>From Burnsville the next point in our route was Asheville, the most considerable city in western North Carolina, a resort of fashion, and the capital of Buncombe County.It is distant some forty to forty-five miles, too long a journey for one day over such roads.The easier and common route is by the Ford of Big Ivy, eighteen miles, the first stopping-place; and that was a long ride for the late afternoon when we were in condition to move.
The landlord suggested that we take another route, stay that night on Caney River with Big Tom Wilson, only eight miles from Burnsville, cross Mount Mitchell, and go down the valley of the Swannanoa to Asheville.He represented this route as shorter and infinitely more picturesque.There was nothing worth seeing on the Big Ivy way.
With scarcely a moment's reflection and while the horses were saddling, we decided to ride to Big Tom Wilson's.I could not at the time understand, and I cannot now, why the Professor consented.Ishould hardly dare yet confess to my fixed purpose to ascend Mount Mitchell.It was equally fixed in the Professor's mind not to do it.
We had not discussed it much.But it is safe to say that if he had one well-defined purpose on this trip, it was not to climb Mitchell.
"Not," as he put it,--
"Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul Of the wide world dreaming on things to come,"had suggested the possibility that he could do it.
But at the moment the easiest thing to do seemed to be to ride down to Wilson's.When there we could turn across country to the Big Ivy, although, said the landlord, you can ride over Mitchell just as easy as anywhere--a lady rode plump over the peak of it last week, and never got off her horse.You are not obliged to go; at Big Tom's, you can go any way you please.
Besides, Big Tom himself weighed in the scale more than Mount Mitchell, and not to see him was to miss one of the most characteristic productions of the country, the typical backwoodsman, hunter, guide.So we rode down Bolling Creek, through a pretty, broken country, crossed the Caney River, and followed it up a few miles to Wilson's plantation.There are little intervales along the river, where hay is cut and corn grown, but the region is not much cleared, and the stock browse about in the forest.Wilson is the agent of the New York owner of a tract of some thirteen thousand acres of forest, including the greater portion of Mount Mitchell, a wilderness well stocked with bears and deer, and full of streams abounding in trout.It is also the playground of the rattlesnake.
With all these attractions Big Tom's life is made lively in watching game poachers, and endeavoring to keep out the foraging cattle of the few neighbors.It is not that the cattle do much injury in the forest, but the looking after them is made a pretense for roaming around, and the roamers are liable to have to defend themselves against the deer, or their curiosity is excited about the bears, and lately they have taken to exploding powder in the streams to kill the fish.
Big Tom's plantation has an openwork stable, an ill-put-together frame house, with two rooms and a kitchen, and a veranda in front, a loft, and a spring-house in the rear.Chickens and other animals have free run of the premises.Some fish-rods hung in the porch, and hunter's gear depended on hooks in the passage-way to the kitchen.
In one room were three beds, in the other two, only one in the kitchen.On the porch was a loom, with a piece of cloth in process.
The establishment had the air of taking care of itself.Neither Big Tom nor his wife was at home.Sunday seemed to be a visiting day, and the travelers had met many parties on horseback.Mrs.Wilson was away for a visit of a day or two.One of the sons, who was lounging on the veranda, was at last induced to put up the horses; a very old woman, who mumbled and glared at the visitors, was found in the kitchen, but no intelligible response could be got out of her.
Presently a bright little girl, the housekeeper in charge, appeared.
She said that her paw had gone up to her brother's (her brother was just married and lived up the river in the house where Mr.Murchison stayed when he was here) to see if he could ketch a bear that had been rootin' round in the corn-field the night before.She expected him back by sundown--by dark anyway.'Les he'd gone after the bear, and then you could n't tell when he would come.
It appeared that Big Tom was a thriving man in the matter of family.
More boys appeared.Only one was married, but four had "got their time." As night approached, and no Wilson, there was a good deal of lively and loud conversation about the stock and the chores, in all of which the girl took a leading and intelligent part, showing a willingness to do her share, but not to have all the work put upon her.It was time to go down the road and hunt up the cows; the mule had disappeared and must be found before dark; a couple of steers hadn't turned up since the day before yesterday, and in the midst of the gentle contention as to whose business all this was, there was an alarm of cattle in the corn-patch, and the girl started off on a run in that direction.It was due to the executive ability of this small girl, after the cows had been milked and the mule chased and the boys properly stirred up, that we had supper.It was of the oilcloth, iron fork, tin spoon, bacon, hot bread and honey variety, distinguished, however, from all meals we had endured or enjoyed before by the introduction of fried eggs (as the breakfast next morning was by the presence of chicken), and it was served by the active maid with right hearty good-will and genuine hospitable intent.