Our Southern Highlanders Part 9

"Mister, we-uns hain't no call to be ashamed of ourselves, nor of ary thing we do. We're poor; but we don't ax no favors. We stay 'way up hyar in these coves, and mind our own business. When a stranger comes along, he's welcome to the best we've got, such as 'tis; but if he imposes on us, he gits his medicine purty d.a.m.ned quick!"

"And you think the Government tax on whiskey is an imposition."

"Hit is, under some sarc.u.mstances."

My guest stretched his legs, and "jedgmatically" proceeded to enlighten me.

"Thar's plenty o' men and women grown, in these mountains, who don't know that the Government is ary thing but a president in a biled shirt who commands two-three judges and a gang o' revenue officers. They know thar's a president, because the men folks's voted for him, and the women folks's seed his pictur. They've heered tell about the judges; and they've seed the revenuers in flesh and blood. They believe in supportin' the Government, because hit's the law. n.o.body refuses to pay his taxes, for taxes is fair and squar'. Taxes cost mebbe three cents on the dollar; and that's all right. But revenue costs a dollar and ten cents on twenty cents' worth o' liquor; and that's robbin' the people with a gun to their faces.

"Of course, I ain't so ignorant as all that--I've traveled about the country, been to Asheville wunst, and to Waynesville a heap o'

times--and I know the theory. Theory says 't revenue is a tax on luxury.

Waal, that's all right--anything in reason. The big fellers that makes lots of money out o' stillin', and lives in luxury, ought to pay handsome for it. But who ever seen luxury cavortin' around in these Smoky Mountains?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: MOONSHINE MILL--SIDE VIEW

The trails that lead hither are blind and rough. Behind the mill rises an almost precipitous mountain-side. Much of the corn is brought in on men's backs at the dead of night.]

He paused for a reply. Even then, with my limited experience in the mountains, I could not help wincing at the idea. Often, in later times, this man's question came back to me with peculiar force. Luxury! in a land where the little stores were often out of coffee, sugar, kerosene, and even salt; where, in dead of winter, there was no meal, much less flour, to be had for love or money. Luxury! where I had to live on bear-meat (tough old sow bear) for six weeks, because the only side of pork that I could find for sale was full of maggots.

My friend continued: "Whiskey means more to us mountain folks than hit does to folks in town, whar thar's drug-stores and doctors. Let ary thing go wrong in the fam'ly--fever, or snake bite, or somethin'--and we can't git a doctor up hyar less'n three days; and it costs scand'lous.

The only medicines we-uns has is yerbs, which customarily ain't no good 'thout a leetle grain o' whiskey. Now, th'r ain't no saloons allowed in all these western counties. The nighest State dispensary, even, is sixty miles away.[5] The law wunt let us have liquor shipped to us from anywhars in the State. If we git it sent to us from outside the State it has to come by express--and reg-lar old pop-skull it is, too. So, to be good law-abiding citizens, we-uns must travel back and forth at a heap of expense, or pay express rates on pizened liquor--and we are too durned poor to do ary one or t'other.

"Now, yan's my field o' corn. I gather the corn, and shuck hit and grind hit my own self, and the woman she bakes us a pone o' bread to eat--and I don't pay no tax, do I? Then why can't I make some o' my corn into pure whiskey to drink, without payin' tax? I tell you, _'taint fair_, this way the Government does! But, when all's said and done, the main reason for this 'moonshining,' as you-uns calls it, is bad roads."

"Bad roads?" I exclaimed. "What the----"

"Jest thisaway: From hyar to the railroad is seventeen miles, with two mountains to cross; and you've seed that road! I recollect you-uns said every one o' them miles was a thousand rods long. n.o.body's ever measured them, except by mountain man's foot-rule--big feet, and a long stride between 'em. Seven hundred pounds is all the load a good team can haul over that road, when the weather's good. Hit takes three days to make the round trip, less'n you break an axle, and then hit takes four. When you do git to the railroad, th'r ain't no town of a thousand people within fifty mile. Now us folks ain't even got wagons. Thar's only one sarviceable wagon in this whole settlement, and you can't hire it without team and driver, which is two dollars and a half a day. Whar one o' our leetle sleds can't go, we haffter pack on mule-back or tussle it on our own wethers. Look, then! The only farm produce we-uns can sell is corn. You see for yourself that corn can't be shipped outen hyar. We can trade hit for store credit--that's all. Corn _juice_ is about all we can tote around over the country and git cash money for. Why, man, that's the only way some folks has o' payin' their taxes!"

