The Mountain Doctor

VOLUME 150 NUMBER 3

SEPTEMBER 1932

BY ALFREDA WITHINGTON

I

August, 1924
MY DEAR FRIEND,
I suppose you wonder what has become of me. Those war and post-war years in France did not conduce to a resumption of conventional practice, so when ‘Wanted, a woman physician for settlement work in the remote Kentucky mountains, all calls to be made on horseback, no other licensed physician within twenty-five miles,’ caught L. R.’s eye, she said, ‘Just what you would like’ — and so thought I.
The ball was started rolling, and last spring it took me, with a Kentucky license in my bag, out of Louisville on a night train for the mountains. We got out for breakfast at a little mining town, and there I met the community worker who was bound for the same settlement. Everyone was agog over the recent trial of a man indicted for the assault and murder of a school-teacher on a mountain over which we were first to cross. The deed was supposed to have been done by an outsider, traversing the trail from the railroad. The native men were justly outraged over the crime, for mountaineers, though they show no chivalry toward their women and are their lords and masters, have great respect for womanhood, and, as far as they are concerned, a woman may go alone anywhere in all these mountains.
The train ran down between Pine Mountain and Big Black for several hours before the conductor pulled the cord to stop at our desired trail. We jumped off in a torrential rain, in the wake of a fierce gale. Ourselves and bags packed on the mules that were awaiting us, we struck immediately into the forest and began the tortuous ascent of a 3000-foot mountain which runs like a Chinese Wall for one hundred and fifty miles, shutting off the country beyond from the world at large. At the summit we halted for lunch, taking it standing and trying to protect our sandwiches to leeward of our bodies. Just as we started our descent, the clouds lifted, and below we saw the labyrinth of tossed-up peaks that stretched away endlessly. In there somewhere was our cabin! Thoroughly soaked, we preferred to walk rather than remount our drenched saddles. The downward trail was strewn with storm-washed stones, slippery as grass. Suddenly my companion sprained her ankle. There was nothing for her to do but remount her mule, whose own footing seemed in no way certain. From behind I admired her skill in keeping her seat as the animal lurched over the rolling rocks.
Away down in the valley was the boarding school where we were to spend the night, and learn of the opportunity offered by such a school and its farreaching help. My own stay there was cut short by a call for the doctor to attend a confinement some miles away. Everything progressed rapidly and well, and in a few hours we were able to continue our journey, arriving about ten o’clock at our own charming cabin on the mountain side, where a cheerful fire greeted us.
In the morning I found that the stepping-stone walk at the side of the house was protected by a retaining wall of rocks seven feet high, in all the crannies of which had been planted wild flowers. Just then the blues predominated, including wild iris of heaven’s own hue; and as I was poking among them a snake stuck his head out of a crevice. Below us in the bend, where our creek flows into Greasy, is the only level piece of land in the neighborhood, and it is used for our vegetable garden, community playground, and paddock for our horses. We have a near-by community house where the district schoolteacher generally lives. There are three or four cabins within a mile on each creek. Then they are scattered at intervals two or three miles apart, sometimes only one on a side creek. It may interest you to know that we are thirteen miles from the railroad, between Kingdom-Come and Hellfor-Sartin.

Copyright 1932, by The Atlantic Monthly Company, Boston, Mass. All rights reserved.

II

I have no regular office hours; patients come when they can. To those who can pay, we charge a small fee to save their self-respect. As far as I can see, ailments are much the same here as in the outside world, except that there is perhaps more rheumatism. I draw the line at pulling teeth, but lend the tooth pullers to those who will.

I had been here but a few days when a call came one night from below the cabin: —

‘Hey, Doc, will you fellars come see Hitty? She can’t open her jaws.’

It was a case of tetanus. I had them take her before daylight to meet the morning train for the very good hospital in the mining town of one of our big corporations. There she received serum and care, but died after a week. By arrangement, the doctor gives his services, but we have to pay for the bed. However, the Louisville and Nashville Railroad gives me passes to Louisville for indigent cases, where Dr. A., the ablest of surgeons, donates his services, and there is no hospital bill.

