ONE morning several years ago I was standing on the veranda of a hotel in Fort Smith, Arkansas, waiting for the Indian Territory stage, when a telegram was handed me announcing the outbreak of yellow fever in Memphis. A moment later the driver of the Indian stage turned the corner, cracking his whip, and drove up with a flourish in front of the hotel. But he did not number me among his passengers. I started for Memphis by the first, and, as it proved, by the last train; for, upon the appearance of dread Yellow Jack, the unfortunate city was ostracized and shunned like a leper. Trains after that week were permitted neither to enter nor depart.
For fifty miles, before the Mississippi River is reached, the road staggers along through a morass and a jungle. Even though resting on piles, the rails sag and sink in the mud as the heavy engine creeps along, its wheels dripping with the swamp waters below, its smokestack and top brushed by the forest limbs above. The night was dark and gloomy. Death lurked in the very air. The lights of Memphis that flickered faintly across the water seemed as if even they, like the fever, had a sickly, yellow hue. The passengers stuffed handkerchiefs, reeking with carbolic acid and other disinfectants, to their noses. Not a word was spoken, we crossed the river in silence and hurried, each of us, to our respective destinations. In that dread epidemic, the most terrible that ever afflicted any American city, thousands were cut down in the space of a few weeks. Many who crossed the Mississippi with me that night were dead within forty-eight hours. I was saved by flight.
My father and mother had just gone: I followed by the next train, the last that was permitted to leave during the epidemic. It was crowded with as frantic a set of beings as ever congregated together. Every seat was full. People sat on the coal-bins, on the stoves, or clung to the platforms and steps. From my position on the steps of the last car I saw crowds unable to obtain even that poor vantage ground. Such set out to walk. One poor woman was going along beside the track pushing a wheelbarrow on which were piled some blankets, provisions, and babies. The poor creature, of course, dropped by the wayside, overcome by fright and fatigue even, if not by the fever.
Five miles from the city we were put through a fumigating process, each person being placed in a room built for the purpose. That was stifling with fumes of sulphur and disinfectants. This ordeal over, medical certificates to the effect that we had been relieved of all yellow-fever germs were handed to each passenger, whereupon we scrambled back to our places and hastened away. Despite these certificates, armed guards stood at most of the towns through which the train passed, and discouraged with rifles and shotguns all attempts at landing.
At Stephenson, two hundred and sixty miles away, a passenger became prostrated. To be shut up in a car with a man dying of yellow fever was horrible. The bell was pulled, and the train came to a stop. But determined men stood at the station with guns and pistols, and swore they would shoot the man who attempted to land the patient. There was a hurried consultation. The passengers crowded into the next car; that with the yellow fever case was unoccupied and the train went flying on. The deserted patient, as I afterward heard, soon died. The villagers feared to approach him. With long poles they shoved the body out of the car, and gave it a scant burial where it fell beside the track. Notwithstanding their fear and caution, within ten days the fever was raging in that town, and scores of its people were dead or dying.
At midnight of the second day I found myself on the platform of a little station at the base of the Unika range of mountains. A pouring rain was falling, but worn out with excitement and fatigue, I threw myself on the platform, and fell fast asleep in the rain. It seemed as if my eyes had scarcely closed when there was a rapping on the planks near my ears. It was inky dark. I could see nothing, and was about to try another nap when the rap was repeated. It came from beneath the platform, and a voice redolent with strong drink called through a knothole:
“I say, pard, why doncher crawl under here?”
It did not take long to act on this suggestion. In two minutes I had crawled down under the platform, and found a companion as well as partial protection from the rain. Of the two of us, the tramp soaked with whisky looked more respectable than the traveler soaked with rain and torn and tumbled from long journeying.
“Well, I swan, but you’re in bad luck!” said the tramp, striking a match and surveying my bedraggled duster and almost disintegrated straw hat. “Where did you come from?”
The yellow fever refugee can not afford to sneer even at the nether side of a country railway platform. If I told this man whence I came, the probabilities were I would be “ousted.” It was discreet to be mum. I put my hand to my ear and shook my head. At first the tramp seemed puzzled; then my meaning dawned upon him.
“Phew!” he said, “this here’s a go. One o’ them deaf and dumb mutes. What bedfellows he has to put up with, to be sure!” with which he threw down the match and went to sleep.
