Thursday,
October 21, 1915
There are 1,128 mountains in Pocahontas county, and hills too numerous to mention. Every single solitary mountain and hill and the hollows in between will be combed over in the next six weeks by hunters who are armed with dangerous and deadly weapons and who are out to kill. It is going to take many men many hours to round up the fall game. They have already fretted over the formalities of getting permits to hunt. Before this year they could jump over a broom stick or circle a chair keeping the chair on the right all the time for luck, but this year it was almost as much trouble to get ready to hunt as it was to get married, and the county clerk did not know when the strange young man (strange because he grew clear out of our recollection) who paid an unexpected visit to the clerk’s office wanted to take out a marriage license or a hunter’s license. The tag that the hunter wears on his sleeve looks like an autumn leaf caught his coat and clung to it.
Game wardens watch and watch with care,
The color worn by the bold huntare.
And bring in at sight the foreignaire.
A deep, rich red for a county man,
A white for a West Virginian,
And a blue for a Yankee alien.
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Our mountains are all lighted up in honor of the hunting season, and we remember no year when the colors were as bright as this year. A splendid season lasted until the 10th of October and then came a perfect frost, and by the 15th the hillside was a riot of color. Every fall seems more perfect than the last, though many an old sportsman has to say that he cannot catch fish, kill game, or hold cards like he used to do.
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Coming through the Anthony’s Creek country last week, a party of tourists in a high powered automobile, were attacked by a ferocious gander at the head of a bunch of geese in the road. There was no time to stop or even decrease the speed. The gander charged and the car went over him and the other geese. The driver of the car looked back and saw no dead gees in the road and not even feathers, so he concluded that he had no reason to stop, though the good lady who acted like the owner of the geese was seen making violent motions with her arms as through she would like the party to stop and talk the matter over. The driver disdained to do this and the car sped on at the rate of twenty miles an hour, or whatever the maximum legal rate is, for five full miles, and then it was halted at a railroad crossing where a train was standing while the tank was filled with water. A friendly brakeman shouted out: “Where did you get your goose?”
The ladies of the party were inclined to resent this abrupt salutation. Then the brakeman got down off the train and reached under the car and brought out the old gander. He had been caught by the neck by two rods that crossed at an angle under the car, and had been carried the whole distance. The gander was put down in the road. His proud and defiant bearing was gone. He seemed to be anxious about something. He got his direction from the sun and turned and walked solemnly down the road in the right direction, and it is to be hoped that he got home without any other accident.
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A market has been created by the war for West Virginia willow, a timber that has not been considered salable heretofore. It is wanted for artificial limbs for soldiers. It is shipped in billies 28 inches long. Black walnut has taken a great spurt also. A Parkersburg dealer is reported to have received $232 per thousand for some black walnut lumber. It is said to be needed for rifle stocks. Thus they buy walnut to shoot off a man’s leg, so that he will have to buy a willow limb. Such is the logic of war, and we seem to be playing both ends.
LOCAL MENTION
Adam Collins, of Hosterman, son of the late W. H. Collins, exhibited an old flax hackle at the county exhibit. He also exhibited a hank of flax yarn, and a piece of carpet woven by his mother, Mrs. Caroline Collins. Mrs. Collins is 74 years of age…
One of the interesting exhibits of the county farm and fancy work exhibit was an old quilt shown by Mr. Jack Coyner which was made in the years 1795 by her grandmother, Mrs. Hannah Gatewood Warwick. This old quilt has been well preserved and show excellent handiwork.
On Sunday, at Mt. Zion Baptist church, Arthur Daugherty, Mrs. Walter Cushwell and Mrs. Jesse Wilson were baptized by immersion, by Rev. Isham Goodwin.
Mrs. David Smith, of Dunmore, died October 20, 1915, after a long illness of blood poison. She was about 30 years of age and is survived by her husband and two small children. Burial at Cloverlick.
