Saturday, December 31, 2005

New Year's Wishes



Happy New Year, y'all. Remember to eat your Hoppin' John and greens for good luck in 2006.

~~~ Marilyn

Thursday, December 29, 2005

Dismals Canyon: a National Natural Landmark


Back in the 1980’s, my parents took me and my sister to Phil Campbell, Alabama to see Dismals Canyon. It had been featured in Southern Living Magazine and my mother was eager to see it for herself. What we ended up seeing was one of the most beautiful, unspoiled places left in Alabama.

The Dismals began millions of years ago and was created by natural forces, such as erosion and earthquakes. You can see waterfalls, natural bridges, grottos, giant boulders, ancient hemlock trees, glowing worms called "dismalites" and much more. Artifacts have been unearthed that proves that all known cultures of Stone-Age man have resided there. Various American Indian tribes made Dismals their home in the past as well as notorious outlaws such as Aaron Burr.

At the start of the tour, you see a natural pool carved into rock at the top of Rainbow Falls. As you make your way into the canyon via wooden stairs, mist from the waterfall spreads into the canyon making it into a mysterious place. It’s like stepping back into time as you wind your way along Dismals Branch to the swinging bridge and then to Burr’s hideout.

Along the path, and all through the canyon, you will find such diversity of flora. According to their website, "More than 350 different species of Exotic Flora have been identified by botanists exploring the Dismals", including Canadian Hemlock, a variety of maples, witch hazel, mountain laurel, Virginia creeper, sassafras, and more.




But the strangest thing you might see here is the dismalites, a species of glowworm unique to only a few places on Earth. Seen only at night, flashlight tours are given after hours for those who want to witness one of nature’s true marvels.

In fact, the Dismals is so unique with it’s atmosphere and flora, the Discovery Channel used it as one of the locations for the filming of "When Dinosaurs Roamed America". According to the website, "the canyon was selected because its vegetation and broad leaf trees are typical of those that existed when dinosaurs roamed the Earth some 100 to 200 million years ago. The canyon's tall trees and ferns are similar to fossils paleontologists have found near dinosaur relics".




And it truly seems like stepping back in time. The atmosphere in the canyon is dim, misty-green and somewhat ancient. The path follows the branch for a long way, passing such spots as Phantom Falls, Fat Man’s Misery, Temple Cave, Weeping Bluff and the Champion Hemlock tree. In all, it is about 1.5 miles of fern-surrounded trail.

Different from when I was there years ago, the owners have added two, fully-furnished, romantic rental cabins available year-round. And, yes folks, that includes rocking chairs. Reservations are required, so call early.



Also available during the warmer months are primitive camping areas. The Dismals do not offer RV or pop-up campsites, only tent areas in the canyon, and every spot is located near a bathhouse. Also of note: The campsites are not wheelchair accessable as you have to navigate stairs and rough trails to get to them. That goes for the canyon, in general, as well.




There is no man-made swimming pool here or miniature golf. If you want to swim, you can use the natural pool at the top of the falls and if you want something to do for recreation, hiking in the canyon, bird watching and shopping at the Country Store are the main events. But for someone serious about experiencing the beauty of Alabama, Dismals Canyon is a place you don’t want to miss.

For information on admission fees and more, go to the Dismals website at http://www.dismalscanyon.com/ or write them at –

Dismals Canyon
901 Hwy 8
Phil Campbell, AL 35581
Phone:(205) 993-4559

* all photos courtesy of www.dismalscanyon.com

© 2005 Dana Sieben

Lost in the Woods: or Becoming a Family Story

It has been a long time since my sister and I have gotten in trouble together. Here we are almost middle-aged parents of two children each and separated by hundreds of miles. You would think we were over causing our parents any grief. What I’ve learned is…you really never quit causing your parents grief. New Years Day of 2005 was such a day.

The whole debacle began when I insisted to my husband, David, that we take a quick trip down to my parent’s house in northern Alabama in order to visit with my sister, Christy, and her family who were there visiting from South Carolina. It was a great reunion. Six adults and four children all in the same house and my mom and dad couldn’t have been happier.