So I can take care of all serious hospital cases, having only to provide sleeper fare for a night’s journey and meals and lodging for the kin who go with the patient, many of whom have never seen a train before,

‘But,’ exclaimed a visitor, ‘you can’t get anyone out of these mountains on a stretcher!’ But we do. It is a picturesque sight to see, going along the trails, six men bearing a stretcher, sometimes covered with a rare old woven bright-colored ‘ kiver,’ followed by the patient’s ‘ole woman’ or ‘ole man’ on a nag, and six men on mules for relays, taking turn about every half hour. ‘ Have you any milk for the patient?’ I would ask. ‘Oh no; we’ll kotch a cow and milk her’; and, if there was no woman in the retinue, ‘The brute won’t like a man a-milkin’; hit’s a woman’s job.’ Milking is always done by the women, who stand and milk with one hand. The cows always forage for a living, coming in night and morning for the small amount of fodder which is given to attract them for the milking. In the early dawn one can hear the call of the owner: ‘ Aw, coo coo coo, aw coo.’

My predecessor warned me to care for my own horse (feed, curry, and bridle him) if I did n’t want him made ‘mean.’ At any rate I discovered that I had to, because there was no available person to do it for me. Handsome fiveyear-old Billy, of aristocratic lineage, is inclined to be ‘notional,’ as the people say. Many warned me, ‘Billy’s so “anticky” he’ll kill you yet. Better git a mule.’ But he is really only gay and full of mischief. The other day as I reached the top of an incline, I saw a runaway horse mounted by a boy, another boy on a mule, and a loose mule behind, all tearing toward me. I was filled with panic at the thought of what would happen on that road, which was only wide enough for two going with care, with a steep hill on one side and a declivity on the other. Before I could think, Billy’s racing instincts settled it. In a twinkling he whirled round and headed the procession.

We go five miles for our mail, sometimes not for several days. We unpack our parcel-post boxes and store their contents in our saddlebags, or put them entire in burlap bags. When unmanageable amounts accumulate, we hire the school wagon that brings in our hay and oats. There is a barely possible road as far as our cabin; beyond us are only wilderness trails, just wide enough for beast and man. The trails lead through wonderful hard-wood forests, with massive overhanging cliffs called ‘rock-houses.’ The by-products of my work give me untold joy: the depth and silence of the forest, with its giant growth; the moss-covered fallen trees, shimmering bars of jade in the occasional beam of sunlight. Sometimes, in its remoteness, I feel as though I were a disembodied spirit. There is but little animal life in these mountains. Though there are foxes, coons, and some wildcats, I have seen, now and then, only a ground hog, a hare, or a cardinal flying among the lower branches, and have heard hardly a sound but the ‘chip-chip, cluck’ of a ‘ boomer’ (red squirrel) or the lovely note of the hermit thrush. Sometimes there is no sight or sound of human life for hours; then, suddenly, a glimpse of a cabin tucked away in a ‘holler,’ with children frisking about.

It is still easy for me to get lost, and sometimes to be glad of it, for the sake of the unexpected. The other day I came out upon a small clearing entirely covered with full-blown ironweed; it grew so high that only Billy’s head was visible above the level of purple blossoms. Great oaks and chestnuts and a sprinkling of hemlocks reflected varying shades of green on all sides of the patch — this for a colorful setting, with deep blue sky above! I always carry a whistle to sound my call for help. I whistled long and loud that day, but no one answered. Only Billy’s sagacity brought me out.

About five o’clock one afternoon I looked down the road, and there trudged along a boy of about fourteen and a girl of fifteen, he carrying a pitiful little dress-suit case and she a ‘poke.’ I ran down to say ‘Howdy,’ and learned that they were cousins on their way to the opening of the boarding school. They said they had started at daylight, and had crossed four mountains. The father of one had given them a start by carrying them on a mule over the first mountain before he began his day’s work on the ‘ craps.’ The girl was already in the throes of homesickness, but with quivering lips she courageously stated that she was going to ‘git lamin’.’ I asked them to ‘stay the night,’ but, though on their last legs, they were resolute and said they must ‘git’ to the school that night. It was five miles away, and a mile over rough mountain trails is equal to many on level ground.

