The Christmas season is near, much as this weather belies it. The green leaves and red berries of the holly gleam from the hillside, while the gaunt arms of the sycamore and the black-gum are festooned with mistletoe. Woe now to the mountain girl who pauses in her walks abroad, for here is our warrant plain, to catch and kiss her under every tree !

We have noticed, as we journeyed south, that the mistletoe seems to have a special affinity for different trees in different latitudes. A little further north, in the Kentucky blue grass country, it will be found almost only on the wild cherry and the black walnut; but neither here nor there is it true to its Druidical story, and one must go still further north, across the Ohio, to find it where it is popularly supposed to be most common, upon the oak.

A Bit of Wild Marsh.

Along the face of an overhanging cliff we find the rare English fern ; while the commoner, but no less beautiful climbing fern makes green patches amid the carpet of brown leaves. Looking still closer down at mother earth, we find yet borne upon her bosom - this sixteenth day of December, A. D. 1889, some flowers of the delicate "Quaker Maiden," or bluets, Houstonia ccerulea. Stooping to gather them, we get the fragrant scent of English violets, and uncovering a cluster of these, both are laid in the note-book beside some blossoms of the jas-minum nudiflorum, gathered from before the door of a mountain cabin.

Again in the saddle and riding on. The Colonel points to the long, black gashes in the trunks of the larger pines, and tells how the mountain people used to gather turpentine here. Whether the industry became unprofitable, or whether the people became so opulent that they did not care to pursue it any longer, he refrains from saying. The gashes in the trees were cut about three feet from the ground, and the gum collected as it would exude. The charred appearance has been wrought by the fires which run over the mountain periodically, consuming the dead leaves and undergrowth, and which finds a special affinity in these pitchy surfaces.

Since this industry was abandoned another has been taken up, which is followed, however, only in the most desultory manner; for your true mountaineer does not cultivate the faculty of long and continuous effort! Now, when they stand in need of cash or its equivalent to exchange at the stores for such simple necessaries as are not produced by themselves, they dig the roots of the ginseng and yellow-root, with which these woods abound.

The morning wears away without incident, and indeed none is needed, for life is full and satisfying there in the heart of nature without artificial aids. It is enough merely to be, to breathe the pure mountain air, to drink from these limpid streams, to feel in harmony with the life about one. It requires no astral perception to know that this is living.

An evidence of civilization is passed - a quaint old mill with an overshot wheel, from which falls a musically tinkling cascade. But few grists are ground here now, we judge, for two hawks came circling about and settled down close by us, showing that they are not enough familiar with the presence of man to fear him. They will be wiser by-and-by! We meet an occasional traveller to whom the Colonel says "howdy," with the true mountain intonation, and " howdy " is said in return. Sometimes we stop for a moment's chat; once with a soldierly - looking man who rode a handsome thoroughbred. His manner was courteous and dignified ; when he had passed on his way the Colonel told his story. "A northern guerrilla during the war; his hands stained with crimes committed under cover of a uniform; an illiterate man, who can neither read nor write, yet has twice represented his district (a mountain district) in the legislature. Now respected by his neighbors, and always throwing his influence on the side of law and morality. " Thus, in brief but striking outline is sketched, throughout the day, many a "character," for my companion knows the whole "mountain".

I mention the curious vernacular of the people whom we meet, and the Colonel is launched upon a philological dissertation.

"They speak a language of their own," he says. "Their vocabulary is limited, numbering among the most illiterate not more than two hundred and fifty words. Some of these are distinctively their own, coined here exclusively for home circulation ; such are biggitty and bourdacious. Others are local corruptions of the' English, such as hit, for it; cayn't, for cant, and mought, for might. Then there is the peculiar bearing down upon the final syllable, as in settlement." They do not pronounce it settlemint, as I had expected to find from the stories of a well-known writer; but that may be explained by the fact, as I was frequently assured, that her characters were all "over on t'other mountain" - not mouting, observe again - but mountain.

Aside from such distinctive features of their vocabulary, their words are commonly pronounced with marked purity ; there is no trace of the corrupting influence of the negro idiom which has helped to make so slovenly {he pronunciation of even the best classes in the old slave-holding districts of the south. This is to be accounted for by the fact that there were never any slaves held here, the poverty of the mountaineers prohibiting their indulgence in such luxurious chattels ; even now a black face is a rarity here, the negroes not having much affinity for the hardships and privations of mountain life.

Later on I was enabled to verify some of the Colonel's statements by my own observations. That night, at the house where we found entertainment for man and beast, a woman gave her opinion of a certain lawyer who had recently passed through there with the court.

"I don't like that man," she said. "He's getting too biggitty to drinken his' coffee outen a sasser." From which we inferred that the mountain possessed a standard of table etiquette peculiar to itself. This opinion was given in a sad, hopeless manner, without apparent animosity toward the individual referred to, but only as if he had fallen beyond reclaim. A translation of this word "biggitty" is not necessary when one has once heard it used. It is very expressive. A tipsy fellow, who seemed to be the soul of maudlin good-nature, was said to be "right vigorous" when in his cups. The way in which the word was pronounced (1 as in tiger) indicated that tigerish, or fierce, was the synonym.

A tall, thin, mild-mannered man was asked to be our guide to a certain point. "I don't care to,' quoth he, and forthwith lifted up his long length, and went. This, we subsequently found, was a universal form of assent.

Our day's journey came to an end at a little hamlet - as my friend had promised, a typical mountain town. But night came down before we found our haven, and the bridle-path became faint and uncertain in the darkness. Once we paused, almost dismayed at the difficulties that beset us as the forest closed about, deep, dark and sombre, seemingly disposed to hold us fast in its inexorable grasp. Just then a sound broke upon the air - the voice of a girl, singing. A rich, contralto voice, strong but untrained, sending out into the night and the wilderness not, as we would have expected, some negro melody or the strains of a camp-meeting song, but a stave of an old college tune. It was a strange thing to hear there, but it came carolling out to us again and again - "Oh! who will kiss my sugar-sweet lips?"

We listened in silence until the singer had finished, too much surprised to answer even had we been sure that any answer was desired. Then the Colonel made his way in the direction from which the voice had come, and found a cabin hidden among the pines. Having taken his bearings anew, we resumed our way and were soon at our destination .

A supper of corn-bread, muddy coffee, fried pork, fried chicken, fried eggs, fried potatoes, fried turnips and sundry other fried things preceded our introduction to a little room with a huge fireplace, in which some logs were smoldering and smoking. Two beds, one of which was already pre-empted by three tow-headed children, suggested that this was where we should seek repose. I went outside, partly to commune with nature, partly to escape the smoke and the unaccustomed odors.

The night was intensely dark; not a star was to be seen, not a single ray of light penetrated the over-hanging canopy of cloud. The dark fringe of the forest, that had made a dense, black shadow before, was now absorbed into the all-pervading blackness of the night. The wind soughed faintly and dolefully; the far-away cry of a hound chasing some belated reynard to his hole, was blended with it. Nearer, sounded the occasional weird hoot of an owl, prowling for prey. It was grand, mysterious, sublime; it was night on the mountain.

"It is the abomination of desolation." The Colonel stood beside me, and had spoken his thought aloud. He was correct, as usual. I was glad I had kept mine to myself!

James K. Reeve.