Corn-meal, water, and salt were soon stirred up for the dodger; the small, round skillet with cover (Dutch oven they call it) was set over a bed of coals; the tea-kettle was singing on the fire, and some chunks of venison boiling in the pot.
While Mrs. Rose was thus engaged, one by one we began crawling out, but not before Quil had come to my bed, stooped down at the head, thrust his hand under, and lo! by the light of the snapping logs, we saw him draw forth a gallon jug without a handle.
“I reckon we’ll have a dram afore breakfast,” said he, with a jolly twinkle in his eye, and smack of his lips, as he poured out a glass of liquor as clear as crystal, and handed it around.
“Hit costs us jist one dollar a gallon, an’ I’ll ’low hit’s as pure as mounting dew,” remarked the head of the family, as he drained off a four-finger drink.
By the time we were dressed, breakfast was ready, and we moved around the neatly-spread table. Coffee and buttermilk were poured; the corn dodger was broken by our fingers, and these, together with stewed-apples and venison made up our morning’s repast.
“The sooner we’re off now, the better,” said Quil, as he took down his rifle from the buck-prongs fastened in the cabin wall, and drew his bullet-pouch and powder-horn over his head and arm.
We stepped from the cabin’s door into the gray light of the morning. The peaks of the Smoky, through which winds Ecanetle gap, were black in shade, while the jagged rim of mountains, toward the east, was tipped with fire, and above was an azure sky without a speck of cloud upon its face. Below us, as seen from the edge of the rail fence, looking far down across red and yellow forests, the fogs of the lower valleys, lying along the stream, appeared like great rivers of molten silver. This effect was caused by the sunlight streaming through the gaps of the mountains, upon the dense masses of vapor. The glory was beyond description.
The kindled Morn, on joyous breezes borne, Breathed balmy incense on the mountains torn And tumbled; dreamy valleys rolled In Autumn’s glowing garments far Below; and cascades thundered Sparkling down the cedared cliff’s bold Faces: peaks perpendicular Shot up with summits widely sundered.