The first day, after a breakfast of eggs, biscuits, gravy and sausage at my grandmother’s house next door, we all decided to take our traditional walk in the woods in order to walk off all those carbs. The winter woods were starkly beautiful where they hadn’t been logged and the views of the neighboring foothills were incredible. Following the old road that Granddaddy made years before, we ended up at the bottom of a valley that we called the Strip Pit, which was once mined for coal. The kids played near the creek, jumping from rock to rock, and my sister and I hunted for fossils. After a while, everyone decided to head back to the farm, but Christy and I decided to follow the creek at the bottom of the valley and go for a long-overdue sister-sister walk.

She and I wandered around for a long time searching for more fossils. The large slate stones that had been unearthed during the mining and the later terraforming (for safety the state said) showed fossils such as ferns, sticks, small leaves, etc. We found all sizes of fossils and carried them as far as we could before leaving them on a big boulder. We said we'd come back for them later. As it turned out, we never did.

After a couple of hours, we decided to go back to the farm the way we usually went.... straight up the ridge - a big mistake. We started up the muddy hill full of energy; I was leading the way. Christy warned me not to climb so fast, but I didn't listen. I was having too much fun! I was home in Alabama!

Now the hills there are usually easy to climb...it's mostly pine trees, dogwoods, and other small trees, hardly any impediments to climbing. For an adult who is out of shape is another matter entirely.

And to top it off, the woods weren't as I remembered them being. For one thing, most of the big pines were gone. Granddaddy had them all cut for lumber about seven years ago, so all that had come back were the hardwoods and lots and lots of brambles, or sticker bushes as Nanny calls them. The way was hard and very dense; the ground was slick with leaves and pine straw. We bumbled through the briars, through thickets of small trees, through a muddy stream, up some more of the damned mountain until I couldn't go anymore. To my surprise, instead of feeling sorry for myself, I found myself so happy at being there that I almost cried. I had such a feeling of contentment. Sitting there on the ridge in my home state of Alabama, feeling the dampness of the ground under me in the falling darkness, was the best place I could have been at that moment and, for a while, I was at peace.

Now being in the woods after dark without a flashlight is about the dumbest thing anyone can do. Granddaddy says those woods are full of pits that were dug years ago by the mining crews who were testing for coal and I believe him. The state came through a few years ago and bulldozed the area and covered up an airshaft/cave so no one who trespassed on Granddaddy’s land would get hurt or killed. But, up there where we were, the pines were still standing and it was already night, so it was just about impossible to see where we were going, much less look out for hidden holes in the ground.

Finally, we saw a lighter area ahead of us in the darkness. It could have been water or grass, we couldn't tell, so Christy, brave soul that she is, decided to go check it out. Luckily, it turned out to be the road Granddaddy bush-hogged for Nanny's golf-cart/Hummer. You can imagine the relief we felt when we realized that we were almost home. It had been only a couple of hours, most of it in the dark, but we were sure that the family was out looking for us and that we would be in tons of trouble.

I mean, here we were, I'm close to 40, Christy not so much, and we were worried we would get it from the parents. And rightly so. Scared the crap out of them. Those woods are dangerous. I know cousins who did get lost in them and couldn't find their way back. Christy turned to me and said, "Dana, the only thing about this that has me worried is that now we are going to be a "Story" in the family." And she hung her head...and then we laughed. We had heard plenty of "stories" in our family over the years.

Sure enough, soon we heard our uncle hollering and followed the light from his flashlight to where he was. He gave us a blistering talking-to and then got on the walkie-talkie to tell everyone that he had found us, especially my dad who was in the woods looking for us and had gone out so upset, that he had forgotten a flashlight as well.

Nanny was waiting for us at the top of the backfield. She just shook her head at us and said Momma was waiting on us in the house. The fact she hadn’t come outside to see me personally was a bad sign. Momma was mad! And I don’t blame her. We did something we would never want our kids to do and, hopefully, when they are older they will have forgotten about this whole mess. But I doubt it. We are a Story now, aren't we?


UPDATE: In a couple of days, it will be our first anniversary of being lost in the woods and my family is STILL talking about it. In fact, the last time we went for a visit and my sister was there, all the men in the family brought extra flashlights. Family: ya gotta love 'em!

