The Cumberland Mountains 
far behind the age. There is scarce a trace of 
that restless spirit of speculation and inveh- 
tion so characteristic of the North. But one 
way of doing things obtains here, as if laws had 
been passed making attempts at improvement 
a crime. Spinning and weaving are done in 
every one of these mountain cabins wher- 
ever the least pretensions are made to thrift 
and economy. The practice of these ancient 
arts they deem marks of advancement rather 
than of backwardness. “There’s a place back 
heah,” said my worthy entertainer, “whar 
there’s a mill-house, an’ a store-house, an’ a 
still-house, an’ a spring-house, an’ a blacksmith 
shop — all in the same yard! Cows too, an’ 
heaps of big gals a-milkin’ them.” 
This is the most primitive country I have 
seen, primitive in everything. The remotest 
hidden parts of Wisconsin are far in advance of 
the mountain regions of Tennessee and North 
Carolina. But my host speaks of the “old- 
fashioned unenlightened times,” like a phi- 
losopher in the best light of civilization. “I 
[ 37] 