At break of day I was aroused by a hand on my shoulder. The tramp was crouching by me, making the most remarkable signs and gestures I ever witnessed.
“Come, me go getty breakfast,” he said, waving his arm and dropping into pigeon English, as though he imagined the deaf could hear well enough if only the rules of grammar were sufficiently violated.
It was hardly of my choosing, but I was mistaken for a veritable American tramp, and it was necessary to act out the character. I accompanied my new-found friend to the nearest farm-house, where his really wonderful accomplishments as a liar secured us both a good breakfast. He assured the honest granger that I was an unfortunate brother whom he was taking to the deaf-and-dumb asylum. I had lost my hearing in a terrible explosion; our widowed mother depended on her two sons for support, but he, noble fellow, meant to work for the two of us while I learned the sign language in the asylum. So numerous did my misfortunes become under this adept liar’s management that I began to feel sorry for myself, and with difficulty refrained from dropping the rôle of deaf mute and offering myself my own condolences. Half an hour later my self-sacrificing “brother” and I separated on the railroad track, he going one way, I starting the other. When he had disappeared round a curve, I returned to the farm where we had breakfasted, and knocked boldly on the door. The granger seemed surprised, but not glad to see me.
“I want to pay you for that breakfast.”
The man was amazed—and no wonder: a mute thus suddenly restored to speech, and a tramp wanting to pay for his breakfast.
“You ain’t dumb, then?” he said, when his first surprise was over.
“Not a bit of it, and I am not a tramp either; at least not a regular tramp. I want you to direct me to Tusculum.”
Near that remote hamlet—namesake of the great Cicero’s villa—were my parents camped almost under the shadow of the high mountains. The old farmer refused to take payment for the breakfast, “lowing we’uns had gin him as much fun as the grub was worth.” He pointed out the road to Tusculum, whither I was shortly wending my way. When I first started, the distance was ten miles. After walking an hour a man whom I questioned said it was fifteen. A few miles further on, another said it was twenty. Notwithstanding this peculiar backsliding characteristic of East Tennessee mountaineering, I at length reached the camp, and was welcomed as one saved from the jaws of death.
In these mountains of the South men live and maintain strength and vigor on twenty cents or less a day. Chickens cost six or ten cents apiece, eggs five cents a dozen, beef six or seven cents a pound. Buttermilk is fed to the hogs, while fruit and vegetables—corn, potatoes, cabbage—can be had almost for the asking. These are important facts, as Pennsylvania and other Northern manufacturers are learning. For the Southern workman, when living is so cheap, can afford to work for less wages than his brother in the North, where many large cities create heavy demands for food products, thus raising prices. The Chattanooga or Birmingham mill-owner pays lower wages than are paid in iron mills in the West and North; and the latter are beginning to feel the effects. At the same time it is to be remarked that though his wages are nominally less, in reality because of the cheapness of rent, food, and fuel, the Southern worker in iron receives higher wages than does the worker in iron in the North. I am almost afraid to say how very cheaply our camp of refugees lived. In the morning we would go to the cornfield, pluck a dozen ears of corn, which were boiled or converted into corn bread on the back of a hoe. With two round bowlers a pint or so of wheat was pounded until the husk cracked; this, with sugar and cream—that cost only a trifle—and the corn and fruit, made a breakfast an epicure might enjoy. The cost for the five of us could not have exceeded twenty cents a morning.
Tusculum becoming monotonous, despite its classical name, I bought a horse and started on a trip among the mountains. About ten miles on the way I overtook another horseman jogging slowly along. He was a lean, lanky fellow, with a hatchet face and long, stringy hair.
“Mornin’, stranger,” he said, as I rode up.
“Good-morning, sir.”
“A powerful fine day, mister.”
“Yes, it is a fine day.”
“I meant a good day. It’s the Lord’s day.”
I thanked him for this bit of information, and we rode on together, the lank man talking more or less on religion. Presently he said:
“Stranger, you’d better ‘light an’ look at your saddle.”
“Why, what’s the matter? Girth loose?” I leaned over and felt the strap; it was quite fast.
The lank man’s hatchet face turned a shade redder.
“I’ve asked you to git down and look at your saddle,” he repeated.
“I know you did; what is the matter with my saddle?”
“Mister, don’t sit thar mockin’ me on the Lord’s day.”
At this moment a man, bareheaded and dressed in a new suit of jeans, emerged from the thicket on the roadside.
