2i6 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS 
may be the spice of danger attached to it that makes 
the fire glow with so red and sinister an eye in the 
rude furnace, and light up so dramatically the human 
figures in the wild glen closely curtained with laurel 
and rhododendron leaves. Sometimes the inside of 
the still is almost as dark as night, because of no 
windows and the close-pressing foliage, when one's 
feelings are heightened in proportion. 
Notwithstanding the abundance of "moonshine" 
one seldom sees drunkenness in the mountains, 
though one would do well, so it is said, to avoid cer- 
tain regions of a Saturday night, for then the lovers 
of strong waters betake themselves to secret places 
in the woods, where bottles change hands and young 
men on the way home sing out of tune. 
It is not long since, walking along the roads of a 
Saturday afternoon, one would see a fresh-cut laurel 
bush lying in the path or in the middle of the road. 
If you followed the direction in which it pointed, 
you would find another one at the first intersecting 
path, either pointing up the path or away from it. 
You might not notice these bushes, but there were 
those who would. Every mountaineer, seeing a 
fresh-cut laurel bush in the road of a Saturday 
"evening," — it is evening here after midday, — 
knew it to be what the gypsies call a patter an, and 
that to follow the direction in which it pointed would 
lead him finally to some well-hidden spot where a 
man with a jug was waiting for customers. The 
patteran would guide any one to the appointed place, 
but unless you were a regular customer or known to 
