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SIXTH lt;PAGEIn Woman’s I lt;Talks on Timely Topics.THE MAKING OF A MOUNTAINEERDOCTOR.'ME -of the earlier readers of The Sunny South may recall “The Story of the Cased Wilds.” which waspublished serially in thatj the boy had learning he’d he a genius j and get his living Without work- off of ther folk?. So the old man told the .eighbors his boy was a genius—that was ! what was the matter with him—tiie rea-• sou he wouldn't work, and he said he i was going to educate him. So lie raked t 1 up some scraps of books and between ' , him and one of the neighbors, they 'learned the toy his letters and bow tlt;»I read without stopping to spell any but ' the long words.“Then one day the ol;l man went to Duektown. and lie brought home a Jayne’j? almanac and lie spoiled out all It had to say about liver complaints and dvspepsy and all manner of ailments that Dr. Jayne's physic would cure. And the old man took the notion to make his son a doctor, hie made hrni read the almanac Oirougli flnd then he went and got him some of Dr. Jayne's pills and mixtures and the young fellow set up for a i doctor. He had lots of brapaper. It wa Tom Jones,“moonshiner, and his brother Ayer were in jail in Atlanta on a double charge of making whisky and of killing a revenue officer.Having learned of cir-cumitances which induced me to believe that the men were innocent of the graver charge, I went to the jtiil to see them. Always I had sympathized with the moonshiner, who in his wild, independent life in the isolated mountains, has inherited the belief that lie commits no offense when he turns his unmarketablewent around among the people roadinwritten by j his almanac and talking about bis medi-mountatn j cinec and looking at folks' tongi w’hllo11 dshaking Ids head until the peopl to believe in him strong especially as lie was pious and gave ’em pills and prayers both.“He was a good looking fellow and It wasn't long before one of the young women got sick and then another and another. He cured them, or rather theygot well, for as T said, tnoy couldn't die notno how on Pack mountam. tha“As transgressions come into the conn- vettry after the law. so sickness come after j wothe doctor. Folks, especially the women. 1 ,came to be mighty unhealthy, and one nice girl was powerful sickly and kept j sending for The doctor, till at last the jdoctor married her. and that stopped the i ofbill, and the sickness, too, I reckon. jocv“Well, to do the doctor Justice, he was ROtcorn—the product of Ills own labor on his • .. smart fellow and a clever one and the ^own land—Into whisky, which he can sell, j people liked him and sent for him. all Iand thus obtain money to buy shoes and | 1,11 * my old dad. who didn't. hnv,i jclothes for himself and his family. To : ^ ra!i toloJl ! viEthrow these men—the only support of ; nrnonjf false proplwts and anti- IBible told us to beware !women and children—into prison andkeep them confined for many months, while their famllie* starve and freeze in the mountains, is a greater offense than the making of a little whisky—without paying the enormously high tax for doing so. Of course, selling whisky is a bad business, but these mountain folks do not so regard it. They need moral enlightenment.I found the Jones brothers sturdy, weju her beaten men in the* prime of life, with honest, Intelligent faces. One of them (Ayer) could not read or write, but rDom could read and also write legibly.He told me the story of bis life, and it was so full of quaint, amusing and pathetic circumstances that I asked him to write it for me. I furnished him pencil and paper and he wrote the life there in his cell in the small, miserable, damp old city Jail—now, thank heaven, a thing of the .past. I visited him every week in company with the dear blessed woman. Airs. Eliza Harper, toiowti as the “prison angel, taking to him magazines and books and paper for a fresh installment of the story of “The Caged Wilds. Tom's reminiscences, amusing as they were, threw a flood of light on the life of the mountaineer, with Its its ignorance, its superstition, and also its content with surroundings that would dismay one more fortunately situated.Coming across a chapter of the story today I laughed over Tom’s account of j “the doctor that Pack mountain ] raised.” He first relates how’ the moun- : tain people catne to know there was I *«ch a thing as law. 1* • \\e.. had ,a healthy, pleasant !