Authors: Justine Felix Rutherford
We all took a drink of water. Dad pulled out his case knife to have a little chew. A little Brown’s Mule mixed with home-made tobacco gave me a life time smell of my dad. He spit and spat and smiled to himself.
In a few minutes, we went back to work. Werner and I were picking up roots and carrying them to the end of the field. We had a large pile. I asked Dad if there were any mandrake roots from the Bible. He laughed and said, “If it was, we would be rich.” We had a nice box of big, fat fish worms anyway.
Dad had about a third of the field plowed when I heard him yell “whoa” at the horses. We ran to see what had happened. Dad was holding his side. He said to Werner, “You take the horses home. The plow just kicked me in the side.” We helped him down the hill to the house. He was laid up for several weeks, but the boys finished the plowing that Dad had started.
Dad felt so bad because of all the work that needed to be done and that he wasn’t able to do it. But we managed. That summer we had the greatest pole beans, tomatoes, and corn you ever did see.
“We must not cease from exploration and the end of our exploring will be to arrive where we began, and to know the place for the first time.”
T. S. Eliot
Old barns are living monuments of home. In the fall and spring, I always get the urge to go home. I am so thankful that I can still go home and roam around over the old farm. There is nothing left at the home place except the tie house (where we tied tobacco), the corn crib, and the barn. The barn is what draws me back.
When Dad bought the farm, there was an old log barn that stood across the creek. This is the first barn that I remember. There was where the low gap was for the cows to feed and be milked. On the other side of the barn was a corn crib. Nothing remains there today—just a small plot of land. When I look at this tiny piece of ground, I think that there is no way a barn could have stood there. The creek runs past this land, and, after about a hundred years, it has just given up to the creek.
I remember this old barn so well. It was always a favorite place for kids to play. The boys always sneaked around back of the barn to smoke. This barn was made from hand-hewn logs. We stuck our bare toes between the logs to climb to the loft. There was where the hay was kept. It wasn’t one of these big fancy rolls of today. We pitched the hay up into the loft, and pitched it down for the livestock. I heard my cousins say, “Hey, Teen, race you to the top.” We stuck our toes between the cracks and raced like squirrels to the top. Once or twice a year, my parents got ice somewhere and stored it in the hay. We would stick our toes through the cracks, and it felt so good on our bare toes. Of course, my parents didn’t know we did that.
I got kicked by Barney the horse in this barn, but only on the palm of my hand. I came in behind her, startled her, and then she kicked me. I started screaming. Dad came running, and he was yelling, “Are you hurt?” I wasn’t, but it stung a little. I was just scared. After he saw that I wasn’t hurt, he was sort of mad. He said, “How could you do a dumb thing like coming in behind a horse. You always come along side of the horse and speak to him!” I just stood and looked at him.
One crisp fall morning, I left the car parked at the big road and walked across the creek. I found the path that followed the creek. The goldenrod was in full bloom. The yellow blooms were leaning over and they seemed to beckon to me. I was too early to strip the seeds from the stems. The beautiful, wild, white morning glories with their pale green faces nodded to me as I passed. I saw the brown stems of the dock plants. They were curled and twisted into many shapes. I stopped to look closer. A spider had interwoven his web with the brown stems to catch his next meal. This plant looked completely dead. However, as I looked closer at the bottom of the dead stem, there was tiny, green growth.
Our barns grew up with us, rising in the wilderness from the soil of the hills and mountains and from the great hardwood trees. They are symbols of America’s best, of all its glory and hardships. Now so many of our barns, the symbols of all that’s good and beautiful, are slowly returning from whence they came.
