Midwives had plenty of abnormal grist for the mill of gossip. They told of babies born with two faces, with heads like serpents, with gold teeth and pop eyes and numerous other peculiarities. Discussions of cause and effect produced many strange theories.
Many of the older folks believed in witchcraft and it was no uncommon thing to hear stories of people and animals that had been bewitched. One woman related a weird experience in this realm of the supernatural. A neighbor hillsman came into the house one morning, picked up her baby girl, and looked at her. When he departed the child began to cry and scream and nothing could quiet her. A neighbor woman came in and told her that the baby was bewitched. She said that to break the spell the other should take the child to the door before sunrise, lick her from nose to hairline, and repeat the three highest names in the Bible. She was to do this for nine mornings, and on the ninth day the one who cast the spell would come to borrow something. They were not to let him have anything.
The mother did as she was told and on the ninth morning the neighbor hillsman came to borrow as was foretold. He was refused everything he requested. Finally he asked for a tow string to tie a hog. Even this was refused him. This made him angry and he went home. The baby was all right from that time on, but the woman who told how to break the spell had a nice heifer die the following day.
A man was out hunting one morning when something like a shot seemed to hit him in the back. He realized he had been shot by a witch. Such shooting by supernatural means was called “elk shooting.” He believed a certain neighbor was responsible, so he drew an outline of the man on a board, chalked his name on it, and set it against a tree. A silver dollar was melted, a bullet made from it, and shot into the picture. A few days later he heard that the suspected neighbor had been injured in an accident.
Another story current in the backhills appears to be a survival of the old werewolf legend except that, in this case, the man was transformed into a horse instead of a wolf. A farmer was riding through the woods on horseback late one night when a witch cast its spell and overpowered him. He was changed into a horse and tied to a tree, where he spent the remainder of the night gnawing bark and kicking up dirt. The spell broke at daylight and he made his way home. It is said that to convince his family and neighbors of the reality of the incident, he took them to the spot, showed them the tree with its torn bark and the ground he had trampled into dust. He had the added proof of a sore mouth “frum chompin’ th’ dang bit.”
Formerly, the word “witch” was applied to persons of either sex who were given to sorcery or enchantment. Later, the term was restricted to a woman who was thought to have made a compact with evil spirits and through their means operated supernaturally. In the Ozarks, the name was applied to both male and female.
Men who had power to overcome witches were called witch masters. If a witch was stripping the cows, making the hogs act hoodoo, or causing other devilment or injury, an expert witch master was called to put the demon out of business. He would draw a picture of the witch and plug it with a silver bullet from his rifle gun. A bullet had to be made of silver to subdue a witch.
A Missouri woman told me a story of witchcraft that had been handed down by her ancestors. Here is the tale as her grandmother reported it.
There was a certain woman in our neighborhood who was thought to be a witch. There had been several strange occurrences she was thought to be responsible for, some of which would identify her in my community if I repeated them, even yet.
One morning, after she had been dead for some time, I was driving past her old home, which I knew was deserted and had been for some time. As I came in sight of the house I was amazed to see smoke coming out of the chimney. It was thick, blue smoke, appearing just as it does in the early morning when one is starting a fire. I stopped to investigate, thinking that perhaps someone had moved in, but there was no one there and no fire in the fireplace.
The hair rose up on the back of my head, but I was determined to find the reason for the smoke, and forced myself to go up to the fireplace and stir the dead ashes with a stick. There was no sign of fire, no hint of warmth. I thought there might be a swallow’s nest in the chimney and that the birds had stirred up a dust which deceived me. I looked carefully but found absolutely nothing. Yet all the time the curls of thick blue smoke were coming out of the fireplace chimney. I have thought of this many times and have never found any natural explanation.
