\ \ \ 13 PRICE. 25 GENTS THREE YEARS INARKAIISAW By TVIARION HUGHES HE ORIGINAL AKKANSAW SAW MILL. trouble with these SAwa Is you can't file or 9«t '•m." —See Page 2'iF, M. A. DONOHUE lo Three Years in Arkansaiv to death about as quick as you will breeding and milking mare mules. It takes two to plant com in Arkansaw, one pries the rocks apart with a crowbar the other fires the seed down the crack with a syringe. One trouble with Arkansaw, people from the North go down there, and before they get used to the climate, custom.s and corn bread, they get disgusted with everything, and leave, and tell hard yarns on the state, when it is like the Queen of Sheba said about Solomon, ''The half has never been told." There was a yankee family moved to Arkan- saw, and there was a dog- wood tree in the yard, one day they saw the little girl out under the tree with a basket, and a nice bed in it, they asked her what she was doing. O, said she, don't you se^ this dog- wood tree in bloom? Yes we see that. Well, when the pups get ripe I am going to get some of them in the basket and raise them.. Now dog raising in Arkansaw is a profitable business, but they don't grow on trees. There is always a good market for hound pups at a good price. I once met an Arkansawyer in Oklahoma who had gone west to grow up with civilization, and had got stranded and was up against it hard, and was compelled to have some money he offered to sacrifice a beautiful, well bred, half grown hound pup for the pitiful sum of one dollar and fifty cents, just in order to get back home to the stony state. He said if he had that ur purp back in Arkansaw it would bring fifteen dollars as quick as wink. Three Years in Arkansaw ii Arkansaw has so many sides is the reason about half the lyes they tell on the state is the truth, everybody sees a diferend side of it, there is th^- Inside and outside, Upside and downside, Top side and bottom side. North side and south side, East side and west side, \¥et side and dry side. Rocky side and swampy side, Hard side and soft side, Hary side and feathery side, Mudy side and clear side. Political side and religious side, Labor side and capital side, Democrat side and republican side, Populist side and temperance side, Drunken side and sober side, Farming side and mining side, Hunting side and fishing side, Long side and short side, Living side and starving side. Human side and animal side. Mans side and womans side. Civilized side and wild side. Right side and left side. Rough side and smooth side Rich side and poor side, Dark side and light side, Front side and back side. Sunny side and shady side, Winning side and loosing side. Married side and single side. Healthy side and sickly side, 12 Three Years m Arkansaw Hot side and cold side, Grassy side and sandy side. Sweet side and bitter side, Skinny side and bony side, About all the farming that is done in Arkan- saw at present is fruit raising, mostly blackberries. The people did not turn their attention to fruit raising, but the}^ turned their attention to coon and squirrel hunting, and dancing, and the briars do the rest. They will clear up and fence a field, ARKANSAW FARMER and go to farming it the first year, the briars' grow up in the fence comers, the second year they take four or five com rows, and so on every year, the briars close in on the farmer, and the first thing he knows they have met in the middle of the field, and he is closed out. Briars close out and take more farms in Arkansaw than mort- gages ever did in Kansas. When you are travel- ing through the country, and want to talk to a Three Years in Arkansaw 13 farmer, you have to tie your horse, and climb over the fence and crawl one hundred and fifty yards through a briar patch, then you will find him plowing about an acre of ground to raise his farewell corn crop in the center of the field. They only have one way to get rid of briars, that is move off and leave them. There is all kinds of minerals in Arkansaw that there is in the world, and some that has never been discovered anywhere else. There is more prospecting, and less mining than in any other state. There is fine prospects on top of the ground, but when you go down the mineral ain't there. The settlements in Arkansaw are along the rivers, and creeks, and up the gulches. There was a mining outfit started to drill in the side of a mountain, instead of drilling straight down they drilled crosswise in the side of the mountain. After a few days work the drill struck a cavity or cave as they supposed and they pulled it out and there was a coonskin fast on the drill, the whole neighborhood went wild over their coon- skin mine, but in three or four days they heard from the other side of the mountain and the people over there were all on the war path, they said the Chinaman had bored a hole through the earth and was stealing their coon hides. The drill had rubbed up against the side of the house and got the coonskin tangled on the bit and pulled it out threw the hole. The excitement soon died away, but they left the hole open for a speaking tube, so one settlement could notify the other when they were going to have a dance. There is but few carpenters in Arkansaw for 14 Three Years in Arkansaw they don't need them ; about all they do is to make and hang doors and make lead troughs; the doors to the log houses are made out of clap- boards and hang with a wooden hinge, and the farmers in these narrow^ gorges and gulches have lots of lead troughs put up in zig zig shape to run the sunshine down to the crop. The inhabitants of Arkansaw are a very pecu- liar people, but that is not at all strange when you understand their origin. The human race originated in the Garden of Eden. None of the descendants of Adam and Eve would live in Arkansaw, then the great question was how and by whom shall it be inhabited, but there was an Irishman who married a white woman and moved to Arkansaw and their first bom was twins. The mother being of a frail nature, they hired a negro woman to work for them and help nurse the babies. As the children did not thrive, they bought a goat and milked it and fed the children. They grew and waxed strong, so they were the origin of the Natives in Arkansaw. They were a cross between an Irishman and a white woman and were raised on negro and goat milk. That is why the natives of Arkansaw possess so many peculiarities that the human race or the des- cend ents of Adam does not possess. They seem to inherit the disposition of their foreparents. That is the Irishman, the white woman, the negro and the goat. They are very hearty, tall robust, rough and ready — ^that is ready to eat or take a drink of whiskey. They have a very large mouth and voice like a mule's father They are like the Three Years tn Arkansaw ^5 Irish, fight one minute and be good friends the next. They are also witty, wirey, wild and wool- ey, will eat and won't work. I don't know whether the food one is raised on has anything to do with their disposition or not, but I have always heard that they could tell a boy or girl that was raised on mooly cows milk by their actions. A negro is just as near heavin origiimal settlers of arkansaw as he wants to be when he has a full belly and a gold ring, but an Arkansawyer is perfectly satisfied with the full belly with-out any ring/- About all they inherited from the goat is there whiskers and apetite. Their whiskers are long and resemble a goat's. A goat can live on any kind of victuals except tanbark. An Arkansawyer 1 6 Three Years in Arkansaw can live all summer and raise a crop on corn- bread and sowbelly, and it don't make any dif- ference if anything should turn his stomach, for one side is as good as the other, and he can eat right on. Very few people ever saw a dead negro or a dead mule, and very few people ever saw an Arkansawyer or a goat that v/as sick at the stomach. One question that has never bin decided is, did the natives learn the goats to swear or did the goats learn the natives to swear? One thing sure a native and a goat can both swear by note. The oldest people in the world at the present time live in Arkansaw, they don't know how old they are as they can't read or \vrite but they will take you out in the woods and show you the largest Oak they can find and tell you they saw the acorn fall that grew it. Some of them have heads that looks like they had worn out two or three bodies. When I went to Arkansaw I went through Texes, got the wind in my favor, and came up on the blind side of Texarkana. The next day I took a train and w^ent about fifty miles north to a little town, built at the end of the Railroad, called Horatio, it was a nice little new town built away back of the field on Mr. Prides farm, an old man that had been there ever since long before the war. It was at the foot of the hills just at the north edge of the swamiT^s of Little River. There was bull frogs that you could hear crocking for three miles, and mosquitoes by the millions and millions, and the milk cows and coon dogs dying with the chills. Three Years tn Arkansaw 17 The town consisted of about a half dozen stores, three boarding houses, one saw mill, one shingle mill and a post office, and one deputy marshal by the name of Warth Mill wee, who run a board- ing house and run in moon -shiners occasionally. His daughter kept the post office and handed out the mail, when any one came, and read the letters, for those that could not read or write. The town was very dull until in the fall, when the farmers and hunters began to bring in their coon skins, cotton,, fruit and pork. Horatio being at the end of the railroad that came from the south it was over a htmdred miles West, North and East to a railroad town, so they came 50 and 60 miles out of the motmtains to bring their products to market and buy their winter shoes and tobacco. You could always tell what they were loaded with, when they would drive in town. They would have a forked stick fastened to the front end of the wagon and if they were loaded with apples there would be four or five of the nicest apples sticking on top of the prongs of the limb and if they were loaded with hogs they would have two or three dressed hogs stuck up on top of the switch so the mer- chants could see what they had. I examined one wagon that was loaded with hogs. They had been hauled about sixty miles down out of the mountains, and was packed in the wagon like sardines in a box. I only wanted to buy a dozen or two, but he wanted to sell me the whole load. He told me I could get half my money back for the Ivory, as they had very large teeth, but I was not buying and shipping ivory, so I ig Three Years tn Arkansaw didn't purchase. Sometimes one wagon would contain one bale of cotton, a dozen hogs, sack of dried peaches and a bundle of coon and opossum hides, and they would sell them and get their winter's clothing and provisions, which would consist of a pair of boots for the old man, a bolt of checked goods to make dresses for the old woman and girls, a barrel of salt, one hundred pounds of flour, ten pounds of tobacco, a dozen bottles of snuff and the rest in amunition. They would never put up at a hotel or restaurant. They would bring an old quilt along and camp out and sleep imder the wagon. They would bring com bread, sow-belly and a bucket of beans along to eat. They would get along all right if the beans didn't sour in the pail or on their Ponch. As Horatio is situated at the foot-hills, just north of the Little River swamps, and at the south side of the Rich Mountain range, the people from the hills and swamps both came there to trade, and as they were all kinds of people, from all kinds ot a country, they brought all kinds of hogs to sell. Arkansaw has a greater variety of hogs, and less pork and lard than any state in the union. Like other states, they have the two-legged hog, without tail or bristle, but an unlimited amoimt of gall. There is a great many wild hogs in the mountains and in the swamps. -They are very dangerous, and hard to catch. They also have a great many varieties of semi-domesticated hogs. They have the razorback, hazel-splitter, fish hog, center hog, Stellyard hog, Tryo hog. Handspike Three Years in Arkansaw i9 hog, stone hog, sav/ hog and chicken-fottecl hog. They don't raise any Poland China, Berkshire, Chester white hogs, or Jersey reds, because they can't. The wolves and bears would eat them up, but a wolf or bear can't catch a native hog, and if it did the hog would whip it in a fair fight. The razorback is so called because their back is so sharp. They are shaped like a sunfish, or a hickory shade. When you shoot at one you will have to shoot at it sidewise, or you can't hit it. ARKANSAW HOG CHASING A WOLF To shoot at one endways would be like shooting at the end of a shingle, and about as hard to hit. The hazel splinter is so called because their nose is so sharp that when they are running and their nose strikes a brush it will split the stick ; other- wise they are about the same as a razorback, ex- cept they get very large. They are like an alli- gator, they grow till they die; they inhabit the mountains west of Hot Springs. I saw some mam- moth hazel-splinters there. I saw one that dressed fourteen pounds with its head on, and six and a half with its head cut off. 20 Three Years in Arkansaw The fish hog is so caled because they live principally on fish shells and crawfish. They are scarcely ever seen, except in swamps and in lakes and rivers. You will see them sitting on the bank of a river or pond, or out on a log as quietly as a cat watching for a mouse. All at once they go head first in the water, and nearly always come cut with a fish in their mouth. They are usually very fat. The natives kill and eat them, but a human being that is not accus- tomed to them don't like them, because they taste so much like fish. They dress them like a bull- frog — save the hind legs and throw the rest away, as there is not meat enough on the body to pay for cleaning. The Center breed is so called because their ears are in the center of the body. It is the same dis - tance from the ears to the end of the nose as it is to the end of the tail. They are not raised much at present, as they are so small and bony it hardly pays to clean one after it is killed The Steel- yard hog is raised more than any other, because they are a very healthy hog, can live on any kind of feed they can get. They live on acorns, beech nuts, grass, roots, grasshoppers or anything they can catch on the land or in the water; they are called Steelyard hogs on account of the manner in which the farmers kill them. When they v/ant to kill the Steelyard hogs the^ get the btmch up in a pen, and get in and catch one by the ears, and hold him up ; and if he is so fat that his body will go down and head raise up, they kill them ; but if the head is heavier than the body, and the head goes down, and the tail flies up, Three Years in Arkansaw 21 they are too poor to kill, and they throw him back into the woods, and they are free for three or four more weeks, when they are rounded up again, to see if they are any fatter, or found wanting. The Tryo hog is very small, quick and active, resembles a cat about as much as a hog; they are so very quick and active. They live principally on bugs and flies. They are called Tryo hogs be- cause they always go three in a group when out far away or in search of food, when they come to a small fiat rock one will lie down for the chunk; number two will put his nose under the rock and over the one that is lying down and then suddeny jerk up his legs and pry up the rock, and num- ber three is ready to jump under and catch the bug or worms that may be under the rock; then they go to another rock, when the one that gets the bug before lays down for the chunk and one of the others get the bug and so they take turn about being chunks, prying and getting the bugs. They are about as large as an average size hog, when they are very fat. One hog is about large enough to season a pot of beans. The hand spiked hog, is the longest hog in Arkansaw, they are sometimes known to be seven feet long, and as large around as a stovepipe,their legs are long and small; an old sow usually gets to be fourteen hands high, and can trot a mile in less than 2 140, they go in large droves and are called handspike hogs from the peculiar way they get through the fence ; when a herd of them wants to get in a com field, one will lay down by the fenc, another put his nose imder the fence and Three Years in Arkansaw 23 over the body of the one lying down and pry up the fence so the whole herd of hogs can crawl through, then two of them make a gap the same way on the other side and let the other two in, and when they eat all they want, they go out the same w^ay; sometimes they will eat up a whole field of corn, before the farmer knows how they are getting in or out. They are fine eating. When a farmer kills one they make sauce out of the head and feet, and have a mess of back bones, and that is all there is of it. Sometimes the boys save the hides for a marble sack. The handspike hog is not raised very much at present ; they crossed them with centipedes so they would have more hams, then they got afraid they was poison and wouldn't eat them. The stone hog is the most peculiar hog there is in the state. They are bad to fight, will fight among themselves or anything that comes along; when they get in a fight they never stop until they die. You have to kill them to get away or they will kill you. They are not raised very extensively now as they are hard to raise, mean to keep, and not very good to eat. The reason they are called stone hogs, is because their nose is so long, and head so heavy that they balance up behind, and their nose runs in the ground. When they are running and turn a summersalt, they break their necks, so the owner has to keep the stone tied to their tail, to keep them from breaking their necks. And when the stone is too heavy it pulls the skin over their eyes and makes them go blind. The Saw hog takes the premium for a freak of nature : they seem to be a combination of all 74 Three Years in Arkansaw the good and bad qualities of all the Arkansaw hogs, they have a long body and legs like a hand- spike hog, thin body like a hazel splinter, and sharp back like a razor back, they are hard fighters, fast runners and good swimmers, and can live on grass, roots and rabbit tracks. They are hardly ever eaten except of a hard winter or a drought. They are called Saw Hogs because they are the original Arkansaw saw and are used by the natives to saw wood with, and I never saw a saw that would saw like the natives will saw with a Saw hog in Arkansaw. When they want to saw some wood it takes two men and two boys to run one of those original Arkansaw saw mills. They catch an old and poor sow, buckle a strap on her nose to keep her from biting their legs, then they turn her over on her back across a log, one man at each end ahold of her legs for handles, one boy ahold of her ears and one ahold of her tail, to help pull her through. When they get started yo-i can hear the bark and splinters flying and the old sow squeeling for three miles. If a stranger that never saw one of those mills running should hear one start up he would think there was an Oklahoma cyclone not forty yards away. The worst trouble with these saws is you can't file or set 'em. When they get to pinching you have to turn her loose and catch another one. The Chicken footed hog is the scarcest of any hog in the state. They are very fine eating, easy to raise, are good hustlers, because they can scratch and root, they can climb like a paiTot, scratch like a hen, and root like a Steelyard hog* Three Years in Arkansaw 25 they are not wild or dangerous, and always come home to roost. They were first discovered by the civilized world by a lot of mining prospectors that ventured away out in the mount ians along the east line of Polk County, and the south Hne of Mongomery and Garland, they came upon an old mountianeer's home about dark; they noticed an old sow and about twenty shoats that had gone to roost on top of the wood-pile and fence and some on the low branches of the trees. They asked what kind of fowls they were, but the old native told them they were chicken-footed hogs. He said they only had one fault and that was that they wouldn't lay eggs- There are but very few cattle in this part of the state, North in the hills one cow would starve to death. A man always had to have two cows or none, one to stradle a bush and bend it over while the other would eat the buds and little limbs. Cattle would not hve in the swamps for the mosquitoes would eat them up. I have seen more mosquitoes arotmd the lakes in the north than in the swamps in Arkansaw, but they are not a fourth as