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Introduction |
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often more than these. Generally a hog or two and a cow complete the makeup of the farm. Horses are rare for they are of little use on these mountain sides. Oxen, if they can be afforded, are better. One man with a two room house assured me that he had brought up nineteen children on the place.
I began to ask for a place to remain for the night and was told of a village which I was able to reach just at dark. It bore the name of D...., though there were but two or three houses. I at once recognized the place, recommended to me as a better-class "farm." The little woman I met, weary under two pails of milk, referred me to "him" when I sought supper and bed. As the man of the house was for the moment not to be found, the little woman kept repeating "whatever he says when he comes." At last "he" came and we had supper of salt pork, hard corn bread, and fried potatoes — the latter, I believe, being special. Before retiring, in spite of the darkness and the fear of rattlers, I made my way through the tall grass and bushes to the Broad River where 1 refreshed myself after the day's long tramp by a plunge into the cooling waters. The floor of my bed-room, as were those of the other rooms throughout the house, was bare, but the bed was clean and comfortable. I slept soundly and arose to a breakfast of salt pork, corn bread, and fried eggs.
1 have tramped these Southern Appalachians during summer seasons for many years.7 I have been obliged at times to leave high altitudes for valley ways. This has given the opportunity for intimate acquaintance with the manners and customs of different communities. I have learned many things of trees and plants. I have seen much of bird life and the ways of wild animals. I have fished in mountain streams and have eaten of the fish. I have bathed and been refreshed in the wild mountain pools and lakes. Thus I have made the hike of the great Appalachian Trail not a job but rather — a joy.
The great Appalachian Trail project with a walking path over the crest of the entire length of the Appalachian system from Mt. Katahdin in Maine to
7 tk J'hc lure of the mountains held me as a boy. 1 was at an early age scrambling over ranges of the Blue Ridgt Mountains of Virginia and West Virginia. In 1899, immediately after graduating from college, 1 did many of the mountains of the Odenwald and the Schwarzwald in Germany, making the ascent of the Fcldberg, the next highest mountain of that country. 1 walked from Lucerne, Sw itzerland, over the Alps via the St. Gothard Pass to Milan, Italy, except for a few miles between Belhnzona and Como. In America ] have climbed Graybeard, Grandfather Mountain, and Mount Mitchell in North Carolina, the latter being the highest peak east of the Mississippi, Katahdin in Maine, all the highet peaks of the Green Mountains of Vermont and Whitefacc and Marcy in the Adirondack^" ("The Swastika", January 10, 1923). |
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