Our barn was built back in the 1930s. The men went out into the woods and were able to look at a great oak and tell if it would work as a corner of a great building to hold horses and hay and the numerous things stored in a barn for a century or maybe two. They had to think how to cut it, haul it, and make it square. They did this by hand; sometimes using four horses to move these great trees. The corner stones for these great buildings were huge. Our barn was close to the creek. I watched the men as they used pry bars and horses to raise these large stones and move them to where they would be placed for corners. No machines did their work for them; they used only “heart and muscle.” My grandfather, William Spurlock, was a stone mason and a carpenter. These men had to know how to cut, mortise, and peg the logs tight. Chisel and axe marks on wooden beams are the signs of these long ago carpenters. Now these craftsmen are all gone, but the barn is still here, a testament to their skills and knowledge.
The barn comes into view. My heart skips a beat. It looks about as usual on the outside. I walk inside. I am assailed by the age-old smells, by the faint odor of horseflesh, leather, clover hay, and tobacco. I don’t really smell these odors except in my memory. On the ground there is a pile of tobacco sticks. I pick one up. I’m going to take it home with me and put it in the corner of my kitchen. When I need a cane, it will be handy. There’ll be no fancy cane for me! I look at the huge stones in the corner of the barn. Tears sting my eyes. I spend more than a few minutes just sitting and thinking. This is a very special time to me. As I leave, my hands trail across the outside of the old barn.
“This is the forest, primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, bearded with moss and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic, stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms….”
Longfellow
Our pride never has been disturbed by digs of those who shrugged us off as “Hillbillies,” which we really were. We always have felt a little closer to heaven than the other states. Ours was the state of milk and honey, not to mention an endless supply of refreshing “mountain dew.” The air was purer, the sparkling water cleaner, the sky bluer, the moon bigger, the sun brighter, the fishing better, and the people the most friendly on earth. I remember going to the mountains with my father-in-law. The first thing we did was to go to the spring with a dipper and drink of the mountain water.
The West Virginia I knew was a land of magnificent forests. We had the mighty oaks, the great poplars, and the huge pines. How beautiful were the magnificent hemlocks with their soft, waving branches. My father-in-law had several hemlocks on his farm. They took some kind of blight. My son Gordon, who now lives at the home place, had to remove them last year. It was terrible watching them fall. They had been there so many years. The lawn looked so empty and bare. The shade they had made for decade to protect the house was gone.
There were also the great chestnut trees. They were simply indescribable, not only for their size but for the nuts they produced. Hogs were fattened on the chestnuts, and all wild game lived off them. There was also the good chestnut dressing the families made. We roasted these nuts and ate them by the gallons. When the chestnut tree blight appeared, it first struck the leaves and branches. Then the bark all peeled away, leaving their limbs like great white ghosts in the forest. It is sad to think that these magnificent forests will never rise again.
There were also the great elms. In my grandfather’s yard was a huge elm. It had very a big limb from which was attached a rope swing with a board for a seat. All the neighborhood kids, including myself, swung on this swing. I swung in that swing until I left Spurlock Creek. I remember one day swinging so high that the seat folded under me. If I hadn’t been very strong, I wouldn’t have made it to the ground.
The forests were filled with all kinds of game including turkeys. There were grouse, squirrel, and a large population of deer and bear for hunting. The fishing was great also. Every little stream had the native brook trout. The brook trout was “king of the mountain,” and West Virginia was his home state.
The people who inhabit these hills have always been a friendly, neighborly sort. Until modern times, the hill people have always been self-sufficient. During sickness or death, people went about helping each other by milking the cows, working the crops, and thrashing the grain.
There wasn’t much money, but if you had good crops and livestock, you really didn’t need a lot of money. Transactions were often by barter. We raised most of our food to last from season to season. Usually the money we had was from the sale of our extra animals, and we always raised a tobacco crop. Extra chickens and eggs were traded at the store for additional groceries. We always canned and cured our meat.
We people of West Virginia were always resourceful. We prided ourselves on this; there was always a blacksmith in the community. Hill people were carpenters, shoemakers, tanners, and hunters. They tapped the maple trees in the spring for the maple sugar. This was a cold, hard job since it was usually done early in the morning. They also made sorghum molasses from the sugar cane. The sausage, buckwheat cakes, and maple syrup made a great meal. We hill people have to work very hard, but we enjoy our lives.
