“Times sartinly is changin’! Now, in my time I’ve seed the hull upper part of Tejus Creek—they allowed over two hundred thousand acres—sold fer a rifle an’ a bell-crowned hat. What ye reckon that land’s wuth now, Ma’am?
“The Joslins had land over in thar, too, someone tolt me. Fer matter of that, Davy like enough owns or will heir from his granny a heap of land over on Hell-fer-Sartin, besides the farm he give to Meliss’ over thar on Coal Creek, whar he used to live. He nuvver would sell his land, an’ he nuvver would let his granny do it neither. The blacksmith an’ the postmaster tolt me that like enough when the railroad comes Davy sartinly will be rich. I’ve knowed coal rights to go fer five cents a acre, an’ old-time poplar an’ oak timber fer a dollar an’ a hafe a acre. Yit folks tells me that one log outen them trees would be wuth ten or twelve dollar down at Windsor, maybe. Ye reckon that’s so, Ma’am?
“Oh, shucks, I expect I’m a-makin’ ye tired, a-talkin’ this way. I’m just a-narratin’ along, ‘cause ye said ye wanted to larn somethin’ about our mountings. I wish’t we had time to git up to Big Creek. Thar’s a fam’ly of twelve people up thar, Ma’am, an’ every one of ‘em plays some kind of a musercal instru_ment_. When all twelve of them people begins to play ye’d think hell was a-poppin’, Ma’am. Didn’t ye nuvver hear ary one of our old fiddle tunes?”
Marcia shook her head. “I’m afraid not,” she said.
“No? Why, Davy useter be a powerful fiddler in his time, afore he got religion so hard. I reckon he could play most all the old-time tunes. Didn’t ye nuvver hear ‘Barbara Allen,’ or ‘Lord Lovell,’ Ma’am? I’ve seen men set an’ cry over ‘Lord Lovell.’ Then thar was ‘Polly Allen,’ another ballet. Thar was some folks always that could make words fer ballets, an’ they’d sort of sing ‘em.
“As fer fiddlin’ tunes, thar’s so many I kain’t hardly recollect. Thar was ‘The Flowers of Edingburg’—I don’t know whar that come from, but they says it’s old, an’ like enough come over the mountings. An’ thar was ‘The Deer Walk’—I don’t know whar that come from neither. Then thar was ‘The Hog-Eyed Man,’ an’ ‘Jawbone,’ an’ ‘The Puncheon Floor,’ an’ ‘Jones’s Still House,’ an’ ‘Sugar in the Bowl,’ an’ ‘Suds Over the Fence,’ an’ ‘Turkey in the Straw’—didn’t ye never hear _none_ of them tunes, Ma’am?”