Southern Highlanders (1947)

[Music] e [Music] all this was waiting when man came into the highlands first the Cherokee Indian then the Spaniard hunting treasure then the Scotch Irish German and hugenot settlers in search of Home sites they came nearly 200 years ago cleared the Wilderness to build log cabins fought the forest for crop land then settled down walled in from the rest of the world this is the story of their descendants of people who still live by simple honest values in a world grown complicated all around them the man who never Strays from the highway will never learn the story or know the soul of the Highlands it lies farther back in homes hidden deep in the hollow and in the classroom of a m school at half 3 on a school day afternoon the mountains called the children of the Southern Highlands the quiet old Hills are jealous of schools and school teachers I know because I grew up in these mountains I teach the textbook and Blackboard but the mountain uses magic and charm in my sight these children are the hope of a better future for the South the mountain want them to listen to the music of tumbling rivers and get their feet Tangled in a laurel slick but because they are mountain children they'll listen to me and to the mountain too and keep the best of each a hill child starts life with just about what his father and grandfather had pure air pure water and a far view from the front porch of his father's house these things he doesn't have to work for but everything else he pays for in toil he starts early courage proud pride and love of Freedom are strong in his blood those same qualities LED his forefathers into the Mountain Wilderness nearly two centuries ago they battled The Forest of their cornfield and took Steady Aim down the long barrel of a rifle when they needed meat for the table they came from Scotland and Ireland mostly planish people with dry humor and gunpowder tempers sent mental to lovers of song and respects of God that's why their hearts melted when they saw the green Giants of the Highlands they were humbled the way we are today Ben Blair put it in words last Sunday when I saw him just before church well I'll tell you I think a man back here in these mountains enjoys himself just about as much as any people there is on Earth living there's nothing to bother much and he can serve the Lord all this land of our don't belong to us it belongs to our maker and he has got control of it all if he gives us the rain and the Sunshine the seed well we have good crops and I think that's the greatest thing in life that could be handed down to us is just to live for the Lord while we're here and invite to get to a better world over [Music] yand in [Music] the your my [Music] [Applause] [Music] brother be the way [Music] [Music] happy Glory morning J the first Hill people started with what they found they cut logs to build cabins and split shingles to cover the roofs then they settled down locked in the mountains for a century and a half it's no wonder today's children are close to the old ways sometimes very [Music] close in all his days John McDow has never had a spoonful of white sugar on his table his daddy left him a sorum press and he makes his own sweetening John himself feeds the sgum cane into the press and his old May has been C round John as long as I can remember I had to smile when he told me the Press was botched on from an iron Foundry way Yonder in Ohio and were 20 days are coming as it rode the last spell on the back of a mule [Music] Critter John's wife Lucy strains the squeezing through a patch of burlap she makes the best cornbread for miles around and her man makes the best [Music] sweetening the steam Rises up like Mist off a mountain and sweetens the air in the [Music] clearing John's brother Herman stirs the sweet juice while it boils in the pan and gets thick by the stir makes me Almighty hungry when I'm near [Music] it if a man wanted a chair to sit on he made it himself and his women folk wed the seats from corn shs the hill Woman made all the family's clothes time was when store-bought things flooded the mountains and folks were ashamed to own homemade things then the tourists came into the highlands and carried on about the old timey quilts and the home forged iron work so the loom and the forge came back to life I like to see the shuttle and the bellows in the hands of a m girl or boy because I know there's a naturalness in it and it's something they'll always remember the way they'll remember the easyc come rhythm of an oldfashioned Mountain square dance big rain C there that brown and up L that H cou dance out more handr ladies back no swing coup stand hands get you know how Str once in a halfin [Music] lady cup will turn back with open [Music] timeart [Music] home a new kind of music has come to the Southern Highlands the hum of electric generators echoing back into the farthest Valley men harness the rivers and strung wires across the Peaks and valleys bringing cheap power to a land of kerosene lamps and long back muscles power for new Industries new jobs for people of the Hill the music came too late for the old and wey but it's a tonic for young people just starting out super white told me last week she means to buy an electric stove for her new [Music] kitchen Sue is kindly persistent when she sets her heart on something her daughter is too I know she's one of my [Music] pupils new ideas in farming came along with the power lines and light bulbs a mountain farmer years ago planted according to spells of the moon when his land wore out he cleared some more he knew there was something wrong but that was the way his father did it all that is changing now he can talk things over with the County Farm agent and the federal government's Farm advisor he learns how to grow tobacco how to start the young plants in a sunny patch and harvest the crop in the early fall tobacco puts cash in his pocket for Necessities that he can't grow or build he hears about plowing a Furrow along the Contours of his sloping land so the rain won't wash away the good top soil and he lets machines do more and more of his work that way he gets more done and doesn't feel so tired when the Sun goes down he learns the sense of rotating crops growing cover crops to be plowed under so the soil he forms today will be rich and sweet for his [Applause] sons it used to be that a tree was cut down if it was in the way now the Highland farmer protects his wood lot and thinks of his Lumber as a crop his it's a new idea with him he takes care of the forest and the forest takes care of [Music] him these proud old mountains have a way of strutting over us and bossing us around but we're beginning to talk back now every chance I get I go and visit with kin folk of youngsters I have in school because old and young I try to make them understand that we've all got to go along together if we're going to get anywhere at [Music] all our people love this land they mean to stay here until the mountains tumble Into The Valleys but they need no long song of be slaves to the mountains if they listen to the music of the future the hum of dynamos and the song of machines a poet once said that something in a hill child dies when he goes down to level [Music] land we all know that the highlands are a little bit poorer for every child who goes away from [Music] them my dream is to make life worth the struggle in the highlands that's why I feel easy in my mind when Night comes on the mountain and I hear my neighbor singing the old balance to his grandchildren in a morning first they appear and then are [Music] gone do you remember burn young Green Mountain where you and I fell in love the little birds would sing so sweetly and little I know a good man is helping me make my dream come true helping me hold hearts of these Young Americans closer and closer to [Music] home