The Gully-Washer and Dam-Buster

Excerpt from Callie Melton’s ‘Pon My Honor

Photo used by permission of Sharon Brewer
 

Youg’uns may learn a lot more things at school now than they used to, but I’ll guarantee they don’ have half as much fun.  Why, we all laugh fit to kill ever time we think about one day when we played meetin’ at Windle.

Now the Methodists always held their protracted meetin’ at Shiloh just about the time that school started at Windle, so we’d always play meetin’ ever recess time all fall.  There’d always be somebody good at preaching, another at leading the singing, and somebody else’d do the praying.

Miss Minerva was teaching there the year that just about ended our meetin’s.  It was one day at dinner recess, when we’d all grabbed a piece of cold bread and meat in one hand and a baked sweet  tater in the othern, and took off across the big gully to the patch of woods where we played.  There was a big flat stump on the hillside that the preacher stood on, while the rest of us’d set on the ground in front of him.  We’d been to Shiloh that morning to preaching, so everbody was all tuned up for a good’un.

Earl was doing the preaching that day, and his text was on whatever it was that he’d heard that morning.  He preached real good, and if you hadn’t known that it was just a bunch of young’uns playing, you’d have swore that it was a meetin’ going on over there in the woods.

The good old stirring hymns like OLD TIME RELIGION, FATHER’S GOT A HOME and ON JORDAN’S STORMY BANKS were sung with feeling, and when the altar call was made the Mourner’s Bench was full.  A good old sister or two would give a shout now and then, and the “A-men’s” were heard on ever side.  Then Earl called on O.B. to pray.  Now O.B. really threw himself into it.  Long and loud he prayed, and over and over he begged, “Lord, send us a gully-washer and a dam-buster.”

No telling how long all this would have gone on, but the bell for books broke it up and everbody took off for the schoolhouse.

Not long after dinner a quick cloud come up, the wind begin to [b]low, and great deep peals of thunder shook the house.  The young’uns all got scared, and some of the littlest’uns begin to cry.  Just as the downpour of rain come, Miss Minerva started the whole passel of us across the footlog to the nearest neighbor’s house.

It looked like the sky had just opened up and was letting it all come down at once, but Miss Minerva stood there at the footlog and watched all the young’uns safely across.  Then, as she started over she remembered her Divine Book that was so precious to her, so back to the schoolhouse she run to get it.  When she finally got back to the footlog, the water was rolling down the gully like a tide, and it had just about covered the log.  But she dashed out on it anyway.  Then about middle-ways across she lost her footing and fell in.  Some of the big boys were watching and saw her, so they run out and managed to catch her down-stream and pull her out.  But her Divine Book was washed away, and she was might night drownded.

Now O.B. and Earl were half-grown before they quit crawling under the bed ever time it thundered.  And never again would they play meetin’.  They thought for sure that the Good Lord had answered O.B.’s prayers for a “gully-washer and a dam-buster.”

Grandpa Smith – Part 2 from Callie Melton’s ‘Pon My Honor

Following is an excerpt from ‘Pon my Honor by Callie Melton:

Since I’m dedicating this book to Grandpa Smith, I think I should tell you a little more about him other than his name and dates… names and dates don’t tell much about a person really, but they are important just the same.  Grandpa was known far and wide as Uncle Alex… and I don’t guess he ever saw a stranger in his whole life… he probably met a lot of people that he’d never seen before, but to him they were simply friends he’s just met.

Grandpa was a typical Tennessee Mountaineer… kind, gently, easy-going, free-hearted, not too work brickle, and with a marvelous sense of humor.  No matter what the situation, he could find something funning in it… like the story he’d tell of the old woman whose husband was being buried that day.  Everything was ready to go from the house to the graveyard for the funeral, but the neighbor man who was going to haul the old man to the graveyard was late getting there.  Since idleness was a cardinal sin in the pioneer existence, the old woman set for a few minutes after she’d put on her bonnet.  Then she got up and got her work, turned to the rest of the women and said, “They’s no use to waste time.  We kin jest knit while we air a-waitin’ fer the wagin.”

Grandpa couldn’t read or write, but that didn’t mean he was ignorant.  He knew more about the things around him than anyone I have ever known.  The weeds, the herbs, the trees, the birds… you just name it and Grandpa could tell you something interesting about it.  We had few books when we were growing up, so if we wanted to know about something we had to ask Grandpa.  He would tell us about the weather… the dominecker clouds, the mare’s tail clouds, the sunsets, the sunrises, the cricket’s chirrup, the train at Algood climbing the Brotherton Mountain… and what each thing told him about what kind of weather was in store for us.

He was a born fisherman, and when he’d take us fishing he’d always tell us the do’s and don’ts to obvserve if we wanted to catch any fish.  He’d tell us of the big mud turkles [sic] that lurked in the dep pools, and how they’d hang on till it thundered if they got their teeth in one of our toes.  He’d tell us about the seven different kinds of meat in a turkle’s body, and how good turkle meat was if you cooked it right.