large in the northern country. They can track them up in the snow in the wintei and kill them; but in Arkansaw, they don't try to catch them, they get six and seven years old in Arkansaw. You can go down in these swamps any time and see eight or ten standing on a log picking themselves and listening for a cowbell. They raise plenty of horses in Arkansaw for their own use, but they raise very few mules. The horses are veiy good pullers, have to be to get over the hills and through the mud. One 26 Three Years m Arkansaw farmer raised a lot of horses and took a carload to Washington City, to sell, but when he came back he was all broke up because he couldn't sell them. He said the street cars and bug- ies was run by lightning, and the goverment by jackasses, and they didn't use horses at all, so he brought them back and sold them to his neighbors on time. He said the next time he had horses to sell he would use a little charity and begin at home, I have helped kill hogs in several states but I never knew what a hog killin' time was till I came to Arkansaw, When farmers in the states kill hogs, they get one or two of the neighbors to help. They have the hogs up in a small pen where they shoot them or hit them in the head with an axe, clean them and put them away all the same day, but that isn't the way in Arkansaw ; there they get a tent to camp out ; take the big kettle, all the guns and dogs and horses to ride and sacks to carry them in, then they go away out in the woods v/here the hogs range, fix up the camp, hang up the kettle where they can keep a fire under it near by a spring or branch, then they are ready for business. The men and boys take their guns and dogs, one boy, rides a horse with a sack to bring in the dead ones and they start out through the woods and brush and shoot every hog they can from a sucking pig up ; and when they get a sack full the boy takes them in to the camp for the women and girls to clean. Then he hurries back to the men so he can be gathering up another sack full. The dogs go ahead and find the hogs^ and when the hogs Three Years in Arkansaw 27 see the dogs they run after the dogs and they run back to the men, who shoot the hogs down when they come close. It is very dangerous as the hogs are very bad to fight when they are in a large bunch. Sometimes the men have to climb a tree for safety. The women do the dressing of the hogs. They generally have the big kettle full of boiling water by the time the carier boy gets in with the first sack full. The carier boy imties the sack and pours them out by the side of the kettle and jumps on his horse and is off again to the chase while the women and girls gather round. One will pick up a hog by the leg or ear and dip it in the hot water, first one end and then the other, like scalding a chicken, until it is thoroughly scalded, then she takes it to a ta,ble or large board where she lays it down and scrapes it like a fish; another gets her one and so on, until they each have a hog of their own to clean. They are too small for two to scrape on one hog. After they get a dozen or two cleaned, they put two to gutting. They gut a hog like v/e used to gut rabbits when I was a boy. One takes the hog by the hind legs and holds it up while the other takes the guts out ; then they are put in baskets and boxes and kept until they go home when they are paned and salted down for winter and spring use. Perhaps you don't know w^hat paning a hog is, but it is VQvy simple and easy when you under- stand it. When I was a little boy I used to drive nails in the mantel over the fire place and tie strings to the nails then tie the other end of the string to the stem of an apple and let it hang (>»> KILLING HOGS IN ARKANSAW Three Years in Arkansaiv 29 down before the fire and turn round and round until it would roast, and then I would eat it. Well that is the way they pan hogs in Arkansaw ; they tie a twine string to their leg or trail and hang them up before the fire and set a piepan or saucer under them to catch the grease and start them turning round and round. They watch them till the greece is out then they take them down and put another on the string and the empty saucer or piepan, and so on until they have all been p^ned, then after they are coolled off they get a large box, generally a cracker box, and cover the bottom with salt and put a layer of hogs, and then a layer of salt until the box is full, then the box is put away, and the hogs are saved to cook with beans and turnip greens during crap time. They eat the meat and beans and drink coffee if they have it, if not they drink branch water or sasafras tea. If the meat is very scarce and about to run out, they cook the same piece of meat with greens, perhaps a dozen times. One spring near- ly everybody was out of meat except one old man that had one piece of meat that he was cooking with his greens, he loaned it to his son- in-law who cooked it with blackeyed peas and spoiled it and it made the old man so mad the next fall he wouldn't lone him his hounds to go a coon hunting with. I lived at one time near the line of Masaury and Arkansaw, or in other words in Lapland, for that is where Masaury laps over in Arkansaw. I couldn't see but little difference in the Masaur- yans and Arkansawyers. One day I asked an 3© Three Years in Arkansaw old Masauryan how he could tell them apart ; he said it was dead easy; the Masauryan is web footed and the Arkansawyer has claws, that is the reason some of the young ladies wear shoes; they want to marry a man on the other side of the line and they want to hide their claws or web feet. They surveyed the state line between Masaury and iVrkansaw not long ago, and changed it north about 250 yards, and that put the line on the north side of an old Masauryans house and put him in Ark- ansaw. When he came home that night, his wife met him at the gate and told him they had to move, as she wouldn't live in that old sickly state of Arkansaw. 'Taw," said the old lady, "don't you know we will all die with the chills?" I use to be a crack shot with a rifle, but after I went to Arkansaw and saw some of them old long- hungry moimtaineers and snake charmers shoot their old-fashion human rifles I quit trying to shoot. I would sometimes tell them what a crack shot I was when I lived in the Rocky Mountains, but I quit that when I heard a lady tell about her brother shooting, or a woman — you may call her what you may, she had a snuff stick in one side of her mouth and a chew of Kill -dad tobacco i-n the other — she would chew her words up atid SHE WOULDN'T LIVE IN ARKANSAW Three Years in Arkansaw 3t spit them and the tobacco juice out together so I moved out from under the drip while she was talking. When I was fus married, Brer Jake and we'uns lived near each other. We'uns lived south a Jakes, and there was a big snag with a wood- pecker's nest in it south of we 'uns„ One day Brer Jake shot at the woodpecker hole in the snag and hit its center ; then he shot again, and put the bullet right on top of the fust one, and he kept shooting and shooting and shooting, a-puttin' one bullet right on the tother until he welded a string ov um clean up past our house, and I used it for a clothesline as long as we lived thar. Arkansaw is the greatest place I ever sav/ for fish. Go down south of Horatio, in the bottom along Little River, and you can scarcely hear it thunder for the mosquitoes a-singing and the cat- fish a gobbling. They get to be so plentiful in the streams, they become a nuisance. One old farmer, who lived near the river, had a lot of cows. He would get lots of milk in the morning, but none at night. So one day he concluded he would watch them. So he took his gun and kept away behind the cows all day, as he supposed some one was milking them; but away along in the afternoon the cows went down to the river to drink. They waded in the water, and he sat down on the bank and watched them. Pretty soon he saw a big catfish swimming up to one of the cows and commenced sucking her. Then he knew where the trouble was. He shot the fish, and w^ent in and brought it to the shore. It was an old suckle that had young ones. She had tits an inch long. The fish got so bad they had to keep the cows away from the river. ^2 Three Years in Arkansaw Fishing was great sport in Ar^kansaw. They organized fishing parties; sometimes thirt}'' or forty in a drove, and go fishing and camp out for two or three days. They have a great time get- ting their hooks, lines and baits all in good shape. They take fr^dng pans and grease along to cook them while there, but generally they put a few sticks of dinamite in a box and take that along, and kill their fish with dinamite, and never catch scarcely any with a hook. There was one fishing party went from town, and there was an old fat hotel man along. He had a very fine large dog, that he thought a great deal of, as they always do in Arkansaw. The dog was well trained, and very smart and industrious. If 3^ou would shoot a duck he > would go and get it, or if you would throw a stick in the water the dog would swim in and bring it out to his master. So they threw a stick of dinamite in the water with a fuse to it. The fuse was on fire. The dinamite struck a brush and did not sink, so the dog started to swimx to get it. They all commenced to holler at the dog to make him come back, but all in vain. He swam to the dinamite ; got it in his mouth, and started to the shore, and the fuse burning all the while. When he got near the shore, they all ran for their lives ; as they knew it would explode very soon. They all ran up the river, but the old fat hotel man. He started out through the green briars and brush, running with all his might, and hollering: "Go home, Tige," ever>^ jump, and old Tige at his heels, and the fuse a burning. Finally the dinamite exploded, and did not hurt the old man, but poor old Tige all they found of Three Years in Arkansaw 2^3 him was about half an inch of his tail, hanging on a green briar, forty yards away. The old man took the piece home that they found, and had it kiln-dried and sugar-cured, and was wearing it for a watch-charm when I left Arkansaw. But when it comes to catching large fish Ark- ansaw has all the states beat. The largest fish I ^»uA„>,n'uj|j{..,|ff|i,'(j' DOG WITH THE DINAMITE ever saw, read or heard tell of, was caught out of the Arkansaw river below Little Rock. It kept getting their bait and breaking their lines. Fi- nally they had a blacksmith to make a fishhook out of a crowbar; they tied it to a steamboat cable and baited it w4th a muly cow that had died with the holler horn, tied the cable to a tree, and 34 Three Years tn Arkansaw the next morning they had him ; they was afraid he would pull a team in the river, so they got all the negroes for miles around and pulled him out on the bank, and hauled him to town in sections. When they cut him open they found inside of him another fish that weighed 200 lbs., (by guess) three fat hogs, one yoke of oxen and an acre of burnt woods. When I was a boy we would save the fish if they was as large as a pumpkin seed ; but in Arkansaw, when the}^ catch a catfish that is not a foot long, they cut its ears off and throw it back in the river and let it grow larger. They never eat small fish, in Arkansaw, except Hickory Shad ; when they catch a lot of them they save them, and the way they eat them, they strain them through a coarse rag and eat the gravy. I existed in Horatio for nine months. You see, people in Arkansaw don't live ; they only exist. I existed in Horatio, until I had become neutralized, and learned a great many of the ways of the natives. I could go bare- footed among the rocks ; eat corn bread and drink sasafras tea; but in the spring C. P. Landon & Company sent me about forty miles north, in the mountains, on the survey of the Pittsburg and Gulf Railway, at a place called Hatton Gap, to run a general store for them. It was a little tow^n in the mountains that you read about. That is, you would read more about it than anj^thing else, for there was but little there to see. There w^as one store and post-ofnce combined, and one little store by itself ; one blacksmith shop and an old schoolhouse and church combined, but scarcely ever used for either church or school. 36 Three Years in Arkansaw In Arkansaw there is a state law giving each school district the privilege of an election each year to vote whether they should have a school or not. If the majority of the voters in the district want a school they can vote for it ; and if a ma- jority think an education is a disadvantage to the rising generation they vote it down. And this had been the case at Hatton Gap. They had not had any school there for a long time, but while I lived there they had two elections; one Presi- dential election, and one school election. At the Presidential election there was but little excite- ment. It was estimated that over half did not vote at all. When the vote was counted, the vote for President of the United States stood as fol- lows: — W. J. Bryan, 15; Andrew Jackson, 12; Jeff Davis, 9; George Washington, 8; Thomas Jefferson, 8 ; Moses, 6 ; Abraham, 5 ; John the Baptist, 3 ; Daniel Boone, 2 ; William McKinley, i ; total number of votes cast, 69. But when the school election came off, it was wild excitement all day long. There was a lot of people had moved in from the States that wanted school, and some of the natives wanted school, while others said an education only qualified a man for meanness and a woman didn't need an education ; so the excite- ment ran very high. They went out among the hills, and got every old man out that was able to be hauled to the poles to vote. They hunted the dis- trict over ; went ever}^ where except the graveyard for voters. There was one family that had gotten into a family row over the education of the chil- dren. An old couple had married ; both of them had children; the man believed in educating his Three Years in Arkansaw 37 children, and his second wife did not, and they each had a boy about the same age; but the old man started both boys to school ; his wife stood it for a while, but she protested, against her boy going to school, but the old man said: "My boy must go to school, and if I send my boy and keep yours at home to work the neighbors will talk about it and my boy must go ; and if your boy stays here, he must go to school." So he continued to go for a while longer, but his mother couldn't bear to see him going to school, so she gathered up his clothes and took him to his grandfather's to live, and his grandfather said they nearly ruined the boy at school. He said when his mother brought him back he was not the same boy at all . He was so different he said the poor bo}' had almost for- got how to kuss. After the election was over and the votes counted, it stood sixty-nine for school and sixty -five against, a majority of four for school, and they had a grand jubilee that night. You see, in Arkansaw they play the fiddle by ear, sing at random, swear by note and drink whiskey by the gallon ; so that night the winning side was playing the fiddle by ear ; singing at random and drinking whiskey by the gallon, and the defeated party was a-swearing by note, but it all died away in a few days, and there was no lives lost or bones broken. So the next winter they scrubbed out the old schoolhouse and fixed up the broken windows and had school tor three long months. Thev used to have church in the schoolhouse about every other Sunday; the Methodist would hold church every four weeks, and the Baptist ev- ery four weeks; the Methodist preacher's name ^$ Three Years in Arkansaw was Blackside. He belonged to the Hot Springs conference, and was a good man ; he was a natural bom native, and never been scarcely out of Polk County, and of course there were lots of things he did not know, but he could read, and write and he was a good honest Christian, preached the very best he could and practiced what he preached. There are lots of good preachers m the world, but they don't practice what they preach. He was a good man and I liked him. He made some mistakes, but they were all through ignorance. One Sunday after his sermon he gave the old fashioned "back woods" Arkansawyers a good lecture about being so far behind the times; he said there was a new railroad building through their mxidst, and building up the country, and strangers coining in from different states, and settlm* round among us, we must read and post ourselves ; dress up ; and keep up with civilization and those who were coming among us. This new railroad grade is lined with new comers all the time, gomg up and down the country; There is the tramp, the hobo, and the chippy, I have met the tramp and the hobo, but I have not met the chippy yet, but I hope to later on. Some of the brethem explained his mistake to him that afternoon; he said he was very sorry and would apologize at his next appointment, but the brethern wouldn't let him; they were afraid he would make it worse. Father Croker the Baptist preacher was known all over the country as an honest upright practical Christian man; he was a school teacher, and knew Three Years in Arkansaw 39 She country and the people for miles around. He always took the tobacco out of his mouth and threw it under the bench or out of the window when he got up to preach, but the congregation would chew their tobacco and listen to the old man while he would preach. There would be but few people in the house, but what would have tobacco in their mouth during church, and spit- ting on the floor; little girls not ten years old would have a snuff stick in their mouth during church. I have seen young ladies when they would go to spit they would put their fingers on each side of their mouth and they could hit a Tom cat's eye across a sixteen-foot room nearly every time. Every lady used tobacco and they thought it was all right, but the Baptist were very strict with the church rules, they turned one old preacher out for lying, they said they hated to, but they had to do it to preserve the reputa- tion of the church, he made a trip to Ft. Smith and when he came back he said he saw men there making ice a foot thick, they said the Lord couldn't make it over three inches thick in that country in the winter time, and the idea of a man making it a foot thick in summer was im- possible, so they turned him out for lying. There was an old gentleman that lived near Hatan Gap that they called Deafy Sm^'-'-h. One Saturday night Deafy's cow got out and nn off and Deafy started out on Sunday morning to hunt her. He met Brother Boanurges the Bap- tist preacher, and told him his troubles, well, said the preacher, you go right along with me to 46 Three \ ears in Arkansaw church and when I get through preaching before I dismiss the congregation, I will describe the cow and see if anyone has seen her, all right says Deafy, that will save nie of walking all over the country to look for her. Deafy went to church took a seat in the back of the house and waited patiently until the sermon was over, but there was a weding in the neighbor- hood that afternoon and the preacher proceeded to announce the weding; but Deafy thought he was telling his troubles about the cow, and sat holding his hand behind his ear and catching a word once and a-casianly; the preacher advised the congregation to go, as the young man was a gentleman in every respect, but Deafy thought he was talking about the cow all the while, then he began to describe the young lady, but Deafy thought he was describing the cow, he said she was the finest young lady in all the land, was well educated, inteligent, good looking, kind- harted, industrious and a good cook, then he stoped and Deafy thinking he had bin describing the cow, he yelled out at the top of his voice and said, she is Bob -tailed and got one spoilt tit. There was but few doctars in Polk Count 3^ what there was, only had two falts, one w^as, they was hard to get and the other one they was no good when you got one. There was an old farmer taken bad sick all of a sudent, he was very bad, he had what they call Pendecitus, in the states but in Arkansaw they call it bellyake and he had it bad, there was no use to go seventy- five mdes for a doctar for he would either be dead ARKANSAW HORSE DOCToK <4i; 42 Three Years in Arkansaiv or gon squirel hunting when they would get there, so they sent a mile after a horse doctar, he came and examined him and said if it was a horse rolling and groning that way he would giv him a quart of salts and what was good for a hors arter be good far a man, he told them to giv him a quart of salts at night and let him now in the morning how they act and he went home, the next morning one of the boys rode up to the doctars' and the doctar came out and said to the