"But, aside from the work and the worry," I remarked, "there is the danger of being shot, in this business."

"Oh, we-uns don't lay _that_ up agin the Government! Hit's as fair for one as 'tis for t'other. When a revenuer comes sneakin' around, why, whut he gits, or whut we-uns gits, that's a 'fortune of war,' as the old sayin' is."

There is no telegraph, wired or wireless, in the mountains, but there is an efficient subst.i.tute. It seemed as though, in one night, the news traveled from valley to cove, and from cove to nook, that I was investigating the moonshining business, and that I was apparently "safe." Each individual interpreted that word to suit himself. Some regarded me askance, others were so confiding that their very frankness threatened at times to become embarra.s.sing.

Thereafter I had many talks and adventures with men who, at one time or other, had been engaged in the moonshining industry. Some of these men had known the inside of the penitentiary; some were not without blood-guilt. I doubt not that more than one of them could, even now, find his way through night and fog and laurel thicket to some "beautiful piece of copper" that has not yet been punched full of holes. They knew that I was on friendly terms with revenue agents. What was worse, they knew that I was a scribbler. More than once I took notes in their presence while interviewing them, and we had the frankest understanding as to what would become of those notes.

My immunity was not due to any promises made or hostages given, for there were none. I did not even pose as an apologist, but merely volunteered to give a fair report of what I heard and saw. They took me at my word. Had I used such representations as a mask and secretly played the spy or informer--well, I would have deserved whatever might have befallen me. As it was, I never met with any but respectful treatment from these gentry, nor, to the best of my belief, did they ever tell me a lie.

CHAPTER VI

WAYS THAT ARE DARK

Our terms moonshiner and moonshining are not used in the mountains. Here an illicit distiller is called a blockader, his business is blockading, and the product is blockade liquor. Just as the smugglers of old Britain called themselves free-traders, thereby proclaiming that they risked and fought for a principle, so the moonshiner considers himself simply a blockade-runner dealing in contraband. His offense is only _malum prohibitum_, not _malum in se_.

There are two kinds of blockaders, big and little. The big blockader makes unlicensed whiskey on a fairly large scale. He may have several stills, operating alternately in different places, so as to avert suspicion. In any case, the still is large and the output is quite profitable. The owner himself may not actively engage in the work, but may furnish the capital and hire confederates to do the distilling for him, so that personally he shuns the appearance of evil. These big fellows are rare. They are the ones who seek collusion with the small-fry of Government officialdom, or, failing in that, instruct their minions to "kill on sight."

The little moonshiner is a more interesting character, if for no other reason than that he fights fair, according to his code, and single-handed against tremendous odds. He is innocent of graft. There is nothing between him and the whole power of the Federal Government, except his own wits and a well-worn Winchester or muzzleloader. He is very poor; he is very ignorant; he has no friends at court; his apparatus is crude in the extreme, and his output is miserably small.

This man is usually a good enough citizen in other ways, of decent standing in his own community, and a right good fellow toward all the world, save revenue officers. Although a criminal in the eyes of the law, he is soundly convinced that the law is unjust, and that he is only exercising his natural rights. Such a man, as President Frost has pointed out, suffers none of the moral degradation that comes from violating his conscience; his self-respect is whole.

In describing the process of making whiskey in the mountain stills, I shall confine myself to the operations of the little moonshiner, because they ill.u.s.trate the surprising shiftiness of our backwoodsmen.

Every man in the big woods is a jack-of-all-trades. His skill in extemporizing utensils, and even crude machines, out of the trees that grow around him, is of no mean order. As good cider as ever I drank was made in a hollowed log fitted with a press-block and operated by a handspike. It took but half a day's work to make this cider press, and the only tools used in its construction were an ax, a mattock in lieu of adze, an auger, and a jackknife.