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Wash Day

#2 son is home from college, accompanied by a large black-and-white dog and his usual mountain of dirty laundry. As he was complaining about having to do all that laundry, my mother sent me the following article via email. I had to laugh.


by Joyce Whitis

My niece is writing stories these days, putting them together for her grandchildren. She is explaining the way common tasks were completed when she was a child. “Some things just aren’t easy to explain,” she said. “For instance the old tub washing machines with wringers attached and the rinse tubs with cold water, bluing and starch.” Most folks alive today can’t remember past the automatic washer much less back to the cast iron wash pot over a wood fire. The next question is…..why would they want to? Well, some of us do and in fact even have warm fuzzy memories about wash day and hanging clothes on a line in the back yard to dry. Those clothes brought the clean, fresh smell of the sun right inside and snuggled down in bed with you at night.

By the time I was a teen-ager we took our clothes to the “washateria” but as a child, I helped do the laundry on days that were “nice”. “Tomorrow looks like it’ll be a nice day,” Mother would say as she stood on the front porch, surveying the sky, “I guess we’ll gather up the dirty clothes first thing in the morning.”

Mother was a pretty good weather forecaster. She used signs and cloud patterns that she had learned from an Indian woman her family knew when she was a child, together with the fact that she had spent her entire life in the country and observed nature close hand. We always planned things to do outside on “nice” days. The term, “the first nice day that we have” was the prefix for a set time to explore the cliffs around Farmer’s Valley or clean out the barn or visit relatives on Mulkey’s Ranch. We did interesting stuff outside on “nice” days. On “bad” days we stayed in the house and cleaned out closets, sewed up new garments, read or put jigsaw puzzles together.

What started me thinking about wash days and my Mother was a letter I got from a friend with the following description of laundry day in a very primitive time. My sources said this was written by a Kentucky grandmother who gave this recipe for washing clothes to a new bride.

Bilt fire in backyard to heat kettle of rain water.

1. Set tubs so smoke wont blow in eyes if wind is pert.

2. Shave one hole cake of lie soap in bilin water.

3. Sort things, make 3 piles. 1 pile white, 1 pile colored 1 pile work britches and rags.

4. To make starch, stir flour in cool water to smooth, then thin down with bilin water.

5. Take white things, rub dirty spots on board, scrub hard and then bile. Rub colored don’t bile, just rinch and starch.

6. Take things out of kettle with broomstick handle, then rinch and starch.

7. Hang old rags on fence.

8. 9. Spread tea towels on grass.

9. Pore rinch water in flower bed.

10. Scrub porch with hot soapy water.

11. Turn tubs upside down.

12. Go put on clean dress, smooth hair with hair combs. Brew cup of tea, sit and rock a spell and count your blessings.

Hey, I suddenly feel the need to kiss my washing machine and clothes dryer. Rocking a spell with a cup of hot tea wouldn’t be so bad either. It looks like its going to be a “nice” day.



I missed the wash pot days, but I do remember my grandmother and her old wringer machine on the back porch. I steered a wide berth around that contraption for fear it would reach out, grab my arm and pull it through those wringers.


Yep, I think I'll kiss my automatic washer and dryer as well. And that cup of tea will be mighty nice on these cold winter days.

Monday, December 26, 2005

102 Bodacious Southern Words

Some weeks ago I posted a list of my personal favorite 101 Beautiful Words. I got the idea from those British people who only could think up seventy words—and only a few of them was pretty. I didn’t care for their list at all. No, sir. So I made my own list, and if you ain’t ever seen it, you can see it here. I'd be mighty pleased if you'd stop by. Door's always open.

Well, then, I got to thinking about My First Wife’s side of the family which is from Miss’ippi and Georgia. Those Southern folks we all love so well has given us some real good words. One recent afternoon, while I was sipping on some iced tea, I thought up a list of some Bodacious Southern Words. Then I had the good sense to get some help from My First Wife and her Southern friends. Well, we got us a real good list now. They also gave me a smatterin’ of real nice Southern expressions, too. So here everything is. Nothin’ special; just some down-home Southern words. And oh, yes. I'm willing to bet that in the stories of this Kudzu e-zine, sooner or later you'll surely find all these words as you read along—and then some.