Not long ago I was called to see a woman sick with the flu, and also sick at heart as she told me with pathos of the death of her only child, saying, ‘I wanted hit so to love.’ There was consolation in the thought that this poor, lonely soul, yearning for babies to love, would have many more, for families in these parts seldom number less than twelve to sixteen children. I make a practice of taking a ‘soon start’ for a long trip, because there is always a chance of another call on the way; and this time, as I threaded my path down through the rhododendron thickets by picturesque Penny Branch, I found a man on a mule waiting for me at the bottom. He knew I had been sent for (news travels in the mountains in some mysterious way), and wanted me to go and see his little boy, who he thought had scarlet fever — and he had!

Afterward I had a long pull home, returning by trails new to me, and I skipped along the ridges as fast as possible. Suddenly, when the trail widened a bit, a man called out ‘Howdy’ and rode past me, keeping just ahead, remarking, ‘I like that horse of yourn.’ He may have been all right, but he was a stranger to me, and not like our mountain men; and I remembered that the bootleggers were getting bold and coming in by day. So, as soon as another widening of the trail permitted, I kicked my heels into Billy’s flanks and shot ahead, with complete confidence in my ‘horse without peer’; for, though he is no Roland, there is n’t a nag in the mountains that can overtake Billy.

Darkness came on quickly, as it does in the mountains, but Billy was game, stepping gingerly over dark objects in the trails, — cows reposing for the night (and bulls as well, I suppose !) — and once he was so startled at a wandering pig that he almost threw me. When two streams seemed to meet at the same angle, I had to get off and put my hand in the water to find the direction of the current and get my bearings.

That was a thirteen-hour trip, with eleven in the saddle.

III

One day in February, when the wind was howling and the rain pelting over previously formed ice, I was called to Chad Buck’s, up Desolation Creek, five miles away. Chad had had a heart lesion and a chronic nephritis, and now word came that he had a high fever and a ‘stitch’ in his side (pneumonia, it proved to be). I walked, since it was too slippery for Billy to keep his footing. Chad was one of the most valued men in the community, and save him we must, if possible. So the nurse from the school and I planned to spend much time there.

The rain kept up all night, but ceased in the morning, and, the ice being mostly melted, I decided to walk back and get my horse for other calls.

I arrived at our cabin safely enough, but soon after I started on the return trip the rain fell again in torrents. The fords had risen tremendously, and I found myself confronted with high water. A man I met said he thought he could find a place to get my horse across the double ford, so he mounted Billy and I clambered around on the ledge of the rock, holding on to the overhanging roots of trees and meeting horse and rider above. Two miles farther on I came to what by this time was a ford both deep and tumultuous, the waters having risen with staggering rapidity. Billy refused to take it, and after repeated urging I finally trusted to his horse sense. But what was I to do? Dusk was coming on and I could not go back any more than ahead, the waters being equally deep in both directions.

In the meantime there was a conference at the Bucks’. Chad said I would come because I said I would, while Mrs. Buck averred that I would have more sense. But Chad called his boy, Jonathan, saying, ‘Now, son, you kotch the big mule and go hunt the doctor, for Billy is a fotched-on horse and I’m afeared she’s in trouble; and don’t you come back till you find her.’

Getting dismayed at my plight and wondering how best to spend the night, I saw motion behind the rhododendron growth and in the dusk the outline of Jonathan, sitting like a cavalier on his big animal. As he loomed fully into sight he called out, ‘Don’t try to cross thar! I know whar the bottom is, down by the big birch. I’ll cross, and I think Billy will foller me back ’ — and Billy, with the water over his flanks, followed with perfect confidence.

I found Chad breathing more easily. His cabin had one window, recently put in, and the door stood open to give air; for, notwithstanding the storm, the kin had been arriving all day to offer sympathy, and at times they filled all the space between the beds and door.

