Life In Western Virginia

 

Life In Western Virginia

Source: Pocahontas Historical Society

Enter the dwelling. The lady of the house, and all her children, are attired in home-span. Her dress is large, of convenient form, and entirely free from the fashionable lacing universal elsewhere. It is confined together with buttons, instead of hooks and eyes. She looks strong and healthy-so do her daughters-and as rosy and blooming as flowers by the way-side.

Her sons, too, are a sturdy-looking set, who soon (if not now) will be enabled to fell a tree or shoot a deer with facility. The house and furniture are exceedingly plain and simple, and, with the exception of what belongs to  , principally manufactured in the neighborhood. The husband is absent, hunting. At certain seasons of the year, what time he can spare from his little farm he passes in the excitement of the chase, and sells the skins of his game.

Soon he enters with a buck or bear he has shot, (for he is a skillful marksman,) or perhaps some other game. He is fifty years of age, yet in his prime-a stout, athletic man; his countenance is bronzed by exposure, and his frame seems almost of iron; he is robed in a hunting-shirt of picturesque form, made, too, of homespun, and ornamented with variegated fringe; and a pair of moccasins are on his feet.

He receives you with a blunt, honest welcome, and as he gives you his hand, his heart goes with it; for he looks upon you as a friend; he has passed his life among the mountains, in the midst of a simple-hearted people, who have but little practical knowledge of the deceit which those living in densely-populated communities, among the competitive avocations of4 society, are tempted to practice. His wife prepares dinner. A neat white cloth is spread, and soon the table is covered with good things. On it is a plate of hot corn-bread, preserves of various kinds, bacon, venison, and more than probable three varieties of meat.

Your host may ask a blessing-thanks to the itinerating system of the Methodists, which has even reached this remote spot-his wife pours you out a "dish of coffee," the great luxury of the country, and frequently used at every meal: it is thickened with cream-not milk-and sweetened with sugar from the maple grove just front of the house. The host bids you help yourself, and, if not squeamish, you "go into it," and enjoy that plain, substantial meal better than you ever did a dinner at Astor's.

Now mount your nag and be off! As you descend the mountain-path faintly discerned before you, and breathe the pure, fresh air of the hills, cast your eyes upon the most impressive of scenes, for Nature is there in all her glory. Far down in the valley,to the right, winds a lovely stream; there hid by the foliage overarching its bright waters-anon it appears in a clearing-again, concealed by a sweep of the mountain you are descending-still beyond, it seems diminished to a silvery thread.

To the right and front is a huge mountain, in luxuriant verdure, at places curving far into the plain, and at those points, and at the summits, bathed in a sea of golden light, at others, receding, thrown into dark, sombre, forbidding shades. Beyond are mountains piled on mountains, like an uptossed sea of ridges, until they melt away in distance, and imagination fancies others still farther on. High in blue ether float yon clouds of snowy white, and far above them, in majestic flight, sails the bird of the mountain, with an air as wild, as free, as the spirit of liberty. 

How every thing is rejoicing all around! Innumerable songsters are warbling sweetest music; those wild flowers, with scarce the morning dew from off their lips, are opening their bright cheeks to the sun; and even the tiny insects flitting through the air, join in the universal hallelujah!

Now fast losing the scene, you are entering the dark, solemn forest, densely matted above with vines,  almost excluding the light of day. You are soon at the base of the mountains, and from the copse before you out starts a deer! the graceful animal pricks up its ears, distends its nostrils in fear, and gathering its slender limbs ready for a spring, then bounds away, over10 hillocks and through ravines, and is seen no more. 

The stream, broad and shallow, is wending its way across your road with gentle murmurings, splash! splash! goes your horse's feet into the water; forty times in ten miles does it cross your road, and in various places for many hundred yards your course is directly through it. There are no bridges upon it: there are comparatively few in Western Virginia.

The above picture of a mountaineer, with a sketch of the wild and romantic scenery among which he lives, is a common, though not a universal one; but between him and the wealthy inhabitant of a large village, who lives in the enjoyment of every blessing, are all grades. Many cannot read or write, and many that can, know nothing of12 geography and other branches. The country is too thinly settled to carry out a system of common schools, although the state makes liberal appropriations for that purpose. The mountaineer who lives not within half a day's travel of a school-house, cannot afford,like the wealthy lowland planter, to hire a private instructor, and pay him a heavy salary.