ALEX.: It's cool and it's cold. Yeah. Where's that picture?
Did you find it?
HAMMONS: Yeah, I found it. Yeah, I want to get over there in
that food. Here. Yeah, that's a pretty good picture.
ALEX.: Pretty good picture, isn't it?
HAMMONS: Yes, sir.
ALEX.: That looks like you I believe.
HAMMONS: Yeah.
ALEX.: I don't believe that looks like anybody else.
HAMMONS: It couldn't look like anybody else.
ALEX.: You say, I think you told me you worked back here in the
woods a little bit.
HAMMONS: Yeah. I worked here all of my life.
ALEX.: Yeah.
HAMMONS: Cranberry, Gauley.
ALEX.: Yeah.
HAMMONS: All of them. I worked with all of them.
ALEX.: Worked in the woods a little bit?
HAMMONS: Yes, sir.
ALEX.: I think you told me you had some horses or something
over here that you fed them oats.
HAMMONS: Oh, yes. They'd take those big company horses, they'd
throw in a bushel you know, and they'd feed them a
bushel.
ALEX.: Feed them well.
HAMMONS: Yeah. Had them though rolling with fat. Oh my
goodness.
ALEX.: I guess that made them stout.
HAMMONS: They'd have them at these big camps. Ten and fifteen
teams.
ALEX.: Is that right?
HAMMONS: Yeah.
ALEX.: My goodness. Well . . .
HAMMONS: They was all broke good, too.
ALEX.: Uh huh.
HAMMONS: They didn't allow anyone to whip them or anything.
ALEX.: Yeah.
HAMMONS: You know, if they ever caught a man whippin' them or
hitting them or anything, they'd board him.
ALEX.: They wouldn't let him stay around the camp.
HAMMONS: No, no. That was a pretty good idy (idea) to my way of
looking at it.
ALEX.: That's right. Uh huh. Well . . .
HAMMONS: Yeah, I've been here a long time. I was raised down
here you know where that sign is a little off.
ALEX.: Yeah.
HAMMONS: You know that patch of timber right there at the sign on
down?
ALEX.: Yeah, yeah.
HAMMONS: We used to have that farm.
ALEX.: Is that right?
HAMMONS: It's grown up now.
ALEX.: I declare. Raised corn in there.
HAMMONS: Yeah, raised corn in there.
ALEX.: When were you born?
HAMMONS: I was born in 1903.
ALEX.: Nineteen and three.
HAMMONS: September 9th. I'll be 72 years old in September.
There was no school in here.
ALEX.: No school then.
HAMMONS: No, no. Nope. No roads.
ALEX.: No roads.
HAMMONS: Nothing but a train road but it was on in above there.
I think they put it in here in about 1910.
ALEX.: Uh huh.
HAMMONS: ____ for the little fellow.
ALEX.: For logging?
HAMMONS: Yeah. When they logged the head of the Williams.
ALEX.: Yeah. Where did that train bed go right along here
someplace?
HAMMONS: Yeah. Yeah. Went right along. This here road is right
on it.
ALEX.: Uh huh.
HAMMONS: The road is right on it. The Foreigner, they're the ones
made these railroads in here. You see, they didn't have
no machines or anything. Everything was made by hand.
ALEX.: Uh huh.
HAMMONS: Right up there at that curve there was a “Tally”. He had
an awful cold time. And right there at that house right
close to the place and he got some dynamite afire. I
think there was a whole case maybe two, I don't know
just how many. And he aimed to stomp it out when that
started and they found a piece of him everywhere. Found
his body. Found one of his legs in the top of a tree
across Big Laurel.
ALEX.: My goodness.
HAMMONS: If he hadn't stomped it, you see, dynamite is awful to
burn. If it don't get a jar.
ALEX.: Yeah.
HAMMONS: If it don't take no jar when it gets hot that way.
ALEX.: Yeah.
HAMMONS: It'll go off.
ALEX.: Huh.
HAMMONS: One time I was in on Cranberry. I was a trappin'. And
there was a fellow with me and he got burned up right
down there right where that lower trailer sets. And he
was with me and another fellow. And Warn Peoples, that
was a company that was in there that logged that, you
know.
ALEX.: Uh huh.
HAMMONS: Back on the head of that South Fork. And there was a
crib full of that dynamite they'd left there, you know.
ALEX.: Yeah.
HAMMONS: And we had a very nice place to stay. It was awful cold
and an awful big snow on. And this fellow next morning.
We couldn't get him up out of the bed. He wouldn't get
up. Me and Pole Tupper filled that stove plum full of
dynamite and fired it. Fired that dynamite. And you
see, he should have knowed because he was 35 or 40 years
old then, maybe older than that.
ALEX.: Huh.
HAMMONS: But it never got no jar.
ALEX.: Uh huh.
HAMMONS: But it fetched that boy up out of the bed.
ALEX.: It did?
HAMMONS: Yeah. Oh, if it had went off, the house and everything
would have went.
ALEX.: Yeah.
HAMMONS: And that whole crib.
ALEX.: My goodness.
