +a burly brakeman would thrump up the steps of the signal tower for +train orders. Dripping rain water from his rubber coat, he would throw +open the door with a “Merry Christmas! Say, ain’t this a peach of a +Christmas day?” If his train must wait on the switch for another to +pass, he would sit down by the fire and between enormous mouthfuls +of cake and candy, tell a railroad yarn or retail a bit of railroad +gossip. For hours I perched on the telegraph table watching this +strange procession. After a short nod they paid little attention to +me, for my host never bothered with introductions, and I sat there +with the curious feeling that I was at the theatre. Certainly these +men were of another world, each so different and yet each so true to +the type. A thick-set, square-faced little fellow with the sharp twang +of Down East in his voice would be followed by a tall, light stripling +whose low drawl betrayed him long before he casually mentioned that he +wished he could have been home in Savannah this day. They talked only +of railroading. They whirled up and down the length of the country from +New York to Florida and back again, many times during the year and saw +nothing but switches and roundhouses; they passed nothing but expresses +and other freights; they met no one save engineers, conductors, and +brakemen like themselves. They lived a life divided into miles and +minutes, bounded by the glistening rails, but within this life they +found complete absorption, for it is a complicated, dangerous life in +which exact knowledge is at a premium. + +[Illustration: ON THE SWITCH BY THE TOWER] + +About three o’clock in the afternoon, “Shorty” thrumped in from Cognac. +He was working the “second trick,” or as we out of the signal towers +would say, the second shift, and he came over on a freight to be ready +to take up his duties at four. + +“Say,” he exclaimed gleefully, after the season’s greetings had been +exchanged and he had sampled the now nearly demolished Christmas box, +“McNab sure did play some good trick on some of his niggers last +night.” + +“He’s like to play one too many tricks on them niggers of his,” said +our host. “D’you remember ’bout that section boss over on the L. & N. +that was found with his skull stove in with a sledge?” + +“Aw, shucks! McNab treats his niggers good, but there was a family of +them livin’ in a shack right behind his house, an’ they’d sing an’ +howl half the night, so McNab’s been ’bout crazy to get shut of them +someway. He tried fifty ways to close them up, but yesterday he took +a bit of rabbit skin and rolled it up in a little ball and wrapped it +round with a strip of red flannel, and tied it all ’round with a horse +hair. Then he went an’ left it on the nigger’s front door step. When +the nigger comes home, he starts hollerin’ bloody murder about somebody +tryin’ to conjure him. He and his whole tribe moves out last night, +an’ every bit of their studdings went out the back door to dodge that +conjure of McNab’s.” + +[Illustration: Photo by Dr. Achorn +NEGRO FAMILY AT HOME] + +Shorty broke off laughing, and I asked, “Was the nigger’s name Lee +Gordon?” + +“’Deed I don’t know, but they moved to Hoffman. Say, I’ll bet there +ain’t a nigger in the whole Sandhills will live in that cabin now,” and +Shorty chuckled to himself. + +I told Uncle Willis all about it later. All that he would say was, +“H’m! Those railroad men am mighty smart, ain’t dey?” He did not, +however, mean to be sarcastic, for a couple of weeks later when I +suggested that his brother Henry move into Lee Gordon’s old cabin in +Cognac he was horrified at the thought. Yet Henry lived in Hoffman and +worked in Cognac and was always complaining of the length and expense +of his commuting. Although the cabin in Cognac would have solved this +problem and was really a first-class house in good condition, Willis +could only answer with a shrug and a shuffle, and a “Ah doan’ ’spect +Henry’ll care none ’bout livin’ in dat dere shack.” + +[Illustration: SANDHILLS RAPID TRANSIT] + + + + + “Tar Burnin’” + + +When first I went to North Carolina to spend the winter in the +Sandhills, my knowledge of tar was limited to schoolboy memories of +tar-balls made from material purloined from the contractors who paved +New York’s streets and a rather indirect connection through a cousin +who had once put a tar roof on his stables and cordially regretted it. +Down in the Sandhills, old Uncle Willis Baldwin, by verbose precept and +halting example, taught me just how the black, sticky stuff is wrung +from the dried wood of the long-leaf pine, barreled up, and brought to +market. + +Soon the good old-fashioned way that Uncle Willis burns his tar will +be replaced by a very efficient, but thoroughly uninteresting machine, +a great still, with a gigantic metal retort in a brick oven as big as +Willis’ little shanty. The old darky tar burner who considers himself +lucky to get a barrel of crude tar from a cord of dry pine is but a +faltering competitor of the machine that from the same wood can wring +two barrels of tar, valuable creosote, and other important wood oils. +Squeezing out fifteen dollars where before but three or four were +extracted is all in strict accord with economic progress, and plainly +it is very much more profitable--for those who own the stills--but +this fine machine is costly beyond the dreams even of Willis’ vivid +imagination, and it is but a question of time when the negro tar burner +and his handmade tar kilns will be another vanished bit of the Old +South. + +[Illustration: THE BURNING TAR KILN] + +Willis had made a tar-burning agreement--the usual one in such +cases--with Massa Ralph. Massa Ralph supplied the dry pine wood--“light +’ud” Willis calls it--and he further agreed to furnish the barrels +to hold the tar. Uncle Willis, on his part, undertook to collect the +wood on Massa Ralph’s land, to build and burn the tar-kiln, to fill +the barrels and deliver them to the railroad at Hoffman. Each was to +receive a half of the receipts from the sale of the tar. + +On a piece of level ground, down in the valley beside the little +trickling branch, just behind my bungalow, Willis “done built hisself a +whalin’ big tar-kil’.” First he dug out a slight hollow, like a great +wash basin full twenty feet across, with a trench leading from the +center to a deep pit dug just outside the outer edge. Then he and his +brother Henry hitched up their old grey mule and scoured all over the +land, piling the dilapidated wagon with the dry wood they picked up +everywhere and hauling load after load to the site of the kiln. After +a great store had been collected, Henry fell to work chopping up the +knotty stumps and splitting the long logs, while Willis painstakingly +constructed the kiln. This must be carefully and neatly done, for the +quantity of the tar yielded depends most directly upon the close and +proper building of the kiln. Around the outer edge Uncle Willis laid +row upon row of the long, straight, split rails, each pointing due to +the center and each one fitted with scrupulous nicety into its place. +In the center of the kiln he stowed away the little twisted knots and +gnarled bits of root, all so rich in tar. This is rough work too, and +were not old Willis’ black hands as tough as sole leather, they would +be filled with splinters. + +[Illustration: THE TAR BURNER’S WAGON] + +After the kiln had slowly risen till it was full seven feet high at +its outer rim, it was topped off with a roof made of the split rails. +Aunt Sally and “de chilluns” were now pressed into service flagging the +kiln. On the roof they laid a covering of long-leaf pine boughs, and +then they stuck similar branches into the crevices of the sides until +the whole looked like a great, regular mound of giant pine needles. +Uncle Willis and Henry again took up the work. They now banked the +kiln. Starting at the ground, and building up tier on tier, they laid +long logs of green wood round the kiln. In