A Melungeon HomePage: Folk Tales # 1
"Six Hundred Honest Pounds
From God Bless the Devil! Liars' Bench Tales, Aswell, et al, eds., Tennessee Writer's Project. Illustrations by Ann Kelley, Tennessee Art Project; 1940, University of North Carolina Press.
THEY SAY IT WAS BACK IN THE EIGHTIES, OR maybe the nineties, and in Hancock County. Whatever the year of it, there was a big barbecue and rabbit stew near the Powell River. A man running for Congress was who give it. Now, Hancock is still a mighty lean sort of place and all you have to do to git most of the whole county together on one point of ground is to let out that there'll be free eats. They'll come Ford-back, mule-back, foot-back, and a-crawling down every little path out of the hills. They'll come like red ants to spilled honey.
And so it was this time I'm a-chawing about. Every soul for thirty mile around that warn't too feeble or crippled to move or too wanted by the Law to be seen in public places was there in that beech grove beside of the Powell River. Even a heap of folks from up across the Kentucky line--where it's pretty lean, too --was on hand trying their best to look like they was born and bred and done voting square in Hancock County. "
From God Bless the Devil! Liars' Bench Tales, Aswell, et al, eds., Tennessee Writer's Project. Illustrations by Ann Kelley, Tennessee Art Project; 1940, University of North Carolina Press.
THEY SAY IT WAS BACK IN THE EIGHTIES, OR maybe the nineties, and in Hancock County. Whatever the year of it, there was a big barbecue and rabbit stew near the Powell River. A man running for Congress was who give it. Now, Hancock is still a mighty lean sort of place and all you have to do to git most of the whole county together on one point of ground is to let out that there'll be free eats. They'll come Ford-back, mule-back, foot-back, and a-crawling down every little path out of the hills. They'll come like red ants to spilled honey.
And so it was this time I'm a-chawing about. Every soul for thirty mile around that warn't too feeble or crippled to move or too wanted by the Law to be seen in public places was there in that beech grove beside of the Powell River. Even a heap of folks from up across the Kentucky line--where it's pretty lean, too --was on hand trying their best to look like they was born and bred and done voting square in Hancock County. "
posted by Helen Campbell @ 1:32 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home