NEWS FROM THE HILLS
February has been called “the month of love and snow,” so says Jack Clark of Tennessee. It seems to me that there have been more snow and cold days than there has been love. Valentines Day has just passed, however, and I am sure there have been many expressions of love.
It is the designated day for sending roses, presenting boxes of chocolates, and mailing fancy cards. It was a lot simpler when I was a youngster, when the highlight of Valentines Day was the decorated box that held our valentines at Hagar Grade School.
One student was picked to hand out the cards, (a lot of them homemade) and each name was called to march up front and receive the valentine. It was exciting to hear your name called, and our valentines were carefully saved and pored over for weeks.
I remember the first “real” mushy valentine I received when I was in the eighth grade, and I felt alternating waves of hot and cold flow over my body. I also remember the first “love letter” that I got, and I was afraid to bring it home. I hid it under a rock at the edge of the playground. I wonder if it is still there.
A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since that time, and now I get valentines from grandchildren (and great-grands) printed in uneven letters. When they print “I love you, Mommaw” it thrills me just as much as the grade school ones that I received in the long-ago past.
I have some corrections to make where I messed up in a previous column. The poem “The Woods Runner” that was written by Ray McCune of Fort Wayne, Indiana, had a word omitted in the third line. It should have read, “A pine bough bed to lay my head.”
It made me think of the pine boughs that Daddy used to cut to place under our tent when we were camping out. The tent had a floor in it, and it was pitched over hemlock boughs. That piney scent yet today brings back the memories of our family camping trips on a trout stream.
There were usually from nine to a dozen of us, and we were packed in the tent like sardines in a can. Mom would pin three quilts together with safety pins, and it was always my luck to sleep in the gap where the quilt was pinned. Daddy used to say that when one person had to turn over, he would have to yell, “Turn over!” and everyone had to turn at one time. It was almost that bad.
Grandpa O’Dell loved to trout fish. Many times he would go alone, without a tent or a sleeping bag. He called it “laying out,” and would roll up in a quilt close to the campfire. He said lots of times he would find his shoes frozen where he had waded the river the day before.
We use a camper now, with a comfortable bed and an oven to bake biscuits—but I miss the piney fragrance of the hemlock boughs, and the tarry smell of the canvas tent.
Another thing that I need to clarify is the word “toboggan.” I know that it is actually a sled, but we used the word for the knit caps that we pulled over our ears. J. D. Beam of Nevada says that when he was a young boy in Swandale, they merely called it a “boggan.” He said he guessed Swandale wasn’t as uptown as our area!
We received several responses to the request for the lyrics of the song, “Little Mohee.” Just like most of our folk ballads, there are different versions of the same song. Words were sent in by Sue Ferrebee, Pat Melton, J. D. Beam, Claude Ball of Ripley, Marjorie Young of Strange Creek, and Opal Ramsey of Duck.
The response that surprised me most came from Virginia Sanders of Point Pleasant. She wrote, “Here is living proof of how much I enjoy your writings. I have quite a few columns that I have kept down through the years.” She included a copy of a column that I had written in June 2000, and “Little Mohee” was printed in it.
This is the Burl Ives version, and a little different from the one printed in 2000.
LITTLE MOHEE
As I was a-walkin’ upon a fine day
I got awful lonesome as the day passed away
I sat down a-musing, alone on the grass
When who should sit by me but a sweet Indian lass.
She sat down beside me and took hold of my hand
Said, “You sure be a stranger, and in a strange land.”
She asked me to marry and gave me her hand,
Said, “My pappy’s a chieftain all over this land.”
“My pappy’s a chieftain and ruler be he
I’m his only daughter and my name is Mohee.”
I answered and told her that it never could be
“Cause I had my sweetheart in my own country
I had my own sweetheart, and I knew she loved me
Her heart was as true as any Mohee
So I said, “I must leave you and goodbye my dear
There’s wind in my canvas and home I must steer.”
At home with relations I tried for to see
But there wasn’t a one like my little Mohee,
And the girl I had trusted proved untrue to me
So I sailed o’er the ocean to my little Mohee.
We are grateful to each one who took the time to send the words to this song, and pray that God will bless you all abundantly.
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