between the long logs and +the kiln itself they packed sod and dirt, transforming the great heap +of pine needles into an octagonal, log block house in miniature. Sand +and clay piled six inches deep on the top and then packed down finished +the job. Willis was now ready to burn his kiln. + +[Illustration: FLAGGING] + +So far everything had gone swimmingly, but now a long series of +troubles began to fall with distressing regularity on Willis’ woolly +head. A dozen times a day he would come shuffling up for my consolation +and advice. Off would come his battered hat and he would begin, “’Deed, +Massa Billie, Ah doan’ know----”, till, had I not felt so sorry for the +old man, I would have been driven crazy by these woeful consultations. + +In this big tar-kiln he had planned and executed his _magnum opus_, +which should not only re-establish his shaky credit at the store in +Hoffman, but must also supply the necessary capital for cotton seed and +fertilizer against the fast approaching planting season. He was staking +more than his little all on this kiln; he was gambling in futures, +futures of slab-side pork and corn meal; a promised dress for the +Xantippean Sally and much needed shoes for Carolina, Liza, Sally II, +Robert Lee, and a couple of the other children whose names I forget. + +[Illustration: BUILDING THE TAR KILN] + +His great tar-kiln, built so patiently and with such great +expectations, contained about seventy cords of good wood and should, +according to all expert calculation, yield about seventy barrels of +tar. Massa Ralph’s overseer, deputized to get these seventy barrels, +had only been able to collect forty. He scoured the country, mills, +cross-road stores, freight offices, but every available source of +supply that usually had barrels almost to give away had no barrels now, +even at fancy prices. And Willis, because once the kiln was started +there would be no stopping nor turning back, was afraid to fire the +kiln until he had on hand enough containers to hold his expected +quantity of tar. Moreover, poor Willis had agreed to pay Henry fifty +cents a day till the tar was all run, and he saw the wages of his +helper daily eating deeper and deeper into his profits. To cap the +climax, the market price of tar was tumbling down at an amazing rate, +and every no-’count nigger that passed along the road took a diabolical +delight in stopping at Willis’s cabin and giving him the very latest +and most discouraging market quotations. Poor old Willis! Whenever +he saw me he implored help in getting him some barrels, and I never +rode over to Hoffman without bearing an urgent message to the freight +agent--“Fo’ de Lawd’s sake, Massa Billie, tell him t’ hurry hup dat lot +ob bar’ls what Massa Ralph done order in Wilmington.” + +[Illustration: FILLING THE BARRELS] + +At last the long-expected barrels came, and one evening about dusk +Jim Watson scraped the dirt and boughs off the roof of Willis’ kiln +for a couple of square feet and applied a match to the dry lightwood +underneath. As the red flames darted through the black smoke, Willis +heaved a great sigh of relief. Had everything gone smoothly, Willis +would have run the kiln himself. So many things had gone wrong and so +very much depended on this kiln that he called in Jim Watson, who plays +the part of tar burning efficiency expert throughout the Sandhills, in +the hope, I believe, of his being able to break the spell of bad luck. +In the back of his brain there was some notion that the fee he paid to +Jim Watson hired not only his supposedly superior experience, but also +bought a charm against further misfortune. + +All night long the ruddy glow of the burning kiln lighted up the little +valley, and the pungent, piney smell of the black smoke filled the +air. Up at the bungalow, two hundred yards away, we could hear the +snap and crackle of the burning knots and the thick scent of the pitch +penetrated the house. Early in the morning, Willis covered the hole in +the banking of the roof under the direction of Jim Watson who, perched +on an up-turned barrel, gave directions with a thoroughly expert and +professional air. Now the kiln began to smoulder, and the pair sat +down, only getting up to patch with great shovelsful of earth any +cracks that appeared in the banking. + +[Illustration: BANKING] + +About the middle of the afternoon, the tar, sweated out of the pine +wood by the intense heat, began to ooze out of the trench. Slowly at +first, drop by drop; soon in a little trickle that grew in size, till +by nightfall, it was pouring out so that one of the workers must busily +ply the bucket all the time. This bucket Willis had fastened on the end +of a long pole, and with it he scooped the black, sticky mess out of +the pit, pouring it into a rough wooden trough through which it flowed +into the waiting barrel. This work must go on day and night, and the +kiln must also be carefully watched lest it catch fire; so Willis had +built a crude hut for shelter, and here, when not on duty, the burners +rested on a great heap of filthy blankets. Sally brought them their +meals, and they slept by turns in snatches. + +Jim Watson had not brought good luck with him, for just as the tar +began to run, it started to rain. A chilly northwest wind sent the +shivers chasing each other down old Willis’ sun-loving back, and the +water soon came pouring through the chinks in the imperfect shelter. +The wet and cold could, at worst, mean a heavy cold or a sharp twinge +of the rheumatism; a heavier blow of misfortune awaited Willis. + +The great kiln behaved itself very properly indeed for a day and a +half, and twenty good barrels were filled with tar. In spite of the +bad weather old Willis was jubilant, but his joy was untimely, for +despite his expert help, things went wrong with the kiln. Air sneaked +in somewhere through some unnoticed crack in the banking, and then the +lightwood, instead of smouldering, burst into flame, burning up both +wood and tar. What a blaze the tar-soaked pine made! It roared and +it snapped. Great jets of red fire, followed by puffs of inky smoke, +thrust themselves through the banking. Every now and then a blazing +knot, accompanied by a whole train of bright sparks, would be hurled +through the roof and shot ten feet into the air. Fifty feet from the +kiln I had to hold my hands over my face to keep off the intense heat, +but like a great black Satan stoking the brimstone fires, Willis +slaved, patching the shattered banking, throwing dirt on the roof +in the hope of smothering the fierce fire and saving the remnant of +the tar. And Jim Watson worked too, like a Trojan, for the blame and +disgrace of the accident were his. + +Finally, they succeeded in choking the flames under control, but the +seventy barrels of tar for which Willis had worked so hard and waited +so long had shrunk to thirty-one. Over at Hoffman he received just four +dollars and a quarter a barrel for his tar, and but ten days before the +price had been five dollars. He paid off his high-priced expert and +settled up with his brother Henry. Then he came over to consult with +me. He took the crumpled, little wad of dirty bank notes out of his +pocket and looked at it ruefully. + +“Hit doan’ mak’ much ob ah show fo’ all dat work an’ all dat time, +does hit, Massa Billie?” and then he added earnestly, his black face +seamed with doubt and apprehension, “Mebbe so--Ah doan’ know--but hit +do ’most seem as eff thar’s sumbuddy conjured dat ole tar kil’.” + + + + + Some Quail Dogs--And Others + + +“Old Joe” and his daughter “Queen” are as ill-assorted a brace of +pointers as ever hunted a covey along the edge of a field of cow peas. +In the first place, nobody, to look at them, would ever suspect their +relationship. + +“Joe” is a strapping, lemon marked dog, with a heavy head and a tail +like a couple of feet of garden hose. He has too much “lumber” to +please any bench show judge, but no sportsman can look at him without +recognizing