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VOL. XXIV. Tlie Cartersville Express. Established Twenty Years RATES AND TERMS. HUISCRIPTIONB. OaecafT ie yi;ir ?1 50 One copy six months 75 One copy three months 50 I'aymentg invariably in advance. A B VERTBIING KATES. Advertisements will he inserted at the rates ot One Dollar per inch lor the first insertion, *ml Kilty Cents lor each additional insertion Address CORNELIUS WILLINGHAM. WITH THE MOONSHINERS. BY ESTELLE LEYDEN. It was high noon Saturday, and by the lime Peg had walked five miles to town and sold her mess of fish Andy would he in condition to be shouldered and brought home; in deed, he had already reached the talkative stage of drinking, as she climbed the fence between Higman’s corn-field and Andy’s. When Peg married Andy he owned the whole bottom and was considered a well to-do young farmer; but he had drank more and more each year ; grown more deevish and shiftless till now, only the small corn-field and sorghum patch and potato bed remained. These Peg tended her self —Peg and a little mule, the size of an ash cat. Peg was three times the bulk of her beast of burden • which fact, no doubt, deepened the apologetic mortification that was al ways perceptible in the animal’s pose. Peg was nearly six feet high ; she came of a race of giants. Her brothers were the prize fiighters of the region and had been scattered like a nest of rattlesnakes through the six Middle States. Ten bad ar. rived at the age of manhood, each in his way a perpetuator of the old man, who at 70, in the full vigor of a bru tish strength, had been gathered to his fathers by a saw-mill. Death, having been snubbed by the old gen tleman several times, begged the loan of the mill for a few days. The char acteristics of the family, we regret to say, shone resplendent in Peg. Siie had been drunk ; perhaps she would have been found in that condition oftener had not her husband system atically acted as proxy. When a dap per clerk in a Conesville store had been guilty of a speech which femi nine Conesville felt called upon to resent —a speech derogatory to the style of beauty which obtained—Peg was induced by what we all know to be the irresistible wiles of the wo man _ an d a five dollar bill to cow hide him. It had given her a deli cious bit of enjoyment to follow the devoted young man back of the piles of calico prints and administer a bland but thorough chastisement. She would smile grimly now if it were mentioned, though the occur rence took plate twenty years ago. She had never been wick a day in her life, except once when her baby boy Charlie was two years old. She had had lever and delirium, and when she came to her right mind, Higmand’s black Sally told her that her baby was dead and buried out under the white pines. Peg had hoped much from her baby, lor the mother’s instinct is unerring. She had, besides, two other boys; John, who “ tuk arter the Landermills,” and showed himself a desperado from the moment his fists could close over a stone; and young Andy, who “tuk arter the Wurfoots,” and was wizen and rat-faced and underhanded.— Charlie was unlike either; his eyes were clearer, his hair yellower, his mouth fresher. Perhaps if he had lived, Peg would have been drawn out from the dogged, stupid stolidity which she maintained. Between her home and town was the Cone place, whose former owners gave name to trie village. New pe6 pie had lately taken possession of it, and, bent on gratifying her curiosity, Peg goes through the new orchard bars, leaving them down without compunction, though she observed a knot of indignant cattle caucussing over the recent restrictions, and come stalking in the back way.— Mrs. Medden is in the piazza. “ Do you uns want any fish to-day ? Peg inquires, pushing back her bon net and wiping her streaming face on her sleeve. Miss Harry Medden, who comes out with a paper and a tiny writing desk under her arm; breaks into a broad, quizzical smile at the tout ensemble Peg presents , not a disagreeable smile, for Miss Harry Medden had never looked scornful in her life; but the sight of Peg, arms akimbo, the face having been duly scoured aud, fish deposited on {the stone step, with the gander blue eyes staring at her in cunnin blankness, was too much for Miss Harry’s risibles. But then, Harry laughed at everything. “ Is she your gal ?” Peg asks, Mrs. Medden having fallen victim to the extent of three “ blue cats,” and be ing then in all the-agonies of pounds and ounces. The relationship is ac knowledged. “ I never seed a likeli er un,” she said, in honest ndmira tion. We are all vain, even Miss Harry Medden, and a glow comes over her face that makes it look iike peach-blow velvet. Peg’s face is hard ; the sight of Harry dimpling and blushing