Still it rained the next day, and in the midst of it Aunt Becky, aged seventy-eight, arrived. She had walked SIX miles. She took off her shoes, wrung out her stockings, putting both to dry by the fireside, and, barefoot, proceeded to find something to do. By midday the rain let up; she decided to render lard, and lighted a fire under the big iron cauldron. There she sat the whole afternoon, stirring, stirring! When darkness shut down she said she was too tired to go home till morning, so she pulled off her (dried) shoes and crept into the spare bed opposite the sick man’s. The next night an itinerant preacher arrived. He too thought he’d spend the night, and pulled off his boots and jumped into the spare bed, leaving room for the nurse to lie down on the other side.

At night I would sometimes go to the neighboring school, the two younger boys escorting me. ‘Now, sonny,’ said the mother to the elder, ‘don’t you git scairt of hants and run and leave the doctor.’ I was a bit scared myself, on reaching a fearfully lonely stretch, to hear Bobby say, ‘Hark, the voices!’ We clutched one another and hurried on. I feared real human beings — bootleggers, regarded as a ‘bad lot.’

As the week went by, the pneumonia cleared, but the nephritis asserted itself, and hope for Chad’s recovery vanished. Neighbor after neighbor came in (neighbors being those within ten miles). Some sat up through the night. Chad could n’t breathe easily, and had to be held up in a sitting position. Grim Hen Howard, supposed to be hard of heart, came in silently, saying only, ‘Chad’s been good to me,’ and quietly got behind Chad’s pillows. No one could dislodge him; without a word he sat and sat, holding the poor man forward. About two o’clock I went out and looked down into the deep narrow valley. The blackness of the night was relieved by the brilliant stars overhead. It seemed symbolic of the valley of the shadow of death, and when I went in again the shadow had descended.

Such was the passing of Chad Buck. They buried him the next day, as is the mountain custom, and I shall not soon forget the funeral line winding around the trail, men bearing the coffin fashioned by their own hands, followed by kin and friends on nag after nag, single file, to the desolate little burying ground up on the mountain side.

IV

When we go out at night, the man who comes for us rides ahead with his carbide light, then either the nurse or I, or both, single file, our faces swished by branches. When the moon is full I am always hoping to be called out, for there is nothing quite so marvelous as these mountains in the moonlight — and even in the dark nights there is a thrill, the stars are so wonderful.

And in the dead of night it is stirring to hear suddenly, out of the loneliness, the loud honk of the wild geese in their unseen flight to the North; and then the coming home at dawn, with the twitter of birds in the thickets and the mist rising from every cove, sometimes with the orange light of the sun shining through, is quite enchanting.

Rainy nights are another story. One night the nurse and I finished a confinement about one o’clock, and I did n’t relish sitting through the cold hours till dawn, hugging a little fireplace. There was no one there but the husband, who could not go home with us as the man usually does, and he said he did not like our going alone. ‘ Why not?’ I asked. ‘Oh, there are prowlers round.’ But it seemed safe in the pouring rain, and we arrived home in time to have several hours’ sleep between our own warm blankets. The squire’s wife told us her husband said we must n’t do it again, as the bootleggers from outside are a bad lot and are abroad at night in all weathers.

