The bounties of nature are not restricted to the land. The clear streams that twist through the hills in shimmering silver have abundant riches in their churning waters. Dressed catfish bring fifteen cents a pound, and the blue cat is a giant in his old age, sometimes reaching one hundred pounds in weight. Buffalo fish in the rough sell from seven cents to ten cents per pound and they are caught in abundance at certain seasons. Suckers are grabbed at shoaling time, catfish are noodled in summer and gigged in winter, game fish are caught with hook and line. Fishing is both a sport and a business in the backhills.
In late summer when the rainy season is past, and the streams are clear, the hillsmen who follow the rivers know that it is mussel time. Early and late, boats are in the stream transporting shells. Many tons of them, worth thousands of dollars, are harvested from Ozark streams each year. A few valuable pearls are found in the shells each season, and this feature of the quest adds a spice of adventure to what would otherwise be classed as monotonous work. Not every mussel digger finds a pearl, but hope leads him on and tomorrow the big find may come and enrich the worker beyond his fondest dreams.
The mussel harvest may begin at any time after the spring rains are over and the rivers reach a normal level. The digger can accomplish little when the streams are high and muddy. For ideal shell digging, the water must be as clear as a mirror.
An Ozark stream is no place for a tenderfoot. I recall the first time I tried to paddle a johnboat across White River. The stream was high and swift and I was inexperienced. I did not know how to take advantage of the current and consequently I landed several hundred yards downstream. It took me several weeks to learn how to feather the paddle and send the boat where I wanted it to go. Mussel digging requires skill in boating and a knowledge of the anatomy, quality of shell, pearl-forming traits, and habits of life of the bivalve clam. The work is an art that requires diligence and perseverance. The digger must be hardened to all kinds of weather and accustomed to life in the water. The industrious worker is up with the sun and continues his work until twilight shadows darken the water.
There are several methods used by mussel diggers in getting the clams from the bed of the river. The two most commonly used in the White and Black Rivers are scooping and sticking.
When the clams have been permitted to grow and reproduce without being disturbed for several years, they collect in the mud and gravel of the river bottom. In shallow places near the shoals, these bivalves may be scooped into boats with a wide fork. Two good workers with a boat between them often scoop a ton a day. Sticking is a much slower method, but it is sometimes necessary where the clams are scattered. The tool, called the sticker, is a long stick sharpened on the end or reinforced with a rigid wire. The worker knows that unless a mussel has been disturbed it will always be found in the mud at the bottom of the stream, with the top crack of the shell, or eye, sticking up. When this opening is located in the clear water, the sticker is quietly and expertly inserted at just the right place so that the shell clamps down and holds until the hand of the worker lifts it into the boat. This is slow, tedious work, but by keeping steadily at it a worker may harvest several hundred pounds in a day and earn a living wage.
The diggers have a dumping ground near their camp or houseboat where the clams are piled for sorting. After the day’s work in the river, the men sort the shells, sometimes working far into the night by the light of a lantern. The expert can tell at a glance which shells are marketable and which are not. After sorting, the bivalves which have shells of commercial value are tossed into a huge kettle or pan and boiled to loosen the meat from the shell and make opening easier. After they have been boiled sufficiently to kill the shellfish, the shells are pulled from the soft flesh and tossed to the drying pile. The worker keeps an eye open for pearls during the shelling process. I have heard hillsmen say that only the male bivalves have pearls in them but I take this statement with a grain of salt.
After the shells are dried, they are piled on trucks and transported to nearby railroad points where they are loaded on flatcars. They go to factories to be made into buttons, knife handles, manicure sets, keys, and frets for musical instruments, and numerous other objects. The price the digger receives for his shells varies from twenty to sixty dollars a ton. Quality as much as supply and demand determines the value of the product. A license or permit from the state is usually required to carry on this work.
It is in the larger streams of the Ozark Country that the shell and pearl industries are most profitable. White River is perhaps the most productive stream, with Black River, its tributary, a close second. Many diggers live with their families in houseboats while harvesting the aquatic crop.