is a novel experience ; and when the young lady bounds off under the trees, Peg faces about and watches her curiously. The explan ation the bound and* the tenderly brilliant face which had surprized Peg so is a letter which the young lady proceeds to write to the Great Nameless, dwelling in her own naive, merry way on the verdict of her Amazonian admirer. But we fear that Miss Harry’s ardor would have been considerably cooled if at night fall she had heard Peg address ing the inmates and keeper of the corner grocery, and then snatching up a maudlin bundle of brown jeans and stalking out on the country road with her husband swung helplessly across her shoulder. Conesville was in the midst of the mountains, and, like Mr. Ransey Sniffles, progressed only in blackber ry season, when a few city people came up to their country hi mes, speaking another language and intro ducing another mode of life from what prevailed during the rest of the year. The indigenous inhabitants spent their time principally in aid ing, abetting and consuming illicit whisky. There is no such corn in the world as that produced by the mountainous portion of the State of Georgia. It is like nuggets sent up from the gold mines that lie dormant beneath—the wondrous Sleeping Beauty waiting to be kissed by Strength ! But the mountaineers prefer the grain in the liquid form, and in the late summer and fall, after the crops are gathered, in many a purple, shadowy ravine, when the great, white moon is riding resplendant through the clouds, are collected companies or silent-moving men, feeding the still-fires and drawing off the precious liquid, while far-off, in the lonesome hut on the mountain side wail the wives and children through the darkness, knowing that with day-light a besotted brute will come staggering in and fall down in limp unconsciousness on the thres hold, and lie there numb and filthy, through the whole of God’s long, grand, autumn day, No wonder we call their women hags! They but mirror the sights the men put before them. A woman’s ace is so plastic a place on which to cut the index. Andy’s farm w s cut olf f r om all human intercourse, the nearest house, except a negro cabin, being in Conesville, five miles distant. It was almost inaccessible; sappiiugs had grown to trees in the blind road since a wagon passed, and there were only still paths leading to it. When the* corn needed to be ground Peg shouldered it and trudged off to mill. A hundred yards beyond the house two creeks came together and here were the fish traps, the main depen dence of the family. The rocks rose abruptly in the point of junction, aud on the west side was the still. You have seen them? Not an exten sive arrangement, one that on a sus picion from the revenue officers could be taken up and carried iuto Clay county—a copper tube coiling like a brown land moccasin to the small re tort. Here the men worked, Andy so much whisky for rent and risk. And here Peg waited ou them doggedly, hopelessly; for since the still had been there, Andy, shiftless, wizen, rat-faced Andy, had become more like a sick baby on her hands; and young Andy, who had some faint notion of being helpful to his mother, was a blinking sot. Her mother’s instinct told her that if Charlie had lived he would have been different from these two; unlike John, too—outlawed and hiding in Carolina mountains. None but harder days cou-d come to peg from the men of her family. The remembrance of Harry drew her back to the Medden place before long, ana this time she put up the orchard bars. Harry, perched in a cherry tree, called out a gay good morning. Several years ago there I vvas a seductive statement in Har- CARTERSVILLE, GA., THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1881. per’s Bazar to this effect: “The rough est complexion can be made smooth and brilliant by the application of pine tar mixed with sweet oii.” In the morning, when the fish trade was consummated, Harry, whose complexion was like a pink gera nium, read out the encouraging an nouncement to her mother, remark ing disconsolately as she gathered the writing desk closer, preparatory to going to the heaven of communica tion w T ith the Great Nameless, “I wish I had some tar, I’d lather my face with it for a month if it would help matters.” So this morning Peg says, fibbing shamelessly: “I was obleeged to make some tair this week and I thought I’d fetch you a leetle, you mout use it as the paper read”—bring ing to view from unguessed recesses in her < own a broken gourd filled with the “tair.” Harry descends, all smiles and white lawn ruffles, and as they proceed to the house a tacit al liance is concluded between them, life-long alliance as it proves. } Harry was always taking fancies to strange people; the Great