We were settled almost entirely by people who were descendants of Anglo-Saxon backgrounds. The early settlers were men of character. They wanted to be free and far away from England. They faced the savage and unknown for freedom. The hillbilly has been made fun of because of his peculiar ways. We are a little peculiar; but who wants to be like everyone?
My young life was centered in the small community of Spurlock Creek, West Virginia, where our church and school provided our social life. I am so grateful that I was raised in the country. Life was simple and free, the way I believe God wanted his people to live.
“Music is the art of prophets, the only art that can calm the agitation of the soul; it is one of the most magnificent and delightful presents God has given us.”
Luther
One form of entertainment that we had when I was growing up was our music. I don’t think I can really describe what it meant to us. Music nourished our souls like food and water nourished our bodies. It seemed as if people sang all of the time. You sang if you were happy, and you sang if you were sad. You could always hear singing echoing through the hills and valleys. Just a few years ago I could sit on my patio and hear the Henrys making music. They lived just across the valley from where I live today. It was such a delightful feeling to hear the music flowing through the air.
After work was done in the evening, our front porch was full of people making music. Almost everyone had a four- dollar Sears or Montgomery Ward guitar. The tone of these instruments was amazingly good, and they were easy to tune and play. There were also banjos and fiddles that had been handed down from one generation to the next. Usually someone had a mandolin or “juice” harp. The hills rang with our music. People would come from miles around to be a part of it.
I remember the sound of the instruments being tuned and the last “plink” of a string that said, “We’re ready.” The fiddle player would draw his bow down across the strings—that was usually my brother Elba. Someone would call out, “Play it pretty, Eb!” I can still hear the strains of “Turkey in the Straw,” “Sourwood Mountain,” “Sally Goodun,” “Fire on the Mountain,” and “John Henry.”
Before long someone would hit the floor with a dance, which was called a “hoe down.” It was later called clogging. If there were enough room or people for a square, later they would have some square dancing. After a while, the musicians would take a break, and everyone had milk or coffee and molasses cookies. I guess there might have been a little “shine” passed around on the outside, but I never saw it. Some of the religious people frowned on the “shine.” After the refreshments, there was usually no more dancing, but the music would go on.
Some of the most beautiful music came from people who didn’t know how to read music notes at all. They just seemed to have a God-given talent for making music. They could pick up practically any type of musical instrument and soon begin to play it.
One of my first memories is of being on Uncle Bert Spurlock’s front porch and running up the music scale, “
do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do
.” Our song books had shaped notes in them, and we learned to read the music by the shape of the note. There was a music teacher from the community who would come to our churches and teach music free of charge. Anyone who was interested in singing was welcome. I remember Bill Spurlock always taught on Spurlock Creek, and Matt Hanna would teach on Barker Ridge. I never did learn a whole lot. I still just sing “up and down.”
We would arrive at church early so that we could sing outside before Sunday school began. Some of most pleasant memories are of singing with my cousins and friends at Sunrise Church. Our church had what they called “Homecoming Sunday.” People would come from everywhere to be there that day. We got to visit with people that day that we hadn’t seen all year long. The meeting lasted all day long.
First, the preacher would preach his message, and then we would go outside for dinner. There were tables set up in the church yard beneath the huge elm trees. The tables were loaded with all sorts of home-cooked food. Our eyes bugged out at the sight of all that beautiful food. My cousin Ruth and I stood by the dessert table, ready to make a dash at the chocolate cake. My mother would catch my eye, and although she never said a word, I knew that I had better mind my manners and that I wasn’t going to get to be the first one at the chocolate cake. After everyone had eaten his fill, we went back into the church, and someone would start playing the piano and organ. Usually the instruments were off a note or two here and there. It didn’t matter. We made music and sang the rest of the day. Some of the rural churches here in Appalachia still use the old hymns in their services such as “Standing on the Promises,” ”Blessed Assurance,” and “How Firm a Foundation.”