ld it for a dollar a gallon and let the
other fellow pack it off and sell it for what he could get. Why, I had
knowin' of a man on Chester Creek in Fentress County over in Tennessee
that sold it for three dollars a gallon. But that is a plum outrage!"
Jorde spat vehemently halfway to the cliff.

"After Pa died, me and Mose Keeton got to makin' together. We halved the
corn and halved the work and halved the cash money and never no words
ever passed betwixt us. By the time Mose died my boy Ben taken his
place."

Only once did a smile light the grim face. "One day Cynthie and me was
busy here and Ben's pet pig followed him up here when he brought us a
snack to eat. The pig snooted around and found the place where we had
dumped the leavin's of the mash after we had took off the brine. Well,
sir, that pig just nat'erly gorged itself and directly it was tipsy as
fiddlesticks. I never saw such antic was out of a critter in my life. It
reeled to and fro and squealed and grunted and went round and round
tryin' to ketch its own tail. Finally it rolled down the hill. Ben
packed it back up again and it reeled around, its feet tangled and it
rolled down again. Kept that up till it got sober. Its eyes rolled back
in its head, it sunk down in a grassy spot over yonder and slept till
dark. It follered at Ben's heels meek as a lamb when we went down the
hill that night. That pig was too sick to eat or even sniff a nubbin of
corn for two whole days, just laid and groaned. 'Now, Ben,' says Cynthie
to our boy, 'you see what comes of gettin' tipsy.' And Ben Foley learnt
a lesson off the pig and never did take a dram too much."

Again Jorde's eyes sought the neglected grave far off. He looped back to
the story of his son. "Everything was peaceable here, though we did miss
Cynthie powerful after she died. But me and Ben made on the best we
could. We had a living from our whiskey. Then come Effie! That woman
nat'erly tore up the whole place. She kept gougin' Ben for more cash
money." Jorde pointed a condemning finger toward a ravine. "There's a
half dozen washtubs rustin' away under there."

A part of a zinc tub protruded from the brush heap. "One day," Jorde
continued, "unbeknown to Ben's wife, Effie, I snuck off up here away
from that Jezebel though she had talked no end about me being too old to
climb the mountain. 'You'll get a stroke, Jorde,' she'd warn me. 'You
best sit here in the cool, or feed the chickens or the hogs.' Effie was
e