The greatest source of revenue in the backhill regions is the timber industry. In 1826 the first steam sawmill in Arkansas was built at Helena on the Mississippi River. Since that time fully 20,000,000 acres of the state’s forestlands have been cut over. Experts estimate that about 1,500,000 acres of virgin timber remain in the state. In Missouri a similar depletion of forestlands has occurred. The Ozarks offer a diversity of trees for timber and there are few lumber requirements that the area cannot meet. Out of about two hundred species of native trees, at least thirty supply products for the lumber industry. Pine ranks first, followed by red oak, white oak, and red gum. A great variety of forest products go for special purposes. Walnut and hard maple make durable furniture. Thousands of small cedars are cut and sold each year for Christmas trees. Mistletoe is cut from its host tree and marketed for Yuletide decoration. Willows are twisted into rustic furniture and baskets. The wood of the downy haw-thorn, or red haw, is whittled into shuttles for looms. Dogwood is popular for parts of machines in fabric mills. Pine billets are cut by the millions and transformed into paper products in milling towns adjacent to the Ozarks. Cedar poles are cut from the mountainsides, nailed together to form rafts, and floated by river to market. Crossties are hewed with the broadax from oak and pine.
When crops are poor on the hillside farms, hillsmen turn to the woods for a livelihood. Tie hacking is hard work but it offers a source of revenue when other means fail. To hew, or hack, a crosstie with a broadax requires skill and industry. Usually two men work together, sawing the timber in proper lengths and then carving the ties with the ax. Sometimes a man goes at it alone, cutting the lengths and smoothing the ends with great skill. On Saturday he loads a few ties on his wagon and goes to town. Buyers for railroad companies pay him a fair price for his product, but it is a hard living at best.
Nature’s bounties have been the succor of many thousands in the Ozarks for more than a century, but the depletion of forests and the harnessing of streams for flood control and electric power are death knells to the old way of life. The building of power dams may be a commercial necessity, but it is difficult for the hillsman to understand and appreciate the modern stoppage of his streams with concrete. In his mind, “damn,” not “dam,” is the proper word to use.
CHAPTER IV
Necessities of Life
Hillcroft “Vittles”
It was in the Big Springs country of the Missouri Ozarks that I discovered a backhill home which appealed to me as a perfect example of rural independence. I had left the broad highway and was walking along trails that were clean and pungent, crossing streams that mirrored the coquettish curves of the hills, traveling perhaps ten miles into the very heart of the forest. Suddenly, I dropped from the rim of a lean ridge into a garden of paradise. In a fertile cup of the hills lay a farm. The closely cropped meadow presented a strange contrast to the forest through which I had traveled. The fields, lush with grain, seemed an Eden in the forest primeval. I walked toward a group of buildings surrounded by trees in the center of a little valley. There I found a large two-story house with a spacious veranda and a cozy fireplace. Giant trees, green grass, and a gurgling spring made the lawn an actual oasis. Contented cows, symbols of arcadia, stood knee-deep in lusty grass in a pasture near the barn. Hens dusted themselves with earth and sang
in joyous discord. Talkative geese swam in the clear stream below the spring. The family consisted of a plain-spoken, middle-aged father, a cultured young mother, and two boys whose eyes sparkled with the joy of living. There was a dog stretched at its master’s feet and cats lying lazily in the noonday sun. With this rural family I ate a dinner of vittles from the well-flavored earth: corn bread and untreated milk, vegetables cooked in their own juices, dried apple pies fried to a rich golden brown in pure lard, fruits with the sun in them.
It all seems a beautiful dream as I retrace this adventure in memory. Here was the “folklure” of the hillcrofter in its most complete simplicity. The stress of modern life with its tragic conflicts was not felt in this valley of contentment. Men might envy and hate and struggle over possessions in the outside world, but here were sweetness and light that almost defied description.
