CHAPTER V. 



TENNESSEE PASTIMES — FIRST MONDAY — COLT SHOWS 

 — FOX HUNTING. 



PEOPLE residing in the North who have not visited 

 or become acquainted with the methods pecu- 

 liar to the people of Tennessee, can hardly ap- 

 preciate some of the pastimes in which those people 

 indulge. The first Monday of every month in the 

 year has been a holiday nearly, if not quite, ever since 

 the State was settled, and on this day nearly all the 

 people in the county will go to the county seat and 

 spend the day. On these days every one who has 

 horses to sell or trade, cattle, pigs, machinery or pro- 

 duce to sell, will bring their stock and property to the 

 county seat to be seen, exhibited, sold and traded, and 

 it is not an uncommon thing for several thousand 

 people to congregate there on these occasions, and 

 amusing incidents are of frequent occurrence. Not 

 many years ago, on one of these occasions, at Pulaski, 

 Giles County, a man appeared seated in a wagon, 

 having in front of him a glass churn, three or four feet 

 high, filled about one-half or two-thirds full of cream. 

 He was seated in a large, easy rocking chair, reading a 

 paper and smoking a pipe. There was a rod running 

 from the churn to the rocking chair and so adjusted 

 that every time he rocked the dasher of the churn 

 would rise up and down, and so he continued to rock, 

 smoke and read, occasionally looking out from behind 

 his paper to see if the butter had come ; and many a 



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