V

Winter, 1925-26
I spent part of the summer in the North. On my return in late September, after crossing Pine Mountain, those who met me went on while I stopped to make a call, and later in the afternoon I continued on my way. Although the sky was cloudy, the heat was overpowering. There had been practically no rain since May. The earth of the road was ground to powder, and the creeks, as Aunt Beth said, ware ‘plumb dry.’ The once turbulent Greasy was now a bed of rocks with a few hollows containing a little slimy water (I later heard that two mules had died from drinking it). The trees were dropping their curled dead leaves; the usually shining flat rhododendron leaves were rolled and drooping. All was so quiet that not even the grunt of the generally ubiquitous pig or the drowsy tinkle of the cowbell was heard. There was no sign of life anywhere except a few black snakes searching for water. The occasional cabins seemed deserted; I saw no human being. It seemed as though I were going through a stricken land.
It gave me a thrill, therefore, as I emerged from the forest at Wildcat Creek, to hear the sound of voices from the tiny district schoolhouse. At the double ford which, when the waters are high, shuts us off from the rest of the world, I found a group of men cutting a road along the ridge above. It seemed very human to meet them; we all shook hands and I was well pleased with their ‘We’re right proud to see you again.’ They told me that the crops were short on account of the drought, the bean crop was an entire failure, the ‘ taters ’ had hardly grown, and the corn in some places was only a half crop; the cows were giving but little milk, and in many places the water was drying up in the wells; typhoid had broken out in the logging camp, five miles away, and one man had died; but, with all this chapter from the Book of Job, they seemed cheerful and said the people would get along somehow.
That night there was a moon, so we went several miles to a ‘stir-off.’ As we drew near, horses and mules were hitched here and there to the trees. Guided by the glow of a fire, we climbed to a little patch of cleared land up in the woods where the cane grew; we found a crowd gathered, some stirring the cane juice in a big vat suspended over a huge fire built in a trench. The juice had reached the point of becoming thick (sorghum). Everyone broke off a piece of cane, dipped it in, and ‘sucked the yaller fizz.’ The sorghum was put in cans, the younger ones carrying it off to the cabin, where, beds removed, they remained to ‘run the set,’ and we older ones, singing out ‘Good night,’ rode away through the forest.
The district school opens about the middle of July and closes the first week in February. An enrollment of fifty pupils is required to start a school. Sometimes a hundred are registered, but at first many stay out to help hoe and fodder; then, when cold weather sets in, attendance again dwindles, since crossing fords thirty times in five miles, with high creeks and often no foot logs, makes going to school an impossibility. This is lucky for the one teacher, who has eight grades, but disastrous for the pupils, who, unless they are exceptional, naturally lose interest, so that but few of them reach the higher grades. A vocational school is badly needed to help the youngsters in their struggle against the odds of academic achievement. Most of them cease to struggle after a time, many of the girls following the line of least resistance and marrying very young — and the boys, too.
We have been having a moonlight school, and Uncle Si came to see if we could ‘larn him’ to write his name. My field was geography, and Uncle Si complained to me about the county ‘payin’ a high price’ to the district school-teacher, ‘who was lamin’ the young-uns that the yearth was round, when he knowed it was flat.’ So I availed myself of the opportunity to trace on a globe the course of a worker whom we both knew, who was taking a trip around the world, — how she left New York, and how, traveling always onward, she would come again to New York, — but Uncle Si sat incredulous; for does n’t the Bible say that ‘the corners’ of the earth are the Lord’s?
During Christmas week it was so icy that no horse could hold its footing, so we had to walk wherever we went. On Wednesday we were called to a confinement, and did not finish until early Thursday afternoon, New Year’s Eve. It was a dark, dreary day. The ‘sun-ball’ had ‘drapped’ behind the mountain soon after one, and about three o’clock we set forth with our knapsacks on our backs and wearily trudged homeward. Some distance from our settlement we saw, from the top of a ridge, volumes of black smoke rising. ‘What a bonfire that is!’ we cried, and then, ‘I believe Jack Craig’s cabin is on fire! Let’s hurry!’ Craig’s cabin was the only building between us and the settlement. At the top of the next ridge we saw Jack’s cabin all serene. ‘Well, it must be ours!’ we exclaimed, and on we sped, forgetful of our weariness.
As we rounded a corner and looked down, we saw, standing out in the gathering dusk, the flaming outline of our community house and huge woodpile near by, a mass of fiery red. Since all water was frozen over, a scurrying fire brigade were carrying our slop pails full of water from the broken-in creek and throwing it on the dry grass between our cabin and the burning building. Seeing the horses’ heads wildly tossing at the barn windows, I ran down and let them out. The community house had caught fire from a defective chimney, and the community worker, returning home, had noticed the flames licking at the rafters in the loft. She rang the bell, and teacher and children rushed from the schoolhouse on the other side of the creek; they got some things out of the big room (one little girl seized a baby carriage with a doll in it, and, soothing the doll and telling it not to be afraid, carried it to safety), but, alas, the teacher’s effects in the room behind were destroyed, with them her radio, a Christmas gift.