Little Log Schoolhouse
The little log schoolhouse still sits by the side of the road, “a ragged beggar sunning,” in a few isolated communities of the Ozarks, but it is a dilapidated structure succumbing to the ravages of decay. The old oaken door sags on its hinges and the spectral windows are curtained with cobwebs. The homemade desks, scarred with initials, have been removed and only a remnant of blackboard remains as a relic of other days. The district is now consolidated with other schools in the county and the scholars ride to the central school at the county seat in comfortable motor buses. Almost every school from Bee-gum Holler to Pokeberry Ridge has adopted the consolidation plan. Perhaps Dirt Dauber and Bug Tussle have held out against this modern trend but they cannot do so indefinitely. The die has been cast by legislative action and there is no turning back.
Educational traditions in the backhills are interwoven with the romantic lore of the one-room schoolhouse and it will be many years before this pestilent influence is wiped out. Terms were short in the old days and the teachers were poorly paid. The children sometimes walked three or four miles in all kinds of weather to “get a little schooling.” The curriculum was limited to a few essential subjects. Hot lunches were not provided for undernourished youngsters and directed play was unknown. But the rural school, like the church, was an institution of vast importance to the pioneer settlers. It was both a house of learning and a community center. Its departure has cast a shadow over the community that cannot be lifted by modern ingenuity.
The teachers who carried the torch of learning in the dark day of isolation deserve much credit for the work they did. They were usually men of talent and integrity and they knew the fundamentals they taught. They endured many privations in order to promote the educational traditions of that day.
Thomas Smith Evans, who began his teaching career in Searcy County, Arkansas, is the type of pioneer teacher to whom we point with pride. He taught one of the first free schools in Arkansas, provided by an act of the state legislature in 1854. Before then schools were conducted on a subscription basis and continued in session for only three months of the year. Evans taught a number of these schools before accepting his first free school at $22.50 per month, payable in gold. His prodigious industry made him an outstanding teacher. He manufactured all the pens for his pupils from the quills of goose feathers. He made ink for his penmanship classes from the “ink balls” that grow on oaks, boiling them in a little water and setting the fluid with copperas. He was an expert shoe cobbler and would frequently make a pair of shoes after school hours, using wooden pegs and leather from his own tanyard. In Carroll County, Arkansas, he had fourteen young women in his school and “all but thirteen of them wore shoes.” He was in the first teachers’ examination in the state, held the first free-school contract, and was the first speaker in the first Teachers’ Institute.
This backhill pedagogue with his bag of ink balls and homemade pens was made a county examiner in the seventies. He is said to have licensed the first woman teacher in his county. The teachers’ examinations were mostly oral, the examiner asking questions until he was convinced of the applicant’s fitness for the position. The examiner’s salary was $200 per year, in scrip at forty percent value.
Thomas Evans began preaching the gospel in 1855 and carried this work along with his teaching. Church debates were a fad in those days and he took an active part in them. But his strong doctrinal arguments in the debates caused him to be “deeded out” of one church. The deed to the church property gave preachers of all denominations the right to preach in t
he building “except Uncle Tom Evans.” He never asked for pay for preaching, but he did receive donations totaling thirty dollars during his long period of service. Evans ran the gamut of life as teacher, preacher, singing-school teacher, shoe cobbler, rail splitter, farmer, traveling salesman, hunter, and Confederate soldier during the Civil War. He died at Newburg, Arkansas, in 1920 at the age of ninety-eight.
The course of study in the little log schoolhouse included the McGuffey’s Readers, Ray’s Arithmetic, the Blue Back Speller, and Webster’s Dictionary. Schools were seldom graded, but when a pupil could read the Fifth Reader intelligibly, work the problems in Ray’s “Third Part,” and spell all the miscellaneous words given on pages 169 to 174 in the old Blue Back, he was ready for a diploma. Spelling was oral and the pupil pronounced each syllable of the word as he came to it, and then the word as a whole. After a few years the course of study was enlarged to include grammar, history, and geography. Scientific subjects such as physiology and general science were added later.