HAMMONS: You see, I didn't know it. Well, I thank you so much
for the picture.
ALEX.: Well, I want to take another one here.
HAMMONS: Okay.
ALEX.: If I can. Do you ever see Emmett?
HAMMONS: Yes. His wife told me that one of his daughters, that
she was awful bad.
ALEX.: That's what he told me, too. That she was in just bad,
bad shape.
HAMMONS: Well, he's got a boy up there. He's been that away for
all of his life. Delbert's.
ALEX.: Yeah.
HAMMONS: He talked like they had to do something to him.
ALEX.: Yeah. Well, he's a fine old gentleman.
HAMMONS: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
ALEX.: Yes, sir, he is.
HAMMONS: Now his brother, his brother was that fellow's daddy.
They're friends.
ALEX.: Uh huh.
HAMMONS: His brother's name was Fred.
ALEX.: Yeah.
HAMMONS: One of Freddy's brothers.
ALEX.: Is he living here now?
HAMMONS: Yeah. Yeah. He was raised here. ____.
ALEX.: Yeah. It's kind of breezy out here this morning.
HAMMONS: Yeah, and that wind is quite cool, isn't it here?
ALEX.: It sure is. Cold wind.
HAMMONS: Yeah. It might come a snow.
ALEX.: It could. It might blow one across the mountain
someplace.
HAMMONS: You know, I have, I believe it was in 17 in May. That
was on the 9th of May. It come a snow here about, it
must have been twenty or twenty-five inches.
ALEX.: Huh. A big one.
HAMMONS: Yeah, a big one. I had corn up about down here at the
lower end of the ____ about that high. It never hurt it
a bit. Never hurt it. Boy, that water, it about washed
everything away.
ALEX.: Yeah, I bet it did.
HAMMONS: Yeah, it drowned one calf. We had another calf and a
sheep in the bottom up there.
ALEX.: Uh huh.
HAMMONS: And how that sheep ever got out, I don't know. And they
found this here calf Howard Monk's daddy did, ____. It
took her hay and all out of that bottom.
ALEX.: Quite a flood.
HAMMONS: Oh, yes. A powerful flood.
ALEX.: Somebody was telling me that they had a big flood over
here and they put a train out on the tressel down there
on the bridge below Tea Creek to try and hold the bridge
in and it washed the bridge out and the train. Did you
ever hear that story?
HAMMONS: No, I didn't. You mean the railroad bridge?
ALEX.: Yeah, the railroad bridge there below Tea Creek.
HAMMONS: There wasn't nothing to that. ____. Now the river
washed those ____. You see them turned up down there?
ALEX.: Yeah.
HAMMONS: They turned them over. That was caused by ice.
ALEX.: Uh huh.
HAMMONS: When they broke up in the spring.
ALEX.: Yeah.
HAMMONS: But we haven't had a really big flood for quite a while.
ALEX.: Uh huh. Well, I guess the trees are back on the hills
now. It holds the water back.
HAMMONS: Well, we had lots more trees in them days than we got
now cause this country wasn't logged, you see.
ALEX.: Yeah.
HAMMONS: Had big timber.
ALEX.: Uh huh.
HAMMONS: But it just don't seem like it rained as much.
ALEX.: Yeah.
HAMMONS: It never rained to amount to anything since we had that
drought.
ALEX.: Yeah.
HAMMONS: In '31, '32, I believe it was.
ALEX.: Yeah.
HAMMONS: Never been no high water. Real high.
ALEX.: Yeah. Water's kindly scarce. It's not like it used to
be.
HAMMONS: Yeah, you could take a rain now when it comes now since
that drought and it just air to it and it's dry.
ALEX.: Uh huh.
HAMMONS: It used to be it wasn't like that, it would hold the
moisture for a long time.
ALEX.: Yeah. You say you trapped a little bit.
HAMMONS: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. When I was a boy.
ALEX.: Dig any 'seng?
HAMMONS: Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's something I like to do today.
When I get around. You know when it gets yellow and
gets berries on it, I'd rather find that, I'd rather
hunt that than anything I ever done.
ALEX.: Uh huh.
HAMMONS: Yeah, I like to dig for that.
ALEX.: I was talking to this fellow over here, Dunbrack
. . .
HAMMONS: Yeah, he buys 'seng.
ALEX.: He told some fellow brought in there Saturday, brought
in 19 ounces.
HAMMONS: Nineteen ounces.
ALEX.: Seventy-six dollars worth.
HAMMONS: Yeah. What did he pay for it?
ALEX.: I think he pays four or six dollars or something like
that.
HAMMONS: How much?
ALEX.: Four or six dollars an ounce or something like that.
HAMMONS: Yeah, I think it's about, well, his sister was telling
me, she lives on a farm back here my dad built, just on
yon side ____. And she told me it was about eight
dollars an ounce.
ALEX.: Yeah. Well, he bought, he said a lot of people
brought the 'seng in on Saturday.
HAMMONS: Yeah.
ALEX.: He said the smallest amount he bought was 2 ounces and
the largest amount he bought was 19 ounces.
HAMMONS: This year?