a sturdy, capable workman. He is one of the stolid, +old-time type of “Mainspring,” “Rip Rap,” “Bow,” “Faust” and the other +heroes of his race imported in the early days from England. Despite +his coarseness, he shows his breeding, but his daughter, on the other +hand, is a common looking rat of a pointer, light and racy, thin as +a match stick and as nervous as the needle of a pocket compass. She +is a thickly ticked liver all splotched over with great patches of +solid color. Her nose is snipy, her skull is domed, her tail curls +provokingly upwards, and her thin ears are long and pendulous, so that +one suspects that somewhere in her mother’s family there may have been +a _mesalliance_ with a foxhound. This suspicion is emphatically denied +by her owner. Perversely, he worships this ugly duckling of his. + +The old dog is a mighty hunter and quail are his favorite sport, but +he takes his pleasures sadly. He is as sedate as a senior deacon and +as serious as the professor of Sanskrit in a German University. Even +when his beloved Master appears in his battered felt hat and stained +and faded hunting coat, “Joe,” though he trembles with excitement, +never allows his feelings to get the better of him. His self control +is marvelous. ’Round and ’round he walks, stiff legged like a terrier +boiling for a fight, his tail as straight and stiff as a broom handle, +his big nose quivering, his yellow eyes flashing. But “Queen” skips +about, barking short, yappy barks, wagging her tail and wriggling her +slender body. She is always as flighty as a giggling schoolgirl. Last +winter was her first hunting season, and she threw herself into the +good sport of finding quail as a giddy debutante abandons herself to +the social whirl. She was out for a good time, and she had it. So did +we who followed her mad racings over the Sandhills. + +In the field, this strange pair carry with them all their differences, +but by a system of hunting that the trifling “Queen” invented herself, +they managed between them to find an amazing number of birds. “Joe” is +blessed with a truly wonderful power of scent and cursed with an excess +of caution. Not in the memory of man has he ever been known to over-run +his birds. Time and again his fine nose catches the scent of the covey +twenty or more yards off. Then he takes so long creeping up to them +that they run merrily off, leaving a confusing and exasperatingly +tempting foot scent for him to snuffle over. Poor old “Joe”--there is +no more snap to his work than there is to pea soup, but “Queen”--she +hunts, as a Bobby Watson says, “laik ah bunch o’ fiah-crackers.” She +loves to run. Over the Sandhills she races, head up, tail waving. + +[Illustration: Photo by Mr. Kirkover +A COVEY IN THE LONG-LEAF PINE] + +At first she often ran plumb into a covey before she had the slightest +idea that there was such a thing as a quail within a hundred miles of +her. Startled and disgusted she would stand stock still for a moment, +and then, as much as to say, “O well, no matter--better luck next +time,” she would be off again. + +But this was only at first. She soon got the hang of the game, and, +while she continued to range far afield, she learned not to flush. +“Joe” is too old a dog to learn any new tricks, but the versatile +“Queen” has devised an unscrupulous hunting system of her own that +is absolutely unorthodox but which fits in admirably with his slow +methods. As she prances over the hills, she keeps one eye on her steady +sire. When she sees him acting “birdy” she will rush in, dart in front +of him, and hold the birds till he comes up. It is, of course, very +wrong of her indulgent owner to allow her to ravish points in this +high handed manner. He knows it, and will sheepishly excuse her, by +saying he hadn’t the heart to leave the old dog home, but he is such +a potterer, we should never find birds unless he let “Queen” have her +way. In this way of hers she has a splendid good time. Without giving +up the sport of running riot, she has the sport of pointing with +the warm scent in her quivering nostrils, all the excitement of the +shooting, and the pleasant duty of retrieving. + +Poor old “Joe” regards this erratic system of hunting with the greatest +disfavor. Whenever “Queen” darts in front of him to point the covey +he has found, he stops and looks at her, saying, just as plain as +English, “Impudent puppy!” Then he turns and looks at his Master, “It’s +a disgrace, sir, the disrespect of the younger generation--a disgrace. +Whatever are we coming to?” He sniffs an emphatically contemptuous +sniff and walks in very dignifiedly to back up her point. How annoyed +he is if she breaks ever so little at the sound of the guns, and with +what a perfect holier-than-thou air he will wait patiently for the +command, “Fetch!” His self-righteousness knows no bounds if, when +“Queen” is seeking busily about, he can, as he often does, go straight +to the dead bird, pick it up, toss it into his mouth, and walk off, +saying, “There, little girl, that’s the proper way to do it.” What +a splendid conservative he is! Poor old chap, his hunting days are +nearly over now. Though he stoutly refuses to acknowledge it, he has +outlived his generation. I don’t suppose that even as a puppy he was a +dashing performer, and now, on the verge of his dotage, he has become +unbearably deliberate. Yet for all his provoking faults one cannot but +admire his stout heart and his passion for hunting. He is the very +pattern of the good sportsman of the Old School, kindly, keen, and +a bit old fashioned in his ways. He is thoroughly game and will go +hunting till he drops. Even now, old as he is, he will face a swamp +thicket bristling with briars, at five in the afternoon that many a +younger dog would not hunt the first thing in the morning. + +There is “Gypsy,” for example--she never will hunt any but the easiest +places. She is a little picture setter who comes down to the Sandhills +from Connecticut every winter for the quail season. She is clever as +an urchin and dainty as a princess. She has a capital nose and all +the speed in the world--when it pleases her ladyship to use her gifts. +She knows just where to hunt for the birds and she handles them in a +truly masterful way, but she has no more real love of hunting than +a Berkshire hog and not half the spunk of a cottontail. She is as +different from “Joe” as “Queen,” yet I know a very nice old lady whose +sons, she says, keep her “horse and dog poor,” who finds all their +hunting dogs uninteresting, because forsooth they lack individuality. + +I wish that she might know Capt’n Jack Evans’s four dogs. They are all +half brothers and sisters, but nobody could fail to note their marked, +distinct personalities. The rollicking “Bob” and the timid “Dot” are +full brother and sister; brilliant “Bessie” and plodding “Sport” have +the same daddy as the others, but different mothers. + +The privilege of going hunting with Capt’n Jack and this quartet may +be purchased at reasonable rates by the day or the week, but the honor +of accompanying him when he himself goes hunting for sport is bestowed +upon very few. I was delighted then when one morning he took me aside, +as we were waiting for the mail at the post office, and whispered +that had found a piece of country back in the hills “whar Ah reckon, +suh, thar’s more’n a million quail t’ the acre.” Capt’n Jack knows the +Sandhills, and he is not given to making promises he cannot keep. I was +sure we should find plenty of good sport. + +[Illustration: “HUNTER’S HOME”] + +Bright and early next morning, while the snap of the night frost was +still in the air, we set off to hunt this quail metropolis. The four +dogs tumbled about in the tonneau over the gun cases and lunch basket. +“Bob” jumped from side to side, critically inspecting the country, +while “Dot” and “Sport” lay on the floor, and “Bess” bounced about on +the rear seat. We left the main road soon and burrowed for five or