Nameless himself —but we do not propose to jive the history of this young lady; if it i* ever known it will be elsewhere. Her acquaintance with Harry macked more of pleasure than any thing that had ever come in Peg’s life. Harriet, Miss Ha’rt or Harry, you would have called her as you happened to be her mother, maid or lover. Harry was respectful, and Peg who had said once—“l don’t tell lies because it would seem like I was afeard o’ the man I to'd ’em to, and I ain’t afeard of nobody, I can come too near to heatin’ the truth, into ’em”—was often abashed before her —Peg, whose face was the acme of phlegmatic curiosity. If you had told Harry that she was humanizing Peg, she would have flushed with angry embarrassment. The two principles, which made Harry’s life and molded her face were rigidest truthfulness and tenderest charity. She was the sort of a woman who, when she went to the poor, went with full hands and no moral suasion but her sweet hazel eyes and sympathetic voice, and%he had swung back the gates of heaven more than once with these. An event occurred which pre vented Peg from seeing Harry again this summer; and Harry, who had always on hand a select hospital of the lame, the blind and the maimed, embracing the whole of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, missed her unique friend, Higman’s black Sally, who, after freedom, had settled on a patch near Pegs, sickened and died. She was the only friend Peg had ever had, and between the two benighted women, there had existed a strong bond since Charlie went. Peg often beguiled Sally into telling over and over again how lie had waked up one night wheezing with croup and beg ged to be put on the bed where he could touch “Mammy,” and then choked until he vvas as black as the back of Sally’s hand. Sally had told the tale so often that when the fever got into her brain she doled it out again, this time with variations. Peg happened to hear her tell of Andy’s coming to wheedle her into dropping Charlie into the creek, he was so much trouble, how she had at last been won over by Andy’s promise that she and her half-score of kinky young animals should never want for bread, and children eat so much—if she would give Charlie away. How she had ridden down to Maconville and given him to a white lady; and how, since the performance, Satan walked around the house on windy nights, and moaned and groaned and said, “Sally, whey dat chile? Git up and come down to dat grave in the white pines! I’se waitin fur ye! Oh-h’ And so on through all the vagaries of delirium. It was an improbable story, hut it stuck in Peg’s mind, for Andy had always been hard on the children and jealous of her care* Brooding over this old tale of Sally’s in a vague way, Peg did not go to see pretty, pink-faced Harry. Peg’s was a slow, muddy, mind. A strong-minded woman would have blazed out at Andy, or at least have made some in quiry, but she did neither. It was all so many years ago. She was an old woman now —it could do no good. Besides she did not believe it. But it made her more silent, more stupid, more dogged in her care of Andy. And the beautiful autumn nights came; the corn was gathered; and murder and crime and heartbreak were brewed in the shadow of the mosses and ferns and grey rocks by the tumbling, mountain stream. It vvas a harsh winter, the harshest Peg had ever known, perhaps, because she was older, and it is so hard for old folks to get warm and rested through and through. But in time spring came, the snow melted from the graves in the white pines, and at last there were signs of life at Cone place. The summer was well advanced and Peg hoped that the still had been set somewhere else; but when she came to town she saw several men loudgingaround the village whose presence removed all doubt. She hurried away before they could settle the matter and climbed the hill to the Medden’s Mrs. Medden was as usual in the back, piazza, busying herself over the .milk pans aud in a large arm chair was the familiar confusion of white lawn ruffles. By the time Peg reaches the group her pleasure has made her thoroughly uncomfortable and word- Iwss, so that her nod of greeting is almost aggressive. Harry is not looking well. Sobs and prayers and loneliness are not conservators of beauty and the places that were filled with smiles are filled now with a sense of loss, for the subject is as con stantly with her. Harry, seeing that in spite of the taciturnity, the gander-blue‘eyes are shining with cordiality and being the gentlest lit tle lady in the land, inquires after young Andy. Peg stiffens, rolls tlie quid of tobacco in her mouth, finally answers shortly: “Revenue officers took him to Washington last fall arter you left.” Young America, who has been sus ptaded apparently