A croft is a small farm, or tract of land, and a crofter is the one who cultivates it. Hillcrofters are tenants of the land who live the simple life close to nature. They are guardians of tradition and folklore in the backhills. This family in the Big Springs country belonged to the landed aristocracy of backwoods America. The Anglo-Saxon tradition was their heritage. They were content with the living the earth provided.
In these modern days, standardized foods, in tin cans or cellophane, are gradually replacing the hillbilly’s homegrown vittles. It is refreshing to find crofters who continue to dry and can fruits and vegetables, make preserves and jellies, butcher their own hogs and cure the meat in the old-fashioned way, bake delicious bread made from burr-mill meal, and spread the table with the vitalized foods of the good earth.
Tucked away in the backhills is a style of cookery which produces dishes to rival the cuisine of the Old South—perhaps a two-year-old, home-cured ham with soda biscuits and ham gravy, or a side of pork ribs roasted before an open fire and basted with the drippings, or hog jowl cooked with lye hominy, or spicy molasses cake.
In the recipe book of the hill country it is just one turn from the sublime to the ridiculous. Take the old hillbilly formula for making “vinegar.” A jar is filled with water and sweetened. Some grains of corn are named after the meanest people in the neighborhood and dropped into the water. It is then sealed and set up to let nature do its peculiar work. That is vinegar with a mean punch.
Ozark sugar-cured ham is a favorite mountain delicacy. The farmer does his own butchering and treats the meat with a preparation made from brown sugar, pepper, and saltpeter. The meat is hung in the smokehouse and smoked with hickory chips. Experts say there is a mystery in the curing of a ham that even scientists do not understand.
Sausage is flavored with sage and stuffed into muslin bags. Fish are rolled in meal and floated in hog fat. ’Possum is baked or parboiled with red pepper seasoning on a mat of sassafras twigs to give it flavor; it is served with candied sweet potatoes.
The fame of sweet potatoes roasted on a clean hearth in front of an open fireplace is widespread. The hillsman knows this technique thoroughly. He sweeps the hearth rocks clean and spreads a layer of hot ashes on them. In the ashes he lays the potatoes, not quite touching each other. These are covered with a layer of ashes and topped with a bed of hot coals. Sometimes a cup of water is sprinkled on the ashes just before the coals are spread on. In about thirty minutes the potatoes are raked out of the ashes and eaten without seasoning or ceremony.
In the old days all the cooking was done on the open fireplace in skillets, pots, and movable ovens. Sometimes a board was heated, spread with dough, and set before the fire at the proper distance and angle to bake johnnycake. Ash cakes were baked from cornmeal batter on the hot rocks of the hearth, the paste being spread on cabbage leaves or corn shucks.
Pork has been the principal meat in the Ozarks since wild game became scarce. The hogs are seldom corn-fed but fatten upon the acorn mast of the forest. The meat is salted or sugar-cured and then smoked. In the old days, venison was cut into small strips and jerked. The meat was hung on poles or scaffolds about three feet from the ground and coals of fire were laid beneath. It took from two to three hours to do this jerking.
Corn bread is the Ozark staff of life. It is baked in various forms such as corn dodger, hoecake, johnnycake, cracklin’ bread, mush, scrabble, and plain corn bread. The most simple forms use only three ingredients—meal, salt, and boiling water.
Cracklin’ bread is made by putting the meal in a bowl and mixing a small amount of salt and soda with it. A hole is made in the center of the meal and a handful of meat cracklings is dropped in. A small amount of boiling water is poured over it and allowed to stand. The next step is to add enough sour milk to make a rather thick batter. The hillswoman uses her hands to divide the dough into two or three parts, then she shapes it by passing it from hand to hand and patting it. It is placed on a hot griddle to bake. The golden-brown cakes, baked from burr-mill meal, would make an epicure smack his lips.