/*country to live iTi.*' folks had no lavj/f ^ and we didn't need m' think 1 ait w’as anything but a oleJs,n’ when^/*t wo . ^ men—Squire Kilpatrick and Squire Nel- | a son—moved In among us and stirred up J £ some law and got neighbors to suspicion- I ^ ing one another and falling out, and then * h took to arresting folks for little mischief i tl pranks and small quarrels that a kind or ; a reasonable word would have settled, j ^ As soon as these men fetched the law, ! jjl w’hy It seemed to me trangression came j G1 right along behind it. and we never have cl been as good or happy in the mountains J n since. j tl“It w'as the same way about health. • .. We had no sickness while we had no . w doctors. There never was a healthier j w country than Pack mountain. Folks had 1 h to go away from there to die. The water ! hi was clear as crystal. You could drop a a‘ button or a dime down In one of them 1 freestone springs and you could see it as 1 plain on the bottom 10 feet down as it ;u It was in the palm of your hand. One { slt; day a fellow named John Kinney drop- ! v: ped a dime accidentally down in Brass- I ]?' town creek where the water was 15 fee: j deep and he could not tear hlimelf away I jn from it while it looked so bright on the , r. bottom; so what must be do but go back • d: to Joshua Ilanshaw's and get a pint or 1 ** two of tar and put it on a swab that he j J] made at the end of a long pole. He jreached dowq with his tarred pole and 'brought up the dime, but old Josh made j hi him pay a quarter for the tar. •*,“Well, with such water and such air, niyou may know we didn't need a doctor, tland we never thought to import one. let ],] alone to grow one right in our midst; 1 fr but so it did happen. Poor as pack j,! mountain was. it sprouted a doctor, and j w what’s more, he grew and prospered. An jj old farmer among us—a mighty hard 0f working, shrewd old fellow—had a son ! that wouldn't take to tl:c- plow handles nohow, and us for hauling, lie couldn’t do a thing with oxen. The old man said he must be good for something though, and one of the preachers said maybe itj adc the, Christs that the _! of. He was so afraid of a doctor that if i pia one crossed his fence he would tr4r out or- tlie pnnnel and burn every rail. Ho | would then strew leave* and gras*: along | °where the doctor walked or rode and Ph*' burn them off. That was /o take off Ch the witchery and conjuring from his con family. art“The doctor pot him a buggy after p. awhile, and T tell you that made a com- I notion In the neighbornood. It was the 1 lt;on first buggy that had ever -been In that I fur part of Pack mountain, and I think some i loo of the good women, when they saw hlrj ( pome riding up In It to church, felt as , though he was somehow kin to the an- j gels that ride in the chariots as the IBble i rt speaks of. You may know a real shiny, I D’. painted buggy would make a sensation i the among people that or me for miles to look j ti vlt; gt the only glass window in them parts. jH ,Tf was put In by old John Hell, and was, jn , only an eight by 'nine pane stuck into a ! Mra log cabin, but the people stared at it as })mi if it had been n miracle. ,,,gTom Jones’ story of how he learned to tr0j read and of his falling in lov** and court- ? ... Ing is so amusing that I would like you plto to hear it some. time. After long months ' l(II. i»i jail and numerous postponements of , ,n their trial (one trip to the court hou«~ , in n pouring rain catising Tom a nea/iy j fatal attack of pneumonia-) the 'Valced ' wilds'* were at last acquitted nn£ allow- as ed to. return to their beloved ca\dn homes the and faithful wives. who y^d several j deli times come to see them, an ,},e , holong journey a ad brfng'.f,K home-knit trm socks and homespun B’niits for their liua- its bands. f M. E. B. , vimnottil
Newspaper Details
Atlanta Sunny South
Atlanta, Georgia, US
Sat, Jun 30, 1906
Page 6
Full Page
Clipped by
Andrew W.
USA 03 Mar 2025
Other Publications Near Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta Weekly Intelligencer and Cherokee Advocate
Atlanta Presbyterian of the South
Atlanta University Center Light
Atlanta Crogman Cycle
Atlanta Daily Constitution