VI

I have been off on a trip to North Carolina. The man who was to take out my bags and bring Billy back did n’t appear at the appointed hour, although he had always before been dependable. Time went on, and when it was too late to make the morning train he came. ‘Oh, why did n’t you get here before?’ I asked. ‘I’m lucky to get here at all,’ he said. The rain, then only a drizzle, had come down in torrents all night, causing a landslide, and there was no trail left; he had had to pick his way through the low growth over the mountains. There was nothing for me to do but take the night train.

We left early, so that the man could get back before too late. Meanwhile the rain turned to snow. Arrived at the place where the train was to be flagged, I got out some ‘fatty pine’ splinters I had brought, while my companion gathered fagots and a supply of bigger wood, and, after lighting a fire, he departed.

I kept the fire going during the three hours of waiting. The snow stopped. I read until dark, then ate my sandwiches, wishing for company, but since it was Sunday there were no other passengers and no one else to signal the train. So I placed my suitcase near the track, gathered my small things together, and, as soon as I heard the whistle, waved my flash light. The train stopped, and I stepped from the wilderness into a brightly lighted sleeper.

VII

March, 1926
The mountain people are descendants of the pioneers who migrated westward from the Eastern settlements one hundred and fifty or more years ago. They come of good stock. Isolated from the world, they have retained their eighteenth-century ideas and their quaint old-world speech. Ancient ballads, sprung from the hearts of the English people but lost to England, have been in the safe-keeping of the Kentucky mountaineers, handed down orally from the first settlers. This is also true of the ‘running-set’ — the intricate old folk dance. Whatever education they brought with them was in due time lost, and now it is only the younger generation, which has had the opportunity to attend school, that can read or write; but, though without education, they are, with some exceptions, most intelligent, and would come off with credit if they matched their wits with the people beyond the mountains. They have a wonderful poise, both men and women, gained from the perfect equality of all mountain people. Since there is no social caste, there is no feeling of inferiority. Here is one place where a man stands for exactly what he is. Independence and border hospitality are the marked characteristics.
If the highest art of living is to have leisure, then the mountaineers have attained it. Like all people who live close to nature, they have no respect for haste. There is no blazing hurry, no wrist watch to be glanced at every other minute. They have time to be friendly.
As I ride past a field, the man leans on the fence and discusses the affairs of the day; and as I near a cabin the women and children come to the trail, and I lean forward in the saddle to take the proffered dipper of cool spring water. Then follows a chat about the baby or the garden. And when I pass again on my way back they sing out, ‘Light and stay the night.’
As a rule the mountaineers are tall, thin, and sinewy, many with very good features, and some singularly handsome, with penetrating eyes which sometimes have a hard glint. A goodly number of the young girls possess rare beauty. But to be born a mountain woman is a hard fate. She marries young, often at fourteen, and is always referred to thereafter by her husband as ‘my ole woman.’ She is up at threethirty in the morning, does all the chores, cooking, washing, milking the cows, getting small wood, sometimes coal; she has the garden to care for, hoes the corn, and, incidentally, has a child every year or two. No wonder these women look old even while they are young; and when they take snuff or chew tobacco, blackened teeth and yellow gums add to their worn look. But they are not unhappy, for they know nothing different. The faces of some of the older women, the grannies, are beautiful in their serenity — faces of gentlewomen who have arrived at peace without any bitterness from the hard burden life has imposed upon them. Children in the mountains do about as they please, with little discipline.
Human nature here is much the same as elsewhere, — good and bad, — but I really think these people are better exponents of the golden rule than many outside the mountains, and they certainly are happier. They are thoroughly kind, both to ‘ furriners,’ as anyone from afar is called, and among themselves, and share what they have. Who could do more than S. M. when a walking typhoid, succumbing to hemorrhages, stopped for the night and never moved on? The dying man was made to feel welcome, though S. was fully aware of the danger. All the children were put in one of the two rooms, while S. and his wife, together with her father and mother, took the beds in the room with the patient. Everything they could do for the man was done in the few days until his death; and, as testimony to their carrying out the hygienic measures we prescribed, not a one of them contracted typhoid. The Kentucky mountaineer lives on an unbalanced diet. He almost never eats meat, except ‘hog meat.’ He goes about lightly clad, but, in spite of the odds he labors under, it would be hard to find his equal in endurance. The mountain point of view is modified by necessity. For instance, when a young girl has an illegitimate child, the child is adopted into the household without any stigma, and seems to be no barrier to a legitimate marriage of the mother. Where no lumber company has yet invaded a region to provide work and ready money, the people live by barter, though some cash is obtained from the rider who comes in occasionally to buy up all available calves, ginseng, and wool that can be spared, as well as some hogs. Soft coal is near the surface, and every few miles there is a small community coal mine from which those living on adjoining creeks get their supply. The older women card and spin their wool, using some for knitting stockings and the rest for ‘kivers,’ dyeing it with colors made from madder, indigo, and from willow and black walnut bark.