Friday afternoons were always set aside for spelling and ciphering matches and literary programs. The recitations were usually taken from the readers that were being used as textbooks and most of the selections were literary masterpieces. The technique followed in “speaking a piece” was to face the audience, make a bow, repeat the lines of the recitation, make a bow, and retire. Courtesy was an important part of elocution. Debates were frequently held on such vital subjects as, “Which is the more important: the broom or the dishrag?” or “Which is the mightier: the pen or the sword?” These debates were a vocal free-for-all for the older pupils and each side tried hard to outwit its opponents.
Spelling matches were frequently held on Friday nights and all the community took part. When the crowd had gathered and leaders had been selected, the teacher would take the spelling book, insert his finger between pages, and have the two leaders guess the number of the page. The one coming nearest to the number got the first choice of spellers. They chose back and forth until the entire crowd was divided and lined up on opposite sides of the room. The teacher then began pronouncing, alternating from one side to another. When a word was missed, the speller took a seat and the word was passed on to the opposite side. This was continued until it was spelled correctly. The person turning all the others down was declared winner. Sometimes the last two spellers would hold the floor a long time and the teacher would turn to page 174 of the Blue Back Speller and test them out on such words as ren’dez-vous, nau’seous, da-guerre’o-type, phlegm, and caout’chouc.
Numerous affiliated institutions have been established in recent years in the hill country to enlarge the scope of educational opportunity for both young and old. Adult schools have been conducted in practically every county throughout the area and the percentage of illiteracy has been greatly reduced. Educational agencies through the 4-H clubs and NYA and CCC camps have pushed back the horizon for thousands of young people in the Ozarks. Now and then we find an educational missionary like James T. Richmond who operates his Wilderness Library in the backhills of Newton County, Arkansas. But even now educational conditions are deplorable in some sections of the hill country.
Charles Morrow Wilson, in his recent book Corn Bread and Creek Water, reveals the inadequacy of our schools in the backhills through the startling information that there are schools in Arkansas where teachers “turn back” their pupils when they arrive at decimal fractions and the sixth reader because the teachers are not prepared to go further. He points out, however, that inadequacy of rural schools is common to many areas of the United States and that the Ozark Country is not necessarily the horrible example of deplorable insufficiency in rural education.
Attempts are being made to eradicate these inequalities by legislative action; short terms, low standards, and poorly paid teachers will probably have to go. But the stupidity and corruption of past years cannot be blotted out in an instant. It will take time to establish equality throughout a region that is a part of three states, each differing from the other in educational standards.
A ray of light in the political darkness is the Ozarkian folk school. An outstanding example of such a school is the one held each autumn at Shannondale Community Center in Shannon County, Missouri. Qualified leaders are secured to teach classes in vocational agriculture, forestry, and stock raising. Agricultural extension agents, forest rangers, county agents, and local teachers aid in the program. The students learn how to test soils for mineral content and general fertility. They learn how to diversify crops so as to build up ground which is deficient in certain elements. They learn how to raise better and more profitable crops. They make a thorough study of animal husbandry, breeding, feeding problems, dairying, and inoculation against diseases.
There are classes in home economics for the rural women at Shannondale. Basketry, rug weaving, and woodcarving are given special attention. These art crafts hold a cherished spot on the folk school curriculum.
The social program of the school is planned with special care. There are recreational periods which include such activities as ballad singing, group singing, guitar playing, folk dancing, and the playing of folk games.
The Shannondale Folk School is not a philanthropic venture. It is not one group of people trying to help another, but, in the words of the headmaster of the project, “a group of people trying to help themselves.”
CHAPTER VII
Sports Afield
The Shooting Match
The squirrel lay on a sycamore limb fifty feet from the ground. I took deliberate aim with my rifle, sighting at the bark of the tree a quarter of an inch below the gray patch of fur over the rodent’s heart. Bang! Scraps of bark jumped into action and fell to the ground. The squirrel slid from the limb and took refuge in a den tree nearby. I had shot too low to accomplish my purpose. I concluded that “barking” was all right for the native, but a furriner should stick to the old way if he wants to pocket the game.