He’d tell us about the time of the Big Snow and Freeze that had happened long before any of us young’uns were born, and how it got so cold that the chickens froze to death and fell off the roost… and down on Martin’s Creek even some people froze to death, too.  Then there’b be the story of the time of the total eclipse of the sun, when it got so dark at mid-day that the cows come up to the gap to be milked and the chickens flew up to roost, and how many people thought it was the end of Time and were just about scared to death…things like that were going to happen for there was nothing, not even an almanac, in the way of weather forecasting.

We would be afraid to go to sleep after he’d told us about Big and Little Harp, and the awful things they’d done… slitting babies’ throats and knocking little boys’ brains out, as well as killing about any grown person they run into.  He’d tell us about Tinker Dave Beaty, the notorious Yankee bushwhacker, and the people he’d killed and the man things he’d done… and how he was even meaner than the Harps for he’d had a good raising and maybe they hadn’t.

Grandpas’ speech was as full of tang and color as the leaves on Clark Mountain in the fall, or a glass of hard cider fresh from the springhouse.  He never lacked for a word or an expression to give us his exact meaning… but he talked just like everybody else did who lived in his time and place.  He never cared for material things… just enough food to keep him from being hungry, enough clothing to keep him warm in cold weather, and a place to shelter him from the elements.  He wasn’t a leading light in the Church, but I never heard him swear or use a dirty word in my life… nor did I ever know him to do a mean or under-handed thing… I don’t believe he had a mean bone in his whole body.

Grandpa lived a long and a full life… from pioneer days through the Civil War, World War I, the Great Depression, and into the horrors of World War II.  He loved everything and everybody… but he loved us young’uns better than anything else.  He died praying to live only until his grandsons got home from Across the Waters so he could see them once more.

Grandpa enriched our lives greatly.  He was the hub around which our world turned while we were growing up.  He did not leave us anything in a material way, but he left us something infinitely more valuable than gold or silver.  We miss him still, but we do not think of him with sorrow.  And that is the way he would have it be… that we remember with joy the days he lived among us.  He would have us be the kind of young’uns that would do him proud… good, kind, generous, and above all, full of the joy of living no matter what our lot.

‘Pon My Honor

Back in July last year I shared here a couple of newspaper article written by Mrs. Callie Melton.  Mrs. Melton had the same passion for preserving our history and culture that drives me back to this keyboard week after week.  She had the foresight to record some of the tales she’d always known and publish them back in 1979.  This self-published book is no longer available so I want to share some of it with you over the next few weeks.  Today we’ll start with the preface of the book in which she shares her love of the heritage and reasons for writing.

‘PON MY HONOR is a book of folk tales collected in and around Overton County, Tennessee.  Since I am a Tennessee Hillbilly born and bred, I have been familiar with these stories since the moment when I first saw the light of day.  But, unfortunately, it was not until 1933 that I started writing them down.

This book was undertaken for the sole purpose of preserving for our children and our children’s children a small part of this wonderful heritage that is theirs, for nowhere else in the world is there a richer vein of stories or better story tellers than right here in the mountains of Tennessee.  It’s always been that way, for whenever or wherever at least two people get together, there’s sure to be a tale of some kind told.  The first of the Long Hunters who came into this area regaled each other with just such tales as these around their campfire after a long day of hunting.  Today the Atomic scientists at Oak Ridge always tell each new-comer the stories of old John Hendrix, the Prophet of Anderson County.

The stories I have included in this collection will fall roughly into four types.

The stories that are based on actual facts and have a definite time and place are in the chapter HIT HAPPENED HEREABOUTS.  Here I have sometimes, and sometimes not, changed only the names of some of the people involved, relating the main facts just as they actually happened.  Of course these stories have naturally picked up a little color here and there.  But doesn’t’ a good cook always add a dash of spices and herbs to perk up stew?

Haint tales and the ones with a hint of the supernatural are covered in the chapter I WOULDN’T A-BELIEVED HIT IF I HADN’T SEEN HIT MYSELF.  This is a favorite kind of story around here, and rare it is to find a family that doesn’t have its very own haint tale to add to those of their neighbors and friends.

The CHILMEY CORNER TALES are the old, old stories that must have come to us from far away and long ago.  Research has shown me no stories like them.  But they are stories that I grew up with, and I always told them to my school children wherever I taught.  And the high school students loved them just as much as the little ones.

In the chapter ONE FER THE ROAD, you will find “jest tales”.  These are the old ones that nearly everybody has heard in one way or another, for they had been handed down and passed around for generations before they ever reached me.  And I just up and put them down on paper the way I had always heard them.  There’s no moral, not much point, but they are always good for a laugh when a real story teller gets hold of them.