boy, how did the salts act, my, said the boy, they acted once before he died and twice after- wards, i In the hill of Polk County is a great place to raise sheep, they are very healthy and strong, they have to be so they can climb the mountains. I saw a native shearing sheep one day he would commence down on the hind legs and shear up its legs and along its body until he got to its head, I told him the way I sheared sheep I always commenced around its neck and sheared back, it was easier. Yes I know that, said the farmer, I use to shear them that way my self but, since I voted for Cleveland for President I can't look a sheep in the face so I always commence at the other end. The hills are so ruff they have to herd the sheep and on top of the rough hill they take them by the tail and hold them along the rough places while they eat the grass, when the herder goes out of a morning they will ball and run to him and turn round and back up they all want him to take them by the tail first and hold them out to pick. Three Years in Arkansaw 43 Alfred Beabout is the most progressive man at Hatton Gap, he runs quite a double barrel business, consisting of a store and Post- office ; he had about a wheel-barrow load of dry goods, and a pillow-slip full of groceries consisting principally of tobac- co and snuff. Mr. Beabout was quite a progressive man for an Arkansawyer ; he originated the idea of a Post-office at that place, got up the petition and es- tablished the office, and of course he got it established in one corner of his store, and apinted himself Postmister. He got along very well with the office for a while, but one day while reading the Postal Guide he found that he would be required to report every three months, and that worried him. He said he had never written many letters and had never been a newspaper reporter and when it came to reporting to the President every three months it was more than he could stand, but as he had convinced the President that he was a business man and could run the office and had HOLDING SHEEP OUT TO PICK IN ARKANSAW 44 Three Years in Arkansaw got the President to apint him, he would do the very best he could, so one afternoon he drove the children all out of the store; got some paper and a pencil ; sat down to a goods box and pro- ceeded to report, and this is as nearly a correct copy of his report as I could get: Hatton Gap, Poke County, Arkansaw, June 17, 1886. Mister Grover Cleveland, President of the United States. Dear Grover: — I have just diskivvered thet as I am Post- Mister I have to report every three months. Craps look better in this vicinity this year than usual, I suppose it is on account of having a Post-Ofhce. There is a law suit at Squire Paynes to-morrow ; Steve Gaithers bob-tailed cow jumped in John Brown's garden the other night and eat up his tunip greens, and John he sued Steve for main- tainance until rostenears is hard enough to eat. Tom Shortacres oxen run away the other day with the sled and Tom and Betsy both in it, they turned the sled over and Tom fell out on his face and run his pipe stem down his throat, and came very near choking him to diath, and Betsy fell out on a stump and skinned a place on her ankle four feet and two inches long. There has been one set of triplets, three pair of twins, and four- teen single births in this neighborhood this spring, which beats last yeaxs record, supposed to be the effects of havmg a post office. They had quite a revival of religion at the Bell school house Three Years in Arkansaw " 45 lately, Francis Jackson got enough religion to last him through crap time, and m_ay be until com is hard enough to make moonshine whiskey. Si Watkins was in the kitchen taking his annual POSTMASTER AT HATTON GAP. ARKANSAW bath this spring and had a rear end collision with a red-hot stove and had to stand up and eat his meals more as two weeks. Jo Starkey is building a nev/ two roomed hewed log house with 46 Three Years in Arkansaw a stone chimney at one end, and a stick chimney at the other, and a porch in front and a kitchen and a dog house in the back, and a hen roost attached at the north end, and the house is high enuff off the ground for the hogs and dogs to sleep under the floor. Health has been good this spring, except the children; the doctor said it was a disease ockasuned by over-gorging of the stumach, with sweet aples. Tom Bells old sow came in the house the other day, and his wife threw hot water on her to drive her out, and in her haste she ran over the table and broke all the dishes they had, except one goard, and it happened to be hanging on the wall. Dick Weatherspoon was out hunting the other night, and when he cut a coon tree, a lim struck old Drum, the best coon dog he had, and broke his tail, nte by gum, short off.- My wife set nine hens this spring and they hatched out 127 chick- ens and she has raised all but seven that died with the gapes; the reason she had such good luck she kipt themx under the bed of nights and rainy days. There has been some family trouble here during the hot weather Elonzo Spooner, punched the chinking out of his house right in the comer behind the bed to let in the cool air during the night, and he wanted to sleep behind next to the crack, but his wife said she had been sleeping behind all winter and the crack principleges be- longed to her exclusively, so they had quite a family row, but I think hostilities will cease when cool weather comes and Elonzo chinks up the Three Years tn Arkansaw ^y We had a lot of fun and trouble in town the other day, you see Tom Shortacre, and myself are all the families that live in the heart of the town, and our wives both have large herds of chickens and they run together, that is the chick- ens ; and our wives also; his wife's name is Betsy, and my wife's name is Sally, now Betsy and Sally agreed that Sally should cut all of her hens tails off and Betsy let hers run with long tails so they could tell them apart, one of Betsy's, hens had stole her nest out, hid it by a stump and layed out her layin ; and gon to settin, and Betsy knew this and kept her eye on her hen; and Tom and I knew it. In order to have a little fun and excitement, Tom and I, sliped out and cut the old hens tail off just to see what the women would do ; next day Betsy came out to see how her hen, was gettin along and s?oW her tail had been cut off, now Betsy is a fast walker and a loud talker, so she came right down to my house and said, Sal you have been trying to steal one of my hens. Now Sal didn't stop to get her bonnet, but walked right over with her to the hen's nest ; when Betsy said there she is and you have cut her tail off to steel her ; but Sally said you are a liar. Each one reached for the others hair and both got a good holt and started round and round; Sally's foot struck the old hen and nocked her about a rod, and as Betsy came round she fell right into the nest and broke a lot of the eggs, and Sally right on top of her ; but before Tom and I couki get there Betsy had turned Sally and was wippmg up the remainder of the eggs with her, we pulled them apart and I taken Sally home and he took 4^ Three Years m Arkansaw Betsy home, when they got home and put on clean dresses they washed the egg off their faces and hands; but they did'nt comb their hair for they didn't have none to comb, the next day^ Tom and I, told them hov/ it had all happened, and both of us has had to sleep on a palit ever since. I am getting along very wqW with the Post- Office except one thing, I charged one oppossum skin for reading and answering a letter, and there is a school marm down on Coon Creek that does it for nothing. I sent her word that if she didn't stop interfering with my business I would have her prosecuted if I had to do it myself. This is all of any importance for this quarter I will keep a diareah of what hapens so my next report will be more complete, l^.iy wife Sarah sends her respects to Mrs. Cleveland and the kids. Yours for truth and veracity, Alfred Beabout, Post-Mister. First quarterly report of Post-Mister at Hat- ton Gap, Poke County, Arkansaw, The old man Doolittle run a blacksmith shop and that composed the business part of the town of Hatton Gap, except Thomas Shortacre and Betsey Shortacre, his wife., I shall not try to describe them as I don't understand the English language 'well enough to do them justice. They was about sixty years old and they never had any children ; neither of them knew their letters, both went barefooted and bareheaded ten months in the year. Tom dident hav any head at all, he only had Three Years in Arizayisaw 49 a knot on top of his sholders to keep his back- bones from unraveling. He said he had not bought any matches for over three years, when he wanted to start a fire he turned up Betsy's heal and hit it a rip with his knife he could start fire evry time. Tom had a long spell of sickness they could not tell what ailed him, the Alipatha doctor said it set in for brain fever and had nothing to work on and he could not tell what it turned to the homapath said it was hay fever, for he would sneese everytime he would see a grass widow. The Ostopath said his spine was crooked. The horse doctor said he had the sweany and the bots. Betsy said it was pure unadulterated laziness Vs^ith a relaps, but he would not take any of their medicine, he said he was doing his own doctoring he had undertook the case himself and he would treat it threw if he lo£o it. I never new Tom to do but one days work in the winter tiine he went to mill one coald day and froze his fuet, Betsy put some warm water in a tub and he sat down on the side of the bed and let his feet hang down in the warm water. They felt so good he lay back on the bed and went to sleep and when he awoke the water had got coald and froze and Betsy had to take the hatchet and chop his feet out. Betsy wore a mother-hubbard and Thomas wore pants and a shirt. Neither would comb their hair. They would get feathers in their hair and let them stay there until the down would all wear off and nothing left but the quill. They both chewed tobacc- and both smoked and both could cuss by note; Tliomas couldn't talk without 5o I'hree Years in Arkansam swearing, but Betsy could when she was in a good humor, but when she was not you heard her cuss a mile; Betsy was a hard worker, but Tom was too lazy to wink when he got dirt in his eyes. Betsy would turn loose on him once in a while and the language she used is unfit to write or to repeat. They lived in an old fashioned house two rooms built about sixteen feet apart, with a shed between them and a porch in front of the whole cheese. I rented the south room for a jtore and they lived in the north one. I ran the store for C. P. Landen & Company, of Horatio, and had a splendid trade. Our stock consisted of some dry goods and some groceries, tobacco and snuff, a few drugs and some hardware, but more tobacco and snuff than anything else. The women would come out en the mountains two and three miles barefooted over the rocks with eggs to trade for snuff. I had sold goods in several states and herd if a man was in Rome he must do as the Romers do, so I went barefooted too and in my shirt sleeves. I have sold goods all day, many a day, and not have my shoes on, barefooted and my pants rooled up Sometimes they would bring a wagon load of eggs and chickens, butter and blackberries, and the women could hardly ever count up w^hat they sold. One married woman had children nearly grown that I sold a bill of goods to, and they didn't know a nickle from half dollar. It was a good deal of trouble to trade with those people, especially the women. They would bring a wagon load of marketing women and children to town, and you would have to go out Three Years tn Arkansaw 51 and take the babies out of the wagon, kiss them and tell their mothers how pretty they were, and perhaps their faces hadn't been washed for a week. That was hard on the stomach. Then you would have to help the mothers and big fat girls out of the wagon, and that was hard on the back. Then get out the eggs, chickens, feathers, blackberries, dried peaches and perhaps a sack of com in the shuck, weigh, count and calculate to find what it would come to, and then the trouble would begin. One of the children would want one thing and another something else. There would be the argument, and dispute and a quarrel to contend with, but when I could get a majority to argue on the same thing, I would put it down in the same pile and the amount on the bill and tell them how much was coming to them yet, when they would get through trading I w^ould give them a bill of what they brought and what they got, so if the old man or any of their neigh- bors could read and figure they could see that I had not cheated them. I told them I never cheated an idiot or an ignoramus; here is a copy of the bill I would give them: 2 bu. dried peaches, 90c per bu .$1 80 7 bu. corn in shuck, 40c per bu ..... = 2 . 8c 5 lbs. of duck and chicken feathers, 30c lb . 1.50 ij bu. of potatoes, 30c per bu 45 2 doz. young chicken, 80c doz . . . . » i . 60 17 doz. eggs, 8c per doz 1.36 30 lbs. dried apples, 3c per lb 9© 2 qts. coon oil, 20c qt 40 3 rbs. butter, loc per lb - - -3^ $11.11 52 Three Years in Arkansaw Then I would give them a bill of everything they had bought which was as follows: 3 lbs. Horse Shoe tobacco, 35c a lb. .. .$1 .05 3 lbs. Granger Twist, 30c a lb . . 90 8 pkgs. Bull Durham, tobacco 40 10 yds. shirting, 5c a yd 50 20 yds. calico, 4c a yd ... = = . 80 8 yds. unbleached muslin " .64 1 barrel salt , 1.25 25 lbs. flour 45 3 lbs. sugar. . , .25 10 lbs. coffee, 20c a lb 2 .00 J-lb. pepper. , 20 2 bottles Green & Co. Snuff 40 2 papers pins, 3c each 06 I spool No. 8 black thread to patch with, .05 $10.75 Which subtracted from the produce bought amounting to $11.11 Take the amount purchased. . .36 Then I would explain the whole transaction to the crowd as best I could and give the mother her change that was coming to her and say, now here is a quarter, that is 25 cts., and here is two nickles, that makes ten cents, which is 35c and here is a penny which is 36 cts., as the amount due you. Sometimes they would buy something else before they would leave and I would have to tell them which was the quarter, and which was the nickle. There was an Irishman got on the train at Hatton Gap, walked in the car but the seats were all taken ; one was occupied by an Arkan- Three Years in Arkansaw 53 sawyer and his dog. The Irishman knew if he tried to make the dog get down and give him the seat he would have the Arkansawyer and the dog both to fight. He stood up for awhile, then he remarked : "That's a very fine darg ye have." " Yes stranger, he'es the finest darg in Polk Co." ''And he has the marks of a good Coon dog." " You bet your life he can come as near finding coons where they ain't any as the next one." ''And what Brade of dogs is he?" "He's a cross between an Irishman and a scunk!" " Bejasus and he'es must be related to both of us." During blackberry time I bought lots of black- berries, and sold them to Betsy, and she made a barrel of blackberry wine. It was called Betsies shirt-tail wine, so called from the way she made it. She cooked and pounded and strained the juice out of them, and put sugar in it, boiled and soured, and I don't know what all she did do, and put *n it, but the way she gave it age, and the finishing touch, she took an old flannel under- shirt uf Thomases, or her's and sewed up the tail, and held the bosom open and poured the wine in at the collar and strained it out through the tail to take out the flies, and to give it age, and flavor, and that is the reason it was called Betsies shirt tail wine. Then she sold it for 50 cts. a quart, and it went like hot cakes, to those who did not see her make it. I saw her make it, so I did not taste it. It had the body to it for it made some gloriously drunk, and it made Betsy drunk when 54 Three Years tn Arkansaw she was making it. The steam and the tasting it, together made the old lady get on a high lone- some. Betsy had an old humped-backed white cow, she called Jersey; and old Jersey was very bad to jump, and they had to keep a democrat on old Jersey all the time. Now a democrat is what some people call a yoke, it was made of a block of wood about i8 inches long with three holes in it. Two holes to put a bow" in that went over her neck, and one hole in the middle, with a stick about six feet long in it so when old Jersey run up to the f enc the stick would go through the crack and old Jersey couldn't jump it. Old Jersey had her Democrat on when Betsy was drunk, and she went out to milk her. She was so drunk on her shirt-tail wine that she didn't know which end of old Jersey the bag was on, so she got her by the democrat instead of the tit and tried to milk her. Tom, the old lazy scoimdrel stood there and laughed at her trying to get milk out of Jersey's democra.t, until Betsy got m.ad and cussed him until the atmosphere was blue for miles around. Tom had to take Betsy and put her to bed and the old cow didn't get milked imtil morning. When they commenced to grade the railroad' through Polk county, people of all classes came to town, and the population increased to about 500. There was plenty of moonshine whiskey to be had in the town, and of nights the natives, and the Irish would gather in the town, and get drunk, and fuss and fight and keep an uproar nearly all night. They would kill a man occa- sionally. During one scrap there was two killed. 56 TPiree Years in Arkansaw We organized a literary at the school house, and for a country affair it was a good one, the natives didn't take much part, but there was lots of people from the states that had dropped in along the new railroad, and some of the railroad men were speakers. We had some of the liveliest old country debates I ever saw or heerd. On one occasion we debated the old question of maried and single life I never saw such an excitement over a little thing in Arkansaw as there was over that debate they went hog wild and the ground was torn up and the fence broke down. Fortunately or unfortunately for me I was chosen on the side of single life, I will not attempt to give you all of my speech. I said Ladies and Gentleman as I have tryed both sides of hfe I ought to know from experience and observa- tion that there is more joy and hapiness in single life and the tears, sorrows and disappointments are shed, shared and endured by the married people I want to say rite here I am talking about what the world is and not what it ought to be, for if every man and every woman was filling the position in this world that God intended he or she should fill there would be more pleasure in maried life but they are not and we are talking about what the world is and not what it ought to be. There was a young man started to get maried he walked along by a large brick building under construction there was a brick fell on his head and killed him, ho never new the sorrow that brick saved him.. I have new lots of other young men there did Three Years in Arkansaw 57 not any brick fall on their head but it would saved them lots of trouble if they had, it is as natural for people to mary as it is for a ducks back to turn water for they are built that way. Adam and Eve were maried in the garden of Eden and people has bin marying ever sinct:. Man was created first and woman was made after man and she has bin after him ever since some- times with the rolling pin and sometimes the flat iron. I know the Lord said it was not good for Adam to be alone but after he created Eve and she got herself and Poor old Adam both fired out of the garden of Eden. Solomon said it was better to dwell in the wilderness than with a contentious and an angry woman. The Lord created the Heavens and the earth the fowls of the air, the beasts of the field and the fish of the sea he worked right along every day but when he created Eve he was so tired he had to rest a hole day and by that time she had cut up so badly and got herself and poor old Adam in so much trouble she had let the devil beguile her and helped to get Adam beguiled so the Lord has never created anything else since but he turned his attention to getting up a plan of redemption for Poor beguiled man and woman. The Bible says Eve was made out of one of Adams ribs but I hav herd that disputed, they claim when the Lord had taken Adams rib out and laid it down to stop up the hole a dog got it and started to run away, the Lord run after the dog and caught him by the tail and the dog kept runing and growling and the Lord cut the dogs 58 Three Years in Arkansaw tail off and made Eve out of the dogs tail and woman has bin growling ever since. I did not use to believe any part of that story but I hav come to the conclusion that if any