Daily Los Angeles Herald

The Mountain Menjil

A correspondent of a Northern paper has been writing a series of interesting sketches from the South. In passing through Alabama he fell in with two men from the mountain country, whom he thus introduces to the reader:

The mountain men are very friendly to strangers. They are incessant talkers, and funny, very funny in their quiet, sober way. When I was on my route to Dahlonega two mountaineers, gaunt, full-bearded, long-haired, who were dressed in butternut-colored clothes—home-made cloth, I judged—got in the car and took seats behind me. They settled themselves nicely, took a chew of tobacco apiece, and then, comfortably fixed for a talk, the taller of the two said, "Lot's see, Jold, I bin't seuma you since the murrander?": "No more you have, Hank," was the reply. There was not another word uttered about the war. Sitting looking out of the window at the verdant country, I overheard most of their talk. It drifted sedately from moonshine whiskey to improved through arms, and back again to moonshiners. Hank, in reply to John's inquiry as to "old man Johnson," who, I gather, was engaged in the business of moonshining, authoritatively told of his fate. "You see, he and old man Broom bought a sow to: go together a year ago last October. They were partners like. The beast ran well in the woods. This Fall they drove her up to the still house, and she and her seven shoats lived on the slops of the still. Along in early December Johnson sent word to Bascome to drive over to di.yilla the young stock, as he wanted to kill his meat. "Now, you know that it would have been but fair, seeing that Johnson had fed the pigs, for him to have kept four of the shoats, but Bascome got pe, he talked him out of four, and the old man was satisfied with three. The understanding was that he nor us the old sow next year if there should be one. Bascome allowed there would be one sure. Well, old woman Johnson, when she heard of the trade. she allowed there would be no odd pig next year, and she put Johnson up to go and claim the shoat, or at least to get one half of it. The old chap he went across the ridge to Bascome's house. It is about two miles through the woods. Of course they fell out, and Johnson beat Bascome with a club, and he yelled for help. You know his gal Bet? No? She is as big as a cow and as strong as a mule. She ran out of the house, and, gathering a stone, she mashed Johnson in the ribs, and knocked the wind out of him. He fell up against the corn house, and Bet grabbed him by the goozelstring (windpipe); that settled him. When a 250-pound woman gets her hand on a man's goozelstring that man has got to do something mighty sudden or its all day with him."

He was silent for an instant, and gazed moodily out of the car window. I judged from the expression on his face that he had had experience with 250-pound women. He cheered a little shortly, and resuming the, to me, thrilling story, said: 'Johnson squirmed away from her and broke for the timber. Bet's blood was up, and she took after him. She set a big yellow hound on him, and he bit old Johnson. Bet chased him over the ridge, and at every jump she threw stones at him. She hit him, too, and the dog tore most of his clothes off. That Bet never stopped chasing him until the heft of her clothes was snagged off of her.' Musingly he remarked. "Wimmin is tough customers;" and, after a short pause, added: "Bet says she can whip the stuffing out of him in a fair fist fight; but Lord! John, he can't fight no more. He is all mashed up." Soberly John expressed his sympathy for old man Johnson. Neither of them smiled. A vision of a half-naked man, chased through the forest by a yellow hound and an angry woman, who unlovingly threw stones at him, and who encouraged the dog to disrobe him, and who kept up the chase until her own clothes were gone, arose promptly before me, and I yelled with laughter. The two grave Georgians smiled in sympathy with me, but they did not see anything funny in the story.