Tell Me a Big One Now: (Or That's not the Way I Hyurd It)

Tell Me a Big One Now (OR THAT'S NOT THE WAY I HYURD IT) Some of Uncle Frank Tackett's tall tales as reported by J. W. HALL Uncle Frank lived up among the foothills of the Cumberland Mountains in a small log house. It was Indian Summer, and the autumn sun reflected a golden tinge from the surrounding forest. Soon after my meeting with the aged hunter, I was invited to bring my chair out into the yard under the shade of a spreading beech; after talking a while about the country and people, I told him that I had come up to listen at him tell some of his famous stories; at this his sunburned face lit up with a smile as he said, "I have really forgotten most of my good stories, but I'll tell you a few, so you can remember your old Uncle after he is gone. To begin with, this country is not as rich as some countries I have visited; we can't raise things here like they can in the Bluegrass; now you see those little punkins over there. I hoed them five times, and the largest one is not over five feet thru." I said, "Uncle Frank, don't you think that is about as large as pumpkins will grow?" He said, "No, my son, I once planted a patch of punkins near my barn, and the vines grew so large that they covered up all the surrounding country, and I had an old sow, that heard me say that I was going to fatten her that winter, and she took refuge in that punkin patch, and after hunting for her for three weeks, I struck her sign along side of a large vine, and I followed that punkin vine clear thru the Bluegrass to the river below Cincinnati. And it run right on over the river. I walked the vine over the Ohio, and went on following that vine for three days; and finally I came in sight of, as I thought, a big yellow mountain; but when I got up to it, it was a big yellow punkin. And finding a hog sign about, I followed for two days around that punkin, and I found a hole in the punkin and thought that perhaps my hogs might be in the hole; so I poked my head in the hole and brought a few calls as I used to, and my old sow knew my voice and came running out awful proud to see me with seven fine shoats with her that would have weighed over five hundred pounds apiece. I drove them hogs up to Cincinnati and sold them for a good price. After looking over the city for a while, I concluded to stay but soon fell into bad company and lost all my money and had to go to work for money to get back home on. The water company hired me to dig a well for the city; and at a depth of eighty feet under the ground, I struck a large white oak stump about six 42 feet thru and I had to quit. But I found a brand-new Yankee axe sticking in the top of the stump, and I took it out to the museum and sold it for a relic of pre-historic times and then made my way back home." I said, "Uncle, I imagine that when you were a young man that you were a much of a man." He said, "Yes, when I was young, I could out run, out jump, out hop, throw down, drag out and whip any man in the country. One morning on our way to milk I tolk Peg that I was the stoutest man who ever lived, not even Sampson excepted. She accused me of going into the smokehouse and drinking too much brandy, but I told her that it was real muscle and that I could lift the bull calf every morning before breakfast until it was four years old; so she bet me a pair of blue jean breeches that I couldn't, so I lifted that calf every...