part of it is true it was a little wooly first. I use to coon hunt when I was a boy we had a little fist that was allways barking up every tree he come to and that was the way with mother Eve the first thing she done when she was turned loos in the garden of Eden was to bark up the rong tree and get herself and poor old Adam into trouble. I sometimes think part of the women are ribs and part dogs tails and if a man get a rib its all right to marry but if he gets a dogs tail its all rong. All most any poor girl will make a man a good rib but the rich mens daughters are nearly all dogs tails from start to finish. I see by the papers that the millionairs of Chicago hav a private school to learn their daughters military tactics, wont they make a man a splendid wife when you may put 14 of them in a kitchen 14 hours and they can't make a decent cup of catnip tea for a baby. There is Sampson the strongest man that ever lived but when Delila got him under her controle first he lost his honor then his hair then he was taken prisnor had his eyes put out, then lost his life, I hav known lots of Sampsons in my life big strong fine looking men but in six months after they are maried they can't scarcely shoulder a half peck of wheet brand first they loose their hair their reputation and next their eyes punched out that is what they call enjoying maried life. Three Years in Arkansaw 59 Adam was made out of clay or mud there is no dispute about that, and they hav bin making men out of mud ever since but they hav bin very earless about where they get the mud. I never did want to be a woman but sometimes I think I would like to be a drunkards wife gust one night when he would come home drunk and abuse me he would not come home drunk next night for two reasons one is he would not be able to get away next day and the other is I would not be there when he would come home drunk next time. I know the bible says something about puting your husbands away, but if I v/as a woman and a man came home drunk and abused me I would put him away in a safe place where the Lord would find him on the gudgment day. The bible says be ye not unequaly yoked togeth- er and the first time he got drunk I would be like an old steer I use to work I would turn the yok. A many a poor tiard woman has set up and doctared and woried over a sick baby untill twelve or one o'clock at night when her husband would come in and say he had bin to the lodge if I was a woman that wouldn't fix it. She was gust as tiard and the baby just as sick as if he had bin at a saloon and two to one he was, a lodg is all right for old bachelars and men that hav dogs tails for wives but a man that has a rib and children ought to be at home with them. There was once two bachelars lived on adjoin- ing farms both was very wealthy they had dis- cussed the mariage question Pro and con severel times finaly they agreed to cast lots and the one that lost was to get maried and the other wait do Three Years in Arkansaw and profit by his experience so it fell to Mr. Smiths lot to get maried first he was so fraid he would draw a blank he spent a great deal of time and money looking around but he finaly maried a city girl who was good looking well dressed and a fine plana player and good singer and educated right up to now. Smith was a wealthy farmer he soon discovered she could not cook at all so he had to hire a cook but she could play the plana and sing very fine but that would not satisfie Mr. Smiths appetite when he was tiard and hungry he next diskivered she couldn't nor wouldn't wash and iron her own clothes or his so he had to hire a wash woman. He bought a nice milk cow and brought her home and when he come in that night his wife was all broke up she said he must sell the cow for she was mean and good for nothing why what is the mater with the cow ? Everything said she ; I brought her in the yard and tied her close to the dore, sit the pail under her, went in the house and plaid a nice tune on the plana and went out and there was not a drop of milk in the pail, then I took her by the tail and tried to pump it out and she kicked me and the pail both over, you see she is no good any way for she has four tits and she giv sweet milk out of all of them and I wanted cream for my coffee and butter milk and claber cheese for my supper. You will hav to get three more cows or sell that one, well you don't under stand cows naw and the cow don't seem to understand me for I played as nice a piece as I could on the plana and it would not bring the milk well you see music is all right in its place but it want make a cow giv down her milk so he had Three Years in Arkansaw 6i to hire a milk maid. "^ Things went on very well for a while but in the corse of woman events one night the baby got to crying, and kept on crying until he suggested that she get up and do some- thing for the little thing she got up dressed in the latest style powdered her face and sat down to the plana and played a very fine solo when she got threw the baby was still crying the music was all right to tickle the old mans ear when he came courting but it was no good for the baby when it had the colic. He suggested that she make it some catnip tea she said she never made any tea in her life and she did not know catnip from dog fennel so they had to hire a nurse to take care of the baby and she could not make its clothes nor her own so they had to hire a seam- stress. The last time I herd of him he was so poor he could not hire a nurse, milkmaid or a seamstress, his wife was playing the piano the dirty faced baby seting in the floor a yelling and the old man out in the barn lot milking the old cow with one hand and a holding up his pants with the other and his brother bachelor he did not exactly get maried he gust bought him a mawk- ing bird it was less trouble and less expense and he had the music. I know men and women ought to liv happy together but they don't. Man was created [first and given dominion over the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, and the fish of the sea then woman was created for a help meat for man but when the Lord put them in the garden and went away the devil came and beguiled her and got her to help him put the strings on Adam then he led them both rite out 62 Three Years in Arkansaw of the garden down into trouble and sorrow and the Devil has bin doing the same thing ever since sometimes he beguiles the man and some- times he beguiles the woman first and when he gets on his side then hells to pay and no pich hot. We sometimes reed about someone comiting suicide because they was disappointed in love but the reason there is so many drunken men and bad women in the world they was disap- pointed in marriage. I believe a true woman is the grandest thing God ever created, man ever saw, or the sun ever shined on but the only trouble is there scarcity did you ever think for a moment that Christ knows how to sympathise with us from experience in all of our troubles except those of a maried life he knows how to sympa- thise with the hungry for he fasted forty days and nights and was afterwards tempted of the devil. He knows how to sympathise with the Poor for he had to send Peter a fishing to get money to pay his poll tax, he knows how to sympathise with the tiard and weary for he walked nearly all over the rocky mountains of Guda, Galilee and Samara, he knows how to sympathise with the poor laboring man for he was spit upon, crowned with thorns and crusified by the Trusts who said his religion interfered with their business, but he don't loiow how to sympathise with a poor browbeat henpecked husband that has bin trying to liv with a content: ous and an angry woman. Hatton Gap is, or was, a great town for music Some of the greatest sin^rs there I ever saw. Those natives had a voice like a caliope. One Three Years in Arkansaw 63 day I heered some of as fine singin as a man would care to hear. I told my wife to listen at the music. It was the same song that I heard at Kansas City when I was there at the exposition building at the Inter-state Fair of Masoury and Kansas. They worked about an hour to get a Piano upon the stage; and when they got it up, a man sat down and pounded on the piano while a middle aged lady stood up and yelled something you couldn't understand. Then she would scream at the top of her voice. Sometimes she would stop a spell and he would be biffing away at both ends of the machine, then she would yell again. I asked somebody what it meant, and they said it was up-to-date opery singing, so, when I heard the same piece sung at Hatton Gap years after, I knew it at the first yell. I went down to see if it was the same couple, but is was not. It was an old hound that had his head fast between two palins and a man had a club trying to knock the palins loose. He would biff, biff, away and the hound would yell at the top of his voice, thei? he would yell a little longer at times. I couldn't understand what he was saying any better than I could what the woman was saying but it was the same tune, and the words and the same accent only the hound's voice was a little more melan choly. They had a fox chase one night when a native said to a new comer, **Don't you hear that Heavenly music?" "I can't hear nothing for those doggoned hounds," the new comer said, but the hounds made the noise that was music to the natives ears. 64 Three Years in A^rkansaw After the railroad was complete, and the cars running a great many of the natives sold their farms along the line and left the country. The most of them went to Howard county, as there was no railroad in that county. One farmer told me \,nat he was going to sell out and leave. He said the cars run within three miles of his farm, and he didn't want to live within thirty miles of a railroad. One poor old farmer I felt sorry for; he had lived on his farm a good many years, and had raised a large family, mostly girls, and all at home, but the railroad only missed his house about 150 yards. He stood it pretty well until the track was completed, and the first freight train run through on the line, then he and the old woman and the barefooted girls gathered up what they could caiTy, and called the dogs, and left the old farm on the double quick-step. As they passed one of the neighbors, he tried to get them to go back, and live there, but the old man said no, that the cars would kill every one of them. When the farmer said ''the train that just went through didn't hurt any of you did it?" ''No!" said the old man, "It went endways, if it had gone through sideways it w^ould have wiped us all off the earth." So he picked up his bundle and started out, yelling, " Come on gals," and whistled to the dogs. Some of them that lived away from the railroad would come to the stations on Sundays to see the cars, as they had never seen a train before. It would look like a camp meeting around the depot. They would come out of the mountains for twenty-five or fifty miles to see the cars. One Three Years in Arkansaw 65 old man had hitched up old gray to the spring wagon, and. brought his wife and about seven or eight children, ranging from one to nine years old, to see the cars. He drove up close to the track so they could get a good view of the cars ; but before the train came, he got uneasy, he was afraid old gray would get scared, and run away, so he got out and unhitched old gray, and tied him to a tree give him a bunch of hay, and got back in the wagon. Pretty soon he saw the train coming pretty fast, and as the old wagon was too close to the track he thought the train would jump the track and kill them all, so he jumped out, and got between the shaves, and started to pull the wagon a little further down the hill. As the train got nearer the station, the old man got excited, and away he went down the hill, ran over a stump, turned the wagon over, threw the old woman and all the children out, and hurt them worse than old gray would, for he stood there eating, and didn't notice the train. The children was scared and hurt, and yelling to the top of their voices. The old woman kept hollering for him to stop, but she didn't have any strings on him, and she couldn't do a thing with him, but when she got up she got a club ; but her ankle was sprained, and she couldn't run to catch him, or I expect she would have beat him to death. She said she didn't mind getting hurt- but she didn't get to see the cars. She said she would leave the old man at home next Sunday, and she and the kids go alone. Hatton Gap is situated half w^ay between Ft. Smith and Texarkana, and about 100 miles west 66 Three Years in Arkansaw of Hot Springs right in the heart of the mountains and wilderness. About loo miles from the rail- road before the Pittsburg and Gulf was built, a large bunch of the natives didn't know their letters, and never was in a railroad town, and never saw any of the modem improvements. One old mountaineer went to Texarkana and while there he saw a barber shop, the first he ever saw or heard tell of. He always had his wife cut his hair twice a year. Once in the fall she would ciit his hair, and in the spring she would shave him and cut his hair, but the way she would do it, in the fall she would use the scissors, and a half gallon milk crocks She would turn the crock over his head, and cut off all the hair that would stick out from under the crock, that way she would get an even cut all around from one ear to the other. In the spring she would give him a shave and a hair cut both, then she would use a pine torch, and a wet rag. She would bum it off with a torch, and whip it out around his eyes with a wet rag. When he saw the barber shop, and saw how they per- formed, he concluded he would fool the old woman and he would first get a shave, then he concluded they might cut his hair, he told them to clip it very short. He meant milk crock style, but the barber got his clippers, and clipped it short. The old man sat there with his eyes shut and didn't know how he was clipping it until he was done, and when he looked in the glass, and saw himself he was the maddest man ever seen in that 1 3wn. He wanted to fight the barber, and everybody else in town, so the police had to take charge of him, and made him go home. HIS FIRST HAIR CUT AND SHAVE <6y> 6^ Three Years In Arkansaw He had cooled off by the time he had driven a hundred miles, but when he got home, the trouble began. As soon as he got in the yard, his own dog bit him, but he kicked the dog loose, chased him under the floor, and went in the house. He had to tell his wife who he w^as, then he picked up the baby, but it didn't know him, and the more he would tiy to explain, the louder it would yell, so he had to put it down. Then he went out to milk old muly. She was afraid of him., and wouldn't stand; finally he got her cornered, and got her half milked, when she looked around and saw him, got scared and jumped and kicked him over, and kicked the milk, pail and all right on him. The milk run down his shirt collar, and the pail struck him on the head, and made a knot between the size of his head and a hulled walnut. He got up and shook himself, that is, he shook the milk off his clothes, and shook his fist at the cow ; said a few ugly words about the barber and the cow, and made some ugly wishes about the future destination of each, and went into the house carrying the empty pail, and his wife had to go out and finish the milking. The flies and mosquitoes would bite his head occasionally, but he stood it all very well until bedtime, when his wife fixed a pallet on the porch, and remarked, '' I beheve this is Jeremiah, but as I am not quite sure I have decided you can sleep out here for a few nights, until I am thoroughly convinced it is you." It broke the old man's heart; he was all broke up. He fell down on the pallet and cried nearly all night. Three Years in Arkansaw 69 The next morning he got tip very early, and they supposed he had gone out to the barn to feed the horses, but as he didn't come in to breakfast, they went to hunt him and found him in the bam, he had hanged himself with a blind bridle ; they cut the bridle, and let him down, and rolled and rubbed him, and brought him too, but when he got all right he was mad as he could be because the}^ had brought him too, he said if you had let me alone I would a bin in heaven rite now; 3^es dad said one of the boys, but how would you a looked, walking the golden street with a blind bridle on. The town of Hatton Gap flourished like a green bay tree until the railroad was completed; then the railroad company wanted to buy the land, and lay out a town there; but the natives that owned the land said: **No, we own the land, and we will lay out the town, and sell the lots, and make the money ourselves." They offered the natives four times what the land was worth for farming purposes, but they said, "No, we will not sell. So the railroad company went two miles north and bought about 800 acres of Francis Cecil, and laid out the town of Jansen, sold the lots; built a depot, put in a water tank, and started a nice little town. They put up a hook at Hatton Gap, and took the mail on the fly, and give Hatton Gap the go-by, left the natives sitting around on old goods boxes whittling, and cussing the railroad company, while the town was like the seed that fell in stony ground, it soon withered away. 70 Three Years in Arkansaw When the town of Jansen was started, I left Hat- ton Gap, and went to Jansen ; I built the first house in Jansen, and started a hotel. The first house was not the best in the world, nor the best ^_^^___,_^___^____ in Arkansaw. They was boarded up and down, and we used heating stoves made of powder cans that we gathered up along the cuts where they had to blast the rocks. The town had a \'ery steady growth, everything consid- ered. There was four or five stores, two sawmills, postof- V\\/fQ>>lll|fl M Pxe, and some mining and I j A D| I ' prospecting aroimd the town. ' Fo 'H ^^^ Qi-iite a number of mioonshine whiskey peddlers, besides the MOONSHmE WHISKEY fa^jn producc. Coons and PEDLAR OF JANSEN i • . j i. .1 ARKANSAW opossum-skm trade, altogeth- er made quite a comical town, but not a commercial town, by any means. Some of the people of the town were from the north, some from the south, and some had vegetated and sprung up, and originated in the hills, and among ^the rocks of the immicdiate neighborhood of the 'tow^n, and it was hard to get any two to agree in any one thing, they all thought they knew straight up, but all thought it was a different direction. Each one knew exactly how to build a town, but all had different ideas about it. They could prove by the Bible it would make a good town, for it was built on a rock. I had a very good hotel trade ; I had about a half Three Years in Arkansaw 71 a dozen section men, a lot of sawmill men, some carpenters, a few merchants, and some comers and goers. Lots of strangers w^ould come in, but they would go too soon. My boarders were all good fellows, as I wouldn't have any other kind. I boarded one native that run a drygoods and gro- cery store, he was one of the finest men I ever met, and sharp, but the traveling men always loved to get some gag on him. One day he told me that he had got even with a traveling man that had bin playing tricks on him. "How did you get even with him?" '*0h, he had his wife with him this trip, and when he gave me an introduction to her, I looked at her and then turned to him and said : "The lady you had with you before, that you in- troduced to me as your wife, was red-headed, and you ought to have seen her look at him. I bet she gives him thunder when she gets him to him- self. Did you tell her it was a joke? No, I went right on talking business to him, and never grinned, while she stood round there snapping her eyes like a toad eating fire." One trouble with the town, it was built out of doors, and not only that, but it was built right out in the woods, and the woods was full of hogs. You could sorter keep them aw^ay in day time, by rocking them and sicking the dogs on them. But at night they would almost tear the house down. My hotel was built on the hillside, of course, like nearly every other house in Arkansaw. It fronted east, and the north side was about level with the ground, and the south side was about two feet high. We had a kitchen window at the south side. 72 Three Years in Arkansaw One day an old sow about six feet long, and as big around as a man's arm, came right under that window, with her head under the house, with her nose pointing north. I got about a gallon of boil- ing water right off the stove, and poured it on her south end, and you ought to have seen her start north. I guess she would have struck the north pole, if it had not been for some stovepipe under the house. She