GETTING UP IN THE COOL FOR A WALK
Pocahontas Times--W. T. Price
To Visit a Ministerial Brother From Another State.
Being under promise to visit a party at Edray, and the previous days having been so torrid in their temperature, I thought I could execute a flank movement on the heated term by rising some while before day and mount the Drennan Ridge by early dawn and take a cup of coffee at William Randolph Hambrick's on the strength of which it would be easy going to Beards' before it would be oppressively sultry. All this I was able to do to my pleasurable satisfaction.
Day dawned just as I reached the summit. A wide-awake rooster seemed to take pains to let it be known where he lived and there seemed to be something of welcome in his cheery intonations. That bird has a heap to learn about preacher, or he would be more reticent in his morning habits. Numberless birds soon joined in chorus and some of them had notes that were rather new to me, as much as I have listened to the winged songsters heretofore.
What I heard during those dawning moments seemed to give a fresh significance to words, I have so often heard repeated: "He maketh the outgoings of the morning and the evening to rejoice."
Approaching the dwelling veiled in a heavy mist, three dogs in a most clamorous and vociferous manner came for me and it seemed for an instant, as if I had come up with a different breed of dogs, from the kind that Lazarus was familiar with for his dogs licked sores to heal them, while these dogs seemed bent on making sores whether or not.
In the nick of time Mrs. Hambrick with her broomstick and Randolph with his stentorian voice made matters safe and pleasant for me.
Upon entering the house the lighted lamp on the table showed that breakfast was just about ready. But before taking our place at the table the young father bad us kneel by the cooking stove and lead his family in morning devotions which was a duty very pleasant indeed to perform for there was so much to be thankful for.
The nice garden, flourishing vines, thrifty fruit trees and the growing crops were a revelation to me and quickened my faith in the possibilities of the flat-woods for prosperous homes.
Thirty years ago a shrewd observer made the remark that all he could see the flat-woods good for was this: "good for making nice and level roads of." I flatter myself that I can see a good deal more, that those flat-woods are good for and it will not be so very long before the flat-woods may vie with other favoured vicinities as a community of happy and prosperous homes whose inmates may repose under their own vines and apple trees none daring to molest them unless it be the sheriff and the store keeper.
Upon taking up my umbrella and valise, Zetta May, a bright little girl of seven or eight years of age piloted me through the corn field as the nearest way to the road and through a shady avenue I tramped on towards Edray and was soon at the Board Run where the day was mostly spent with Dr. Welch, from the South, University, Clarksville, Tenn.
He is passing the vacation with his family among relatives upon the commendation of the family physician for the benefit of a young daughter's health who is convalescent from a well nigh fatal attack of typhoid fever. Relatives and scenery were nice to see that which he had purposed to do in nowise hindered either. Mr. Welch is a typical high Grade Carolina lady, and the son and daughter are interesting young persons, we had known years of his work.
In a few words, the Professor's character happily combines all that is meant by being a gentleman, a scholar, and a christian.
As I am not in the book writing business I shall forbear any attempt to report what passed in the six or eight hours passed in the Professor's company, but I hope to keep them in heart and be profited thereby.
Late in the afternoon the Professor and I resorted to the home of a tanner, whose name is not Simon, however, but I have no doubt he is just as nice and pleasant to preachers as the one at Joppa could have ever been to Peter and other apostolic visitors.
Jake Smith went with his visitors to show them a spring he had accidentally discovered some years since while on a pheasant hunt. While in the act of slipping up to shoot one of these pretty birds he stepped on something soft and his shoe was so colored by it that after securing the game he returned to the soft place for more careful examination and discovered a tiny spring.
An excavation was made at the base of a white oak tree and he found the water to be of icy coolness, chrystal transparency and velvety softness to the taste. A spout was fixed and a constant stream about as large as a rye straw, steadily flows year in year out, without perceptible difference as to volume. Mr. Smith derived much benefit from using the water. It seems however not to have been used to any great extent as yet.
As near as I could estimate, the flow is a little more than a gallon per minute. Chalybeate Magnesia, I think would about express the properties of this spring and if so the water promises very beneficial results where persons are debilitated or "run down" as is so frequently the case, by the wear and tear of household duties and business cares. Mr. Smith desires a name for the spring and upon describing one of the most noticeable of the immediate effects it is proposed to name it the Eructatory Fountain, whatever that may mean, so let the reader look up the dictionary.
About sunset the party dispersed and took different ways. At Wm. Sharps' I passed a very pleasant evening and saw a new granddaughter for the first time. Some strange thoughts passed through my mind as I sat near the cradle and viewed the tiny sleeper in its sweet repose. Paradoxical as it may seem its lineage is on record as far back as the times of William the Conqueror, whilst I, one of its grand-parents, can only trace my lineage as far back as great grandfather a hundred years or so.
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