A Funeral Meeting In the Remote Parts of the Mountains

On Horseback Ready This copy of an old photograph made earlier day in the mountains as well as one To Go To Meetin' by Don Anderson shows the dress of an of the methods of travel. 16 A Funeral Meeting In the Remote Parts of the Mountains by J. W. HALL It was October the first, and a beautiful , frosty Sunday morning, and in good mountain fashion, we got away for meeting by 7:30 o'clock; our vehicle was an ordinary farm wagon, guiltless of springs, the body bright blue, and the seats a real red; our team was a very big, and a very little mule with "blinds" that were bright red; our harness heavy leather and chains. The day was a not-to-be-forgotten one, the golden rod and the clematis in their gray old age, made beautiful by the sparkling frost, the forests glorious in their autumn coloring, with the sturdy, gray tree trunks, for balance in the picture. The highways in this country are stream beds, and as we wound our way up Beaver , a thin skim of ice scrunched under our wheels, the sun shone glorious, and that wonderful Sunday feeling, and a great peace lay over the land and a joy of living surged in our hearts. This country is thickly populated, too much so, in fact; for the amount of ground level enough to farm with any advantage is very small. The houses are almost invariably close on the streams and nestle picturesquely by the water. With the hills rising arouiid them are corn fields on end until the cliffs preclude even goats, and on these ridges and shaggy cliffs, the forests are undisturbed as a rule, so the skyline is a beautiful timbered one. As we wound slowly up and up, men and women passed us on horseback going more quickly than we, often two on a horse when the two were a man and a woman. This was to be a pretty meeting, a funeral meeting to be held at the graveyard , on the mountain top, and the perfect day called out a good attendance. Arriving at the top, the spell of the place, and occasion lay hold on our spirits. In a cleared space on the top of one of the Beaver mountains and therefore in a gap of the surrounding mountains, lay the little graveyard, surrounded by a close picket fence. Above the gate some white boards clumsily put together held this inscription , badly lettered, "God bless those sleeps here." A close thicket of young trees grew to the fence on one side; and above great oaks, chestnuts, and beech trees spread their shadows even to the grave of "Little Marinda" whose funeral we had come to hear. The fallen tree trunks, and great boulders were moss covered, the mountain ivy showed green among the gay autumn leaves; the sky was a veritable azure. In a cleared space in front of the graveyard , logs with the bark still on them had been arranged for seats with a small open space in the middle where stood a table with a white cloth on which a bucket of water and gourd were placed. The preachers sat in front of the table on their private log facing the graveyard. The crowd far outnumbered the seats, reaching into the hundreds, and overflowing onto the ground, to outlying logs, and onto the 17 stake-and-rider fence, as to the masculine part of it. Groups arranged themselves on the ground, in the angles of the fence; the others scattered in knots on the hillside. There seemed an army of mules and horses hitched in the thickets, and along the fence; the women's saddles covered with some bright color, the men's showing a gay blanket, and many bridles with bright red blinds. Every animal had saddle bags, a carpet bag, or some evidence of dinner to come. The young women's and children's dresses were coats of many colors. The old women all in black with their black cotton sun bonnets, else quilted wool ones; their shawls and their white or colored knitted "half handers." Very many of the women...