six +miles along a twisting, sandy trail through the pine woods. We stopped +on the flat top of a hill, a miniature plateau over the edge of which +stood the tree tops of the valley. Right in the middle of the deserted +tote road we left the car, and, leaving coats, lunch, extra shells, +all, walked off across the hilltop. Through a grove of long-leafed +pines we went into the valley and worked forward, skirting the edge +of thick growth that marked the course of the winding stream. “Bob” +scoured the hilltop. “Dot” and “Sport” hunted carefully along close to +the swamp thickets. “Bess” beat up and down the southern side of the +hill just under the brow. + +“‘Bess’ shore does know what t’ hunt fo’ ah covey on ah cold mawnin’, +don’t she”--and the words had hardly slipped lazily from the Capt’n’s +lips before she came to a stiff point. A high, shrill whistle and the +other dogs came and backed. We walked in; the birds flushed; and the +sport began. On up over the crest of the hill, hunting the scattered +singles. “Steady thar, you ‘Bob’!” The young dog had found one and +was trembling with suppressed eagerness. Before we could get to him, +“Sport” was pointing another bird over to the left, and, as we watched, +both “Dot” and “Bess” suddenly froze stiff on points. “Ah swear! all +fo’ o’ ’em on points on singles.” We separated and flushed our birds +at the same moment. Whur-r-r-r, whur-r-r-r-r, whur-r-r-r-r-r! To the +right, the left, on in front scattered quail got up on all sides of us. +“Bess” broke excitedly, and had to be properly reprimanded, and then, +a hundred yards further on, she redeemed herself by finding a second +covey. After this we did not hunt singles at all. During the day we got +up twenty-seven coveys, which is a pretty good true quail story. + +[Illustration: “STEADY!” Photos by Mr. Kirkover] + +For a day of good sport anyone in the Sandhills will heartily recommend +Capt’n Evans and his quartet, but the true favorite native son of +Moore County is a handsome blue belton setter owned by Jim MacDougall. +“Prince” has a pedigree that fairly bristles with champions. Both his +parents were winners at the field trials, and he himself was trained +by Armstrong at High Point. He is the marvel dog of all the Sandhills. +What stories they tell of him on the post-office steps and ’round the +stove in MacDougall’s store winter afternoons! From Dr. Adams to the +youngest black boy who hangs about the freight shed, everyone in town +takes a keen personal pride in that dog. Of course, he has pointed dead +quail, and quail in trees and under logs, and he has, as can be proved +by half the gold watches and every Ingersoll in the township, held a +point for two hours and sixteen minutes--some say seventeen minutes. + +In the midst of his admirers at the store the handsome rascal is as +bored as a young prig back in his home town after his first term at the +University, but in the field he is keen sportsmanship personified. With +his free open stride, he covers the country, head and tail up, his nose +thrust into the air, sniffing first one side and now the other, eager +to catch the first faint suggestion of the scent of the little brown +birds. A short whistle and he stops in his tracks. A wave of the hand +and he is off again in the opposite direction, quartering the ground +perfectly. He stops dead on a point. Still as a statue he seems, but as +you walk closer you see that he trembles with suppressed excitement, +every muscle taut, every nerve straining, he stands there, a perfect +picture. Flush the birds and at the command he will retrieve, going +quickly and surely to each dead quail and returning it without so much +as a feather dampened. He is a splendid dog wonderfully broken. + +[Illustration: DELIVERING QUAIL] + +We all applaud the stiff antics of a high school trained horse and wax +enthusiastic over the trick of the lion tamer’s tawny pupil, but not +one in fifty of us ever thinks that the quail dog displays intelligence +and training far beyond these. He ranges over the country as free as +the winter wind, but always under perfect control. No bit guides him, +yet he turns right or left at the wave of a hand. No snapping whip +compels obedience, but he minds the call of a whistle promptly and +cheerfully. If a savage tiger or a docile brown cow could be trained +thus, scientific gentlemen would investigate the case in the interest +of animal psychology. It would be one of the marvels of the world, but +nobody thinks it at all “abnormal” in a setter or a pointer. Thousands +of rollicking puppies learn the trick each year. + +How much more wonderful even is the subversion of the bird dog’s +strongest instincts to the will of his master! We have seized upon +that momentary pause that precedes the wild dog’s spring at his prey +and developed it into the pointing habit, a habit that, through +generations of painstaking training and selective breeding, has become +stronger than the instinct to pounce upon the birds. What self-control +is demanded to stand staunch when the birds flush right under your +nose! How many men have the firm hold on their passions that the quail +dog displays when he picks up a dead bird in his mouth and returns it +gently to his master? “The dog,” Maeterlinck has said, “is the only +animal that is the friend of man.” The bird dog has gone even farther: +he is the friend and the partner of man as well. He curbs his strongest +instincts for the good of the game that he and his Master play +together. His is the proud joy of humble service. + +Half the sport of quail shooting lies in working and watching the dogs. +All day long the quail shooter has before him a living example of +strength, of perseverance, of good faith, of self-restraint, the very +cardinal virtues of good sportsmanship. It is a spiritual experience +that is good for any man. And we love our four-footed partner in +sport not alone because he is a splendid animal, good to look at, +intelligent, and faithful; not only because he shows us good sport; +but also because his own good sportsmanship appeals to the best +sportsmanship in ourselves. + + + + + The Clay Birds + + +We sat round a blazing pine-knot fire in the big hotel’s cozy smoking +room, and every man in the group, except the Banker, had been +hobby-horse riding. Each had enjoyed a glorious day in the outdoors, +pursuing his favorite sport. Each, tired with that delicious, restful +tiredness that comes like a benison at the close of every day of keen +sport, luxuriated in his deep leather chair. The fresh, pine-scented +winds had swept the cobwebs from our brains, and, as the fire snapped +and crackled, the bright flashes of friendly repartee, witty thrust and +ready parry, flew round the circle. + +The Collegian and his Father had started it by holding, as golfers +are so very apt to do, a _post mortem_ over their afternoon round. +This led the Editor, who had slipped away from the impatient telephone +and the ever-hungry presses for a couple of weeks’ winter vacation, +to make some caustic comparisons between golf and his favorite +tennis. But casualties on this hard and long-fought battlefield were +tactfully avoided by the Manufacturer, who boldly asserted that both +these good sports paled into utter insignificance before the most +glorious sport of quail-shooting. He proved it too--to his own complete +satisfaction--and then the polo-player championed his hobby, and was +followed very naturally by a hard-riding fox-hunter. Then we had +another round of golf, and so back again to the wide-ranging bird-dogs +and the whirling quail coveys. + +[Illustration: SNOW IN THE SANDHILLS] + +“I wonder,” put in the Banker, “if you gentlemen have read a poem of +Whitcomb Riley’s called ‘His Favorite Fruit?’ It’s a little dialect +sketch in which some Hoosier farmers, gathered ’round the iron stove +in a little cross-roads grocery, discuss their favorite fruits. Each +one holds out for his own personal choice--the apple, the peach, the +pear, the watermelon--and slanders unmercifully the taste of the last +speaker. But all the time the teller of this story ‘chaws on an’ sez +nawthin’.’ Finally one of the party asks him point blank, ‘Jim, what’s +yourn fav’rite fruit?’ He chaws on fer quite a spell an’ then he sez, +slow an’ solemn-like, ‘Terbaccer,’ an’ you oughter heard ’em roar.” + +“You,” continued the Banker, when the laugh had subsided, “have been +each slandering the other’s favorite sport, while I have been ‘chawin’ +on an’ saying nawthin’,’ and I wonder who of you will laugh at me and +my favorite sport as at the Hoosier farmer whose favorite fruit was +tobacco.” + +“Speaking for myself,” remarked the Editor, “I laugh at no sport except +tiddle-de-winks.” + +“How about ping-pong?” asked the Collegian. + +“That must have been before your day--did you ever play it?” + +“No, thank Heaven, but----” + +“Ah, I thought not. If you had, you’d not laugh at it, either,” and the +Editor chuckled to himself reminiscently. + +“I came down here to Pinehurst,” continued the Banker, “to get some +good trap-shooting.” + +“Huh!”--a short, sarcastic “Huh!”--came from the depths of the chair +where the Manufacturer, after a long day tramping over the Sandhills +behind his brace of pointers, was resting. + +“I expected just that from you, Charlie,” laughed the Banker. “Simply +’huh!’ and nothing more can express your wonder and contempt. For the +life of you, you cannot understand why on earth a supposedly sensible +man should come down here into the very heart of one of the best quail +counties in North Carolina to smash clay birds at the trap, can you?” +The Manufacturer shook his head vigorously. “Well,” continued the +Banker again, “I felt just as you do a couple of years ago. I followed +your favorite sport too many years to start slandering it now. I used +to come down here quail-shooting before you were out of school, but I +can tell you that trap-shooting is good sport, too. You are a Doubting +Thomas, but why don’t you try it sometime? It’s not so simple as it +looks.” + +Before we broke up an hour later, we had made an appointment to visit +the traps next morning to witness the Banker’s promised conversion of +the Manufacturer into a trap-shooter. None of us will ever forget that +skeptic’s immense surprise when he found the little clay birds so very +“gamey” that he only broke nine out of his first string of twenty-five. +It was a hard jolt to his pride, but he stuck out his jaw, tucked his +gun under his cheek, and tackled another string. He did better later, +and soon he got into the habit of joining the little parties at the +squatty little gun clubhouse in the center of the big open field over +against the great red barns of the model dairy. He came sheepishly at +first, but later with brazen effrontery. In the end, he decided to stay +over a week longer than he had planned, just to enter in the Mid-Winter +Handicap Tournament the last of January. + +In no very strict historical sense can the adjective “new” be fairly +applied to trap-shooting, and yet there is a newness in the recent +vogue of the sport. The live, tame pigeon, thrown into the air, +frightened and confused, from a collapsible wooden cage, has long since +been supplanted by a little clay disc, hurled with lightning speed from +a steel spring trap. This was the starting point of the development +of trap-shooting as we know it in America today, and this took place +years ago. It is a harder, more sporty thing to smash a whizzing clay +bird to smithereens than to knock down a frightened tame pigeon, +and it is more humane. This change of targets put a keen zest into +trap-shooting and took out a bitter reproach. But till recently, the +growth of trap-shooting has been slow. In four short years, however, +the number of active trap-shooters has increased fourfold; from about +100,000 to about 425,000. During the same period trap-shooting clubs +have increased from 1,000 to 4,000, and it is estimated that about +500,000,000 clay pigeons are thrown into the air each year at the +shooter’s sharp command, “Pull!” In one short Presidential term, +trap-shooting has sprung forward from a low place among the so-called +minor sports to occupy a position second only to baseball in the number +of its devotees. We are not apt to appreciate what this really means +without the help of the cold figures above. + +There is a world of difference in being a “rooter” and in being a +“player,” and the one simple little fact that each trap-shooter is +a player himself, or herself, is just what gives the sport its +strongest grip upon the interest of its followers. That tense moment +of “two out and the bases filled”; the jerky, crashing advance of the +battling human machine carrying a pigskin ball down the field toward +the goal-posts; the rush of the ponies and the hollow click of mallet +against polo ball--all these tighten the muscles and quicken the +heart-beat of any live sportsman, but, as the psychologist says, these +are all external stimuli. + +Let the same man--or the same woman, for many women shoot at the traps +nowadays--step up to the score, tuck his gun against his shoulder, +brace himself and draw a deep breath, glance down the long length of +blued barrels, and call “Pull!” Whizz goes the little black disc, +hurtling away at a speed that makes the teal and the mallard seem +lazy laggards. One moment of intensely concentrated effort and keen +enjoyment till the flying saucer is found just above the forward sight; +an almost involuntary squeeze of the trigger finger, the thrilling jump +of the discharge, and puff!--the clay target is knocked into a thousand +bits. + +That tremendously concentrated effort of finding the speeding disc--you +must find him quick--he will be quite out of range if you stop to say +quickly--followed by the physical climax of the almost simultaneous +kick of the gun and the shattering of the clay target; these are +secrets of the witching spell that lures the shooter back and back +again to the traps. I must confess to a thoroughly diabolical delight +in knocking the clay birds to powder. I do not do it always--not even +often, but when I do I enjoy the keenest pleasure. Other trap-shooters +confess the same joy. Please, do not say anything about dangerous +destructive tendencies that ought to be rigidly suppressed, or we shall +get into an argument, and then I will have to say a lot of things about +quickness of eye, correlation of senses and muscles, and a great deal +more that has nothing whatever to do with the sport of shooting the +clay birds. + +Over and above the inherent fascination of knocking the flying clay +targets into powder, the fact that there is no closed season on +these clay birds and that even a little hand trap in any open field +will furnish good game anywhere, goes far towards making “the sport +alluring” the sport universal. Nor do the changing seasons at all +handicap the trap shooter. The clay birds are always full grown and +they have no nesting-time; they are just as plentiful and just as fair +sport in November as in May. Indeed, when you mount the trap-shooting +hobby-horse, you can make up your mind to settle yourself in the saddle +for a long, long gallop over all sorts of country and in all sorts of +weather. + +There seems to be a delicate touch of sarcasm in the fact that the +most important winter trap-shooting tournament should be held within +a stone’s throw of grounds so well stocked with quail that they are +chosen for the running of one of the largest field trials. The pick of +the blooded setters and pointers are tried out for their bird sense +and hunting ability almost within hearing of the guns at the Pinehurst +traps. But the quail-hunter and the trap-shooter are brothers in +arms. Often, like the Manufacturer, converted at the Pinehurst traps +last winter, they are sporting Siamese twins. The traps furnish good +practice to the field shooter and good sport when the closed