In all of these stories I have tried to tell them word for word just the way I have always heard them.  It hasn’t been easy, this task I set for myself.  The folk speech has been most difficult…it has been hard to write, and I found that it was harder for the present generation to read.  So, sometimes I did, and sometimes I didn’t!  But I got in enough to give the true flavor.  Before and up to World War II, we through this area spoke almost pure Elizabethan English… words, terms, expressions and what have you.  But the English teachers in our schools, bless their dear hearts, have just about rooted it all out!  And it is our loss.

So, if I have succeeded in any small measure in this task I set for myself, I must give the credit to the greatest story teller of them all, my Grandpa Smith.  Whenever possible, I have given the source of each story in the story itself.  That’s always the custom around here… when you tell a tale, you start off by telling who it was that told it to you.  That’s the way Grandpa did, and he ought to have known for he told his tales not only to us young’uns but to anybody who would come in and set a spell.

Tupelo Homestead

A couple of years ago I wrote here about a treasured landmark on the Plateau, the Cumberland Homesteads.  After a little research for that article, I knew that the New Deal plan that created our homesteads was repeated in dozens of other locations around the country.  The homes south of Crossville, Tennessee were built of indigenous material that give them a unique look among the eleven floor plans all covered with our Crab Orchard stone and paneled with knotty pine.  Somehow it’s hard to imagine homestead homes that don’t look like that. 

Well a reader in Tupelo, Mississippi lives in an original homestead home that looks very different than ours.  She’s shared pictures of her lovely renovated house as well as an identical home that has not been restored and I just had to share them with all of you.

Using indigenous materials was ingenious for several reasons.  Certainly it was a cost effective decision especially when freighting materials across the country was more difficult in the 1930’s and probably much more expensive.  But it was also a secondary boost to the local economy as even more people were employed to harvest the materials.  So in Mississippi they have timber and plenty of it.  The first homes there are covered in wood siding – various types of spruce and pine are widely available in the state.  While the local stone continued inside the Tennessee homes, those in Mississippi incorporated brick.  In fact, the last ten homes built had a brick exterior. 

I grew up among homes paneled with knotty pine and I love the look.   That’s what the Tennessee houses used throughout the interior.  With a plentiful supply of lumber in Mississippi I’m a little surprised to see a wall board in every interior picture of those homes. 

While some of the houses in Mississippi have been moved (as my reader’s home was) and renovated for modern homes, they are largely owned by the National Park Service and were used for park personnel.  Sadly they now stand empty and decaying.  The Cumberland Homesteads Tower Association must be applauded for refusing that fate for our homestead!

The project in Tennessee was much larger, with 250 homes built here compared to their 35.  Sheer percentages allow more of them to remain standing and thankfully most are still housing families just as they did eighty years ago.  And that’s the story of the renovated Tupelo home I’m showing you today.  The love that’s been poured into this home is obvious as you virtually walk its halls.  An original claw-footed tub sits in the small bathroom beckoning you to a long soak.  The screened porch was opened to a dining area with lots of light pouring in door and windows.  The new owner recovered every brick possible, cleaned them and re-built the fireplace.  Bordered by flowering plants and ferns the front porch screams Mississippi to me and I can practically feel the longed-for breeze on a hot Mississippi evening and taste sweet tea!

Civet Cats

Sometimes we use words on the mountain that seem so common we just assume everyone everywhere would know them; other sayin's we know for sure aren’t used anywhere else.  Well as a child I heard of Civvy Cats and having never heard that on TV or read it in a book I guess that was one of those things that I assumed was uniquely ours.  So you can imagine my surprise when I saw a whole article about them in the Tennessee Wildlife Magazine.

Okay, the authors didn’t actually call the critters Civvy Cats but I deciphered what they were talking about well enough that I can share it with you here.

First of all, what is definitely uniquely ours is pronunciation.  This species of skunk is spelled Civet.  But given that we add the long “e” sound to the end of lots of words (namely any name ending in “a” as in Gold-y or Marth-y) then it didn’t seem like much of a stretch that this French word would get the “e” in our vernacular. 

Next, what is the thing?  Well according to Brian E. Flock and Roger D. Applegate writing for the magazine of the Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency, there are two species of skunks that call Tennessee home.  The striped skunk that we are all so familiar with and a spotted variety as well.  That spotted skunk is also known as a Civet.  And since skunks do resemble kitty cats we just call them Civvy Cats – I guess.  You know I’m always trying to figure the origins of these words.

So my mountain education told me that the particularly strong and annoying skunks were maybe Civvy Cats (as oppossed to the Pole Cat variety that was plenty stinky enough).  And according to Mr. Flock and Mr. Applegate, these Civets are very reclusive and even rare.  They prefer woodlands to fields and stay away from buildings.  In fact, I didn’t hear Civvy Cats mentioned very often.  Turns out Mr. Applegate is looking for the little spotted Civvy Cats – if you have pictures of them or know where some are holed up, please email him at: Roger.Applegate@tn.gov.

Isn’t it validating to see some of our language in for-real print?