It takes two or three men to run a still. It is possible for one man to do the work, on so small a scale as is usually practiced, but it would be a hard task for him; then, too, there are few mountaineers who could individually furnish the capital, small though it be. So three men, let us say, will "chip in" five or ten dollars apiece, and purchase a second-hand still, if such is procurable, otherwise a new one, and that is all the apparatus they have to pay money for. If they should be too poor even to go to this expense, they will make a retort by inverting a half-barrel or an old wooden churn over a soap-kettle, and then all they have to buy is a piece of copper tubing for the worm.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Moonshine Still in Full Operation]

In choosing a location for their clandestine work, the first essential is running water. This can be found in almost any gulch; yet, out of a hundred known spring-branches, only one or two may be suitable for the business, most of them being too public. In a country where cattle and hogs run wild, and where a good part of every farmer's time is taken in keeping track of his stock, there is no place so secret but that it is liable to be visited at any time, even though it be in the depths of the great forest, several miles from any human habitation.

Moreover, cattle, and especially hogs, are pa.s.sionately fond of still-slop, and can scent it a great distance, so that no still can long remain unknown to them.[6] Consequently the still must be placed several miles away from the residence of anyone who might be liable to turn informer. Although nearly all the mountain people are indulgent in the matter of blockading, yet personal rivalries and family jealousies are rife among them, and it is not uncommon for them to inform against their enemies in the neighborhood.

Of course, it would not do to set up a still near a common trail--at least in the far-back settlements. Our mountaineers habitually notice every track they pa.s.s, whether of beast or man, and "read the sign" with Indian-like facility. Often one of my companions would stop, as though shot, and point with his toe to the fresh imprint of a human foot in the dust or mud of a public road, exclaiming: "Now, I wonder who _that_ feller was! 'Twa'n't (so-and-so), for he hain't got no squar'-headed bob-nails; 'twa'n't (such-a-one), 'cause he wouldn't be hyar at this time o' day"; and so he would go on, figuring by a process of elimination that is extremely cunning, until some such conclusion as this was reached, "That's some stranger goin' over to Little River [across the line in Tennessee], and he's footin' hit as if the devil was atter him--I'll bet he's s...o...b..d somebody and is runnin' from the sheriff!" Nor is the incident closed with that; our mountaineer will inquire of neighbors and pa.s.sersby until he gets a description of the wayfarer, and then he will pa.s.s the word along.

Some little side-branch is chosen that runs through a gully so choked with laurel and briers and rhododendron as to be quite impa.s.sable, save by such worming and crawling as must make a great noise. Doubtless a faint cattle-trail follows the backbone of the ridge above it, and this is the workers' ordinary highway in going to and fro; but the descent from ridge to gully is seldom made twice over the same course, lest a trail be printed direct to the still-house.

This house is sometimes inclosed with logs, but oftener it is no more than a shed, built low, so as to be well screened by the undergrowth. A great hemlock tree may be felled in such position as to help the masking, so long as its top stays green, which will be about a year.

Back far enough from the still-house to remain in dark shadow when the furnace is going, there is built a sort of nest for the workmen, barely high enough to sit up in, roofed with bark and thatched all over with browse. Here many a dismal hour of night is pa.s.sed when there is nothing to do but to wait on the "cooking." Now and then a man crawls on all fours to the furnace and pitches in a few billets of wood, keeping low at the time, so as to offer as small a target as possible in the flare of the fire. Such precaution is especially needed when the number of confederates is too small for efficient picketing. Around the little plot where the still-shed and lair are hidden, laurel may be cut in such way as to make a _cheval-de-frise_, sharp stubs being entangled with branches, so that a quick charge through them would be out of the question. Two or three days' work, at most, will build the still-house and equip it ready for business, without so much as a shingle being brought from outside.

After the blockaders have established their still, the next thing is to make arrangements with some miller who will jeopardize himself by grinding the sprouted corn; for be it known that corn which has been forced to sprout is a prime essential in the making of moonshine whiskey, and that the unlicensed grinding of such corn is an offense against the law of the United States no less than its distillation. Now, to any one living in a well-settled country, where there is, perhaps, only one mill to every hundred farms, and it is visited daily by men from all over the township, the finding of an accessory in the person of a miller would seem a most hopeless project. But when you travel in our southern mountains, one of the first things that will strike you is that about every fourth or fifth farmer has a tiny tub-mill of his own. Tiny is indeed the word, for there are few of these mills that can grind more than a bushel or two of corn in a day; some have a capacity of only half a bushel in ten hours of steady grinding. Red grains of corn being harder than white ones, it is a humorous saying in the mountains that "a red grain in the gryste [grist] will stop the mill." The appurtenances of such a mill, even to the very buhr-stones themselves, are fashioned on the spot. How primitive such a meal-grinder may be is shown by the fact that a neighbor of mine recently offered a new mill, complete, for sale at six dollars. A few nails, and a country-made iron rynd and spindle, were the only things in it that he had not made himself, from the raw materials.