season +would otherwise keep the gun in its case. + +There is a curious connection between these brother sports. How +keenly, at the traps, does one miss the tramping over the open fields, +scrambling up hillsides, fording the streams, hopping over the rail +fences! All the tireless quest of the hunt, that strange, primitive, +impelling force that defies physical fatigue and keeps your high boots +swishing through the coarse, knotted crab grass with a long, eager +stride from daylight to dark! Most of all, you miss the dogs. That +to me is the great loss. But there is continual shooting to take the +place of the joys of the open fields, and there is a cleaner, keener +satisfaction in smashing a target than in knocking down a quail; but +what takes the place of the dogs? Nothing. Every shooter loves to +shoot--if he says he does not, put him down as a hypocrite. No man +lugs six or eight or ten or even twelve pounds of shotgun all day long +just for the fun of carrying firearms. He likes to shoot. He may--and +probably does--thoroughly enjoy the tramp and the pleasure of watching +the dogs work, but if he went hunting for these alone he would not +burden himself with a gun. No, the shooter loves to shoot, and at +the traps he can shoot till his gun barrels get red hot. Only a lame +shoulder and the price of shells need keep him from shooting his head +off, as the saying is. To the man who loves action--quick action and +lots of it--this is a charm that the traps surely, and the live birds +only uncertainly, offer. + +But the very kernel of the sport of trap-shooting comes in smashing +those flying discs. However keen the hunting instinct there is always +just the tinge of regret in blotting out the pretty life of little +brown birds. There are times when one feels just a bit ashamed of that +fierce pleasure of a good, clean, quick shot. At the traps one can let +that pleasure run wild. You can grit your teeth and say, “I’m going to +paste you this time,” without qualm of conscience. You can give rein +to the passion for destruction without becoming a brute. To do so in +the field is to degenerate. We hate the “game hog,” not because he is +selfish and cruel, but because he is not a man. We need the strong, +elemental passions, and we are in danger of becoming super-refined +jelly-fishes, incapable of doing wrong because we are incapable of +doing good. It takes more courage to attack a lie than to storm a +trench, more passion for destruction to root out a bad habit than to +raze a city. + + + + + Through a Jungle to the Old South + + +The first man to whom we spoke about canoeing down the Lumbee was +not encouraging. The water would be too high for fishing, and what +with whirlpools and other dire, vaguely hinted-at dangers he did not +reckon we would even get to Lumberton, to say nothing of going all the +way through to the sea. But our weather-stained mail held forth no +inducements to return North to be buffeted about by a blizzard, and our +dismal friend’s croakings but seemed to us promises of an exciting trip +and strengthened our determination to go--to go, we secretly hoped, +despite all hazard. He proved to be a melancholy deceiver; we found +excitement, but not the kind he foretold. The natives know precious +little about the Lumbee. + +Our first confirmation of this was when we discovered that the +authority on the river is Dr. John Warren Achorn, who has a winter +home at Pinebluff. This canoeing enthusiast told us much about the +river--that till three years ago, barring the natives’ cypress dugouts, +the Lumbee had never borne a canoe, and that, while he and others +had been down a hundred and eighty miles, no one had ever gone clear +through from the headwaters to the sea at Georgetown, S. C. Here was +an additional fillip--we were going to blaze the way! Dr. Achorn also +extended to us the courtesies of the Mid-Winter Canoe Club, and, thanks +to him, we used one of the club canoes. He would have fitted us out +with a complete kit had we needed it. + +“It was a misty, moisty morning, and cloudy was the weather,” when we +pushed off from Blue’s Bridge and started down the Lumbee. We, by the +way, were two men and two dogs, Leonard Chester Freeman and I, his +setter “Belle” and my Scottish terrier “Dixie”. Snugly stowed away +in our sixteen foot canoe were a shelter tent, blankets and ponchos, +duffle bags, two shotguns and a .22 rifle with ammunition, a camera, +cooking kit and food supplies for a week; a two hundred pound outfit, +but there are no carrys on the Lumbee. + +[Illustration: Photo by Dr. Achorn +BLUE’S BRIDGE, PINE BLUFF, N. C.] + +Half a dozen strokes and we were round a bend. The little clubhouse +under the great pines had vanished. Faintly, through the thickets, +Dr. Achorn’s cheery voice reached us, calling the Indian’s “_Bon +Voyage!_”--“Good hunting!” Then, save for the swish of the paddles and +the buzzing of a couple of precocious dragon-flies all was silent. +Apparently, we were miles from civilization. The strange wildness of +the Lumbee country strikes you at once. It is all a tangled wilderness, +wild and rampant. There are no stump pastures, such as one meets along +the banks of the rivers of the North Woods; no clearings with a squatty +cabin and a field of scraggly corn; no trace of the hand of man. Except +for the friends who pursued us in a motor to give us a farewell banquet +in our first night’s camp, we saw no human being for eighty miles. + +Again unlike the northern rivers, the headwaters of the Lumbee do not +“chatter over stony ways”; they zigzag, silent and swift, over a bed +of white sand. If every river had its own private trade-mark, surely +“XXX” would be granted to the Lumbee, for it twists and turns and loops +about till beside it the proverbial corkscrew seems to be the shortest +distance between two points. If you are mathematically inclined, you +can calculate the curves from this data: we paddled twenty-eight miles +from Blue’s Bridge to McLeod’s Bluff, where we made our first camp, and +our friends’ speedometer showed they had covered just six miles over +the road between these two points. + +There are no rapids or falls in the upper Lumbee, but the water +glides along at a merry rate, scooting round the bends--“cow faces” +the natives call them--in a way that, till you get just the knack of +cutting the corners, is quite disconcerting. Every once in a while, +which may mean every three miles or every thirteen, we came to what +the natives are pleased to call bluffs, rises of ground that stand, +dry and sheltered, a couple of feet above the swirling high water. +Between these bluffs the river is literally bankless. The flood flows +round and through the trees, a floating forest not a swamp, for there +is no marshy ground and few reeds or water grasses. On the entire trip +we never slapped at a mosquito or a fly. During the hot summers, this +tangled jungle must teem with them, but from September to May, though +the weather is mild enough, they vanish completely. + +As it slips quietly to the sea, the Lumbee passes through three +distinct phases, each different, each with a charm all its own. During +the first stage, the hundred and thirty miles from the headwaters to +Lumberton, the river winds its way through the Sandhills. Here the +bottom land is heavily timbered, but it is hard country to lumber, +and the woods are almost virgin forest. During the cold weather the +swirling high water, and in the summer the noxious malaria, have kept +the lumberman and his swinging axe out of the Lumbee woods, and the +country is a great natural game preserve. Giant long-leafed pines +dominate the thickets. These great trees shoot straight up fifty or +seventy-five feet, their heads crowned by their long needles and huge +cones, as the palms are crowned. Beneath are great dark clumps of +mountain laurel, glossy bluegums, and tall bushes of bright holly all +dotted with scarlet berries. Here and there the strained and twisted +branches