Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 April 1891 — IN THE CUMBERLAND RANGE. [ARTICLE]

IN THE CUMBERLAND RANGE.

A Traveler Falls in With Moonshiners and Has to Prove Up. * Detroit Free PressAs I was to take a short cut oyer a spur of the Cumberland Mountains in Northern Tennessee, I hired a coloredboy about 15 years of age to go a part of the distance y with me. He had a solemn, serious loo#, and I soon discovered that he was a philosopher, I had been told that there were moonshiners in the Cumberlands, and that the chances were I would be stopped and sharply investigated. when ready to part from the youth, I asked: “Qo you think I’ll meet any moonshiners?” “Dat.depends, sah.” “On what?” “On whedder somebody hidin’ behind de bresh or rocks doan’ pop you oberbefo’you kin meet. If he’un's gun hangs fiah yo'un will probably meet.” It was a hot day in July, but I asked him if he thought the weather would hold, and he looked at the sky and replied: ‘ ‘Doan’ want to say, sah, if it should hold, you’n wouldn’t give me no credit, and if it should snow, you’n would cuss me all day. Good day, sah. Keep to the right arter you cross de branch. If dat doan bring you out. den cum back and keep to the left.” I I had gone about a mile when the trail branched, and, after debating the case, I took the righthand again and went forward, with the comfortable feeling that I had half of a big State at my personal disposal to get lost in. The path suddenly ended, arid about that time a mountaineer stepped from a thicket on my !eftand confronted me, and inquired: ••Whar’ from, stranger?” I told hfrn. “Whiitt you’n doin’ hyar?” “Traveling.” t “Look hyar!” he said, as he came nearer. ‘ ‘You’s kin either prove up or S ye can’t.” -—‘That's so. ” .' “You’s either all right oryou scum fussin’.” •Well?” ■ “Kin ye prove up?’ ._2TlLtry,2. “Then walk along. ’ He walked beside me, or behind me, through thickets and over roug! ground to a shanty just at the mouth of a ravine. There was a man, a woman, arid a boy of 12 there, and my nose detected the odor of a stnl. The three people mentioned stood at the door as we came up, and the man queried of my conductor; , I “Who's he’un?” “Gwine ter prove up. ” # < I sat down on a rock; and leaving - the boy to watch me, the other three withdrew a few yards and held a consultation. This lasted about five minutes, and when they returned the man who had captured me said: “We ’uns is agreed on it. You’s either revenue or not. You’s kin prove up or ye can t.” “Can any of you read?” I asked. “We kin or we can't,” replied the' woman who was smoking plug, tobacco in a clay pipe. “Well, perhaps you’ve heard of at Monroe?’ 5 “We mought or we moughtn’t,” replied the husband of the woman. •‘Well, here’s a line from him. If you are moonshiners you have sold him whiskey and know him to be all right. Here's my card, here are letters addressed to me at Monroe, and you can overhaul my knapsack.” They couldn’t read a line of writing, and put up a job to catch me. After consulting together a hit the woman said: “What did you say he ’uns first name was —George or William? ’ “Neither one; it's Henry.” “And does he’un live in a single or double log house? ’.... ...^........ .......... “In a frame house.” “Which eye is he’un blind in?”, “Neither one. Come, now, he’s a big, fleshy man, wears long whiskers, is bald on top the head, and has a front tooth out. His wife is a little cross-eyed woman and has two children. ”

That settled it. and I was at once given a bite to eat and told to make myself at home. I had some tobacco for the man and some pins and needles for the woman, and the present of a harmonican set the boy wild with delight. ‘ 'Sposin you’n had shot he’un down tharr suggested the woman to my captor. “Then he’un would hev bin dead, of co’se, ” he calmly replied. By and by the men went up to tend the still, and-the woman unrolled the paper of pins to the last row, opened the paper Of needles and, placing the two spools of thread beside them, she call e boy: : 'Dannv, cum hy’ar.” “Yaas.” “Look in my eyes.” “Yaas," ' “Is I flighty?” “Skeercely, ma’am.” “Well, I’ze either flighty or the richest woman on these yere mountain’, an’ I wish pop would hurry back an’ tell me which!”