started in such a hurry that she did not look where she was going, and ran her nose right intoa joint of stovepipe, and her head and front legs went through all right, but her hind legs stuck, and held the pipe fast between her front and hind legs ; she came out from under the floor, and started for the woods. You ought to have seen that sow run. Well, I never saw a hog run so fast in all my life. Instead of the stovepipe being in her way it served as a corset, and held her tits up out of the way, and she was out of sight in the woods before you could say suey! We sup- posed the stove pipe would lose off, but the old farmer found her the next day. The pigs couldn't suck; he had to catch her with a pack of hounds, and cut the pipe off with a can opener. The Arkansawyers beat any people to marry that I ever saw. The girls are nearly all married by the time they are twenty, and the boys before they are twenty-one. All the boys wants to marry a girl that is cross-eyed and red-headed. They do that for economy. They cook on the fireplace there instead of a stove, and if a girl is crosseyed she can w^atch the pot with one eye, and look up the chimney with the other. The reason they want a red-headed woman is so the children will Three Years in Arkansaw 73 be red-headed; then they can tie them up in a tree, and let the woodpeckers feed them while the wife hoes corn and cotton. Some of the girls are so crosseyed, when they cry the tears run down the back of their neck. I was Hving at Jansen during the month of July, and of course we had a Fourth of July celebratipn, and had it Arkansawyan style, pure and sim- r.le. That is about the only hohday they have m Arkansaw, and they all celebrate that day. They all go, take the wagon and two days' rations, old men, old women, big gales, babies, dogs and all, they go the day before, and camp on the ground the night before the Fourth and dance, and dnnk White Mule all night. Now, White Mule is new moonshine whiskey; so new that you can smell the boys' feet on it that plowed the corn that made it They dance in Arkansaw in one respect, the same as the Indians. That is, the old and young dance together. I never danced a set m my hfe, and don't know much about it. I heard dancers talking about a change in danc- ing, but I never knew what they meant until^ I saw them dance in Arkansaw. Brother Jones will liold the baby while his wife dances a set with Mr. Brown, and Mrs. Brown holds her baby while Mr. Brown' dances with Sister Jones. When they get tired they have a change— that is, Mrs. Jones holds her baby, and Mr. Brown takes theirs, and they sit down in a corner on a bench or a pumpkin, and hold the babies, and talk, laugh, and take a fresh chew of tobacco while Mrs. Brown and Mr. Jones get up and dance a set or two together. That is what they call a double change. They 74 Three Years in Arkansaw change wives and change the babies, back and forth, while each other dances. Single girls dance with married men, and married women dance with single men. That is what they call the third change. Everything generally goes off all right unless they get too drunk. When one gets so drunk he can't stand up, they drag him out somewhere out of the way, and go right on with the dance. I saw one man fall right down full length, in the middle of a set. Three jumped right in, and two grabbed hold of him, and drug him out, the other man grabbed the girl by the arm, and went right on with the dance, and never stopped the set or the music. What they call a good dancer is the one that can kick the floor the hardest. The men in Arkansaw generally dance in their shirt sleeves, with their pants in their boots. The girls have on heavy shoes and callico dresses, and never wear a corset unless it is one that they have made themselves out of hickory bark. In the States, when a young man dances a set with a young lady he treats her to a glass of lemonade or ice cream, but in Arkansaw^ he gives his girl a chew of tobacco, and takes one himself, then they sit down, chew, spit, and rest, all at the same time. A girl will dance with the raggedest, hom- liest young man on the ground if he has a plug of store tobacco in his pocket. They usually have very fine music at the dances, they have an old fiddle strung up with wire strings, and" two play on it. One plays with the bow, and the other plays with two sticks about the size of a small lead pencil, and about eight inches long. Three Years in Arkansaw 75 One beats time on the strings, while the other plays with the bow. There is but very few tunes they can play, but if a man can play one tvme that is good for an all night's dance. He will just play the same tune over and over and over. There is one tune I think every fiddler in Arkansaw can play. It has a great many names, but is com- mon, called: *'A Dog in a Difficulty," or 'The Unfortunate Pup. ' ' There was a stranger from Texas started to play for a set one night at a country dance, and he v\^as going to call the set for them; he was a fine fid- dler; he commenced a tune, and commenced to call in the Texas style ; he yelled out swing your partners, and about half of them started; then he said, all prom- enade, then they all stopped and stood there, and looked at one an- other, and at him all at once a big girl stepped to the door, and said, *'Dick come in here, and call this set for us." In walked a big barefooted long-haired ragged 16- year old boy, and backed up in the comer and said: **Air you all ready"; the girl said *'Yes," and then she said: ''Now, stran- ger play us the old tune." He started out pretty lively, when the boy, with a voice like a steam- boat whistle said, come and go — Bring and fetch — ring and twist — take your partner by the craw, and swing her all round old Arkansaw, By that tim^ BOY THAT CALLED THE DANCE 76 Three Years tn Arkansaw they were going around so fast you could hardly tell the boys and girls apart, and I got so dizzy headed, and sea- sick, I had to go out for fresh air. I stopped in out of the rain one day at a typical Arkansawyer's home. The old man was sitting in the cor- ner sawing away on an old fiddle, his wife was trying to start a fire with some wet wood, while the barefooted, halt-naked children were shivering with cold, but the old man didn't appear to pay any attention to me, his wife or the freezing children, but kept saw- ing away on the old fiddle. Finally he said to me, "I am laming to play a nev\^ tune called ' ' Hell among the yearlings." I thought it would be more ap- propriate if he would call it "Hell in Arkan- saw." The women are very NEVER SAW LiGHTBREAD Strong, and tough as Three Years in Arkansaw 77 boiled owl.^ They can go to a dance and dance half the night, and sit on a pumpkin and hold the baby the other half, and hoe cotton all the next day, but the men are better to their wives in Arkansaw than any other state. They have been known to go with them out in the hot sun, and help them hoe cotton all day long. There was a man that lived near Jansen, and came to my house one day, and said he wanted to buy a loaf of light bread to take home and show his wife. He had a wife and three or four child- ren, and he said his wife had never seen any of that kind of bread. I sold him a loaf, and he went his way rej oicing. But in a few days he came back, and said they were going to his father-in- law's the next day, which was Sunday, and he said he wanted another loaf to show to his wife's mother, as she had never seen any bread like that. One young man, a native of Arkansaw, said the people had more good things to eat and lived bet- ter than any other state, he said, "My father was the best liver in the state, he had more good things to eat than anybody I ever saw. My! he said, there was hardly ever a Christmas passed that we did not have biscuits." A wedding is a very small thing in Arkansaw, except the dance which generally lasts all night. They generally invite all the neighbors for a few miles around, and the preacher or the Justice of the Peace comes and ties the knot, and they do the rest. There was a country wedding near Jan- sen while I was there. The neighbors gathered in, 78 Three Years in Arkansaw and the women was all in the house, the girl had washed with boughten soap, and put on her new dress, and combed her hair, and they were all sit- ting around and picking wool, and the men were all out in the edge of the woods, and had a log- heap built up, and was all standing around telling yarns. When the preacher and the young man to be slaughtered arrived on the scene. They BRIDE BRIDEGROOM went right in, of course. The men all followed them, and the little log hou.se was jam full of sight seers. When they went in, the young lady, the bride, had a big hunk of wool, picking away as un- concerned as any of them. The preacher made them stand up right in front of the fireplace, with their backs to the fire, and face the crowd, while he proceeded with the ceremony But the bride Three Years in Arkansaw 79 did not lay down her wool she kept on picking while he was swearing in the young man, but when he asked her if she would care for him in sickness and cook for him in health, and be his wife the remainder of her life, she stopped picking wool, studied for a minute; took the sntiif stick out of her mouth; turned around, spit a stream of tobacco juice into the fire, and said, "I reck- on." Then he pronounced them man and wife, and started home. Inside of fifteen minutes they had kicked the dogs out doors, rolled the pump- kins under the bed, set the chairs around the w^all, tuned up the fiddle, mated out two sets, and was dancing. You could have heard them a mile. They didn't stop for supper, when one would get hungry they would run out in the shed kitchen and eat a roasted sweet potato, wash it down with a cup of branch water, take a fresh chew of tobacco and go on with the dance. The natives used to bring lots of marketing to the stores, and after the railroad was completed there was lots of sawmills around the towns, and the natives would peddle their eggs and turnip greens around the sawmill camps. The mill firms had checks they would pay their hands with, that were good at their commissaries for the face amount in goods, so the mill hands would trade their checks to the natives for vegetables. There was one young man came in to Jansen, and traded his greens to the sawmill hands for checks, and went home with them, and didn't get any goods that day. When he got home he gave the checks and one silver c^ollar to his father, who inspected them to :^o Three Years in ArkansaW see whether they were good or not. He found one was on Mathews & Graham. "Well," said he, "That check is all right, I know Mr. Graham. He is good. "Here is one on Bess & Teasdale, I know them, the}^ are all right, but here is one I don't know anything about, it says on one side United States of America, One — dollar, and on the other, I don't know what that is, it says, "E Pluribus Unum, In God we trust." I never heard of that trust before nor I never herd of the E. Pluribus unum, milling firm. Son, I am really ashamed of you to fool you mother's greens away for the likes of this." "Father, they said that was one dollar good to buy anything with, anywhere here or at Hot Springs, or Little Rock." "Well, they may be acquainted with these people but I be blamed if I ever herd of um afore, now sons, next time you go to town you take this E. Pluribus Unum check to Jacob Lutes, and tell him to send your mother that amount in snuff and jest bring whatever he gives you and don't ax any questions, for he man't suspect it was no good and not take it, and your poor old mother would be outen her greens." The town grew for a while all right, but for some unknown cause the railroad got turned against the place, and concluded to kill it, and they sent a little slim redheaded 22 short real estate man by the name of Mickey down there for townsite agent. He would go round with a paper collar on that he would have to get up on a stump to spit out, he was fresh from Kansas City. He went in partners Three Years in Arkansaw 8i with Bowser, the worst old Mossback in Ark- ansaw. His head looked like a seed wart, and his ears w^asn't mates, and his pants patched with three or four kinds of cloth. His hat was not patched, but needed it awful bad. They put me in the mind of a team I broke prairie with in Western Nebraska in the seventies. One was an old bull, and the other was a little sorrel pony. We had to turn the harness upside down to make them fit the bull, and occasionally the pony would have his tail over the lines, a-kicking and a-pulling back, and that was the way with the Mickey & Bowser real estate firm; if a dude from, the city would come along, Mickey would try to sell him property ; but Bowsei didn't want that kind of settlers in the town or country, so he would dishearten the fellow, and get him to leave, and if a native from Southern Massoury or eastern Arkansaw would come along, Bowser would try hard to sell him a town lot or a farm, but Mickey would have his tail over the fine and kicking and pulling back and tell the fellow they was selling lots of lots and land to such fel- lows as himself from Kansas, and that would spoil Bowser's sale. And the consequences were that nobody came, and what was there left, and now it is only an egg and snuff station. That is, the natives sell eggs and buy snuff in the town. I have seen lots of towns built out of doors, but Jan sen was the first one I ever saw built in a hog pen. Francis Cecil had about fourteen old sows and about four hundred pigs and shoats. We could scold and dog them off in daytime, but at S2 Three Years in Arkansaw night the}^ would eat up everything outside, and almost turn the house over trying to get in the cupboards. They would root the houses off the foundations, and we would have to go around in the morning and put them back. And the town of a morning would look like we had a Kansas Cylcone every night. I finally got tired of living there, and we put out the fire, and called the dogs, and moved to Mena, Polk Co. I don't know why they named the town Mena, for the people there were no meaner than the people in the rest of the towns in that part of the hills. The railroad had their roundhouse there, and it was the only passenger division be- tween Port Arthur and Kansas City on the P. G. Railroad. Mena was about one year old w^hen I went there, and had a population of about three thousand people. They v/ere v/onderfully mixed. Some from the North, some from the South, some rail- road men and some natives, but they all seemed to get along very well together. They all had one object in view and that was to get the Almighty Dollar, and they were very few and almighty hard to get. Everything ran very smoothly until the city election came up. There were tw^o political parties — the natives and the new comers. But as a man had to be in the State six months before he could vote, it disfranchised lots of the new com- ers, and the natives elected an old moonshiner of thirty years' reputation for mayor ; he looked like a cross between a gate post and the running gears of a goose nest ; and he also acted as Police Judge, Three Years in Arkansaw 83 but he made a very good judge when he was tem- pered just right. He had hved in that immediate neighborhood for thirty years and made his own w^hiskey and some for the neighbors, who would pay him for it. •So it took just about a quart of a morning to steady his nerves so he could hold court; but if he drank too much he was no good, and if he didn't get enough he would go to sleep during the trial. One day he was try- ing a lady for some minor of- POLiCEGUDGEOPMENAfense, and during the prog- ARKANSAW rcss of the trial, he sat there smoking an old pipe, the old lady told him he was no gentleman for smoking in the presence of ladies during the trial, and he fined her One Dollar for contempt of Court. He had about a quart too much in him that day. On another occasion, he was hearing a case, or trying to, when the whiskey died in him and he went to sleep during the trial. The lawyers w^ould wake him up, and proceed with their arguments, but he would soon be sound asleep again. They didn't know what to do. They didn't want to send for more whiskey and tank him up, for nothing less than a quart would put him in shape, so the lawyers agreed to adjourn court, by mutual consent until the Judge got his nap out and got his nerves steadied so he could hear the case. 84 Three Years in Arkansaw On one occasion an officer brought in a tramp, a full-blooded Paddy, right from the pot gang, known in civilized countries as hobos. The judge looked at him a minute and said: "Sir, you are charged with vagrancy. What have you to say to the charge?" ''Well," said he, "I'll jest tell you how it was, Guy ; it was j est like dis . I hiked twenty stretches yesterday, and of course I was a little weary. I was going down to de glim shop to take a flop when I run against de bull and got pinched, and he trode me in de soup house cas he thought I had me slops on, See?" "What did you say?" said the Judge. "You see," said the hobo, "I hiked twenty stretches, was a little weary, and was going down to de glim shop to flop; well when I was hiken up de main stem I spoted a guy with a bum lamp and a fiat wheel and a sop in his mit, he was the collar and he run me in cause he thought I had me slops on, but I am no booze fighter, Judge you can tell by my dukes I am a swell grafter see." " Say young man," said the judge. " You must talk United States, or get an interpreter, I can't understand that lingo you Honor," said the Po- liceman (who had been on the police force long enough to understand hobo language) . When this dusty Knight of the road tells you he has hiked twenty stretches, he means he walked twenty miles, and being a bit weary he says, he was going to the glim shop to flop, meaning that he was going to the electric light plant to flop down and sleep ; when he says he was hiken up the main Three Years in Arkansaw 85 stem, he means he was walking up main street; he also states that he run against de bull and got pinched meaning that he met an officer who arrested him, he says I had a bum lamp and a flat wheel, and a sop in my mit, meaning that I had my eye tied up was limping on one leg and had a club in my hand ; he says you's can tell by his dikes that he is a hard grafter meaning that you can tell by his hands that he is a hard working man, but your honor can tell better by his talk that he is a real Johny Yagden, and never worked a day in his life and I ask your honor to give him ten days on the rock pile. "Ten days" said his honor, and the court adjourned, p The old Judge summoned me one day on a Jury. He got a dozen of us down to his office and told us he wanted us to hold an inquest over a dead nigger. Now, we didn't like the job very well but he didn't consult our wishes but swore us in and told us where we would find the remains. We went over there and found them. It was a large fleshy black woman that would have weighed about two hundred and seventy five pounds. She was lying on the bed all covered up, except her face. She looked natural and as though she was asleep. Some of us went into the house, and some only looked in at the door. The question arose whether she was dead or not. We were all afraid to touch her for if she had moved we would have gone out the door like sheep over a fence. Finally, I suggested that we get a young chicken and fry it nicely and hold it up before her and if she didn't reach for 86 Three Years in Arkansaw it, she was dead. I knew that much about a nigger. She didn't reach for it, so we pronounced her dead, but the question was how did she come to her death. She lived alone and she was dead when her friends found her. There might have been a dozen bullet holes through her, but we didn't want to uncover her to see, so we decided she died with heart failure. That is, her heart failed to beat, but we never knew why it stopped beating. There were very few niggers in tha-( part of Arkansaw and what few there were oc- casionally found themselves dead of a morning, but they were like all other niggers. When they won't reach for a piece of fried chicken you can prepare for a funeral. I ran a hotel at Mena about nine months. I called it the Midland, be- cause it was about half way between Civilization in Texas and Missouri. I had a large number of boarders. I had three Sec- tion Crews of the Railroad. One ran North, one South, and the Yard Crew, be- sides some of the Round House boys, some mer- chants, some carpenters and loafers and there were lots of Northern people who came to look at the cheap land. I got them, but they didn't stay long. SOCIETY LADY OF MENA ARKANSAW Three Years in Arkansaw 87 I had two natives