of a black-jack, that curious dwarf oak that seems to have +been racked by some terrible torture, stand stark and bold among the +leaves of its fellows, for even in December, the Lumbee woods are +bright and green. + +What capital places for a snug camp the little bluffs are--dry and +sandy, sheltered by the evergreens, and stocked with great stores of +the best fire-wood in all the world. Those dry pine sticks, saturated +with rosin and tar, crackle at a single match’s provocation into a +bright flame. Some of these Lumbee camps of ours cling in my memory as +the most glorious camps I have known. I can hear now the happy gurgle +of the river and the swishing whispers of the wind in the pines. The +pungent incense of our snapping fire, mixed with the fragrance of the +pines and damp, cool, woodsy smell of the river bank even now fills my +nostrils. + +From the very first we paddled one at a time, one hour on and one hour +off; and oh, how much more quickly passed the “sabbatical hour,” when +you lolled in the bow, than the “paddlatical hour” in the stern. This +trip ruthlessly destroyed all my faith in copybook maxims about toil +making the hours pass quickly. + +We had left Blue’s Bridge but a few moments when we came suddenly upon +a great colony of blue herons, giants of the race, standing over five +feet. Disturbed at our boorish intrusion upon their domestic affairs, +the great, grey birds flapped laboriously up from their crude nests +in the tree-tops. They rise as painfully as a gouty old man, but once +fairly underway they sail gracefully in huge arcs. We grew to know +them well before our trip was over, for they and the buzzards are both +plentiful. For their beauty they are protected the year round, and the +law, for the utilitarian reason that they act as public scavengers, is +equally kind to the buzzards, who are tame to the point of familiarity. +One battered old fellow, whose wings and tail lacked several feathers, +took a keen, morbid interest in us. Soaring just behind us, watching +with his wicked, hungry eyes, he followed us all one morning, but he +finally convinced himself that we were going to get through all right, +and disgusted, he gave up the chase. + +In the Lumbee woods are many wild turkeys, and during the fall and +early winter, before the water has risen so high, if one has a still +paddle, he can often slip round a bend and surprise a stately old +gobbler and his hens feeding on the bank. ’Coons and ’possums--African +pork--are also plentiful. Often a slim brown mink slips silently off a +log, and sometimes a lusty otter streaks across the stream, leaving a +wake like a miniature power boat. + +The middle of the third afternoon, while I dozed in the bow, Freeman +shot us through a narrow strip where a fallen tree had all but dammed +the stream. As we skinned skilfully between the bank and the branches, +a most unmistakably hog-like grunt woke me thoroughly, and Freeman, +with a couple of vigorous strokes, brought us about and headed up +stream. Several times we had come up with wild hogs, great porkers who +have taken the back-to-nature call too seriously. Years ago--no one +knows when--they forsook the pen with its three square meals a day to +roam the woods in search of uncertain livelihood. Nomadic life has +made them lean and gaunt, and armed them with stubby tusks that stick +wickedly through their lips. We had some pot shots at these tough +customers, but they had always rushed away through the flooded woods +where pursuit was impossible. We were therefore mightily surprised to +find, when Freeman paddled us back, a great three-hundred pounder, +black as the ace of spades and ugly as sin, who stood ground on a +little ribbon of land between the river and the back waters. Cautiously +we approached, I in the bow with gun ready waiting for the splashing +rush to cover, Freeman paddling and trying to quiet the dogs who were +most forcefully expressing their opinions on the subject of wild hogs. +In vain did we wait for the snort and the splashing rush to cover, and, +when almost on top of her, we discovered the reason for her determined +stand. A volley of wild squeals greeted us. We had found a sow with +twelve day-old piggies. I landed, and “Uff er--r--runt!” she bowled +at me. I stuck my gun barrel in her face and she stopped, grunting +and chopping her short, thick tusks. Freeman, having tied the dogs to +the canoe braces, joined me and staved off her bold attacks while I +snapped the brave lady’s picture. Then, after a deal of maneuvring, +we kidnapped one of her offspring. I managed to get a youngster on a +paddle and flipped him like a pancake over to Freeman, who deposited +him unceremoniously in the canoe. Off we pushed, delighted with +visions of roast pigling, and the old lady gave us a parting rush. + +[Illustration: THE BRAVE LADY’S PORTRAIT] + +Our little piggie was, barring nothing, the most homely beastie ever +seen. He was black and shiny, like a shaved and varnished puppy, with +a big, shapeless wedge of a head, topped off with enormous, flappy +ears. He squealed, and squawked, and snorted, and grunted in every key, +and every waking minute he kept up his racket. But his comical antics +and unfailing good nature won our hearts. We did not enjoy roast pig, +and since he did not prove to be a good canoeist, we sold him, three +days later, for the munificent sum of “two bits.” His new owner carried +him off to join him to a family of tame pigs in his pens. + +[Illustration: FEEDING THE CAPTIVE] + +Just above Alma (Alma is a puffing saw mill surrounded by dirty, +dilapidated negro shacks), we passed under Gilchrist’s Bridge, where +Sherman’s army, marching north after taking Charleston, crossed the +river. Just below Alma is the reservation of the Croatoan Indians, the +mysterious blue-eyed race descended, so it is said, from Sir Walter +Raleigh’s Lost Colony, which was planted on Roanoke Island in 1587 +and disappeared as completely as if swallowed by the earth. We met +several of these Indians--short, thick-set fellows with yellow skins +and wide-set, blue eyes--and found them so engrossed in planting cotton +that it was hard to believe they were for years a thorn in the side of +the Government and the army. + +Nearing Lumberton, a busy little town with an attractive Confederate +Monument, all strangely like a New England village with its shaft “To +our Soldiers and Sailors,” the country began to change. We were leaving +the long-leafed pines of the Sandhills. Cypress became more and more +common, and occasionally we spied a bunch of Spanish moss swaying in +the branches overhead. Just above Lumberton the river twists itself all +into knots and then straightens out, so the last couple of miles into +the town are straight as a canal, between banks that rise steeply from +each side of the swift, deep stream. + +We created a sensation in Lumberton. Khaki clad, in flannel shirts, +much in need of the barber’s services, traveling in a strange craft +whose frailty aroused great admiration of our supposed courage, and +accompanied by two dogs and a young wild pig--it is small wonder we +disembarked amid a crowd that thought we were crazy, but was too +polite to say so. The sole and only hotel, so we discovered, had been +torn down to make room for a bank, but we found a genial savior in an +energetic gentleman who combines the various duties of proprietor of +the movies, political boss, reporter for the local paper, and last, but +not least, husband of the landlady of “th’ best eatin’-house in town.” +Here we could eat, and our factotum found us a place to sleep with one +of his neighbors. + +Below Lumberton, which we left next morning after stocking our larder +and purchasing a nursing-bottle for piggie, we came fairly to the +second stage of the river. The woods of the Sandhills had vanished; +we were in a semi-tropical jungle. Bottle-neck cypress rose, like +the columns of a cathedral, right out of the water. When they rise +in