A number of wild plants are used for greens in the backhills, among them being watercress, dandelion, plantain, dock, lamb’s-quarter, and poke sallet. The last three may be cooked together and they make a tasty dish. They are first boiled for half an hour and then fried in grease which has been prepared by frying slices of fatback rolled in flour. Slices of hard-boiled eggs are added and the dish is served with green onions and corn bread.
Watercress is plentiful in the spring branches and many a hill family goes traipsing with tin pail and garden rake to get a mess of this green stuff. At meals it is served wilted, like lettuce, with bacon grease and vinegar.
Not all hillbilly cooking is tasty and digestible. The skillet is used overtime in preparing meals. White biscuits are sometimes half baked and milk is not always plentiful. Biscuit bread, sorghum molasses, and perhaps a piece of fat meat compose the breakfast menu for many hillsmen. The dinner and supper contain heavy foods such as working men require, but there is frequently a shortage of fruits, vegetables, and salads. Corn bread, with or without cracklings, “case-knife” beans, or whip-poor-will peas make up a big part of the daily rations. On Sunday, there may be fried chicken served with mashed potatoes and cream gravy, especially if the preacher is to be present at dinner. Many families, formerly denied a balanced ration, now get their vitamins from the grapefruit and oranges supplied to them by the relief office.
Some writers claim that the women of the backhills are notorious for their bad cooking, but it all depends upon the type of home you visit. The old-line Ozarkers have a style of cookery which rivals the best in the land. They have plenty to eat and know how to prepare it. But only a part of the backhill population belongs to this class. Shiftless people everywhere are noted for their bad cooking, and the Ozark region is no exception.
Raccoon are plentiful in the backwoods and yearling coon is considered good eating during the winter season. The first step in preparing a coon for the pot is to take off the hide and remove the kernels from the legs. If these kernels are left in, the meat may be very bitter. After the insides are removed, the meat is usually soaked overnight in saltwater with one-half cup of salt to eight or ten quarts of water. The fat is then taken off and the meat is parboiled in one-half milk and one-half water. The dressing is made as for chicken, put inside, and sewed up. Slices of bacon are spread on the meat and it is baked slowly for three hours.
In pioneer times, coffee came from the store in the bean and was ground at home in small hand mills. Before the introduction of these grinders, it had to be mashed up in a rag. The coffee was boiled in pots and served scalding hot. There were no percolators.
The hillswoman is always on the lookout for wild fruit and berries. Wild plums, blackberries, and huckleberries are picked both for market and home canning. Beets, turnips, apples, and potatoes are holed up and covered with hay and boards to prevent freezing in winter. Apples and peaches are peeled and sliced and dried on the house roof.
With Tobe Mullins, a mess of good vittles is the apple of a man’s eye. But his apologetic attitude is amusing. He will ask yo
u to “come in and have a dirty bite” when he well knows that Mandy, his wife, is one of the best and cleanest cooks in the backhill country. The table may be loaded with tempting viands, but Tobe will dramatize his excuses for not providing in a better way. It is just a way of the hills and does not in the least interfere with Mandy’s cooking.
Art Crafts and Skills
The fireside industries of the backhills, such as spinning, weaving, and numerous other skills, have lost their traditional atmosphere and have gone to town for profit. The folklorist seeks unspoiled crafts which were developed in that self-sustaining folk age of the past. But it is difficult to find them in their natural settings even in the isolated sections of the Ozarks. Spinning wheels may be found, but not many of them are operated in the old way. Dusty with age, they are stored in smokehouse or attic. Looms, which once groaned under the tread of thrifty housewives, have been destroyed or set up as tourist attractions. A modern sewing machine hums in the cabin; the old cradle is rusting in the shed, outdone by reapers; the muzzle-loading rifle, made with deliberate care by a local gunsmith, is a relic of yesteryear crowded out by modern firearms. The machine age has played havoc with the old handicrafts of the Ozarks. The revival of these industries at the present time has a commercial slant which was unknown in the old days. Only a few scattered remnants of the old ways remain to remind us of the hillsman’s opposition to change.
Ozark Country Page 8