to patronize my hotel. One was a farmer, who came to the back door and asked me if I would sell him a lunch for his hound. He had a hound pup about half grown, for which he had neglected to bring along anything to eat. He could do without until he got home, but not his hound. I fixed up a ten-cent lunch, and gave it to him. He took it and went away, but I think they divided it after they got out of town, and they both ate together. The other native that patronized me was an old man and his wife. Their home was about forty miles east of town, near Mount Ida, che county seat of ]\Iontgomery County. They happened in town aboat dark and had to stay all night. I told them my rates w^ere $1.00 a day, 2 5c a meal, and 2 5c for a bed. They didn't know what to do. Thev said they were very old, had raised a large fam'ily, and their children were all married and gone from home and they had never eaten a meal or slept at a hotel in their lives. I persuaded and finally got them in and took them upstairs to a good room, and went down and left them. But pretty soon they came down in the of- fice with their baggage, and wanted to know if I had a room down stairs that I could give them. I told them there was not. "Well," said the old man, 'This is a free country and I would rather sleepout imder atree than that high off the ground, and if you can't give us a room down here, we will go out and sleep under a tree." I tried to reason with him. It was only a two-story house, but his wife said, "No, we can't sleep that high off the ground." She said, "My! Suppose one of us should get up in the night and fall down them 88 Three Years in Arkansaw stairs. It would kill us as old as we are." I had to go to a second-hand store and get a bed spring and mattress and fix a bed downstairs for them, but the next morning when I told him that his bill was $1.50, he almost fainted. T tried to ex- plain to them that 25c a meal and 25c for a bed was 75c each, and total of $1.50, but he couldn't understand it that way. He said if he had known it would have cost more than a half dollar they would have gotten a lunch and slept under a tree. Mena is ninety miles west of Hot Springs, and as I had never been to Hot Springs, I thought a trip overland in a carriage would be very nice. I found a man by the name of Pete Cook, w*ho had a little busi- ness over at Hot Springs, so he furnished the team and rig, and I furnished him a K^ ^ Vlfllf M small amount of money and Y/ILrf' we started early in the morn- — o \ ^^g^ Now, Pete was a very nice fellow. He was native born and raised — but he had been around a great deal for a native ; had actually been clear out of the state one or two times and he knew a great deal more than the average Arkansawyer, and he knew a great deal more when he got home than he did when he started, and some of it he learned without my telling him. We got along very well the first half day. The BELLE OP MENA ARKANSAW Three Years in Arkansaw 89 roads were rough and rocky. We passed through a little country town, called Board Camp, and one called Black Springs, went over mountains, crossed little rocky creeks, some of them twenty times or more, but we camped for dinner at a big spring on Butcher Knife Creek. It was a fine little stream running into the Wachita River, and where we camped were some very fine springs and an old farm house that had been built for many years. We ate our dinner, fed the team, walked around a little, talked to the natives some and hitched up and drove on, for we had no time to lose. It was a hard two days' drive, and we wanted to get to a certain farm house to stay all night. I had heard about the Arkansaw traveler all my life, and the place where the old Baptist preacher rode up, and the old man and woman and a lot of big girls came to the door when he said that he was looking for the lost sheep of the House of Israel, and one of the big girls hunched the old man in the ribs with her elbow and said : "Paw, I bet that is the old ram that was here yesterday." Well, I had only heard of them, but Pete knew where the family lived, and as he was a native he could per- suade them to let us stay all night with them. So we ponded the horses on the kidneys up hill and down, for there was but little level road. The top of some of the hills was so sharp when the fore wheels would be going down hill, the hind wheels would be coming up the other side, and the coup- ling pole would nearly drag the point ofi" the hill. We passed Wildcat Bottom that evening. The reason they call it Wildcat Bottom is because an old settler saw a big wildcat fight there one day,; go Three Years in Arkansaw when he was sitting on the fence hoeing corn, for that is the way they hoe corn in Arkansaw\ They sit on the fence most of the time. But he was sit- ting on the fence when he saw the two old Thomas wild cats come together. They came up on their hind feet, and when they got together each one commenced to climb the other, and in fifteen min- utes they were out of sight in the air, but he could hear them squalling two hours after they were out of sight, and the blood and hair fell for two days. So we hurried to get out of Wild Cat Bottom be- fore night, as we were a little afraid of the Cats, but we got along all right and long before Sun- down we reached the old farmhouse so long talked and sung about. As we got in a little early, they were just finishing their work. The old woman — and she is getting very old now — had been picking geese, and you couldn't tell w^hich grew on her head, hair or feathers, as it contained an equal amount of each. She had her sleeves rolled up un- til you could see the hair under her arms. Her dress came just a little below her kneecaps, and was a Mother Hubbard, with a puckering string around the waist, and made of Flour sacks of dif- ferent brands of flour, and she hadn't washed the letters out. So a man would notice the letters about as quick as he would the woman. There were large letters behind, that said, "Early Ri- ser." In front, it said, 'Tillsbury's Best." One of the big girls was with the old lady. She did not have on enough clothes to pad a crutch or wad a gun. She had on a calico dress, and that was all. She was barefoot, and bareheaded, and the holler Three Years in Arkansaw 91 of her foot would kill a pis-ant. The old man came out to see who had come. He had a very quick step, like he wasn't so very old, but his head looked like it had w^orn out two or three bodies. The hair was off in spots, like an old dog in the Summer time, caused by eating coald beef in coald weather; he said the tallow got hard and stuck to the top of his mouth, and they built a fire on top of his head to mealt it out, and it burnt his hair off, and it never grew back, only in spots. He was dressed very well, considering every- thing. He had on a coon skin cap, striped shirt, high-water pants. His pants were not very ragged. They had been, but his wife had half soled them with a tobacco sign that the pedler had nailed on a tree. She had sewn it on to the gable end of his pants with a waxed end, and there was the big letters that said ''Granger Twist." I let Pete do the talking, as he was a native. He said they had made quite a change in the place since he and his father used to stop with them, and he almost claimed relation to them, so they in- vited us to stay all night before we asked them. So we got out. I took the empty grub box into the house, while Pete and the old man proceeded to put away the ponies. I went in the house and took a seat near the door, so I could watch the performance out doors and in the house. The old lady was quite an interesting talker. She was tongue-tied; her tongue was tied in the middle, and both ends shaking like a fidler's elbow. She told me all about the neighbors and neighbors' children, and how they had lived before the war and since, but when I asked her the distance to 92 Three Years in Arkansaw different towns she said I would have to ask her son, Dick. She said Dick knew^ everything, for he had traveled everywhere, and knew it all. I asked her what countrys he had traveled in, and she said all of them, he has been every- where. I asked her if he was a sailor. ''No," she said, "he had traveled two years with a thresh- ing machine." But I didn't care anything about her Dick's traveling. What I wanted was sup- per, and as there were lots of chickens in the yard I remarked that they must get lots of eggs. **Yes," she said, "but we never eat any of them, we always set, or sell them." That sort of stunned me. For I thought we would have eggs for supper and breakfast, but I talked right on, and finally I re- marked: "You have some very nice frying chickens." "Yes, for we haven't sold any yet this summer." "Don't you ever eat any?" I re- ^ marked. "No," she said, "we w^4^ never eat any young chickens. We always sell the fryers and keep the pullets. All the chick- ens we eat are roosters, and then not until he gets so old he can't catch a hen." About that time Pete came in and sat down by n)e, and READY TO BE^'kiLLED Said '. * ' What do you think about staying all night?" "Well," I said, "it depends upon where the drop falls." "What do you mean?" says Pete. "Well," said I, "do you see, the old woman in there mixing up the bread?" "Yes," says Pete. "Do you see that snuff stick sticking out of her mouth?" "Yes." "Do you Three Years in Arkansaw 93 see that drop of tobacco juice and hairs hanging on the end of the snuff stick?" "Yes." "Well, I am watching that, and if it falls in the bread I am not going to stay." We sat there and watched, and pretty soon it fell on the outside of the pan. "Well," said I, "we are safe on first! We'll stay!" Pete went out to the bam to talk to the old man and help attend to the horses, but I stayed in the house to watch the cooking. I noticed the old lady fix. the churn as though she was going to chum, then she went out doors and pretty soon she came in with a big bull frog in her apron and threw him in the churn and covered him up, and went about her work getting supper. She was a good talker, but like myself, had but little educa- tion, and sometimes she would get the right words in the wrong place and sometimes the wrong words in the right place ; but like a nigger, she wanted to use big words. I asked her if there was many doc- tors in the country. She said they was few and far between. I asked her which she liked the best, the Ostapath, Homopath or Alipath. She said she did not know anything about the Oxpath, but she thought the Homopath was all right for the infantry, but she would prefer an Alipath in the case of adultery. She put on her cornbread and meat, and put some sweet potatoes in the ashes to roast, and pretty soon I thought I heard someone singing a long ways off. I couldn't imagine where it was, but pretty soon she uncovered the chum, and there was the old frog. He had to kick to keep on top of the cream to keep from drowning, and he 94 Three Years in Arkansaiv IN AN ARKANSAW KITCHEN Three Years in Arkansaw 95 had kicked until he had churned the cream into a big ball of butter, and was sitting on the btitter, floating around singing, ''We're on the ocean sail- ing." The old woman then took him by the back and put him out doors, and took the butter up on a plate and sat down and commenced talking to me and all the time she kept running her finger through the butter, back and forth, and every little while she would pick some hairs off her fin- ger and throw them in the fire. She saw I was watching her, so she asked me if my wife strained her milk or haired her butter. I said she strained her milk. She said she used to, but it was too much trouble, so she just haired her butter. Now, I had made up my mind that I didn't want any of the hair or butter. I noticed every time she had to reach up for anything she would stand on her heel instead of her toes, she could reach higher. She had a foot like a gaybird— the long- est toe behind. Supper was about done, so she began to prepare the table, or the stump—for the house was a log house, built aroimd a big stump, and they use the stump for a table, so she began to prepare the stump. She didn't have any stump cloth or table cloth^ so she used one of the old man's shirts, and one of hers, and spread them over the stumip, with the sleeves and necks hanging down each way, and the tails laid across the middle of the stump. She didn't have many dishes, and they were mighty old and badly niched up. She only had six case-knives and they all had names, so she would know them, and if one was lost she would know which one it was. Their names were 96 Three Years in Arkansaw Big Butch, Little Butch, Old Case, Cob Handle, Granny's Knife, and the one that mother cut the gut with. After they got the stump set, she took up the com bread and meat and roasted sweet potatoes, and put on the butter and supper w^as ready. She called the old man and Pete and part of the children, herself and I made a stump full, and there was enough children left to make another stump full. They only had two chairs, and they gave them to Pete and me, and the old man sat on a box. The children stood up, and the old lady sat on the churn. Now they say the smell of cooking will drive away hunger, but the sight of that had completely vanished my appetite, and I didn't feel like eating a bite, but I took a roasted sweet potato, and they had buttermilk, coffee and branch water to drink, so I washed my sweet po- tato down with a cup of branch water and shoved back; but poor Pete, I. never saw a man eat so hearty as he did. He just kept eating com bread and butter and sweet potatoes and butter, and he drank about a half dozen pint cups of that butter- miilk ; every time he would hand his cup for more buttermilk the old woman was too lazy to get up, but would lean way over to one side of the churn that she was sitting on, and run that long-handled gourd into the chum and bring out another cup full for Pete. Now, I got uneasy about him, for I had heard of pigs drinking buttermilk until they would burst, and I was afraid Pete was making a hog of himself. I couldn't tramp his toes, for I couldn't get my feet under the stump. I noticed the meat dish move a little, and directly it moved again. Now, it sat near the middle of the stump, Three Years in Arkansaji' 97 and no one was touching it or pulling the shirt, or tablecloth. Pretty soon it moved again, and then the old lady said, ''Michael, you had just as well let that old cat out." "Well," said the old man, "I s'pose I had," and he raised up the shirt tail and reached down in the stump and got an old cat by the top of the head, and set her out on the floor. Then I understood it. The stump was hollow, and old Puss had kittens down in the hole, and she could smell the grub, and she wanted her supper, too. After the old man lifted the cat out, Pete con- cluded that he would ring off. We all got up and let the other section eat, and they lined up around the stump and went after it like a biting sow. After supper was over we sat around and the old man told us about his experience as an early settler in that country in the 60 's. But I was too sleepy to enjoy it and then I was feeling a little scared about poor Pete for he had eaten about enough for three men and I noticed that he was not easy, by any means. Finally the children all went up stairs to bed, or rather, the pole for they had a black jack sapling set up 'n one comer for a ladder. The limbs had been cut off about a foot long so the children could climb it easy, and the whoie herd went up stairs to sleep except the two old folks and Pete and I. The old man and woman f\rent to bed down stairs and told Pete and me that we could bring in our things and sleep on the floor. That struck us pretty hard, for we gS Three Years in Arkansauf only had a macintosh to spread down, and covered with a St. Louis Republic but we laid down and said nothing, but before we went to sleep, I heard the old woman say, " Mikel, Say, Mikel." "What," saidMikel. " Did you turn the chickens ? " *'No," said Mikel. " Well then I will get up and go turn them." So the old woman got up and went out in the little shed kitchen, and I heard the chickens making a fuss for about two minutes and she came back and went to bed again. *'Gosh," I said to myself, " I wonder what in the world she meant by turning the chickens." I had never heard of the like before. I couldn't go to sleep for thinking about it, and being womed about poor Pete. He had gone to sleep, but he kept up such a groaning and sighing in his sleep, that it kept me uneasy, and it kept running through my mind what in the world did she mean by turning the chickens. Finally I was about to go to sleep when Pete raised up in bed, looked all aroir.id drew a long breath, and with a sigh he said "Lor-r-r-d." "Lordy," says I, "What's the matter, Pete." I have to go out. Well said I, if that is the case you had better be going. He put on his shoes and hat and away he went We slept with all our clothes on but our shoes and hats. He came back after awhile and lay down. I tried to go to sleep but that turning the chickens kept running through my mind and I could see the mountains we had driven over, and how near we came to the precipice on those poor country roads, and I was about to go to sleep again, when Pete said Lordy, and up he got and put on his Three Years in Arkansaw 99 shoes and out he went. I turned over to rest the othei* side as the floor was jabbing my hip bones through the Mackintosh, but Pete came back and went to bed and we both went to sleep,' but I hadn't been to sleep long when Pete kicked me and that wakened me up, but about the same timxC, he said ''Gosh," and jumped up and put on one shoe and went out the door a flying. I turned over again and went to sleep. Pretty soon a squalling noise wakened me up and old Puss had company. There sat she and Old Tom right in front of the fire, facing each other, and shaking their fists and calling each other names and spitting in each other's faces. I looked for a club and there sat one of Pete's shoes for he had gone in a hurry and neglected to put one on. I got that shoe and threw it with all my might and hit old Tom on the right side of the left ear and turned him about three tim.es around and the last round his tail swiped through a bed of red hot coals and set it on fire from stem to stern. He spit and jumped for life and about the second jump he went out a crack in the house they used for a window, and when he struck the ground on the outside he called ''Muriah-h-h-a-a-a-a." You could have heard him a mile, but she had done gone down through a knot hole in the floor. I laid down and pulled the paper up over my shoulders and said to myself, ''I w^onder what in the world she meant b}?- turning the chickens." But about that time I heard poor Pete coming back, making that old shoe pat on the ground, as he ran. He came in and shut the door awful I. ore. loo Three Years in Arkansaw quick, pulled off the shoe, laid down and covered up his head, And I noticed he was breathing awful fast. I said *'Pete what's the matter." "Nuthin," said Pete. ** I can hear your heart beating, I know there is something the matter." **Nope," said Pete. "But," says I, " Pete you are scared in an inch of your life, what did you see." THE CAT PETE SAW **Nothin much, but it looked like a cat, but it wasn't a cat." ** How do you know it wasn't a cat." *'My, it had a tail lo feet long and a solid blaze of fire, and its eves were as big as a saucer." ''Did it hurt you Pete?" "No, but it had just as well as to scare me t^. death. It liked to run over me." ''Where did it go." " It went down through the Jimoson patch and jumped into the Creek." "Did it swim out on the other side?" " I don't know, I didn't stay to see, I came to the house/' lliree Years tn Arkansaw 161 "Why did you run to the house?" "Because I couldn't fly." ''Well, Pete, I guess it was more imagination than anything else." *'No, it was more cat than I ever saw m one bulk." "Well," says I, **We had better go to sleep, for it is after midnight now, and we have a hard drive tomorrow." So I turned over and said to myself, I wonder what in the world she meant by turning the chickens. We both went to sleep and the first thing I knew the old man and woman were up; the okl woman was gectir.g breakfast. I nudged Pete and asked him how he felt. "Oh, I feel like I had been sick a month, I had such fearful dreams last night. I was drunk and fighting all night in my dreams." "Well," said I, "After the amount of supper you ate, it is a wonder you slept any at all." He put on his shoes and went out to feed the horses. I staid in to chat with the old lady, and about the first thing I asked her was what she meant last night when she asked the old man if he had turned the chickens. "Why, the chickens roost on the meal barrel and we always turn their heads in and their tails out so they w^on't spoil the meal during the night." That explained the whole thing to me, I knew right away v/hat had caused the whole trouble. It was that bull-frog buttermilk and the hen roost bread that had soured on poor Pete's ponch and had him puking all over the Jimpson patch. The old lady said to me, "Did youns all sleep good last night.'