(I probably left something out, so I’ll welcome your recommendations. Jest keep ‘em clean. And I don’t wanna hear no insultin’ stuff like you see in them books they sell at the truck stops.)
  1. Grits
  2. Fixin' to…
  3. High-Sedity
  4. Dixie
  5. “I swan…”
  6. Dumplins
  7. Chitlins
  8. Gussied Up
  9. Coon Dog
  10. Ya'll
  11. Yonder
  12. Bubba
  13. Roll Tide
  14. Mason jar
  15. Double-wide
  16. How-dee!
  17. Craw-daddy
  18. Kalinky
  19. Gen’ral Lee
  20. Shaped Notes Singin’
  21. This here…
  22. Whup!
  23. D'rectly
  24. Mint Julip
  25. Uppity
  26. Plum wore out
  27. Hankerin'
  28. Hey there
  29. What-not
  30. Antebellum
  31. Graceland
  32. Dawgs
  33. Ain't
  34. All ya'll
  35. Cajun
  36. Hog-callin'
  37. Mississippi
  38. Mercy!
  39. Hushpuppies
  40. Scarlett
  41. Good ol’ boy
  42. Hissy Fit
  43. Roly-poly bug
  44. Football
  45. Po Boy
  46. High-Falootin'
  47. Darlin’
  48. June bug
  49. Lightning bug
  50. Honey
  51. Confederate
  52. Sugah
  53. Poke
  54. Pure-dee
  55. Bodacious
  56. Hootenanny
  57. Piggly-Wiggly
  58. South
  59. Moonshine
  60. Debutante
  61. Finger-lickin’
  62. Folks
  63. Shindig
  64. Southern (Baptist) Comfort
  65. Moon Pie
  66. Boll Weevil
  67. Kudzu
  68. Bar-be-que
  69. Liquored-up
  70. Possum
  71. Squirrel
  72. Collards
  73. Catfish
  74. Yes sir
  75. Sashay
  76. Yes ma’am
  77. Boiled Peanuts
  78. Butter Beans
  79. Please
  80. Down-home
  81. Thank you
  82. The 3 Car
  83. Fish Camp
  84. Pee-cans or Pe-cahns
  85. Everclear
  86. Mama
  87. Gators
  88. Long neck
  89. Snuff
  90. Soo-eee!
  91. Rebel
  92. Magnolias
  93. Holler
  94. Tabaccy
  95. Truck
  96. Get ‘er Done
  97. Reckon
  98. Soul Food
  99. Tote sack
  100. Pining for…
  101. Hoot
  102. Ice Tea
…and a smattering of Southern Expressions
  • “Damn Yankees!”
  • “I declare…!”
  • “I’m just sayin’…”
  • “Bless ‘er heart…”
  • "Well, now, little lady…"
  • “Damn Northerners!”
  • “Yer gonna mess and fall back in it!”
  • “Yer talkin’ like a man with a paper butt.”
  • I’ll Fly Away, O Glory…”
  • “Shall We Gather at the River…
  • “Yer not from around here, are ya?"
  • "Ya'll come back now, hear?"

Saturday, December 24, 2005

Merry Christmas Everyone!


What a great 6 months the Dew has had!

I'm so proud of this little e-zine's growth and success. I love the large variety of writers that are willing to share their talent with the rest of us.

When I started it 6 months ago I really didn't even know if it would get off the ground. I tentatively hired a design company to make a great looking site, but told them no money would change hands for a month until I see if the idea "took" or not.

Well, by the end of the first week I had 13 writers and 5 stories already lined up!

I hired the design firm by week two.

Every week I receive lovely articles, stories, ideas, places to visit. All wonderfully written. I love it when I hear from a brand new person wanting to take the chance on sharing their stories.

A lot of people read the Dew but don't always comment. I see the stats though and know that people are coming by! I receive emails now and again thanking the Dew for the positive spin on the South from us.

I'm very proud of the Dew, and most proud of the writers that belong to it.