by the hair of the h*d from the grape trellis around tke porch, drops down suddenly at Hurry’s feel, nil aglow with interest. “Did tkey have a fight, how lunar is he in for? Did Bill Donnelly catch him. Say Mrs. Wurfoot?” Peg gives him a look which would have wilted a less hardy growth; but he stands firm; so she compromises by saying* decisively, as though she declined to have further parley with him, “He’S in for two year.” If th average Georgia mountain eer had had the alternative of a ren counter with Billy Donnelly or the cohorts of satan, he would undaunt edly have chosen the latter. Don nelly had been a third rate lawyer in Maconville. the outlet of the moun tain districts, raised in the place, and until of late known only as a genial, plucky, tenner-hearted raw-boned young fellow. But happening on one occasion to be employed by the revenue officers to pursue a criminal, he displayed such resource and bril liant audacity as to stamp himself at once a leader. He was to the illicit distillers what Gourde Lion was to the Saracen babies. He rode a white horse; it had i.een shot from under him in Taylor’s Gap. He bought another; it, too, paid the penalty of friendship to greatness. And this morning Young America’s brain wa3 literally ignited by a paragraph in the Omniscient Herald to the effect that William Donnelly, Esq., of this place, has just imported from Ken tucky, a magnigeent white charger to supply the place of the horse re cently shot by the moonshiners. The feeling in the mountain districts against Donnelly were intense. He was one of the people, had been fed and brought up to his six feet one of iron sinew on their cabbage and sor ghum and hog meat. He likewise voted with them the straight ticket. But his crowning crime was that, after having caught a man, con victed him and made him pay sev eral hundred dollars forfeit, he ac tually bewitched him into liking him and agreeing to support him for congress. This was hard, and the Maconville mail waxed fat with letteis of bitterness and orthogra phy threatening his life ; and he never rode tiirough the solemn silent mountain passes that tie did not realize that death might clutch him from behind, some dark,, picturesque rock at the mouth of a moonshiners’ ride. Y#uug America, warmed with thought* of high surprise and valor, proceeds to discourse on the fame of the redoubtable Billy Donnelly, end ing with: “And, sister, lie’s got him anew white horse. These moonshine fel low* are as certain to kill him as his name is Donnelly. You know you can ace a whife tiorse so clear in the i dark.” Mrs. Medden glances up quickly from the milk pans, viith the pained mother-look tense in her eyes. Harry rises from the chair with anew ex pression, steadies herself, takes the straw' hat from the floor, and walks slowly off toward the orchard, bare; and when a few minutes after, Peg follows on her way home, she finds her walking back and forth in the sun, cold and blue, as it she were in h chill. , . “Why, you’ve got the ager, ain’t you, child? You must go in out of this cold ter wunst,” Peg says, em barrassment gone in her solicitude. Harry stops and looks at her, A drowsy, devitalized expression hangs over the usually clear, loyal eyes; a drooping of the eyelids, as it the inner light w'ere too strong and needed to be curtained. “No, I’m not cold,” she * ays, slowly, I’m frightened. “Why, honey, you needn’t be scared. There ain’t nothin’in them woods,” nodding to the dense wood lauds which stretched unbroken to the Blue Ridge. “I don’t mean that. Some of these mountain men have threatened to shoot somebody, and lie won’t take care.” “Your true-love?” The drowsy look deepens* “He is not my true-love any longer. We don’t care at ait about each other. But I don’t want him killed.” Peg shifts her jug of molasses and waits. “It is er orful thing to die,” she says, meditatively, lookingddwn at her own asbestos hands, “and feel the wurrums a squrmin’ and knawin’ betwixt your bones.” A deep crim son suffuses Harry’s face and she turns and walks away. Peg had once seen a locket of Harry’s, but it must be conf ssed that the glass beads on the ouiside caused the picture within to appear to her at various angles of refraction. Smothered s miewliere in Peg’s na ture was sympathy for Harry’s dis tress: It did not make the plowing easier; it did not make her more will ing to see Tom Jones, the fiddler, nor Mus’ratty Tucker, nor the rest of the crowd who came that night to see about putting up the still. Andy was dead drunk on ihe floor; noth ing could be done, so they agreed to come at nightfall to begin their work. Peg lies awake till nearly dawn thinking over what she must go through—Andy weakening every day, feeding on liquor till he is a mere skeleton, and