White River folks judge a hunter’s skill by his ability to bark his game. The Nimrods aim at a point to hit the bark of the tree near the animal’s head or heart. The concussion of the bullet knocks the game from the tree, sometimes killing it. Disgrace shadows the Ozarker who brings in a squirrel showing an ugly bullet wound. Anything less than a shot between the eyes is counted a miss.
I had just reached the top of Smackover Ridge and was planning to move over into the Clabber Creek bottoms when a shot rang out in the river valley to my right. This was followed by others at somewhat irregular intervals. I hurried to the edge of the cliff to see what might be the cause of such an extravagant use of powder. Rounding a boulder, I looked down into the pocket-like valley. A colorful sight presented itself. It was the day of the community shooting match at Woodville, an annual event of great importance, and I had forgotten all about it. I descended into the valley to take part in the fun.
A shooting match in the Ozarks is an affair to be remembered. It is an old custom in the backhills that men get together occasionally and try their skill at shooting. In the old days muskets or muzzle-loading “rifle guns” were used, but on this occasion, it being a “turkey shoot,” most of the men carried modern, breech-loading shotguns.
I arrived just in time for the “splatter match.” Tobe Mullins was tacking the large cardboard on a tree just as I joined the group. It cost only ten cents to enter and as the prize was a fine turkey hen, I paid my dime and took a chance. Each man who entered had made an X on the board and put his initials near it. When thirty chances were sold, the stage was set for the splatter match.
Ike Foster, a disinterested man from the Posey neighborhood, was selected to do the shooting. He used a long-barreled, single-shot, twelve-gauge gun, loaded with number six shot. At twenty steps he aimed point-blank at the center of the board and fired. We all rushed up to see whose X had a hole nearest the intersection. I saw at once that I had a chance to win, but it was up to the judges to decide. It lay between Hite Lindsey and me, but after much measuring and arguing, To
be Mullins announced that I had won the turkey. It was the first, and last, prize I ever won at a shooting match.
The big event of the afternoon was the rifle shoot. Several turkeys were placed in a coop on the hillside some thirty yards from the log on which the men rested their guns. When a turkey pushed its head between the slats on the coop, it was an ideal target for the hillsmen lying behind the log. To win, the bullet must pierce the head, killing the bird instantly. Bill or neck shots did not count. One by one the turkeys were picked off by the expert riflemen.
Before my arrival, the men had tried out their guns in the big gobbler match. In this contest each man had his own card on which was drawn a circle the size of a silver dollar. The man who succeeded in placing the most number six shot in his circle at twenty paces was declared winner. This was a test of guns rather than marksmanship for, other things being equal, the gun with the smallest “choke” placed the most shot in the circle.
When the turkeys were disposed of, the men retired to the flat ground near Tart Tuttle’s store to pitch horseshoes and play marbles. A few men sauntered into the ravine back of Lem Logan’s blacksmith shop to play poker. Corn liquor flowed freely but it was not drunk openly. The sentiment produced by the recent local-option movement held the men in check. Most of the men went inside the blacksmith shop or into the bushes to do their drinking. There had been but little showing of liquor during the match. The hillsman knows that corn liquor produces unsteady nerves. I did see one man go behind a tree, take a flask from his pocket, pour some liquor into the palm of his hand, and rub it into or around his eyes. He did it just before it came his time to shoot. I assume that he considered the fiery stuff to be a good eye-opener.
The day following the match, the store-porch jury assembled at Tuttle’s store to talk things over. Shooting matches, ancient and modern, were discussed. Tobe Mullins was there to remind us that a twentieth-century shooting match wasn’t to be compared with the ones held fifty years ago. It was an easy matter to get a story out of Tobe.
Ozark Country Page 15