“Mornin’, stranger. I reckon you’ll ‘light an’ look at your saddle, won’t yer?”
“I’ve just asked him,” put in my companion, “an’ he mocked me. He’s got the old devil in him.”
“Slow, Brother Kite, slow,” said the other. “I reckon, Brother Kite, you’re too fast. Now,” turning to me, “you’uns is a stranger heah, ain’t yer?”
I nodded my head.
“Well, we’uns air holdin’ meetin’ heah to-day. Brother Kite asked you to ‘light an’ fix your saddle, an’ come into meetin’.”
I understood. This was simply the form of invitation to church. Of course it was accepted.
In the little log “meetin’ house” were assembled some thirty or forty rude mountaineers, with their wives and families. Living in that pure air, one would expect to see fresh, healthy complexions, but I saw few. The women looked sallow and bilious, probably from unhygienic diet; the men red and some of them bloated from whisky. The women were dressed in bright-colored gowns and an astonishing variety of hats and feathers. The men, for the most part, were clad in their extra suit of jeans, and were proud in proportion as the crease in their trousers remained distinct and decided.
My road companion proved to be the preacher for whom the congregation were waiting. Having alighted and “looked” at his saddle, he walked down between the two rows of wooden benches, and climbing the rickety pulpit, shut his eyes and began a prayer that was punctuated every moment or two by loud groans from some of the audience. When the prayer—fully a quarter of an hour long—ended, the preacher began a peculiar sermon. I learned afterward it was a funeral oration in memory of a member of the flock who had died two years before.
“We’uns all knew Sister Betts,” the lank Brother Kite began, rolling his eyes down, showing the whites, and seemingly trying to examine the interior of his skull. “Sister Betts was such a good cook!” (emphasizing the word “such” with a groan). “She made such good coffee an’ such good fried eggs and bacon. Many’s the time I’ve spent the night at her house, an’ she allus had the best corn bread, an’ the best bacon an’ the best eggs. We’uns all know, an’ I knows in pertickler, Sister Betts warn’t any slouch. But she’s gone now, poor Sister Betts is gone from amonst us, an’ thar ain’t many left as kin ekal her in cookin’ an’ keepin’ house.”
In this strain he continued about an hour. At first the novelty was amusing, but novelty soon wore off. To while away time, I pulled out my scratch-book and began taking shorthand notes. Brother Kite was evidently not accustomed to being reported. His eagle eye detected me. Stopping abruptly in the midst of his touching tribute to Sister Betts’ household virtues, he pointed his bony finger at me and said:
“Mister, ain’t you got sense ‘nough to know this heah’s a meetin’? You’uns needn’t come heah if you’re ‘bleeged to write.”
I ceased writing, and the sermon proceeded. When at length Brother Kite had exhausted the subject, his hearers, and himself, all three at the same time, he descended from the pulpit, and I drew a sigh of relief. The sigh was premature. There were no relays of audiences, but there were relays of preachers. The hatchet-faced man who, bad luck to him! had succeeded in persuading me to “look at my saddle,” quit the pulpit only to let another take his place. There were three of them in all, who, with their powerful lungs, effectually prevented any napping between the hour of nine in the morning, when the first one began, and one in the afternoon, when the last one ended. Fortunately, Brother Kite was the only one of the three who founded his sermon exclusively upon the corn bread and bacon of the departed Sister Betts.
At one o’clock an hour’s intermission for dinner was announced. The women, in their red feathers and gingham gowns, rose first, and as they filed down the aisles, bestowed curious glances at the “citified” stranger. When they had made their exit, the men also arose. I was walking to the tree where was tied my horse, when Brother Kite overtook me.
“You ain’t a-goin’, air you?”
“Yes, it is getting late.”
“Pshaw! meetin’ ain’t half over. You’d better stay to foot-washin’. You can eat dinner with Sister Phœbe. She asked me, an’ I reckon she won’t keer if you come, too.”
A ten-mile ride in the mountains gives one an appetite. Besides, if these mountaineers really washed their feet, the operation must be interesting. So the invitation was accepted. Mrs. Anderson, or “Sister Phœbe,” as the lank preacher called her, was a woman of about thirty-five, round and plump and very hospitable.
“Brother Kite did jist right. I’m allus glad to see strangers. Come down to buy land?”
