The Red Flannel Rag

water for two days and ride a horse-drawn wagon deep into the mountains to pick wild

huckleberries. They knew exactly where the berries grew because the previous year they

had set a fire on a ridge so that wild huckleberries would grow in the burned area. This

ancient practice is still used today by mountain people who harvest the berries and sell

them for cash.

In the early days of Hopkins Gap, the berries were picked and processed for

winter fruit. They were carried home in buckets and baskets woven at night around the

campfire. Sections of bark were stripped from hickory trees and bent into a circle for

the sides; a bottom of bark was put in and the bucket held together by weaving with

slender hickory branches. If there was a good crop of berries, a lot of buckets and

baskets were woven.

Part of the fruit was canned with visions of huckleberry pie in the cold winter

months ahead. Some berries were made into jams and jellies, sealed with homemade

wax and stored. A small portion of the berries was traded at the local store for staples,

such as salt and sugar.

These ways to survive flowed into my childhood. Beginning in early June, my

mother gathered me and my brothers and sister, and we went to pick wild strawberries.

We must have looked like a momma bear and her cubs as we worked our way from the

bottom to the top of a hill in an old apple orchard where wild strawberries were

abundant. She forbade us to eat any berries while we picked reminding us: “These

berries will taste even better this winter when the snow flies.”

When we got home at the end of the day, and she had fed us our supper, we

gathered around the kitchen table to “cap” the tiny wild berries. I remember

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