“Now, jest beyant whar Mammy Pierce lives is whar used to be Bill Coates’ house—ye kin see whar it burned down. Me an’ my man was a-ridin’ right along here when the house was a-burnin’, an’, well, sir! Bill Coates was a-settin’ thar watchin’ it burn. ‘Sakes alive, man!’ says I to him, ‘why don’t ye put it out?’ ‘Well,’ says he, ‘I sont my gal hafe a mile up the creek to git a pail of water, an’ she hain’t come back yit. That was more’n hafe a hour ago,’ ‘Pears like the gal stopped to talk with some of the neighbors up thar about how the house was a-burnin’ down, an’ time she got back it was too late. “I wish’t we had time to ride up to Big Creek, Ma’am. Thar’s a fine store up thar—travelin’ men comes in thar from the other side, an’ sells all sorts of goods thar. They carry their sample things in the saddlebags same as Old Preacher Bonnell used to. “But ye see, we kain’t read an’ write in these mountings. The storekeeper, he always has kep’ his books with marks, like, on the boards of his cabin. He makes a short mark, like, fer two bits, an’ a long one fer four bits, an’ he’ll have some sort of picture fer each man that he’s a-trustin’ out goods to. Sometimes he has to make signs fer to show what he’s done sold. A few month ago Arch Morrison come in, and they liken to have a diffikilty over his account. The storekeeper said he’d sold Archie a cheese, an’ Archie he done denied of it. ‘Thar’s a pictur of it,’ says the storekeeper, an’ sure enough, thar was a big, round thing like a cheese. ‘Oh,’ says Archie, ‘that hain’t no cheese I bought. That’s a grindstone.’ ‘Shore enough, Archie,’ says the storekeeper, ‘shore enough. I done fergot to put the hole in it.’ “No, times is right qui’te in here, an’ always has been, Ma’am! as ye kin see easy. In the fam’ly fightin’s that’s a good many killings, but we hain’t had what ye might call a real murder, not in sixty year. Ye see that house acrosst the creek thar?—well, over thar, sixty year ago, a fam’ly named Baker murdered a feller named Pruitt fer some land an’ money he had. That Baker woman sartinly was servigerous. Her man hit Pruitt in the haid with a hammer, an’ they left him out in the yard, but he come to. The old womern says, ‘Well, I’ll kill ye so ye’ll stay killed,’ So she taken up a ax an’ cut off his haid. That was a long while ago. Things like that don’t happen often. That was murderin’, not killin’. “Fact is, times is gittin’ qui’ter even at ‘lection and co’te settin’s nowadays. Thar wasn’t nobody shot over in Leslie County co’te settin’s last term, excusin’ Mose Post. The depity sher’f, Wilson, went out to ‘rest Mose. He was about the fightin’est man in them parts. Mose was a-leanin’ aginst the fence when the depity come up, an’ his gun got hung in the palin’ when he pulled it, so the depity shot him a couple times. Hit hain’t much like old time co’te settin’s when I was young, Ma’am.