Caroline and the Yankees

This story out of Callie Myers Meltons’ “Pon my Honor” originated with the Nashville Tennessean although neither date nor issue is given.

My Great-grandma, Caroline Young Parson, had been left a widow in 1860 for her old man, Great-grandpa John C. Parsons had died of typhoid fever when the four children was just young’uns  With four young’uns and no pa or brothers to help her, Caroline, like all the women of her time and place, had to stand on her own two feet.  Living alone in such perilous times and under such circumstances would have broke most people, but not Caroline.  She not only tended the crops, and hunted the woods for wild game, she spun and wove and worked as a tailor to keep the body and soul of her family together.  But many of a night she set up all night with a loaded gun across her lap to protect what was hers from the bushwhackers from both sides who constantly raided back and forth across the Tennessee-Kentucky border.

But finally the War come to an end.  The soldiers from both sides started to straggle back home through the area.  After the long years of the War, there wasn’t much for the Johnny Rebs to come home to, nor was there much for the Yanks and the carpet-baggers to crow over…

One evening Caroline went down to the spring for a bucket of water.  Just as she turned around from dipping up the water, three Yankee soldiers stepped out of the bushes and blocked her path 

With a smirk on his bearded face and a broad wink to his two companions, one of the men swept off his ragged old blue cap, bowed low to the scared woman and said, “Ma’am, how far is it from here to where I’m going?”

Caroline looked the three up and down.  They were indeed as motly a three as she had ever laid her two eyes on.  But one thing the war had taught her that she couldn’t forget…the women of the South could fight as well as the men  So armed only the gourd dipper which she had been using to dip up the water to fill her bucket, Caroline pulled herself to her full five feet and two inches and said, “Three lengths of a fool, Sir.  And iffen you don’t believe hit, jest lay down and measure hit.”

Amid the guffaws of his two companions, the Yankee soldier put his old cap back on his head, saluted the small southern woman who had just won the skirmish.  Then without even one backwards look, the  three tired soldiers shouldered their rifles and headed on up toward the Kentucky Line and point further North.

Too Much To Swaller

From 'Pon my Honor by Callie Myers Melton

One time there was this here preacher holding a meetin’ down in the Modock Bottom.  He was sure some preacher, and everbody from far and near was going to hear him preach.

Back in them days the men and women never set together at meetin’.  The men would always set on the left side facing the preacher, and the women would set on the right.  Up in the corner on the men’s side was called tha A-Men Corner.  This was where the old men and the leading lights in the church would always set, then when the preacher would say something that they agreedwith him on, they’d say “A-MEN!” real loud.  The more they believed, the louder would be the A-men.

This time the meetin’ house was full, and the A-men Corner as well.  And Uncle Bill Sidwell, who was might nigh deaf, was setting on the very front seat.  He was plumb feeble now, and had to walk with two walking sticks.  But he was a mighty religious old man, and as crippled up as he was, he come to meetin’ ever time.

Now this time the preacher really got wound up, and he done some old timey preaching.  Being a Hard-Shelled Baptist, he hollered and he yelled, and he pounded the pulpit and he stomped his feet to drive home his points.  But this was just the kind of preaching the folks was hungering and thirsting to hear, for it was the kind of preaching they had been brung up on.  They were plumb enjoying it, for the more noise he made the better they liked it.

Now Uncle Bill set there on the front seat with both eyes on ever move the preacher made, and his hand cupped up behind his ear so as not to miss a single word.

“Brothers and Sister, ah!” the preacher thundered, “I’m a-preachin’ the pure gospel to you’ens, ah! And iffen I throw out anything, ah! That you’ens, ah! Can’t swaller, ah! Jest hand it back to me, ah!”

“A-MEN! A-MEN!” Uncle Bill said.

Now the preacher was plumb bad to chew tobacco, and he’d clean forgot and got up to preach with a big cud of it in his mouth.  Then when he got in such a big way preaching, that wad of tobacco got in his way, so he just up and spit it out.  It landed in front of the pulpit and rolled right down to Uncle Bill’s feet, and there it layed.  Uncle Bill never could abide the weed in any form, so he set there a minute and looked at it.  Then he got up and took his walking stick and rolled that cud of tobacco right up to the edge of the pulpit.