* 102 Three Years in Arkansaw "Well," said I, "what sleep I got was very good." I thought I heard one of youns up in the night. "Yes, poor Pete was awful sick in the night." "What on earth was alen' ov him?" "Well, I will tell you. He had a camistified exegesis antispasmaticly, eminating from the germ of his animal refrigerator, and it produced a prolific source of iritiability in the pericranean epidurmace of his mental profundity." " I think in my soul, .and I don't see how he lived from one end to the other. And do you think he is liable to take a collapse?" " No, but I thought a while last night that he was liable to collapse." "Yes, and him and the old man are out to- gether. I hope he hasn't got an^^- ketchin disease that would affect Mikel." "Not in the least, Pete hasn't got anything that is ketching except lice and the Seven-year itch." "You see Mikel is somewhat off his feed just now, and a few days previous was feeling some- what predisposed, and having a groping pain in the abandon, I gave him some patience medicine and I feel convicted, that it seriously repaired his constituencies. He is of an excrable tem- perament, anyway, and has always worried ever since he had the congregation of the lungs and that tonsorial affection." " Oh, if that is all that ails him, you get a box of Aunt Cathartics pills and give him nine of them fifteen times a day, and they will make him T)ush along and keep moving." Three Years, in Arkansaw 103 Breakfast was soon ready, and it didn't take Pete and I long to eat all we wanted, paid our bill, and we hitched up, and was soon on the road taking it turn about walking behind the wagon and pushing up the hills and holding on the brake down the next. When there was a level place where w^e could both ride I would tell Pete ugly stories and laugh at him about that grand supper he had the night before ; but we kept steadily at the stave and lumber business all day — that is we would stave up one hill, and lumber down the next. Pete said we passed through Mt. Ida, the County seat of Montgomery County, but I didn't see an3rthing worth mentioning or anything that looked like a town. But Pete had been there before and they had arrested a stranger that ran his horse through the street. His only defense was that he didn't know he was in town. He thought it was only a wide place in the road. On account of my ignorance of the country and Pete's weakness, we didn't drive very fast and it was after dark when we got in sight of Hot Springs. The moon had just raised a leetle above the hills. When we got in sight of town and saw tlie electric lights come in view right under the moon, Pete exclaimed, '*0h, look "onder, the moon has had young ones." *'No," said I, ''that is electric lights on the streets." ''Well," said Pete, "I thought it was young moons." We were not long finding a wagon yard and put up the team, and stayed all night. We would take in the sights in the day time, and at night we would stay in the wagon yard. I an. t04 Three Years in Arkansaw not going to try to describe the town for I couldn't if I wanted to. But to use a plain expression, it is a warm town — ^both the water and the people. It is a town of hotels. Take them and the water away and it would be a match for Mt. Ida — only a wide place in the road. It should have been called ''The Devil's Springs" instead of Hot Springs, because the Devil owns nearly every- thing else in and around the town and they ought not to rob him of his water right. There were all kinds of people at Hot Springs and they had all kinds of diseases. The people come not only from all over the United States, but a great many from other countries. It is under the Arkansas law, but the residents there run the town to suit themselves, and the way they did rob the people that came there was a holy fright. They not only robbed the living, but they would rob a dead man if he had any money. One poor fellow who was almost dead went up on the hill in the Government Park and shot himself with a revolver. The Justice of the Peace got a jur}^ to hold an inquest over the dead body. They took him to an office and found $53.00 in cash on him, and they fined him $50.00 for carrying concealed weapons and took the $50.00 for the fine and $3.00 for costs, and Jury, Judge and all went down to a saloon and spent the mone}^ for whiskey and all got drunk. Then they turned the body over to the County to bury him in the potter's field. That is what I call robbing the dead. If any one doubts this, Dr LeGrace, who nov\r lives in Shawnee, Oklahoma, ?4an tell you the rest. Three Years in Arkansaw T05 Pete and I soon learned all we wanted to know about Hot Springs. We hitched up early in the morning and hit the high and low places for Mena. We went back another road than the one we came for several reasons. One was the people didn't know us on the road we went back, and we wanted to camp out at night as we would rather sleep under the wagon than on the floor, on account of the quality of the bed and the price and Pete said he was afraid he would never have a hankering after corn bread and butter any more. We drove along till nearly dark when we came to a nice place to camp near a house. Pete told me to hold the horses while he went over to the house and asked perm^°3sion to camp there; he went across the branch and nearly to the house, when out came three or four big yellow dogs, over the fence and they grabbed poor Pete, threw him down, and started dr aging him down the hill, I could see his head going bump, bump, bump, down the hill over the beach roots and rocks. I wanted to run and help him but I had to hold the horses, and besides that I knew it was very dangerous to hurt an Arkansawyer's dog ; btit finally Pete got up and got them kicked loose and V\^as fighting them off when the lady of the house who had heard the noise came to the door and looked at them for a minute and called at the top of her voice and said, ''Come right on in the dogs won't bite," they had drug him fifty yards and tore his pants nearly off of him then, she came out with the broom and nm them back to the house, talked to Pete a few minutes and he came back to the wagon and said, £o6 Three Years in Arkansaw we would go down on the creek in the woods and camp as he didn't think the wild animals was any more dangerous than the native's dogs. We tore the hems of our shirts and took our handkerchiefs and tied up Pete's wounds and got some bark and what extra pins we had and fixed up his clothes ; he said the lady told him she never knew the dogs to bite anyone ; he said if that was true he would hate to be dogbit. We found a beautiful place to camp, in the thick woods and by a beautiful, clear little mountain stream; we built a camp fire, ate some lunch, and I told Pete some exciting stories that happened in the Rocky Mountains and got his nerves all worked up ; the dogs had disturbed his muscles, and his stomach had not got thoroughly settled and all three had his mind worked up to such a pitch, he was afraid to go to bed for fear when he awoke in the morning he would be dead. I pulled up some weeds and grass, and laid down under the wagon, but Pete went dragging brush and putting it around the w^agon, and brading it in the wheels until he could hardly get under himself. He said he didn't care for the owls a hooting or the wolves howling, biit he didn't want any dogs that wouldn't bite to come a prowling around. We had a splendid night's sieep, Pete was better all over when he got up the next morning, his mind was relieved, his nerves w^as quite settled and sores healing, and we were soon on the road singing * Home, Sweet Home ' ; only trouble Pete was like a hog with the colery ; he kept drinking all day; if he hadn't been afraid of the dogs he Three Years in Arkansaw 107 would have stopped at every house for a drink. When the well or spring was close to the road, and a goard hanging close by, he would ahvays get a drink, and talk awhile if he saw any body to talk to, and try to claim relation to the most of them. We were riding along near by a large canebrake when we saw a lot of little pigs lying in a bed OLD sow AFTER PETE near by the road side, says Pete, "I will get one of them and take it home for a pet." He jumped out of the buggy and slipped up to them and caught the nicest one and started for the wagon but the pig commenced squealing and out came an old sow from the cane break; she was about fourteen hands high and she came for Pete, a flying. Pete dropped the pig and started for loS Three Years in Ar/^ansaw the wagon, as hard as he could run; his eyes a shining like a hounds tooth and a yelling help every jump. I told him to fight. "Can't you whip an old sow?" Pete saw she was going to catch him and so he went up a tree like a coon, at arms length just as he got about up to the first limb the old sow got there and up she went after him. The boo- som of Pete's pants didn't fit him very well and was hanging sorter low, and the old sow just reached up and caught holt of the seat of his pants and commenced pulling down, and Pete had both arms locked ar- ound the limb a pulling up. Pete had only one sus- pender and it fast- ened behind to a button. I stood right up in the wagon a wonder- ing what would give 'way first, Pete's holt on the smm GOT HIM BY HIS PANTS Three Years in Arkansaw 109 limb, the old sow's hold, the pants, the suspender, or the button ; but pretty soon away went the but- ton up went the suspender, off came Pete's pants, down went the old sow, fiat on her back, and up went Pete a stradle of the limb, then I got my breath and hollered, ''safe on first," as Pete was safe on the first limb of the tree, the old sow got up and shook the pants a few times and then put her feet on them and commenced to tear themi in strings ; but she soon found that she had the pants, but no Pete, so she threw them down and flew away in the canebrake to find her pigs. I told Pete to get down and come on and we would go, he said he was afraid, I had to drive the wagon under the tree and Pete, dropped down off the limb in the wagon, I told him to get out and get his pants on, he said, " I will not for two reasons, one is, the old sow may get me, and the other is, they are not w^orth getting." "But what will you do?" I said. "I will do like I did when I was a little boy, I will do without." But I got off the wagon and got the pants, or strings as they appeared to be, and we both managed to get them on him, and tied them up with hickory bark as best we could. Then Pete sat down and pulled the lap robe up high around him to hide his pants and person, and I drove on, feeling sure we would get home soon as I knew Pete wouldn't get out anymore to get a drink unless it was at a branch in the woods. Pete seemed to be getting weak and weary and downhearted, sick and sore, I told him nice stories and kept him cheered up, and with the assistance no Three Years in Arkansaw «»BTE ASOaVES AT HOME Three Years in Arkansaw iii of a pair of pole lines I pushed the ponies along and arrived in Mena a little before sun down. We came in the back way and up back alleys, for Pete didn't want • to be seen on the front streets, or by any one that knew him; finally we drove up to his house. I hollered hello, and his Vv'ife came out; she looked at the team and then looked at me, and said, "Where in the world is Pete?" ''This is him," said I. " I think in my sole poor Pete what on earth is the matter with you, and what in the world have you been doing." "Don't ask any questions," said Pete, "but go on in the house and turn down the bed." "Well," said I, "Now Mrs. Cook this is all that is left of Pete, and you owe me what ever he is worth to you, for I have fought blood and almost died for him and brought him home in as good shape as I possible could. I think with careful attention, care and food he will soon be all right again if you will keep him at home ; but he will never be able to go to Hot Springs any more. There is not much the matter with him only he eat too much and was scared to death by the cats and eaten up by the dogs and hogs, and had his clothes toren off him that is all, but if I had not been right there to fight for him he w^ould have been eaten up half dozen times and you would have had no more Pete." So I un- harnessed the ponies and put them in the bam and she unharnessed Pete and put him to bed. I would go over and see Pete every few days, and see how he was getting along; he was sick 112 Three Years in Arkansaw abed for three weaks with nervous prostration and other complicated diseases; but he finally got able to be out an the streets and, work a little but he was like a stunted Kansas pig in grass- hopper time, he never did shed off and look fine, fat and froliky like he did before he went to Hot Springs, If he would be walking along and hear a cat squall, a dog bark, or a pig squeel he would jump four feet high, and climb a tree if there was any close by. One reason Pete never went back to Hot Springs, he had too many watches, be- sides an old automatic two faced stem-wind Waterberry. The sheriff, the ragman, his wife and the devil was all watching him. We had a splendid hotel trade at Mena and got money enough to buy a ticket to Shawnee, Oklahoma, and felt Arkansaw like a train from a tramp, and went kerfiap out of the frying pan into the fire. If you will hold your breath about six months I will tell you how it all happened over there in Oklahoma. I hav lived in i6 States But of all I ever saw There is no place like living Down in old Arkansaw. They all wear homade clothing Both the men and females While the children with dirty faces All go in their shirt tails. Three Years tn Arkansaw iii The men drink moonshine whiskey The women chew and dip And the big gals go barefooted With tobacco on their lip. They cook by the fireplace With a skilit and a lid And all liv on black coffee Sow bossom and cornbread. All are free-hearted And respect the moral law As the reason I. love to liv £)own in old Arkansaw. Marion Hughes, Muskogee, I. T THE MYSTIC FORTUNE TELLER V DREAM BOOK AND V POLICY PLAYERS' GUIDE CHIS book contains an alphabetical list of dreams with their significations and lucky numbers, and the getting of fortunes by the Mystic Circle, Cards, Dice, Coffee and Tea Grounds, etc. Also a list of curious superstitions and omens, birthdays, lucky days, their significance and their numbers. It is unquestionably the best and most reliable book of its kind published and is worth many times the price asked for it. Paper covers, printed in two color inks, postpaid, 25 cents. Cloth, unique design stamped in inks, postpaid, 50 cents. COMPLETE GUIDE TO DANCING BALL ROOM ETIQUETTE & QUADRILLE CALL BOOK j^ONTAINING all the new and modern square dances S/g and tabulated forms for the guidance of the leader or f^ others in calling them. Full and complete directions for performing every known square dance, such as Plain Quad- rilles, Polka Quadrilles, Prairie Queen, Varieties Quadrille, Francaise, Dixie Figure, Girl 1 Left Behind Me, Old Dan Tucker, Money Musk, Waltz Lanciers, Military Lanciers, Columbian Lanciers, Oakland Minuet, Waltz Quadrilles, etc. The "Ger man" introduces over One Hundred of the newest and most popular Figures, fully described, and conveniently grouped for ready reference. Everj^ information in regard to the ser- vice of *Ball-Room Etiquette, duties of Leaders and general in- struction is fully and clearly given. Handsomely bound in paper covers, postpaid 2s cents. Cloth, postpaid, 50 cents. M. ^, 'DOJ^OHME, ^m. COMTAJ^y 407-429 DEARBORN ST., CHICAGO. THE GREATEST LIFE OF Abraham Lincoln YET PUBLISHED By HON. JOS. H. BARRETT, anil CHARLES WALTER BROWN, A. M. :?il In this great work which embraces the complete life of the greatest man of modern times, nothing has been omitted or slighted. His early History, Political Career, Speeches, both in and out of Con- gress, the great Lincoln-Douglas De- bates, every state paper, speech, mes- sage and two inaugural addresses are given in full, together with many char- acteristic STORIES AND YARNS by and concerning Lincoln, which have earned for him the sobriquet The Story Telling President, ' In addition there is included a COMPLETE ACCOUNT OP IS ASSASSINATION, death and burial, together with the trial aad execution of his assassins. This immense volume of 850 pages contains nearly 360,000 words, being six times larger than the average school history. Size or book 6^x9, 3 inches thick, weighing nearly 3 pounds. F»RICE, i.o► CHICAGO Famous Books for Boys Famous Frotitiersm@n, Pioneers and Scouts. A thrilling narrative of the lives and marvel* ons exploits of the most renowned Heroes, Trar pers, Explorers, Adventurers and other Scouts and Indian Fighters, by E. G. Gattermole, A. B. 540 pages, over 250 full page portraits and illustrations; bound in English Silk Cloth, stamped in Inks. List price, $1.00. The Boy Spy. By Major Kerbey. A substantially trne record of Secret Service during the Rebellion. A correct account of events witnessed by a soldier attached to headquarters. The only practi- cal history of the war telegraphers in the field. A full account of the mysteries of Signaling by Flags, Torches and Rockets. Thril- ling scenes of Battles, Captures and Escapes. Fully illustrated by True Williams. Large 12mo. Price, $1.00. Boys' Life on the Frontier. By Frank W. Calkins. Containing Frontier Sketches, Indian Tales and Hunting Stories. The most interesting series of experiences ever published. All having originally appeared in the Youth's Companion, which is a guarantee of their superior excellence in every way. Containing 403 pages of large, clear type, and numer- ous illustrations, bound in cloth, stamped in Inks from unique dies. War Path and Bivouas; or. The Conquest of the Sioux. A narrative of stirring p'^ >sona! experiences and adventures on the frontier, and in the cani_)aigns in the Northwest in 1879, by John F. Finerty; containing 468 pages; numerous engravings and illustrations; bound in Cloth; stamped in Inks from unique dies. One of the most interesting works on Frontier Life ever issued. List price, ^1.00. Marohing Through Georgia. Being Pen Pictures of Every Day Life in General Sherman's Army, from the beginning of the Atlanta Campaign unijil the close of the war. By F.Y.Hedley, Adjutant Thirty-Second Illinoi : Infant- ry, with Introduction by Charles Walter Brown,A.M. and wvth illus- trations by F. L. Stoddard. Dedicated by permission to Mrs. John A. Logan ; Autograph letter from General Sherman. 500 pages, large 12mo, cloth. Price 81.00. For sale by all Book and Newsdealers, or will send to any address in the United States, Canada or Mexico, postage prepaid, on re- ceipt of price, in currency, money order or stamps. 407-429 DEARBORN Ss'. £JHIOAao 11. A. Donohue & Co. THE COMPLtTE Buffet Guide Or How to Mix All Kinds of Drinks By V. B. LEWIS. This handy volume gives clear and practical directions for mix- ing all kinds of drinks and beverages as served in first class Clubs, Hotels, Buffets, etc., to which is added complete directions and recipes for making all kinds of domestic Wines, Liquors, Brandies, Beers, Cordials, Syrups, Extracts, etc., together with Hundreds of Toasts and Sentiments For All Occasions. 200 pages Price , 12-mo, fully illustrated ; handsome paper covers. 