Thank you all, and Merrry Christmas.

Monday, December 19, 2005

The Ghost of Christmas Past

Most of what I remember about Christmas as a child is a big old letdown. You could be sure that I'd be bawling on Christmas night because it was all over for another year. The hype began early in November and the magic of Santa was all focused on that one night when him and the reindeer came swooping across the roof to make our dreams come true. I swear, there was sleigh tracks in the snow one year, and jingle bells to boot. I can't rightly remember what I got that Christmas....only that my family was together and cozy and happy. Them two bratty little brothers of mine would come down the steps to where Mama was sleeping on the couch in front of the fire and poke her real good to make sure it was okay to jump on the loot. She always was a fool for the magic of Christmas, bless her heart. It was special to her, and still is. I reckon if I snuck in before dawn next Sunday, she'd be camped out on the couch waitin' for the big day with visions of sugarplums and whatnot.

Breakfast is the meal of the day for our family and it's best enjoyed inside the walls of the log cabin we know and love served on the Christmas china. In years past our neighbor Earl provided home made country sausage with just the right amount of heat to compliment Mama's scratch biscuits. I may buy the frozen kind now, but by golly I can make a good tasting one when I have to because she taught me well. Scrambled eggs. Bacon. Gaga's cheese grits. One year we went to my aunt and uncle's house instead and they cooked a dozen eggs for 20 people and by the time I got there it was biscuit and bacon time. What were they thinkin'??

Gaga had the money to splurge on all of us and she did it every year. I don't remember a single thing that I got, truth be told. I do remember the aluminum tree with the rotating color lights. I remember me and all my cousins piling in there like we just knew we were gonna make a haul. Everybody talked and laughed and got exhausted really quick because Santa had already come at the crack of dawn at our own houses.

Later on, when Gaga was really old and living in the assisted living place I'd take her to the SuperStore and push her around in the wheelchair to pick out all of our socks and underwear. Then we'd go back to her place and wrap it all up real pretty. She never gave up on the spirit of giving, even when she was a poor old lady supported by her girls and Medicare.

I buy my own undies now because nobody knows my size or what I like up against my skin. Things are more about the reason for the season and less about going into debt. Sleighbells rarely ring in West Tennessee on cue for the holidays. That's okay though. I still remember the way they sounded when my Daddy climbed the roof.

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Why I started the Dew - an Article



Jayne D'Arcy
interviews "writers that blog". She picked little ole' Idg for one of her interviews!

Actually a lot of this article is about why I started the Dew and how glad I am to have all the great writers that I do have contribute to it, so I thought I'd share it with ya'll.

Thursday, December 8, 2005

It Sparkles Plenty!


By Cappy Hall Rearick

We put up our Christmas tree this weekend. Babe was determined to buy a pre-lighted artificial one this year, much to my chagrin. “Spray some of that canned Christmas stuff around. You’ll never miss the live tree,” he told me.
“Evergreen scented spray that smells like Lysol,” I told him, “can never replace the fragrance of fresh greens wafting throughout my house.”

I should say at this point that Babe does not have the capacity to turn down a bargain. He is driven. He can smell a good deal fifty miles away. Therefore, like a bird dog after a prey, Babe spent hour after hour online comparing prices and sizes and calculating shipping costs.

I stayed out of his way in the kitchen doing normal kitchen things (like cooking) until I heard him shout, “Eureka! I have found the perfect tree!”

It was at Costco and the price was better than any he had found. The problem was that we would have to drive to Jacksonville on Thanksgiving Saturday, and no sane person would go near a discount store the weekend following Turkey Day. (The operative word here is SANE.) The drive down there was akin to being bumper to bumper on the island causeway with a Category 5 hurricane bringing up the rear.

Babe’s thinking went like this: “Since there is a vaulted ceiling in the great room, a tall tree would show up better than a shorter one.” Last year, we had a live six-footer that looked so lonely and forlorn we left it up until after Valentine’s Day so it wouldn’t go to the tree shredder with an inferiority complex.
We arrived at Costco thankful that the crazed crowds of bargain hunters had not permanently removed any of our needed limbs. Once inside, Babe immediately saw the tree of his dreams.
