Heirlooms

Artie Ann Bates This is a collection of funny stories that mountain people tell for the truth on each other. They show the great lengths to which some would go for fun, even to the point of cruelty. These tales reveal a great deal about Appalachian values. Certain codes of behavior were understood and violations brought severe punishment. The responses to the frustrations of everyday life show some of the ingenuity and resourcefulness of these people. These stories are relayed for posterity; a link to the past. Passing around tales is as popular in the mountains as passing around the moonshine jug may have been. The tales contain the spice and flavor of Appalachian culture and are as precious as the family picture album. They are historically valuable as they reveal some of the standards and expectations inherent in the old mountain customs. To recreate on paper the style of the storytellers is close to impossible. An attempt at such is made by using mountain dialect and recording the tales as they were given. With a little imagination the reader may derive as much pleasure from these stories as the writer did in collecting them. Sometimes funmaking in the mountains bordered on cruelty. A popular sport was tying two cats' tails together and hanging them over a clothesline. Or putting cooked soup beans in a rag and tying it to the bottom of a cat's feet, then 26 setting the cat on a hard floor. A fussy baby could be quieted for hours by putting molasses on its fingers and giving it a feather. And a calf would run bawling to the top of the mountain, never knowing what was after it, when a bucket had been tied to its tail. On a hot day in the summer of 1958 Pa Cornett, uncles Dan and Melvin, and cousin John were hoeing corn. Dan and John had their britches rolled up and were barefooted. Cousin Larry was about nine years old, cavorting around the field, and asking enough questions to be bothersome. Around that time there had been a big baptizing by the Old Regular Baptist Church and that caught Larry's interest. So he asked Dan and John what baptizing meant. Dan looked at John and said, "Shall we show him?" They each took Larry under the arm and headed toward the river. Larry soon caught on and pleaded, "You all aren't really gonna do it are you?" But they waded on out into the deep part of the river and soused him two or three times. Larry came up sputtering about the time Pa Cornett noticed the "goings-on" and told them to stop. Larry's overalls were wet and stuck to him; he had a round badge on his chest that stuck out like a big headlight and read, "I Like Ike." Watermelon patches were always vulnerable to theft, especially at night. If the farmer heard raiders in his patch, he might fire a few shots into the air to scare them away. One time Earl Hale, some of his brothers, and Uncle Ted Cornett made it up to scare KaI Whitaker. KaI, Earl, and the others were raiding Uncle Ted's watermelon patch that night. Uncle Ted stepped out on the porch with his rifle and fired a few shots over the patch and Earl Hale fell to the ground. Uncle Ted raised his rifle to fire again and KaI came running out of the patch with his hands in the air. KaI yelled, "Stop, stop, you've already killed Earl and you nearly hit me." Then Earl jumped up and they all had a good laugh except KaI. Willis Riley and his family lived in Carbon Glow. He had a bunch of big mean boys who would do almost anything . Once a little mangy dog had been hanging around their place and they decided to get rid of it. So they tied a stick of dynamite to the dog's tail and lit the fuse. The poor dog got scared and ran under the house. Willis and his boys threw out big chunks of bologna and fat meat, trying to get the dog to...