Friends Along The Creek: Two Knott County Sketches

Abstract

Friends Along The Creek Two Knott County Sketches by ANN COBB I. Uncle Alec "There was an old man with a beard, Who said, 'It is just as I feared. Two owls and a hen, Three larks and a wren, Have all made their nests in my beard!" This memory gem always comes springing to mind when I meet up with Uncle Alec Bobson. Quite improperly, too, for his beard is tidy and besides, he twists it into ropes too rapidly for fowls of the air to lodge there. Long and strong it is, and shimmery-grey, tempering with mercy the keen blue eyes and shaggy brows above it. When the world is too much with us at the settlement, and Progress seems to run too exclusively to scraggy feathers and yellow shoes, we "split the creeks" to Uncle Alec's place. By the time we've walked our horses over Yaller Mountain, and loped down the branch to Haddon Creek, Progress is far and away. Uncle Alec's farm is in a tiny valley, where the creek widens out enough to make quite a patch of bottom land. There one can raise corn, sugarcane , garden truck and "nuff terbaccer fer a good chaw." Once I happened over at sorghum time, and found Uncle Alec and the son who "lives neighbors to him" just sugaring-off. As I drew up to the snake fence, he shouted, "Light and hitch yo' beasties. This hyer job's at the pint wher I cayn't leave hit." Then he showed me a comfortable log, tossed me a piece of cane and bade me "dip it in the yaller fuzz and suck yer fill." I was quite content to watch the fascinating bubbling in the different sections of the big vat, as the watery green juice thickened down into luscious yaller fuzz. Anon even Uncle Alec was satisfied with the job, and leaving Son John to neaten up, he led the way to the big porch and its hickory rockers. Aunt Cindy wasn't around—must have wandered over to John's place, he thought. He offered to get down the gourd horn, and call her, but I dissuaded him. I am inclined to walk softly before Aunt Cindy, and be hampered in my utterance, why, I don't know, unless it is that the only thing I like in my hands is a horse's bridle, while she is a "Born Knitter!" So much so that Uncle Alec swears that she takes her knitting to bed with her, and throws out a sock in the middle of the night. So we two sat on the porch and ate Roman Beauties, and then we "jes' sot." Anon my eyes wandered to 8 a Greek History on the porch rail, which had a familiar look. Uncle Alec handed it to me with scorn. "You can take that book home, woman, hit's no comfort to me. I sent fer hit ter see about the battle of Waterloo. The Senator and Simon and I were having a dispute over hit awhile back. The Senator he come right out and said he didn't know whar hit was, and Simon 'lowed hit was in a place by the name of Bel-gi-um. But I said "No! hit was in Russhy. I reckon hit's been forty-nine year since I read about hit, but I hain't one to fergit what I read." What a silliness is the passion for accuracy! Yielding to it, I told him Simon was right. Poor old man, he sat twisting his beard, and muttering mortification . All at once he brightened up. "I reckon that mought hev been afore Belgium was cut off'n Russhy?" (This apparently from analogy with his own county , which was cut off of a larger one.) I let it pass (wonder if he'll tell Simon?) and he went on. "Russhy's whar Moscow is. Did ye ever hear "The Retreat from Moscow?" A fiddler stopped-by here once, awhile back, and he could play hit fine. I wish ye could hev heerd him, woman. Ye riccolect that was the retreat Napoleon played when he was...