“There it is,” he said breathlessly. “There’s our tree. Isn’t it beautiful?”

I looked up and up and up and up. “Babe, don’t you think it’s a wee bit tall?”

He stared at me as though I had been sampling the bourbon-laced eggnog again. “Of course it’s tall, but so is our ceiling. It’ll be perfect. Besides, we’ll save eighty bucks on shipping.”
I turbo sigh. “Whatever. Just buy the thing and let’s get out of here.” I glance behind him. “Hey, Babe … remember a while ago in the parking lot when you snuck into that space you thought was vacant?”

He nods his head, obviously more interested in gazing at Paul Bunyan’s Christmas tree.
“Well,” I whisper, “the woman who was patiently waiting on that space you stole is standing right behind you and … if looks could kill ...”

He spun around and came eyeball to eyeball with a woman shaped like a Humvee who was carrying a pocketbook the size of a BarkaLounger. Had she pulled out an AK-47 and started shooting up the place, I’d have been the only one in the store who saw it coming.

Babe turned back to me and whispered, “I’ll go pay for the tree while you bring the car around, okay?”

Five hours later we arrived back home with our new Christmas tree, packaged in two separate boxes each one equal to the size and weight of a Volkswagen. How the two of us managed to get both boxes upstairs, unloaded and assembled into one 12-foot tall tree, complete with 2,500 pre-strung lights, is a genuine fait accompli.
Even in my wildest dreams, I never pictured our great room looking like Rockefeller Center. Walking through without sunshades could cause permanent corneal damage. The dog keeps nosing around in search of a trunk on which she can hike up her leg. At any moment, I expect the Rockettes, skimpily dressed in Santa outfits, to form a chorus line and hike up their legs.

Heaven only knows how we will ever get that tree unassembled and put back in the boxes. The odds are good, however, that this tree will follow its predecessor and stick around for a while after the holidays … like maybe until Babe and I leave here to go live in a nursing home!

Oh Tannenbaum, Oh Tannenbaum, how incredibly tall your branches!

Friday, December 2, 2005

Sweet Potato Pie


Recipe by:
j.butterfly

Ingredients:
1lb sweet potato 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 cup butter, softened 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 cup white sugar 1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup milk 1 9 inch unbaked pie crust
2 eggs

Direction:
1. Boil sweet potato whole in skin for 40-50 mins, or until done. Run cold water over the sweet potato, and remove the skin.

2. Break apart the sweet potato in a bowl. Add butter, and mix well with mixer. Stir in sugar, milk, eggs, nutmeg, cinnamon, and
vanilla. Beat on medium speed until mixture is smooth. Pour
filling in a unbaked pie crust.

3. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 55 - 60 minutes, or until knife inserted in center comes out clean.

Pie will puff up like a souffle, then will sink down as it cools.
my website:

www.gadgeteer.net/southgirl
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Thursday, December 1, 2005

My Texas Ranger Grandfather


Ranger Reunion - My great great grandfather, R.D. Routh, is on the second row, fifth gentleman from the right (with a red mark next to him)

I received this story from my Routh cousin, Sue, this morning. The clipping was from the Brownwood Bulletin, I believe. I will have to check on the year, but probably in the early 1940's:

If you want to know the history of Brown County, drop around some day to 210 North Broadway Street, and talk to Bob Routh. Mr. Routh is one of the oldest living settlers of Brownwood. He came here in 1872, when this city was a hamlet of seven or eight log houses.

"Was Brownwood one street then?" he echoed my query. "It was even less than that. The Brownwood of 1872 consisted of two stores built from undressed timber, a log courthouse, and about five dwellings. The business section of the twon was in the bend of the Slough where the old jail now stands. The residences were scattered out for about a quarter to a half mile from the business houses.

"As for the surrounding county, it was sparsely settled. As well as I remember, there were only 56 families in the county when I came here. There were the Andersons and Williamses, the Cheathams, and others."

Mr. Routh was born in Collin County February 23, 1854. When he was eighteen, he decided to move into a less settled section of the country, and made the journey from his home to this city by ox wagon.