more liquor com ing. That lie was vile enough to have made way with her child she did not doubt; but his mind was so impaired that even if he had been in clined lie could not have told a straignt tale now. It was a hopeless thing, and when she finally dropped off to sleep, the damp, sweet lips of her baby boy came back to her, and lay against her mouth as she breath ed. The next day Peg does something she has never done in all her life be fore—deliberately set down by the spring and tried to think it all out. A big land moccasin, whose respect for her was enormous, and in propor tion to the quarterless war she waged against his species, lolled in the eye of his hole and watched her all the afternoon. Her father was a rich man, though he made his wife and children work in the field as regu larly as his other hands. When Peg married so well, he gave her two ne groes; these Andy sold as he pleased. Then the land began to go—then Charlie died, and since then things had been growing worse each year. She did not know that she had been long suffering; in fact she could not make head or tail out of it all; so she got up and made anew trough to the spring, scoured the floors and kept And.y sober. That night the hand of moonshin ers met—seven. It is cold in the mountains after nightfall, and some pine-knots were blazing on the hearth. Peg sat to one side of the fire-place on a cask, her elbows on her knees and her chin propped on her hands, the sandy hair screwed in a tight wisp and held by a horn comb she had had forty years. She did not even look round as they came in. It was very dark without; the moon would not rise till 10. Am they sat there waiting there was a trampling of horses’ hoofs aud some*- body called “Hallo!’ ? The men looked at each other and turned pale. The still was set, the mash tubs ready, and it would be tough work if the revenue officers should pounce down on them. There was not a chink of light visible from without, they knew*, and hoped that the horseman would believe the place uninhabited and pass on. But as they hoped the door burst open and a tail stranger, in a wide brimed straw hat, stood on the threshold. Quick as a flash the men grasp their guns and aim at him. They see a small pistol giitter in response.— “There must bo something wrong here, men,, or you would not be so quick on the trigger,” the stranger says sternly, eyeing keenly each man in turn. There was no hope that Bill Donelly would ever forget one of those faces. They all knew by in tuition who he was; no other man in the North country could have stood there so steadily before seven wea pons. Peg, at the first excitement, had risen from her seat, and was now peering at the stranger with her hand shading her eyes as though she could not see clearly. She walked down the Hue.of we pons, and bear ing down Tom Jones’ rifle with her arm said : “He haint accused you o’ noithin’. Put up them firearms. Come in, stranger ! ” and he came in and sat down. He had been in the saddle since daylight and he was very weary and lost. Would they let him rest a few hours and give him something to eat, as he was compelled to catch the train, which passed the station six teen miles distant at 10 the next morning V He was haggard. There was not an ounce of surplus flesh on him ; the cheek bones > were prominent, the face bronzed ; but when he look off the wide, slouched hat, the lorehead was bleached white and tender as a baby’s, and the strong purple veins throbbed though it. His hair hung down long over his shoulders making him seem almost girlish. This long hair was an affectation of Donnelly’s, for with all his daring qualities there were mixed in some queer freaks of eoxcomby. If the hair had been a pretty color, this freak would b© more easily understood, but it was drab-colored. His eyes were very clear and blue and keen —small e>es with drab fringe. Peg after the firs surprise A’as apparently the most 1 frightened one one of the party. She trembled as she cooked the supper, and her voice was hoarse ; and once ior twice when she went out to the water bucket at the back door, she i leaned against the house unsteadily. When fear or auy other strong feel* 1 ing permeates a thick, muddy na ture like this, it cannot be controlled, | because reason cannot penetrate it. Donnelly finally noticed her trepida tion ; he was a good-hearted man and did not like to see a woman dis tressed, even if it was only a Hoo sier’s masculine wife. So he said quite gently, albeit a trifle grandly : “My dear, good woman, don’t be alraid of me. I would not harm you for a thousand cellars. , I never hurt a woman in my life, and you came to my aid so opportunely that I am under special obligations to you. Peg at his first sentence had strviightened and looked