25c cloth, attractive cover. Price . . .SOc HR N DB OOK OF Universal Information And Encyclopedia of Practical Recipes By CHARLES IV. QU IN , B. A. And MRS. CHARLOTTE G. ADAMS This excellent little volume of 208 pages contains more useful and valuable information for house keepers, farmers, mechanics, merchants, etc., on making of patent medicines, drugs, etc., in- eluding household recipes on cooking, baking, etc., than any book of its size and price published. Hundreds have made fortunes by the valuable recipes given in this book. Send for a copy. Price in paper covers, postpaid 25c In cloth, postpaid 50o For sale by all book and newsdealers, or sent to any ad- dress In the U. S., Canada or Mexico, postage paid, on receipt of price in currency, money order or stamps. M. fl. DONOHVE & CO. '^f^l'^'oT NATURAL HISTORY STOR-IES. We have included in this series a carefully selected number of books that will fascinate and interest, as well as instruct, old and young alike. The books are printed from large clear type; are profusely illustrated and are bound in a substantial and attractive manner in Cloth, artistic- J^ ally stamped in Inks from Unique '^M Dies. Price of each book is $1.00, postpaid. History of Aniinals, TKeir Varieties and Oddities. Comprising graphic descriptions of nearly all known species of beasts and reptiles the world over, illustrating their varied habits, mode of life and distinguishing peculiarities, by means of delightful anecdotes and spirited engravings, by the Rev. W. Bingley, A. M. Containing 586 pages of large, clear type, and over 500 illustrations; bound in Cloth; stamped in Inks from unique dies. Price. $1.00. History of Birds* Containing their varieties and habits, and comprising sketches of every known species of birds in all climes; illustrat- ing their use, value aod culture, by the Rev. W, Bingley, A. M. Containing 500 pages of clear type text and nearly 500 illustra- tions, made especially for this work ; bound in Cloth and stamped in Inks from unique dies. Large 12mo, 6>2x9 inches. Price, $1.00. History of the Sea. Comprising a complete description of all the varieties ot the finny inhabitants of the sea, showing their mode of life, and illus- trating their habits and usefulness, by Rev. W. Bingley, A. M. Containing over 500 pages of large, clear type, and nearly 500 illustrations; bound in Cloth; stamped in Inks from unique ^i^s- Price, $1.00. For sale by all Book and News Dealers, or will be sent to any address in the United States, Canada or Mexico, postage paid, on receipt of price, in currency, money order or stamps. / HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL INFORMATION AND ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PRACTICAL RECIPES By Charles W. Quia, B. A. and Mrs. Charlotte G. AcJams NO HOME IS COMPLETE WITHOUT THIS BOOK **The book is wotth its weight in gold." This is the opinion of thousands who have had occasion to use a few of the hundreds of recipes contained in this valuable work. The contents includes recipes for cooking:, making dyes, beverages — invalid and temperance, etc. It reveals the secret processes of making patent medicines, inventions and discoveries that have brought fortunes to their owners. It tells, of thousands of ways to make and to save money, and is just the book for the house=keeper, farmer, mechanic, r.erchant, laborer and all others who wish to discover the secret road which thousands have traveled to wealth. In addition to all of the above valuable household recipes it is a veritable treas- ure-house of facts and information, including tables of weights and measures, language of flowers, meaning of names — male and female, etc., etc. It is substantially bound In cloth. Price, 75c. In paper covers, 2Sc. postpaid. For sale by all book and newsdealers, or will be sent to any address in the U. S., Canada, Mexico, postage paid, on receipt of price, in currency, money order or stamps. 407-429 Dearborn Street CHICAGO M. A. Doiiohus & Co. Webster's Handy American Dictionary. r'OMtaining 320 pages, 16mo; over 500 illustrations. An ex- ewll<;nt Jictionary for school and office use. Bound in ci©th and title stamped on the front in ink from ornamented dies. Price, 25 Cents. DONOHUE'S WEBSTER'S SCHOOL DICTIONARY AND AMERICAN PtCTORIAL HANDY LEXICON OF THE ENGLISH LANQUAQE Revised, enlarged and corrected to date by Charles Walter Brown, A. M. Over 50,000 words, 300 illustrations. The latest and best dictionary for the price published. Nearly 400 pagea*. Full cloth. Price, 35 Cents. Popular American Dictionary of the English Language. Illustrated and compiled on the basis of Webster, Worcester, Johnson and the most eminent English and American authorities. Containing over thirty-two thousand words with accurate defini- tions, proper spelling and exact pronunciatior, and contains a special department of Law, Banks and EanMng. Complete descriptive Dictionary and Encyclopedia, including Mercantile Law, Constitution of the United States, etc.; 544 pages, 12mo; over 500 illustrations ; bound in cloth, stamp? "^ in ink. Price, 75 Cents. DONOHUE'S WEBSTER'S FAVORlfE DICTIONARY OF VALUABLE INFORMATION AND POPULAR BUSINESS GUIDE. Comprising all Business, Musical and Classical Terms, Abbrevia- tions; Nicknames of Cities and States; Church, Agricultural and Vital Statistics; Synonyms, Words and Phrases, Federal Consti- tution, Mercantile Law, Interest Tables, etc., etc., together with an up-to-date Biographical Dictionary of distinguished persons, with notes of their works, inventions or achievements. Revised from the more comprehensive work of Noah Webster, LL. D. 12mo. Near 300 large pages. Price, 50 Cents. For sale by all Book and Newsdealers, or will send to any ad- dress in the United States, Canada or Mexico, postage prepaid, ob receipt of price, in currency, money order or stamps^ M, A. DONOHUE S. CO. 407-^429 Dea^rborn^ St. ^ CHICAO© ETHAN Am:f THE GREEN 7> B M 7> ^ «# F ALLEN MOUNTAIN BOYS —BY CHARLES WALTER BROWN, A. M. /ktthor of "John Paid Jones,^^ "Nathan Hale,'' 'La/ayette,^'' "IVasktttff' toil," "Atrrakam Lincoln,'" Etc. ILLUSTRATED. The hero of Ticonderoga and leader of the Green Mountain Boys is best known for his characteristic demand upon the British garrison at Fort Ticonderoga, on Lake Champlair, to surrender 'in the name of the Continental Congress and the cireat Jehovah." This book not only gives a full account of the exploits of ^olonel Allen, but contains also a brief history of Vermont, i^merly called the New Hampshire Grants, in her contention with New York authorities, who opposed Vermont's admission into the Union, but which was finally accomplished by Ethan Allen. 12ino, cloth, si^e 6?3X7J^, nearly 300 pages. Price SI. 00 L, I r B ^ /f !> T> E, E, ly ^ OF JOHN PAUL JONES OF NAVAL FAME 8Y CHARLES WALTER BROWN. S M. ILLUSTRATED. American history gleams with the brilliant achievements of her adopted sons. No historian ever wearies in tell- ing of the glorious deeds and self- sacrifices of LaFayette, DeKalb, Pulas- ki, Kosciuszko, DeGrasse, Eochambeau, Steuben, St. Clair, D'Estaing and John Paul twines, who gave up home and countr> to aid the struggling colonists in their long fight for freedom. This is one of the most patriotic books, both from a literary and artistic standpoint, ever issued. It is printed on a superior quality of paper with a dozen or more half-tona portraits of the prineipaf actors who participated in our struggle for independence, together with a chart and views of Jones' most daring exploits on the coasts of England and on the Black Sea, with his portrait in the full uniform of Admiral of the United States Navy, of which he was the fminder. Cover stamped in red, white and gold on a navy blue salk cloth, showing in beautiful colors the colonial flags and American saieid with its thirteen stars and stripes, with Jones' sword la gold as ornamental back stamp. Sis©, 5%x7% ; neatrly seepages; 12mo; cloth. Price. $1.0a M. ^yi. ID^NOHl/B i^L CO> 407-429 Deayborn Street. CHICAGO PATRIOTIC RECITATIONS AND READIN6S Compiled by Cha^rles WeJter Brown. A. M. This is the choicest, newest and most complete collection of Patriotic recitations published, and includes all of the best known selections, together with the best utterances of many eminent states- men. Selections for Decoration Day, Fourth of July,Washington's, Grant's and Lincoln's Birthdays Arbor Day, Labor Day, and all ether Patriotic occa- sions. There are few more enjoyable forms of amusement than entertainments and exhibitions, and there is scarcely anything more difficult to procure than new and meritorious material appropriate for such occasions. This book is designed to fill the want. Handsomely bound in Paper Covars 25 Cents Cloth 50 Cents COMPLETE GUIDE TO DANCIN6 Ball Room Etiqueffe and Quadrille Call Book Jouiaining all the new and modern square dances and tabulated forms for the guidance of the leader or others in calling them. Full and complete directions for performing every fenown square dance, such as Plain Quadrilles. Pcika Quadrilles, Prairie Queen, Varieties Quadrille, Francaise, Dixie Figure, Girl I Left Behind Me. Old Dan Tucker, Money Musk, Waltz Lanciers, Military Lanciers, Columbian Lanciers, Oakland Minuet, Waltz Quadrilles, etc. The "German" introduces over One Hundred of the newest and most popular Figures, fully described, and conveniently grouped for ready reference. Every information m regard to the service of Bail-Room Etiquette, duties of Leaders and general instruc- tion is fully and clearly given. Handsomely bound in Paper Covers , 25 Cents Cloth . , SO Cents ) For sale by all book and newsdealers, or sent to any address In the United States, Canada or Mexico, postas^e paid, on receipt of pHce, in currency, money order or stamps. M.*A. DONOHUE & CO. ♦"'"^E^^^ YOUNG FOLKS' Dialogues and Dramas a collection of original dialogues and dkama8 By Edith Brown-Evarts and Others They are new, original, sprightly and sensible and particularly adapted for young people from ten to eighteen years old, on subjects and ideas fitted to their ago, handled in a quaint man- ner, and with appropriate action can be rendered very success- fully. The dramas are short, pithy and funny, while the dia- logues are suitable for all occasions, such as special day celebra- tions, etc. This is without doubt the best dialogue book published. Paper Cover* - = = 25 Cents Cloth = = = = =50 Cents Perfection Poultry Book By I. K. Felch AUTHOR OF "poultry CULTURE" THE RECOGNIZED STANDARD WORK IN POULTRY IN AMERICA, ADOPTED BY MANY POULTRY ASSOCIATIONS IN THIS COUNTRY It contains a complete description of all the varieties of fowls, including turkeys, ducks and geese. Many old-fashioned farmers are inclined to discredit the state- ment that there is money in poultry. Why? Because they are not up to the new and improved ideas in poultry management. A little trial of the rules lai 1 down in this book will soon dispel all mi'^givings in this directi a and tend to convince the most skep- tical that there is money in poultry-keeping. This book contains double the number of illustrations found in any similar work pub- lished. It is the best and cheapest Poultry Book on the market. Paper Covers • - - 25 Cents Cloth - - • • - SO Cents L M. A. Donohue & Co.,^<"^^»,?c«oo"* Complete Hyp/fOTisM Or, Hokef to Hypnoitze A manual of self-instruction based on the v 3W and improved system of mental and bodily healing. Pronounced by all who have read it to be the most fascinating and instructive book of its kiu-d pub- lished. Inductive Hypnotism, Mesmerism, Sugges- tive Therapeutics and Magnetic Healing, including Telepathy, Mind Reading and Spiritualism fully treated. Nearly 100 lessons especially prepared for self-instruction. This is positively the best book on Hypnotism published. Fully illustrated. Paper covers, 25 cent*; Cloth, 50 cents. The Complete Falmiat Prepared for self-instruction by Ina Oxenford, the world -renowned author and acknowledged authority on Palmistry, This is the simplest pre- sentation of the science of Modern Palmistry pub- lished. There is no trait, no characteristic, no in- herited tendency that is not marked on the palm of the hand and can be traced with unerring accuracy by following the instructions given in this book. Even a casual reading will enable one to know his own character better and give convincing proof of the constancy of friends, or the professing ones. The Bible attests the truth of Palmistry. Paper covers, 25 cents; Cloth, 50 cents. The Mjrstic Fortune Uelter^ l>reOJSfOH\/E^ i^l CO. 4'07'4-29 'Dearborn Street, CHICAGO LOVE LETTERS With Directions How To Write Thei^ By INGOLDSBY NORTH. This is a branch of correspondence ■which faflir demands a volume alone to provide for the various phases incident to Love, Courtship and Marriage. Few persons, however otherwise fluent with the pea, are able to express in words the promptings of the first dawn of love, and even the ice once broken how to follow up a coi'respondence with the dearest' one in the whole world and how to smooth the way with those who need to be consulted in the matter. The numerous letters and answers in this book go far Ut overcome the difficulties and embarrassment inse- E arable from letters on this all-absorbing topic in all stages from eginning to end of a successful courtship, aided in many instances by the author's sensible comments on the specimen letters, and his valuable hints under advf^rse contingencies. It also contai^ the Art of Secret Writing, tte Language of Love portrayed as rules la grammar. Paper Covers, 25 Cents. Cloth, 50 Cents. THE COMPLETE LETTER. WRITER Beings the only Comprehensive and Practical Guide and Assistant to Letter Writing Published. Edited by CHARLES WALTER BROWN. A. M. There are few books that contain such a fund of valuable information on the everyday affairs of life. In addition to every conceivable form of business and social correspondence, there are letters of Con- dolence, Introduction, Congratulation, Felicitation, Advice and Favor; Letters accompanying presents; Notes on Love, Courtship and Marriage; Forms of Wedding Anniversaries, Socials, Parties, Notes, Wills. Deeds, Mortgages; Tables, Abbreviations, Classical Terms, Common Errors, Selections for Autograph Albums; Information concerning Bates on Foreign and Domestic Postage, together with a dictionary of nearly lO.OOG Svnonyms and other valuable information which space will not admit of mention. The book is printed from new plates, on a su- perior quality of paper and bound in substantial and durable manner, 12mo. . ^ ^^ Paper Covers, 2Sc. Cloth, SOc. Cloth, 320 Pages, Price $1.©0 For sale by all book and newsdealers, or sent to anjr address in the U. S., Canada or Mexico, postage prepaid on receipt of once in currency, money ordor or stamps. ii. A. OONQHUE & CO. *" ^^iHlt^-r- « THE COMPLETJE GUIDE TO BidCKstnitbing/^ l)or$e$boein0c CARRIAGE AND WAGON BUILDING ^ ^ • AND PAINTING For all general mechanical work, this is th« most valuable book for the farmer, blacksmith, carpenter, carriage and wagon building, paint* ing and varnishing trades published. The de- partment on Blacksmithing is based on the various text books by Prof. A. Lungwitz, Direct- or of the Shoeing School of the Royal Veterinary College at Dresden, while the chapters on Car- riage and Wagon Building, Painting, Varnish- ing, are by Charles F. Adams, one of the most successful builders in Wisconsin. The language employed is so simple that any young man of average ability can, in a short time, be- come proiicient in all of these useful and profit- able occupations. Each chapter is fully illns- trated, there being more than 50 drawings throughout the book. Full Cloth Binding, Price, $!,00 THECOinPLETE. V^eUIDEJ^Of pKSMITHlKg CARRIAGE. "AMD «WAGOMBUILDinC •AHP'PAmTir!^: m Complete l)Oti$e Builder With Pra.ctica.1 Hints on Constructio** The subject of house building is of interest co all, even though financially they are at present nn« able to realize their cherished hopes. A few months or a year may so change the aspect of one's affairs as to render it possible to build. It is therefore well for all to anticipate the realization of a home and become familiar with the requisites of a good house, barn, warehouse or other necessary building. Thi& valuable work contains not only Plans and Specifi- cations for Dwellings, but Clubs, Churches, Public Buildings, Barns, and all necessary outbuildings for Farms, Country Seats, Suburban Homes , etc. ; ac- curate estimates of materials with cost, and all Tables and Rules necessary in Plastering, Plumbing, Painting, Hoofing, Masonry, Cornice, Windows, Doors and Porch Materials, with 50 Plans and Specifications on buildings from $4:76 up are given. 176 pages* l2mo. r< Paper, 25 Cents; Cloth, 50 Cent5« For sale by all book and newsdealers, or will be sent to any address in the United States, Canada or Mexico, postaso paid, OQ receipt of price, in currency, money order or stamps. M. A. DONOHUE & CO. *'"-S£gSr'* Lives ¥ Famous Men Edited by Charles Walter Bkown, A. M. In this series of historical and biographical works the pub- lishers have included only such books as will interest and instruct the youth of both sexes. A copy should be in every public scho9l and private library Special discount made when entire set is ordered. They are printed from large, clear type on an excellent quality of paper and substantially and attractively bound m cloth, stamped in inks and gold from original designs. Each DOOK is fully illustrated. Price, SI. 00 per copy, postpaid. LIFE OF aEORGE WASHINGTON. By George Washington Parke Custis, the adopted sob of our first president. Cloth, 664 pages, large, 12mo. LIFE OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. By Hon. Joseph H. Barrett, ex-membex of CJoagresk Cloth, 842 pages, large, ISmo. L!FE OF U. S. GRANT. By Hon. B. P. Poore and Sev. O. H. Tiffany, D. D. Gloth, 594 pages, large, 12mo. LIFE OF WILLIAM McKINLEV, By Murat Halstead, Chauncey M. Bepew and Jolm SbM^ man. Cloth, 450 pages, large, 12mo. UPE OF THEODORE ROOSFJVSLT. By Thomas W. Handford. Cloth, 255 pages, large, lUmo, LIFE OP HENRY M. STANLEY, By A. M. Godbey, A. M. Cloth, 560 pages, large, 12ma LIFE OF JOHN PAUL JONES. By Charles Walter Brown, A. M. Cloth, nearly 800 pag^ 12mo. LIFE OF ETHAN ALLEN. By Charles Walter Brown, A. H. Cloth, nearly 800 pages, 12mo. LIFE OF W. T. SHERMAN. By Hon. W. Fletcher Johnson and Gten. O. O. Howard. Cloth, 607 pages, large, 12mo. LIFE OF P. T. BARNUM. By Eon. Joel Benton. Cloth, 621 pages, large, ISmu LIFE OP T. DEWITT TALMAGEc By Charles Francis Adams. Cloth, nearly 500 pages. LiPE OF D. L. MOODY. By Charles Franc's Adams. Cloth, 318 pages, large, 12mo. For sale by ?11 book and newsdealers or sent postpaid to am» address in the United States. Canada or Mexico, upon receipt Of price in currency, stamps, postal or express money order. M. A. DONOHUE & CO. *"i?^,?5?gr ** .oyiiiei MM H^dited by JoKn Adams, M. A.. B. Sc. 12Mo. Cloth. Uaiforn:! sf\ Size a.rkd Binding. List Price, 75 Ce!\ts Each The object of this series is to meot the needs of students who are ' ither unable or I u w 1 1 1 i n g to at- ' uJ classes in sub- ' 0L6 which they ' h to study. No ii^rc has been t J red to m ake the • w o k s self-con- .nod. It is taken ri'ranted thatno help is available other than that to bo found in the \^cs of the rari- lj3 volumes, and 1 V is hoped that Jiis help will be utlicient to enable h'^ most isolated idcnt to give ii nself a thorough f^iounding in the III .' '^U! ..^rSTDrt; subjects he takes up The books be- gin at the begin- tiing of their sub- j3cts and carry the student far enough to enable him to continue his studies intel- ligently and successfully on his own account. Two common mis- takes have been carefully avoided : (1) Expecting too much from the student. (2) Attempting to exhaust a whole subject in one book. Each volume contains all the "Essentials" of the subject, and concludes with a set of hints on how best to prosecute the study as a private student. Self-Educactof Ss\ Al^ehz^ ByW. P. Higgs. 12mo, cloth SO 75 Solf-Ed'ucator la Fronch By John Adams. 12mo, clcth , . 75 Self-Kduc&t&sf in. Lectin By W. A. Edward, i2mo, cloth 75 Soii.CducA-toir in GermaLn By John Adams. 12mo, cloth 75 Self-Ed\jcator in Chemistry By James Knight. 12mo, cloth 75 Self-Edvica.tor in EnglisK Compoaition By G. H. Thornton. 12 mo, cloth 75 Single copies of the above books sent postpaid npon receipt of 75c. Any two for S1.40; any three for SI. 95; any four for $2.40; any five for $2.75; or the set of six volumes for $3.00. M. A. Donohtie & Co.. tV^tucmcAaS FHR HOME THE SELF-EDUCATOR SERIES Edited by JoKr\ Adams, M. A., B. Sc. 12Mo. Cloth. Uniform in Size o.nd Binding. List Price. 75 Cents Each The object of this series is to meet the needs of -students who aro (Mther unable or ^unwilling to at- tend classes in sub- jects which they wish to study. No etiort has been -I)aredtoraakotho books self-con- tained. It is taken fort?ranted thatno help is available other than that to b(; found in the p.itros of the vari- ous volumes, and it is hop"d that this help will be sutticient to enable the most isolated student to Rive ^liimself a thorough ^ grounding in the " subjects he takes up. The books be- Kin at the begin- ning of their sub- ^^"'•^Ha^v--' jects, and carry the Study as a private student. Self-EducB^tot In Algebra. By W P Higgs. 12mo,cloth •• • Self-Edvicator In French By John Adams. 12mo, cloth Self-Educator in Ljvtln By W. A. Edward. 12mo, cloth Self-Educ«vtor in Germsvn By John Adams. 12ino, cU>th Self-Edvicator in Chemistry By James Knight. 12ino, cloth -^ ; ; • • ' Self-Edxicjvtor in English Composition any five for S2.75; or the set ot six volun»*^.. for S3.UU. ^ $0 75 75 75 75 . 75 75 407-429 Dearborn M. A. Donohue ^ Co., siieet, Chicago (0 ■ U s O s /.' •t^