“Here, Preacher,” he said waving his stick in front of the preacher to get his attention.  “Here’s one thing that you throwed out that I shore can’t swaller!”

Who Stold the Corn?

When Grandpa Smith lived up on the Head of Wolf River he said that one of the men in the settlement had raised him a fine crop of corn one year.  He stored it in his crib, waiting till he could raft it down to Nashville and sell it.  But before long somebody stold most of it.  The other people in the settlement begin to have their own corn stold, too.  This was very uncommon, since everbody knowed everbody else, and nobody locked anything up.  Fact is, to lock your door or your corn crib was just the same as saying that you didn’t trust your neighbors.

This stealing went on till might night spring.  Then one day Milt Parsons was having a log rolling.  Ever man in the whole settlement was there, and ever time the men’d stop to get a drink or to rest awhile that’s all they’d talk about, the corn stealing that was going on.  Nobody could figger out who would do such a thing.

Old man Titterow didn’t get about too much, but he had come out that day.  Not that he could do any work, but he just wanted to see his neighbors and do a little visiting.  Now when he heard what was going on, he told Milt that he could catch the thief if he wanted him to.  Milt was might pleased at that and said that he’d sure be plumb much obliged if he would. 

Old man Titterow went to the house before anybody else did for dinner.  So when everbody was done eating, Milt told the men that if they’d all go down to the barn, he had something to show them.

Well, when they all got down to the barn, old man Titterow was standing by Miz. Parsons’ big old black was kettle.  He said that he’d been hearing about all the trouble everbody had been having, and that he knowed just how to catch the thief.

He said that he’d put Milt’s old rooster under the wash kettle, and that everbody was to go up and rub his right hand on the bottom of the kettle, and when the guilty man rubbed, the rooster would crow so they’d know who it was.  Everbody agreed, so old man Titterow was the first one to go up and rub his hand on the kettle.  Not a single word was spoke as all the men walked up one at a time and rubbed their hand around and around on the bottom of the kettle.  Then as ever man rubbed, he walked over and stood in line by the old man.  The rooster never crowed a single time.  Then after the last man had rubbed, the old man stepped out of the line and told everbody to hold out his right hand, pan down.  Then he started at one end of the line and took ever man’s hand and turned it up to look at the pan.  Everbody’s hand was as black as the pot bottom till he got to Silas Pardue.

When he saw that Silas’ hand wasn’t black, he said, “Here’s your man, Milt.”

Now everbody was mighty surprised at Silas, but they hahd hi dead to rights so he just owned up to it.  He said that he had done it because he wanted to buy him a little piece of land for his own, so he stold the corn, made it up in likker and sold it ‘way over in Kaintuck where nobody knowed him.

Since everbody in the whole settlement was there, everboyd come the the agreement with Milt that if Silas would just pick up his family and move off, nobody would ever even mention the corn stealing again. 

So it wasn’t but a little spell till Silas come back from a trip to his people over around Jimtown and said that he was moving over there.  Nobody but the men who was at Milt’s barn that day ever knowed a thing about what went on, and just as sudden as it had started, the corn stealing stopped.  Everbody breated easy again, for it sure was a bad feeling when you had to lock up your corn crib against  your neighbors.

The Time Levi Lost His Bible

Here’s the thing I love about the mountain…if your family’s been around here for very long, their liable to pop up in anybody’s tale.  I never knew Callie Melton and don’t know that I’m aquainted with any of her family.  But the subject of her story which I’m featuring this week is in fact a relative of mine!  That made this one particularly interesting to me, and I hope you enjoy it as well.

Also, if you’ve read my first book, Replacing Ann, you may recognize some of the geography she talks about. The store in this story would have been the same one that Bill Lewis owned at one time.