ALEX.: Yeah. Have you seen any snakes, any rattlesnakes?
HAMMONS: There ain't none here.
ALEX.: I saw a big one yesterday.
HAMMONS: Where at?
ALEX.: I saw it over there just on Back Mountain, close to
where Odey Cassell lives. Up there back at Cass on
Back Mountain.
HAMMONS: Oh, yeah. They're there.
ALEX.: Oh.
HAMMONS: But there ain't none back here. Did you get him?
ALEX.: Oh, somebody else had got him. It looked like 30
minutes before I came through. Oh, he was as big and
round as your arm. Big and round as your arm.
HAMMONS: Boy, I'm scared of them things. You know what makes me
so scared of them? I never was used to them, you see.
Never was used to them.
ALEX.: Yeah.
HAMMONS: But I can take in the woods, you know where those things
is, 'seng. ____ can't hardly 'seng at all. ____.
Well, sir, I must tell you a tale that I believe will
enlighten you about a snake. I went back over here to
my brother's, well, my boy's, and he'd found a patch of
'seng, I believe he dug a $100 worth out of one patch
and he got after me to go with him, and I said, "Roy, I
don't like to go." I said, it wasn't very fore, I said,
"I'm afraid of those snakes." Now you know there's lots
of them on those weeds. Aw, he said, "You'll never see
a snake." I said, "I don't know." He said, "Well, I'll
go." Went on through the woods, went down ____ and up
that road, went right to the end of a loggin' road and
he said, "Now here's as far as we go." You know, I
don't 'seng with no one or hunt. I like to be by
myself.
ALEX.: Yeah.
HAMMONS: Well, I 'senged up and down and I never saw any and I
come to a small hole it was, it looked like a good place
to 'seng. And I begin to find it around there and I
looked right ahead of me real steep and I seen it was a good
place to look for it, so I went up there and after a
while I found two or three bunches. It was just a low,
little old bank, hill it was. So I got right under the
top of it. I looked above a chestnut and I saw above
it. I was right smart way's from it so I seen, I had a
snake in my mind, it was never out of my mind, but I
knowed they was there, you know.
ALEX.: Uh huh.
HAMMONS: And I went up there and I fell a chestnut around the
hill from that, and I stomped that good you know before
I knelt down to pick that bunch of ’seng, it seemed as to
be a real good place. So I knelt down to pick that sack
and raised up and right around to the left of me, one
went to see, it was a right smart ways. You know those
things when they get mad that away, they can jump a long
ways--over your head.
ALEX.: Yeah. ____.
HAMMONS: Yeah. So I kept in above him. Went right where I
thought ____ and I just went a few steps over the hill.
And he quit singing. I was watching, I was froze right
there, afraid to step but it wasn't so bad a weedy.
ALEX.: Yeah.
HAMMONS: So I picked up a little stick, there was and throwed it
and then it went to singing right back around where I
dug the bunch of 'seng. Right there.
ALEX.: Huh.
HAMMONS: And I went as far as from here to that wood pile, ____
so I went right up the back track just stepped back over
the hill where I thought it was, and the first thing I knowed of, I wasn't thinking about the snake, right on
my tracks was why, I was right up against it, I didn't
think it would be there you know.
ALEX.: Huh.
HAMMONS: And it was right on my tracks.
ALEX.: I declare.
HAMMONS: And I saw, it was a locusts rooted up and the first lick
I struck, I missed. I broke that locust. I was scared,
you know.
ALEX.: Yeah.
HAMMONS: I hit ____ when I first struck at it, you know, the next
lick I killed him. I took one of the sticks that had
broke and jobbed it's head down in the ground and I
thought I'd pull it's rattlers off, you know, I jobbed
it way down, and just about the time I pulled those
rattlers, it ____ and I jerked those things in two, and
I left that thing right there. And I was nervous, I
went down to the foot of that bank and I sat down and
sat there on a log a long time. Kind of got over it and
went on.
ALEX.: Yeah. I declare.
HAMMONS: But I hit it a trackin' me.
ALEX.: That was.
HAMMONS: It wasn't such a big one though.
ALEX.: Well, I tell you.
HAMMONS: Oh, I'm scared of them. A lot of people, I believe a
copperhead will bit you quicker. But they're not nary
as scary as a rattlesnake. I'm scared of a rattlesnake.
ALEX.: Oh, I am too.
HAMMONS: Yes, sir.
ALEX.: That's one thing you needn't worry about here.
HAMMONS: I haven't seen any. You get down here, you know where
the county-line branch is, below the big slip . . .
ALEX.: Yeah.
HAMMONS: After you get down there, you hit them.
ALEX.: Is that right?
HAMMONS: Yeah. But I don't know why ____.
ALEX.: Uh huh.
HAMMONS: Got all kinds of other snakes, black snakes, garter
snakes, once in a while a viper.
ALEX.: Yeah.
HAMMONS: A big old long viper.
ALEX.: Yeah.
**: ____.
**: Yeah. They look dangerous but I don't think . . .
**: Yeah. Look like a cobra.
**: Yeah, yeah, they do.
**: Well, let me go ahead.