12 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS 
rich man's war and a poor man's fight," and escaped 
if he could, it must not be supposed that he was either 
cowardly or uncertain where he understood the 
issue, a witness to the contrary being what occurred 
at King's Mountain that stormy day so long ago. 
The village people, many of whom are native 
North Carolinians, are not to be classed with the 
mountaineers of the rural districts, for the villagers 
for the most part have come from the old planta- 
tions, or from less primitive regions below the moun- 
tains. But although the village shops have recently 
attained a high standard in both products and prices, 
it is a fact of far-reaching psychological significance 
that even now you cannot buy a darning-needle in 
the city of Traumfest. Yet your neighbors seem 
happy and respected by their fellows and totally 
unconscious of any gap in their lives. 
Besides the white people, Traumfest is blessed 
with the negro, that true child of the sun who is 
found everywhere at the foot of the Blue Ridge, but 
is not so often seen in the higher mountains except- 
ing in the larger villages. He prefers to linger near 
the cotton-line, the mountains being too sparsely 
settled to satisfy his gregarious instincts. Most of 
the negroes here are descended from slaves brought 
up on the plantations in the immediate neighbor- 
hood. They are good, and for the most part as 
industrious at least as the white people, and when 
you know them personally and intimately, you can- 
not help loving them. They believe in ghosts and 
signs and a hereafter, they are afraid of the comet, 