Just about hog killing time one year during the Depression somebody broke in and robbed Benton Phillips’ store at Cliff Springs, up in the Ninth Civil District of Overton County.  So Benton hired Levi Testament to sleep in the store from then on.  Now, Levi was about middle-age, homeless and without any folks at all.  He was a good worker and as honest as the day is long, but he was as quare as they come.  And because he was so quare, he was the butt of much of the good-natured teasing that went on in the settlement.  Be it hot or cold, wet or dry, inside or out, Levi always wore his coat and hat.  And going to mill or going to meetin’, it made no difference, he always toted his Bible under his arm.

Levi had been living at Benton’s, so when the store got robbed Benton spoke to him about sleeping up there.  Levi thought about it for a day or two, then he told Benton that he would but that he did think it ought to be worth at least a nickel a night.  This sounded reasonable to Benton, so he give Levi a key to the store and fixed him up a pallet in back of the stove.

Now Cliff Springs wasn’t much more than a wide place in the road, but it did have a store, a Methodist Church and a Baptist Church, a schoolhouse, and a railroad over at Obey City.  But everybody went to bed with the chickens, so Benton always shut up the store in time to get home and help Levi do up the night-work before dark.

The store was about a mile across the holler form where Benton lived, so after Levi started sleeping over there he’d put his Bible under his arm, get his lantern and take off just as soon as Dollie Jain would get supper over with.

Things went along like this for quite a spell.  Then one night the cows had got out, so they had to be hunted before they could be milked.  This made everthing late, so it was way past Levi’s bedtime before he even got started to the store.

When he did get there and started to open the door, he thought he heard something or somebody moving around inside.  Since he was armed only with his Bible and a lantern, he put on a brave front and yelled, “Stand still, thar!  I’ve got ye kivered.”  The noise stopped, and Levi eased inside.  Holding his lantern high, he peered around in the flickering light.  He couldn’t see a thing, so muttering to hisself that it was most likely his imagination, he locked the door behind him and set his lantern on the counter.  He listened for several minutes, but heard nary a sound but the crickets around the stove and the wind in the trees outside.

Levi finally convinced hisself that he had just imagined things.  So he moved his lantern over by the stove, stirred up the coals and throwed in another chunk of wood.  Then as the wood caught and heat begin to spread out, he took off his coat and hat and put them on the counter by the lantern.  Then he fixed his pallet close to the stove, set down on a nail keg and pulled off his shoes and socks.  To warm his feet good, he put them up on the hearth of the stove.

When he had got all fixed, he reached for his Bible…and his Bible wasn’t there!  For a minute he didn’t know what to think for he always put it right there by the lantern where he could lay his hands on it.  Then he recollected!  HE bet he’d dropped it just outside the door when he thought he’d heard something inside.  So up he got and went to padding barefooted to the door to see.  He opened the door and stepped out.  It was as dark outside as a stack of black cats.  He couldn’t see a thing, so he leaned down to feel around the doorstep.  Just about that time the door swung to behind him, and the latch clicked shut.  And there he was, standing outside in the cold, without his coat and hat and barefooted besides.

There wasn’t a thing he could do but to go get Benton.  Now it was so cold that the branch had froze over, and it was so dark you couldn’t see your hand before your face, but poor old Levi headed across the holler.  He couldn’t see, so he’d get off the path and run into trees.  He’d try to run but he couldn’t, and he’d fall down might night ever other step he took.  Then he’d give out and have to stop and rest to get his wind back.

But finally he made it to the house.  He opened the door and just fell inside.  Now when Benton and Dollie Jain saw what a shape he was in they knowed for sure that the store had been robbed again.  Poor old Levi was bareheaded and barefooted, and without both his coat and his Bible.  His hands and face was scratched and bleeding, his shirt was purt nigh tore off, and he was as blue as a fishhook from the cold.

His teeth was chattering so he could hardly talk, but after a spell he managed to make Benton understand that he’d just locked hisself  out and he needed another key to get back in.   Dollie Jain had to go hunt him up a pair of Benton’s shoes and a coat and hat before Benton could take him back.

It was all so funny that Benton had to tell it at the store the next day, and before night everbody in Cliff Springs was laughing about Levi losing his Bible.  And everbody joshed him about waiting till the first freeze to start going barefooted.

