With that he slowly arose and led the way to a pile of soot-covered stones.
"Now close here was where the thumpin' keg stood," he began to indicate positions, "and yonder the still."
There was nothing but charred remnants of staves and rusty hoops left of the barrel through which the copper worm had run, while the copper still itself was reduced to a battered heap. The worm and the thumping keg and all the essentials for making whiskey leaped into a living scene, however, when Jorde Foley got to telling of the days when he and Cynthie and young Ben, peaceable and contented, earned a meager living at the craft.
"Set your still right about here," Jorde hovered over the remnants of the stone furnace, "and you break your mash once in so often. A man's got to know when it is working right. The weather has a heap to do with it fermenting. Sometimes it takes longer than other times. No, you don't stir it with a stick but a long wooden fork. I've whittled many a one." He retrieved from the pile of stone what was left of the stirring fork. "Have it long so you can retch far all around the barrel," he said, measuring the fork against his own height. With unconcealed pride he explained the various steps of making corn whiskey in his own primitive way. He told how the thumping keg in which it was aged was first carefully charred inside to add a tempting flavor, and how the barrel in which the cornmeal and malt were placed was made of clean staves of oak or chestnut, or whatever wood was at hand. The wood was cut green and when the mash began to work the liquid caused the staves to swell and thus make the barrel leak-proof.
Never once in his explanation did Jorde Foley say moonshine, or shine, or mountain dew.
"Whiskey, pure corn whiskey," he repeated, "when it is treated right won't harm no one. And when a body sees the first singlin' come treaklin' out the worm, cooled by the cold water that this worm is quiled in," he indicated the location of the barrel, "somehow there's a heap of satisfaction in it. Seeing that clear whiskey, clear as a mountain stream come treaklin' into the tin bucket or jug that is settin' there to ketch it, it makes a man plum proud over his labors."
Jorde looked inward upon his thoughts. "Many a time me and Cynthie would take a full bucket to a neighbor's when there was a frolic, set it in the middle of the table with a gourd dipper in it, and let everyone help hisself to a drink. Why, there was no harm in whiskey in my young day. And us people up here didn't know or need no other medicine."