The Red Flannel Rag

briar would grab the back of my shirt. They learned how to express their pain with

humor, and they sold their berries to neighbors for four dollars a gallon.

August was wild huckleberry and wild mushroom month. We never picked wild

huckleberries because my mother was scared of rattlesnakes that she claimed lived in

wild huckleberry bushes. I think they probably did. However, we did gather wild

mushrooms — the early yellow mushrooms and later growing brown mushrooms or

“leatherbacks.” We ate the first gatherings to satisfy our appetite for fresh mushrooms

that had been building since the year before. Toward the end of the season, the

mushrooms were canned for use in soups or for frying during the coming winter.

It was mainly the women and children who did the gathering and food processing

for the winter, while the men took care of the heavier survival work. Wheat and corn

were grown in small fields. When it was time to harvest, the men carried the grain

across Little North Mountain to Stultz’s Mill on Muddy Creek.

My daddy told me, “In those days the average man could put two and a half

bushels of corn or wheat on his back and walk over two mountain ridges to the m ill.”

The trip on foot was so long that it took two days to complete it. The men slept

overnight on sacks inside the mill. The wheat was made into flour and the corn into

cornmeal. The products were carried back into Hopkins Gap and stored for use in the

winter. Dad said, “People didn’t have to go out of the Gap after fall set in.”

There was also some limited trade with the outside world. The major sources of

money were peeling bark, carving railroad ties, and making barrel hoops. Grandpa

Austin used his mule to pull a sled up the mountain. He loaded the sled with bark that

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