In making spirits from corn, the first step is to convert the starch of the grain into sugar. Regular distillers do this in a few hours by using malt, but at the little blockade still a slower process is used, for malt is hard to get. The unground corn is placed in a vessel that has a small hole in the bottom, warm water is poured over the corn and a hot cloth is placed over the top. As water percolates out through the hole, the vessel is replenished with more of the warm fluid. This is continued for two or three days and nights until the corn has put forth sprouts a couple of inches long. The diastase in the germinating seeds has the same chemical effect as malt--the starch is changed to sugar.

The sprouted corn is then dried and ground into meal. This sweet meal is then made into a mush with boiling water, and is let stand two or three days. The "sweet mash" thus made is then broken up, and a little rye malt, similarly prepared in the meantime, is added to it, if rye is procurable. Fermentation begins at once. In large distilleries, yeast is added to hasten fermentation, and the mash can then be used in three or four days; the blockader, however, having no yeast, must let his mash stand for eight or ten days, keeping it all that time at a proper temperature for fermentation. This requires not only constant attention, but some skill as well, for there is no thermometer nor saccharometer in our mountain still-house. When done, the sugar of what is now "sour mash"

has been converted into carbonic acid and alcohol. The resulting liquid is technically called the "wash," but blockaders call it "beer." It is intoxicating, of course, but "sour enough to make a pig squeal."

This beer is then placed in the still, a vessel with a closed head, connected with a spiral tube, the worm. The latter is surrounded by a closed jacket through which cold water is constantly pa.s.sing. A wood fire is built in the rude furnace under the still; the spirit rises in vapor, along with more or less steam; these vapors are condensed in the cold worm and trickle down into the receiver. The product of this first distillation (the "low wines" of the trade, the "singlings" of the blockader) is a weak and impure liquid, which must be redistilled at a lower temperature to rid it of water and rank oils.

In moonshiners' parlance, the liquor of second distillation is called the "doublings." It is in watching and testing the doublings that an accomplished blockader shows his skill, for if distillation be not carried far enough, the resulting spirits will be rank, though weak, and if carried too far, nothing but pure alcohol will result. Regular distillers are a.s.sisted at this stage by scientific instruments by which the "proof" is tested; but the maker of "mountain dew" has no other instrument than a small vial, and his testing is done entirely by the "bead" of the liquor, the little iridescent bubbles that rise when the vial is tilted. When a mountain man is shown any brand of whiskey, whether a regular distillery product or not, he invariably tilts the bottle and levels it again, before tasting; if the bead rises and is persistent, well and good; if not, he is prepared to condemn the liquor at once.

It is possible to make an inferior whiskey at one distillation, by running the singlings through a steam-chest, commonly known as a "thumpin'-chist." The advantage claimed is that "Hit allows you to make your whiskey afore the revenue gits it; that's all."

The final process is to run the liquor through a rude charcoal filter, to rid it of most of its fusel oil. This having been done, we have moonshine whiskey, uncolored, limpid as water, and ready for _immediate consumption_.

I fancy that some gentlemen will stare at the words here italicised; but I am stating facts.

It is quite impracticable for a blockader to age his whiskey. In the first place, he is too poor to wait; in the second place, his product is very small, and the local demand is urgent; in the third place, he has enough trouble to conceal, or run away with, a mere copper still, to say nothing of barrels of stored whiskey. Cheerfully he might "waive the quantum o' the sin," but he is quite alive to "the hazard o'

concealin'." So, while the stuff is yet warm from the still, it is taken by confederates and quickly disposed of. There is no exaggeration in the answer a moonshiner once made to me when I asked him how old the best blockade liquor ever got to be: "If it 'd git to be a month old, it 'd fool me!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: Photo by F. B. Laney

Cornmill and Blacksmith Forge]