down grim trust at her brawny arms, but as his voice grew gentler she only sighed hard and took up the tin plates to wash them. Donnelly wa an ego tistical man; he loved above all things to speak of himself and his exploits to womankind, though to men he affected to think lightly of them. So, as the men had slunk out one by one, apparently unnoticed, it was the most natural thing for him to tell Peg how his mother doted on him because he came after she had given up all hope of having a baby to love; how her life was made mis erable by the anonymous letters he received threatening his life; her demonstrations of joy on his return unharmed ; what a brilliant career stretched out before him if he wor ried through the next few years. Peg during this recital, made more to himself than to her, was crouched down in a dark corner, watching him furtively with her small, unex pressive eyes, with a queer contrac tion of the mouth as of great dry ness. The moon came up behind the tall cathedral spires of the pines be fore Donnelly stretched out ou .the big room floor to go to sleep. The men were holding a council of war behind the sorghum-patch, the result of which Andy announced in a low-breathed whisper when he came in to bed: “When he gits to Wharton’s Turn, us eight’ll be on the bank acrost, and fire. Twouldn’t do to end him till he on the big road.” Peg turns over -restlessly and groans; he thinks she is asleep, so he takes his gun quietly and goes out. His rusty old musket general ly misses fire, but whet) it does go off it makes up for lost oppoi tunities. Peg lies with her eyes widely star ing, till the moon looks in through the chinks on the west side of the house ; then, rising softly, pinches little Jack, the darkey who waits around the still and who had slept on the floor in her room, awake, whispers a few words —and goes out, looking once at the man asleep on the floor ; out into the brilliant gla mour of the moonlight. She unties Donnelly’s horse and rides off. Through the dark woods the little branch glinted like silver, then grew like ink. The trees seemed covered with snow, melting to the softest black. There are weird, inexr lica ble sounds in the woods at night— dismal moans that seem to come not from beast,nor bird nor any living thing. But God is there He is every where—as much in the unknown words written on the leaves and in the sounds that coaie, as in the plain Anglo-Saxon of our Bible. The big rdad was cut out of the sides of the mountain; Wharton’s Turn was an abrupt curve around a boulder which projected. Opposite this point an other mountain arose within twenty five yards of it, the ugh there was a deep chasm between, where the baby-branch tinkled. Peg followed her spring branch till it reacheh the big road and then began the ascent of the mountain. The turn was just ahead. There was a tension in the air, the huge black rock—ra flash, a thunder, a plunge, and the blue smoke hovered —then as day came on,'lifted slowly ar>d began to drift awaj*. Donnelly intended to wake at 4 o’clock ; he had perfect control over himself in this respect as in many others. Jack was already up when he woke, and .his rasher of bacon and corn-bread were hot for him ; and the mgssage, was delivered: This was it: “Her said fuller the orauch to the big road. ’ Her said her’d be waitin’fur you at Wharton’s Turn. And not to he afeard to trust her. Aud God Almighty bless you.” There was tieachery somewhere he knew; but he would have trusted his life in a woman’s hand auy mo ment with perfect faith, for women never betray a man like Bill Don nelly. ; He obeys the direction and goes up the branch, his step springing with the unconscious bravery of youth and hope, up through the fragrant foliage. It has been a dry summer, andTie sees by the dust on the leave- that he is nearing the big road; then ,he- reaches it, a red, weary line that leads to many new things and ..places and feelings. As he proceeds, he hears strange sounds, half moan-, half neigh, as of an ani mal in pain, and he hurries forward. At Wharton's Turn, on the side to wards him, fallen over the bank and caught by two pines, the white horse is struggling, shot blind through the eyes and with broken legs. He. jerks out his pistol and euds the poor brute’s pain. And as he turns a strangely famil iar face with glorified eyes is gazing at him from under tiie shadow of the rock. The horse’s hoof in plung ing had come down on her breast and crushed it. With a wrench leg throws herself till tier dusty lips touch his feet —and the whole of life is condensed in the low, loving cry ; “My baby boy ! my baby boy! The impetuosity of the country ex changes cannot be restrained. They are determined to trot but a hundred gubernatorial candidates.— Post. NO. 7.