582 A MOUNT A 



indeed none is needed, for life is full and satisfying 

 there in the heart of nature without artificial aids. 

 It is enough merely to be, to breathe the pure moun- 

 tain air, to drink from these limpid streams, to feel 

 in harmony with the life about one. It requires no 

 astral perception to know that this is living. 



An evidence of civilization is passed — -a quaint 

 old mill with an overshot wheel, from which falls a 

 musically tinkling cascade. But few grists are 

 ground here now, we judge, for two hawks came 

 circling about and settled down close by us, show- 

 ing that they are not enough familiar with the pres- 

 ence of man to fear him. They will be wiser by- 

 and-by ! We meet an occasional traveller to whom 

 the Colonel says " howdy," with the true mountain 

 intonation, and " howdy " is said in return. Some- 

 times we stop for a moment's chat ; once with a 

 soldierly-looking man who rode a handsome thor- 

 oughbred. His manner was courteous and digni- 

 fied ; when he had passed on his way the Colonel 

 told his story. "A northern guerrilla during the 

 war ; his hands stained with crimes committed 

 under cover of a uniform ; an illiterate man, who 

 can neither read nor write, yet has twice repre- 

 sented his district (a mountain district) in the legis- 

 lature. Now respected by his neighbors, and always 

 throwing his influence on the side of law and moral- 

 ity. " Thus, in brief but striking outline is sketched, 

 throughout the day, many a "character," for my 

 companion knows the whole "mountain." 



I mention the curious vernacular of the people 

 whom we meet, and the Colonel is launched upon a 

 philological dissertation. 



" They speak a language of their own," he says. 

 "Their vocabulary is limited, numbering among 

 the most illiterate not more than two hundred and 

 fifty words. Some of these are distinctively their 

 own, coined here exclusively for home circulation ; 

 such are biggitty and bourdacious. Others are local 

 corruptions of the English, such as ////, for it ; 

 cayn'f, for cant, and inoHght, for might. Then 

 there is the peculiar bearing down upon the final 

 syllable, as in settlew^/zA " They do not pronounce 

 it settle;///;//", as I had expected to find from the 

 stories of a well-known writer ; but that may be 

 explained by the fact, as I was frequently assured, 

 that her characters were all " over on t'other moun- 

 tain " — not mounting, observe again — but mountain. 



Aside from such distinctive features of their 

 vocabulary, their words are commonly pronounced 

 with marked purity ; there is no trace of the cor- 

 rupting influence of the negro idiom which has 

 helped to make so slovenly the pronunciation of 



IN TRAMP. 



even the best classes m the old slave-holding dis- 

 tricts of the south. This is to be accounted for by 

 the fact that there were never any slaves held here, 

 the poverty of the mountaineers prohibiting their 

 indulgence in such luxurious chattels ; even now a 

 black face is a rarity here, the negroes not having 

 much affinity for the hardships and privations of 

 mountain life. 



Later on I was enabled to verify some of the 

 Colonel's statements by my own observations. That 

 night, at the house where we found entertainment 

 for man and beast, a woman gave her opinion of a 

 certain lawyer who had recently passed through 

 there with the court. 



"I don't like that man," she said. "He's get- 

 ting too biggitty to drinken his coffee outen a 

 sasser. " From which we inferred that the moun- 

 tain possessed a standard of table etiquette peculiar 

 to itself. This opinion was given in a sad, hope- 

 less manner, without apparent animosity toward 

 the individual referred to, but only as if he had 

 fallen beyond reclaim. A translation of this word 

 ' ' biggitty " is not necessary when one has once heard 

 it used. It is very expressive. A tipsy fellow, who 

 seemed to be the soul of maudlin good-nature, was 

 said to be " right vigorous " when in his cups. The 

 way in which the word was pronounced (/' as in 

 tiger) indicated that tigerish, or fierce, was the 

 synonym. 



A tall, thin, mild-mannered man was asked to be 

 our guide to a certain point. "I don't care to,' 

 quoth he, and forthwith lifted up his long length, 

 and went. This, we subsequently found, was a 

 universal form of assent. 



Our day's journey came to an end at a little 

 hamlet — as my friend had promised, a typical moun- 

 tain town. But night came down before we found 

 our haven, and the bridle-path became faint and 

 uncertain in the darkness. Once we paused, almost 

 dismayed at the difficulties that beset us as the 

 forest closed about, deep, dark and sombre, seem- 

 ingly disposed to hold us fast in its inexorable grasp. 

 Just then a sound broke upon the air — the voice of 

 a girl, singing. A rich, contralto voice, strong but 

 untrained, sending out into the night and the wilder- 

 ness not, as we would have expected, some negro 

 melody or the strains of a camp-meeting song, but 

 a stave of an old college tune. It was a strange 

 thing to hear there, but it came carolling out to us 

 again and again — 



" Oh ! who will kiss my sugar-sweet lips?" 



We listened in silence until the singer had fin- 

 ished, too much surprised to answer even had we 