VIII

Billy and I have found the going bad this winter. Responding to a call, ‘Mary Beck’s heart is a-kickin’ up against her and she’s a-smotherin’,’ we found the creek covered here and there with a coating of ice, so that Billy had a difficult time of it. Slippity-slip he’d go, over the big stones.

Whenever Billy looks back at me reproachfully, I dismount. He did it now, so I got down and we walked side by side. Every once in a while he would nudge me with his nose, as much as to say, ‘Let’s turn back,’ and when I’d say, ‘No, no, Billy, be a sport,’ he’d press forward with an air of ‘I’m game.’ Then, when the going became better, he would hurry ahead and actually stop by a good stone, inviting me to remount.

Arriving half frozen, I found the bright crackling open fire a heartening welcome, and after the professional visit was over the daughter raked out of the ashes a hot baked sweet potato. My, oh my, how good it did taste! Truly the simple things of life have not lost their savor in the Kentucky mountains.

In January I had a great trip. I was at dinner when the call came for me to see a worker at String Fork Settlement, twelve miles away over by Pine Mountain. She had been out in the afternoon on a call, and on her return was obliged to dismount on account of some obstacle; in dismounting she slipped from a wet log and broke her leg. Alone, she must either lie there until found (no one might pass for days) or get on her horse. Her mount, usually restive, seemed to sense trouble and stood quietly, but it took several attempts before she could scramble on. The next morning she sent for me.

A blizzard was raging, and, although Billy balls up badly with snow, I had to go; so, armed with a pocketful of sharp stones to knock out the balls from his hoofs, he and I departed. We had gone about six miles when the snow obscured everything, and, being unfamiliar with the route, we got on to the wrong trail, into the ‘lostest’ cove in the mountains. After a time we came ‘plumb up’ against the steep cliffs of Pine Mountain. ‘Billy,’ I said, ‘we’ve gone wrong. Now I’ll leave it to you.’ He scurried back and brought me out to a cabin, where I inquired the way. ‘You’ll never find it,’ said the man of the house, so he saddled his mule and guided me about two miles until he brought me out on the ridge, the snow still falling.

It was after dark when I arrived, and found not only a broken leg but a badly injured knee, which would need an X-ray and hospital care. We decided to get the patient the next day to Prosperity Fork, which is quite a town, and from there to the Corporation Hospital at Fraser. The trail to Prosperity Fork was so steep that the men said they could n’t possibly ’pack’ the stretcher in such slick going, so there was nothing to do but carry her several miles to a so-called road, where she was transferred to a wagon and bumped about, poor thing, over the rocks of Hurricane Gap.

With a woman, Mrs. Brown, on her mule to serve as a guide, I rode ahead to make arrangements at the other end. When we arrived on the far side of the mountain we were afraid to venture farther with our nags, because they had never seen an automobile; so we left them at a cabin and took a short cut on foot over a precarious two-mile stretch into Prosperity Fork. There I telephoned for the ambulance to come from Fraser to meet our patient. We discovered, however, that there were two roads into Prosperity Fork, so Mrs. Brown took a post on one and I on the other to direct the wagon where to go.

By the time the patient was settled in the hospital at Fraser, darkness had fallen. Nevertheless, we set out on the return trip, for I had promised Mrs. Brown that she should get back that night.

We had to pick our way through awesome Hurricane Gap without a flash light, for it had been lost, and Mrs. Brown reached her sleeping children at two o’clock in the morning.

(Further episodes of ‘ The Mountain Doctor * will be published next month)