"It was slow going, and a tedious way of traveling, " he said, "but it was the mode in those days. There were very few horses in Texas when I was growing up. Horses were scarce then even in the cattle country.

"And this section was cattle country. When I came here there was about twenty acres in cultivation in the whole county. Old Uncle Bill Anderson had a ten acre patch out at his place, and someone else had a small farm near town.

"Brownwood was better off in a lot of ways then, because this country is naturally cattle land. It should never have been cut up into farms.

"As for money, there was little of it. But none of us ever suffered."

I wanted to know about the Chisholm Trail. "Did it go through Coleman County, as some say?"

"No, the Chisholm Trail never did go through this part of the state. It started on the Chisholm ranch which was located in Wise County and went up into Indian Territory. It branched into two main routes, one of these went to Kansas and Dodge City, while the other one went to Denver, Colorado. Cattle were driven into Kansas and sold to the packing plants, cattle driven to Denver, and sold to western stockmen.

"There were a number of cattle trails in this section of Texas, but all of them, so far as I know, were unnamed. There was one trail which started in southern Texas, came up through Brown County (it passed the old Round Mountain on Salt Creek) and went on north through Callahan County. This trail may have merged later on along the route with the Chisholm, that I don't know, but what I do know that the Chisholm Trail was never south of Wise County.

"I could show you where the old Chisholm Trail passed if we were in Wise County. I could find the Chisholm easily, for I have been upon the Chisholm ranch many times. A brother of mine used to ride ranger there."

"I joined the Rangers here in 1873. There were 75 men in our company, and we were detailed for Indian duty, but I was never in an Indian fight.

"Bill Williams came to town one day for supplies and when he returned to his ranch which was located on the Jim Ned, he found his wife dying. One of the children was dead, and the other had been carried away. It was presumed that a party of Comanches had committed the depredation.

"The last Indian fight in Brown County occurred in 1875. It took place on Clear Creek, and Dick Cheatham and Dick Smith, as well as some other local men ran across a raiding party of Comanches. The fight was short duration, and the Indians were killed; one of them was brought into town and left at Dave Hutchinson's blacksmith shop, where he was kep on exhibition for a day. He was then taken out, and stuck up in a tree along the old Comanche road. A few days later he fell out of his perch and was eaten by the roaming hogs.

"Most, if not all of the raids, in this section were carried out by Comanches. The tribes camped on the Pease River, and the braves would set out at various intervals after horses. They would scout over this part of the state and would even travel as far south as Bell County after mounts. They wanted animals much more than they wanted scalps.

"Regardless of what people say, the Indian was never bad at heart. The white man did his best to make him bad, and partly succeeded. The white man crowded the redskin into the Pacific Ocean; he stole his land from him; he made him promises and he always broke them. It has always been the great failing of the white man that he had no sympathy for primitive peoples; greed seems to be paramount in his nature.

"Shooting scares were common here in the seventies and were no rarity in the eighties either. Men considered killing to be the easiest and most effective way to settle quarrels. As a rule they had nothing to fear from the law because they were usually acquitted when they were tried.

"I can count them out, one after another, the men who killed and were killed. There was one old man who killed once too often. He shot his brother-in-law, and carved a second notch on his gun. A shoot.....grain in the morning and go to picnic in the afternoon.

"I knew a ranger here named Captain James. He was a first cousin to Jesse and looked as much like the bandit as a twin brother. He showed me a picture that he and Jesse had taken together before the captain left Missouri.

"James went down to the Bayou bridge one day to arrest a man who was camped there. I forget what charge the man was wanted for. He appeared to be peaceable enough and told James that he would go back to town with him. He requested that he might get his coat from the wagon. James consented to this. The man went tot he wagon, reached under the seat, drew a gun, and fired at James. James was hard hit, but he fired back, killing the stranger. A ranger who was with James carried him to town, and after a few months, the captain recovered from his wound.

"I saw Captain James at a ranger reunion five years ago. Whether he has died since then or not, I don't know.

In 1879 Mr. Routh married Miss Rosie Cane*. Six children were born to them, all of whom are living.


*The spelling was Cain, and could possibly have been Crain/Crane.