But it was Uncle Mel Phillips that capped the stack one day when real solemn-like he asked Benton right before Levi.  “Well, Benton, how in the world did you ever know that hit was Levi without his coat and hat?”

Cord and the Mutton

Following is another of Callie Melton’s stories from her book ‘Pon my Honor

As usual, this is presented just as she published it.

Grandpa purely loved to tell about the jokes he’d played on people.  He was as full of fun as a dog is of fleas, and he was always ready for a prank of some kind or another.  His pranks were always good natured, but also always good for a laugh.  The tale us young’un liked the best was the one about the time he got Cord Hull to eat the mutton.

When Grandpa and Grandma were first married, they lived for awhile on Uncle Will Hull’s place.  Now he really wasn’t Uncle Will, but Cousin Will, but, being a lot older than Grandpa and Grandma, they just called him Uncle.

Uncle Will had five boys.  The middle one was Cord, and he was the one who was always sent out to work with Grandpa.  They two older boys, Ress and Nade, logged with Uncle Will, and they two younger ones, Wyoming and Roy, were kept at home to help their ma around the house.

One time Grandpa and Cord got the job of farming that year, so Uncle Will and the two other boys could go on with their logging and rafting.  Cord was just about half-grown, but he was a good worker, so the two set about putting in the crops.

On the days that they worked the fields nighest Uncle Will’s house, Miz. Hull would get dinner for them.  And on the days that they worked near Grandpa’s house, Grandma cooked for them.  Grandma was a good cook, and Cord like to eat at Grandpa’s.  He’d say that Lar could cook the best sallet and hoecake that he ever put in his mouth.

Now, at this particular time Grandpa had just killed a sheep.  Grandpa rally knew how to butcher a sheep, so his mutton was always good.  Grandpa also knew, as did everbody else, that mutton was the one thing that Cord Hull would not eat.  But, being Grandpa, he laid plans to feed Cord some of that mutton!

One morning at breakfast Grandpa told Grandma that him and Cord would be eating with her that day, and to be sure and cook plenty of mutton.  “Cord purely hates the stuff,” he told her, “but don’t you say a word about mutton at dinner.  I’m going to make him eat some of it and like it.”

Grandma was scandalized, but what could she do with Grandpa!  So she just tried to outdo herself on her meal that day, and when Cord and Grandpa came in at dinner time she had the vittles on the table waiting for them.

While she poured the sassafras tea, Grandpa and Cord sat down at the table and started eating.  The first thing Grandpa did was to pick up the big platter of mutton, pass it to Cord and say, “Cord, I’ve just killed a calf… have some.”

Cord forked him a nice big piece of mutton and started in on it.  Before he had hardly swallowed the last bite of that piece, Grandpa was passing the platter and urging him to have some more.  “Make out your dinner, boy,” he said, “for we’ve got some mighty hard work ahead of us this evening.”

“Alex, this is the best beef I ever tasted,” Cord said, and forked him another big piece of mutton.

Grandma was so taken back that she was afraid to open her mouth for fear she’d say the wrong thing.  But not Grandpa!  He eat, and talked, and passed Cord the beef.  And Cord eat like there wasn’t going to never be another meal.  But, finally they finished eating, pushed back their chairs, and got ready to go back to the field.

Cord thanked Grandma for the good meal, and started out the door.  Grandpa stopped him and said, “Cord, didn’t you tell me that you couldn’t eat mutton?”

“Alex,” he said, “I just can’t swallow that stuff.  It tastes just like wool to me, and the longer I chew a bite the bigger it gets.”

“Well, you sure eat a dog’s bait today,” Grandpa told him.

Cord couldn’t believe it!  HE couldn’t believe that he had eat mutton until Grandma assured him that he had.  Grandpa said that all the rest of that day Cord kept shaking his head and saying that he couldn’t believe that he’d really eat that mutton.

Of course Grandpa had to tell what he’d done all over the settlement.  And poor old Cord!  He had to take an awful lot of joshing about Alex’s poor little young’uns having to go hungry because he had eat up all of the mutton!