mid-stream, the lumbermen recognize such a phenomenon of Nature +by calling them “dram trees” and claiming a drink when the logs +are safely by. There are parts of the river where, if this jovial +custom is strictly followed, it must take a remarkably hard head to +bring the lumber to the mill. The undergrowth is a tangle of giant +ferns and cactus-like palms, all snarled up with twining creepers. +Overhead every crotch in the trees is a jardiniere of ferns, and every +branch is coated with lichens, and festooned with Spanish moss and +vines. Here is fascinating canoeing. The current slips along merrily +between the banks, and one can whirl along almost without dipping the +paddle in the water. In other places, the water sprawls out through +the cypress jungle and there is no more current than in a bath-tub. +Chattering black birds in whole colonies scolded us roundly; red and +yellow wood-peckers played tag up and down the tree trunks; scarlet +tanagers and sapphire kingfishers darted down the stream before us, +while humming-birds, like great bejewelled moths, hovered about our +canoe. The trees had burst into leaf as if by magic, and the delicate +greens of their new foliage made a delightful setting against which to +show off the brilliant colors of the bright birds. We had canoed right +into the heart of Fairyland at the first of a glorious spring. Who +would believe that it was the first of March and that a blizzard was +throttling the North? + +[Illustration: “DRAM TREES”] + +Soon we left this Fairyland and came to the great Buzzard Flats, the +stillest, weirdest waters one ever canoed. After threading our way +between the decaying bastions of the Old State Line Bridge, once a +famous thoroughfare, now but a mark to tell the lumbermen they have +passed from North to South Carolina, we had slipped with the Lumbee +into the waters of the Little Pee Dee. They slide together these two +great rivers and except that the banks are now a hundred yards from +side to side one would hardly know the change. But it is different +when the Little Pee Dee joins the Great Pee Dee. Here the rush of the +big river’s muddy floods backs up the slower waters of the smaller +river. They sprawl over the flat country into a great labyrinth of +lakes and lagoons, the famous Buzzard Flats of the Pee Dee. It was a +cool, still, grey afternoon when we paddled through this strange place. +The sky stretched steely grey above us, and on all sides the still +water reached away like great sheets of ground glass. The great, grey +cypress, all hung with grey Spanish moss, rose in straight colonnades. +Save for the swish-swish of the paddles and the clunk-a-plunk of +innumerable turtles which dropped dully into the water at our coming, +all was still as the tomb. Even the birds added to the eerie spell; big +blue heron swinging in lazy circles; grey cranes streaking across the +sky; buzzards hanging all but motionless far overhead; and owls bolting +away in their senseless flight. + +But with all their witching spell these Flats are a capital place in +which to get lost. Forewarned, we kept to the right when in doubt, +for the Great Pee Dee comes in on the right side. All afternoon we +paddled through these bewitched lagoons, and the sun, a great, hazy +red ball, was just sinking when the rush of yellow water told us we +were in the Great Pee Dee. We both heaved a sigh of relief, and then +laughed at each other. Neither had spoken of it, but we had both been +contemplating the prospect of a chilly night, cold and without a warm +supper, spent in the canoe among the misty reaches of water and cypress. + +The river’s swift current carried us along without paddling and +for half an hour we idly watched the rearguard of the great duck +army hurrying northwards from their winter quarters among the rice +islands at the mouth of the Great Pee Dee. They came as if flung +from catapults, flying high, singly, in couples, trios, and little +flocks of five or six. Often in the evening stillness we could hear +the whr-r-r-r-r of their strong wings long before they would burst +out of the twilight. Then a black streak would be drawn against the +pink, western sky, and be lost in the hazy distance over the Buzzard +Flats. We were too late for duck shooting, but just in time for the run +of spring shad, and we drifted by two rowboats in which some singing +darkies toiled with a giant’s net loaded with the fish that soon would +be commanding a fancy price in the Northern markets. + +That night we camped our last camp on the river. High up on the right +bank we pitched our tent under a spreading live oak, and we sat +silently smoking till our fire had died to a handful of glowing embers. +Tomorrow we would be back in the world of today again, the bustling, +busy world of men; but tonight we were still in the great, wild woods, +close to the heart of Mother Earth. A chugging little flat-bottomed +steamer awoke us in the morning. She puffed laboriously up stream, +and threatened to soon tire of being overloaded with bulging cotton +bales, and drop quietly to the river bottom. We made a late start, and +slipped reluctantly by the banks of magnolias, wild honeysuckle, and +yellow jasmines. Here was the third stage of the trip. We had come out +of the jungle into a bit of the Old South, a bit curiously preserved +from the hard blows of Fate. + +[Illustration: A PEE DEE PLANTATION] + +Behind the magnolias we caught glimpses of great colonial mansions, +many of them in ruins, others we knew in the hands of strangers, for +the rice islands across the river are now all wild and untilled. These +rice islands have a strange history. ’Way back in Colonial days they +were given over to indigo culture, and in Georgetown Indigo Growers’ +Hall, an impressive building, still bears silent testimony to the +importance of the industry that was destroyed by better communication +with the East. During the Revolution, these same islands sheltered +Marion, the Swamp Fox, and his ragged patriots, and Yohahanna’s Ferry +is still pointed out as their favorite crossing place to and from +their raids on the British forces. Later these islands became huge +rice plantations, accounted the most valuable land in the South and +supporting the flower of southern chivalry. The Civil War laid waste +this gardenland, but the rice enabled it to regain a shadow of its +former greatness, till, twenty years ago, it was a fourth time ruined +by the discovery that rice could be more economically grown in Texas. + +[Illustration: YOHANNAHAS FERRY] + +Warm-hearted friends greeted us with open hospitality in this country, +and when we reached Georgetown, after ten glorious days on the river, +we were feted as if we had discovered both Poles and been on a little +side trip to the moon. + +[Illustration: INDIGO MAKERS HALL, GEORGETOWN, S. C.] + +It took us ten days to follow the winding Lumbee down to the ocean. If +one wishes to break our record it will not be a hard task, for we went +along at a go-as-you-please pace. Anyone who has only canoed in the +North will find curious things and new delights along this little-known +stream. Do not believe it, if some veteran canoeist says “muddy water” +to you. The last forty miles are muddy water, but, even at flood-time, +the Lumbee and the Little Pee Dee twisting through the Sandhills are +clear, or at most stained with juniper. Remember, too, that they glide +between the green banks when northern streams are frozen hard. January +in North Carolina is amazingly like October in Maine or Wisconsin. The +Lumbee is the canoeist’s great excuse to dodge Winter. + + +[Illustration: Photo by Dr. Achorn +A VISTA OF THE LUMBEE] + + + + + =Transcriber’s Notes= + + Perceived typographical errors have been silently corrected. + + Illustrations have been moved nearer to the text to which they refer. + + Inconsistencies in hyphenation and compound words have been maintained + as printed. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78048 *** |