There was something flattering in this query not unappreciated by the yellow-fever refugee who, instead of contemplating land purchases, was wondering if he would have money enough to carry him home when the epidemic was over. But I nobly confessed the truth, and replied that I was not “down to buy land.”
“I am merely taking a look at your beautiful country.”
“Yes, it is a moughty pretty country. A good many rocks, but some of the land’s awful rich. I’ve seed corn on my old man’s place what was twelve foot to the first ear. You kain’t find no better corn country, I don’t care if it is me as says it.”
“What’s that land o’ your old man’s worth, Sister Phœbe?”
“Law, Brother Kite, you know land like that kain’t be bought less’n thirty dollars an acre. If the stranger wants ter look at it, he kin ride home with me arter the meetin’.”
The stranger expressed a desire to see this wonderful corn land, whereupon Brother Kite asked blessing, and dinner was begun, a cloth first being spread under the boughs of an oak and the provisions brought from the wagon. Though not personally acquainted with the deceased Sister Betts, I will venture to affirm that this paragon of household virtues did not surpass Sister Phœbe in at least the matter of cooking. The fried chicken and jelly, with corn bread and pure, rich butter, made a meal an epicure might have enjoyed. When it was over, Brother Kite and I were excused while the women folk packed up the dishes.
The men were standing around in knots, some gossiping, some trading, others feeding their horses.
“I hearn as you’d swapped off your mare for Black Nance,” said Brother Kite, addressing one of the group of men who were chewing tobacco and whittling sticks with jack-knives.
“Yes, I did,” was the laconic answer.
“Git any boot?”
“Reckon I did. You didn’t ‘low as I’d give Lucy for Black Nance ‘thout any boot?”
“Waal, I didn’t know,” replied the preacher. “Black Nance’s a moughty good little mare, Brother Harkins.”
“So was Lucy; worth two of Nance, if she’s worth a cent.”
There was a pause, during which the preacher pulled out his knife and picked up a stick to whittle.
“I say,” he said, when a stick was found to his satisfaction, “how’d you like to swap Black Nance for my Joe?”
Brother Harkins looked up with a quick glance.
“D’ye mean it, Brother Kite?”
“Sartin.”
“Waal, what’ll you gimme boot?”
“Boot? Brother Harkins, you must be a funnin’. It’s me as orter have boot; leastways the swap orter be even.”
This dickering lasted some five or ten minutes; then they adjourned to where the two horses were hitched to the limbs of a cedar tree, and Brother Kite pointed out the fine parts of Joe, while Brother Harkins dilated upon the good qualities of Black Nance. The end of it all was, the preacher took Black Nance, giving for her his horse Joe and ten dollars “boot.” Brother Harkins, I was afterward told, was the best horse-trader in the country. He is said to have once gone to “meetin'” with an old yellow cob, made several “swaps,” and finally rode home on the same yellow cob and sixty-five dollars extra in his pocket. He had a knack of making you believe that your horse was of no account at all, while his was the finest animal in the mountains, and the very one suited to your purposes.
The horses all attended to and the “swapping” finished, the congregation filed back into church to wash one another’s feet. Buckets of water were brought from the neighboring spring, while the three preachers sat on the platform with half-closed eyes, chanting a hymn, the masculine half of the assembly began taking off their boots and shoes, and—those who had them—also their socks. The women, at the same time, prepared the water and towels. These preliminaries over, the women left their quarters, crossed the aisle, and falling on their knees before the first row of men, began washing their feet in the cold spring water. The three preachers were served last. After every man in the congregation (excepting the writer) had had his feet washed and wiped, three women advanced to the pulpit with three buckets and began removing the mountain soil from the pedal extremities of the three divines.
Streams and pools of dirty looking water had begun by this time to form on the floor. The air, in addition, feeling close, I beat a retreat to the less curious but more salubrious region outside under the trees.
“You didn’t wash your feet,” said Brother Kite, severely, when the ceremonies had concluded.
“Oh, you are mistaken,” I answered cheerily. “I washed them this morning.”
“Mebbe so, but ‘twouldn’t ‘a’ hurt you to have washed ’em agin in the meetin’.”
Sister Phoebe came up at this moment and renewed her invitation to inspect her husband’s corn land. As my destination was no place in particular, I accepted the invitation, and was soon riding alongside her spring wagon, en route to a genuine mountain home.
