ew words:

"There was a fam'ly on Pick-Yer-Flint that was named Higgins, and
another named the McBees. They married through and through till the
whole gineration nigh run out; though what helped was that they'd fly
mad sometimes and kill one another like fools. They had great big heads
and mottly faces--ears as big as sheepskins. Well, when they dressed up
to come to church the men--grown men--'d have shirts made of this common
domestic, with the letters _AAA_ on their backs; and them barefooted,
and some without hats, but with three yards of red ribbon around their
necks. The sleeves of their shirts looked like a whole web of cloth jest
sewed up together; and them sleeves'd git full o' wind, and that red
ribbon a-flyin'--O my la!

"There was lots o' leetle boys of 'em that kem only in their
shirt-tails. There was cracks between the logs that a dog could jump
through, and them leetle fellers 'd git 'em a crack and grin in at us
all through the sarmon. 'T ain't no manner o' use to ax me what the tex'
was that day!"

I may explain that it still is common in many districts of the mountain
country for small boys to go about through the summer in a single
abbreviated garment and that they are called "shirt-tail boys."

Some of the expedients that mountain girls invent to make themselves
attractive are bizarre in the extreme. Without invading the sanctities
of toilet, I will cite one instance that is interesting from a
scientific viewpoint. They told me that a certain blue-eyed girl thought
that black eyes were "purtier" and that she actually changed her eyes to
jet black whenever she went to "meetin'" or other public gathering.
While I could see how the trick might be worked, it seemed utterly
absurd that an unschooled maid of the wilderness could acquire either
the knowledge or the means to accomplish such change. Well, one day I
was called to treat a sick baby. While waiting for the medicine to react
I chanced to mention this tale as it had been told me. The father, who
had blue eyes, solemnly assured me that there was "no lie about it," and
said he would convince me in a few minutes.

He stepped to the garden and plucked a leaf of jimson weed. His wife
crushed the leaf and instilled a drop of its juice into one of his eyes.
I took out my watch. One side of the eyeball reddened slightly. The man
said "hit smarts a leetle--not much." Within fifteen minutes the pupil
had expanded like a cat's eye in the dark, leaving a