It is a patriarchal life. The man of the house is lord. He takes no orders from anybody at home or abroad. Whether he shall work or visit or roam the woods with dog and gun is nobody's affair but his own. About family matters he consults with his wife, but in the end his word is law. If Madame be a bit shrewish he is likely to tolerate it as natural to the weaker vessel; but if she should go too far he checks her with a curt "Shet up!" and the incident is closed. "The woman," as every wife is called, has her kingdom within the house, and her husband seldom meddles with its affairs. Now and then he may grumble "A woman's allers findin' somethin' to do that a man can't see no sense in; but, then, the Lord made women fussy over trifles - so why bother about it?" The mountain farmer's wife is not only a household drudge, but a field-hand as well. She helps to plant, hoes corn, gathers fodder, sometimes even plows or splits rails. It is the commonest of sights for a woman to be awkwardly hacking up firewood with a dull axe. When her husband leaves home on a journey, he is not likely to have laid in wood for the stove or hearth; so she and the children must drag from the hillsides whateyer dead timber they can find. Outside the towns no hat is lifted to maid or wife. A man would consider it belittled his dignity. At table, if women be seated at all, the dishes are passed first to the men; and generally the wife stands by and serves. There is no conscious discourtesy in such customs; but they show an indifference to woman's weakness, a disregard for her finer nature, that are real and deep-seated in the mountaineer. To him she is little more than a sort of superior domestic animal. The chivalric regard for women that characterized our pioneers of the Far West is altogether lacking in the habits of the backwoodsman of Appalachia. And yet it is seldom that a highland woman complains of her lot. She knows no other. From early times the men of her race have been warriors, hunters, herdsmen, clearers of forests, and their women have toiled in the fields. Indeed she would scarcely respect her husband if he did not lord it over her and cast upon her the menial tasks. It is "manners" for a woman to drudge and obey. All respectable wives do that. And they stay at home, never visiting or going anywhere without first asking their husband's consent. Mountain women marry early, many of them at fourteen or fifteen, and nearly all before they are twenty. Large fami- | lies are the rule, seven to ten children being considered normal, while fifteen is not an uncommon number; but the infant death-rate is high. The children have few toys other than rag dolls, broken bits of crockery for "play-parties," and such "ridey-hosses as they make for themselves. They play few games, but rather frisk about like young colts without aim or method. Every mountain child has at least one dog for a playfellow, and sometimes a pet pig is equally familiar. In many districts there is not enough level land for a ballground. An amusement of the small boys is "rocking" (throwing stones at marks or at each other), in which rather doubtful pastime they become singularly expert. Most mountaineers are indulgent, over-indulgent, parents. The oft-heard threat, "I'll w'ar ye out with a hick'ry!" is seldom carried out. The boys, especially, grow up with little restraint beyond their own natural sense of filial duty. Little children are allowed to eat and drink anything they want green fruit, adulterated candy, fresh cider, no matter what; and fatal consequences are not rare. Julian Ralph tells of a man on Bullskin Creek, who, explaining why his child died, said that "No one couldn't make her take no medicine; she just wouldn't take it; she was a Baker through and through, and you never could make a Baker do nothin' he didn't want to!" The mountaineers have a native fondness for music and dancing. The harmony of "part singing" is unknown, and both men and women sing in a jerky treble. Most of their music is in the weird, plaintive minor key that seems natural with primitive people throughout the world. Not only the tone but the sentiment of their hymns and ballads is usually of a melancholy nature, expressing the wrath of God and the doom of sinners, or the luckless adventures of wild blades and of maidens all forlorn. A highlander might well say, with the clown in A Winter's Tale, "I love a ballad but even too well; if it be doleful matter, merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing indeed, and sung lamentably." But where banjo and fiddle enter the vapors vanish. Up strike the Fox Chase, Shady Grove, Gamglin' Man, Sourwood Mountain, and knees are limbered, and merry voices rise. Wherever the church has not put its ban on "twistifications" I the country dance is the chief amusement of young and old. In homes where dancing is not permitted, and often in others, "play-parties" are held, at which social games are practised with childlike abandon: Roll the Platter, Weavilly Wheat, Needle's Eye, We Fish Who Bite, Grin an' Go 'Foot, Swing the Cymblin, Skip t' m' Lou (pronounced "Skip-tum a-loo"), and many others of a rollicking, half-dancing nature. Round the house; skip t' m' Lou, my darlin'. A substitute for the church fair is the "poke-supper," at which dainty pokes (bags) of cake and other home-made delicacies are auctioned off to the highest bidder. Whoever bids-in a poke is entitled to eat with the girl who prepared it. and escort her home. The rivalry excited among the mountain swains by such artful lures may be judged from the fact that, in a neighborhood where a man's work brings only a dollar a day, a pretty girl's poke may be bid up to ten, twenty, or even fifty dollars. As a rule, the only holidays observed in the mountains. outside the towns, are Christmas and New Year's. Christmas is celebrated after the Southern fashion, which seems strange indeed to one witnessing it for the first time. The boys and men, having no firecrackers (which they would disdain, anyway), go about shooting revolvers. Blank cartridges are never used in this uproarious jollification, and the courses of the bullets are left to chance, so that discreet people keep their noses indoors. There is no church festivity, nor are Christmas trees ever set up. Few mountain children hang up their stockings, and many have never heard of Santa Claus. READING TEST Test the thoroughness of your reading by seeing how many of the following sentences you can complete correctly. Do this without looking at the selection. On your paper copy the words which make the sentences true. 1. The average mountain home is: a. happy. b. unhappy. 2. The chief authority in a mountain family rests with the: a. father. b. mother. 3. In addition to the household work mountain women: 6. Mountain children usually play: a. few games. b. many games. 7. The children of the mountaineers are: a. allowed to do as they please. b. not allowed to do as they please. 8. The hymns and ballads of the mountaineers are usually: a. sad and gloomy. b. bright and cheerful. 9. The chief amusements in a mountaineer neighborhood are: a. hunting, fishing, and swimming. b. music, dancing, and parties. 10. The only holidays ordinarily observed among the mountaineers are: a. Christmas and New Year's. b. Fourth of July and Thanksgiving. Scoring Your Reading Count the words you had read when the signal to stop reading was given. How can you find your reading rate per minute? Correct endings to the sentences should be given ten points each. What is your total score? Keep your reading rate and your score in readiness for later use as a means of measuring your progress in reading. 2. ROBERT OF LINCOLN WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT Merrily swinging on brier and weed, Over the mountain-side or mead, Robert of Lincoln is telling his name: Spink, spank, spink; Snug and safe is that nest of ours, Robert of Lincoln is gayly drest, Wearing a bright black wedding-coat; White are his shoulders and white his crest. |