“I’m not sure, Granny,” rejoined Marcia Haddon. “As you say, I’m
powerful ignorant, and I’m afraid my education isn’t very wide in
these matters. Go on and tell me some more.”
“Well, thar was ‘Round the Sugar Tree’—that’s another tune the boys
played at dancin’s—and ‘Notchy on the Hill.’ That tune come from
the raftsmen. They tolt us thar was a river called the Mississip’
somewhars, an’ a good many tunes come up from down the Mississip’.
“Then thar was ‘Sally Ann,’ an’ ‘Ida Red,’ an’ ‘Shreveport’—like
enough ‘Shreveport’ come from the raftin’ times, too. Then thar was
‘Dan Hogan’s,’ an’ ‘Old Ned,’ an’ ‘Gall of the Yare’ (Guadalquivir?).
‘Polk an’ Dallas’ was a ‘lection tune. Then thar’s ‘The Campbells Air
Comin’,’—why, law! Ma’am, I could go on a-tellin’ names of fiddlin’
tunes fer a hour yit.
“But hain’t this a purty country, Ma’am, we’re a-goin’ through? I think
it’s right purty, an’ I always done so, from the time I was a gal, old
as ye air. Davy says he hain’t seen no purtier country’n this, an’ he’s
been Outside. I wonder how much land he’ll heir from his granny—mother
of Preacher Joslin? She’s ninety-five year old, if she’s a day.
Wouldn’t it be strange if the new railroad would make some of us pore
folks rich atter all? Ye don’t know much about Davy?”
Marcia Haddon had turned away her face from the scrutiny of the old
woman’s keen eyes, but the latter went on:
“I always did wonder what Davy done when he went Outside. Do ye
know? He sartinly come back powerful changed. He useter be a right
servigerous kind of a man, like I said, the fightin’est of all the
fightin’ Joslins. But, shucks! he’s so different now ye wouldn’t know
the boy. He’s as mild as skim melk He always was good to Meliss’, too.
Her gittin’ a _di_vorce from him when he was away—an’ all he was
a-tryin’ to do was to git a education so’s to he’p pore folks like
me! ‘Pears to me like Meliss’ Joslin got entirely too much attention
paid to herself along of that divorce. She nuvver was so much noways.
She couldn’t neither spin nor weave wuth shucks, an’ besides, her two
babies both died on her. She wasn’t so much.
“Law, I could tell ye a heap more things if ye liked narratin’. Fer
instant, here’s whar the men in my grandad’s time chased the last two
Injuns outen this country, an’ kilt ‘em up on Redbird. This creek was
named atter one. Thar’s a hole up the river called Jack’s Hole, whar
the other was shot. One Injun was named Red Bird, an’ the other they
called Jack. They cotched ‘em up above, but they used to live in a cave
round here, not far from whar we air now.
“Wasn’t Davy a-tellin’ ye about the cave whar the two wanderin’ wimmern
lives? Well, that’s the very place whar them two Injuns useter live
years ago. Hain’t he never tolt ye about ‘em?”
“I don’t think so,” said Marcia Haddon, content with the one-sided
conversation. “What about them, Granny?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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