Show llIG fAMID Il TREE TRUN HOW ELEVEN TENNESSEE CHILDREN CHIL-DREN WERERAISED Were Sons and Daughters of a Ioon shiner None Ever Got Sick Never Saw Id1nister or Teacher It is not an ancestral mansion though it has been some 500 years in building The beginning of It was a sturdy sapling standing In a tiny cove high on the side of an east Tennessee mountain By and by the sapling became be-came a big hollow tree NotwithstandIng Notwithstand-Ing the hollow was so big a tall man I could He stretched at length In It there was an outer shell of sound wood arid plenty of vigorous leafy boughs for shade The hollow itself was rain and storm proof so a couple of the mountain moun-tain fOlk tool up theIr abode in it They did not bother about furnIture There was room for it even In a hollow hol-low tree measuring seven feet across The man put down a floor of puncheons that Is rough slabs split from smaller tree trunks For a bed they had drr leaves and for covering skins of the various varmints round about The woman knew how to dress them Indian fashion so they served In large part for clothes as well as cover An ax a rifle a bullet pouch a pow der horn a hunting knife an iron pot a water pall a jug two or three bIg gourds a bread tray and a meal bag summed up the familys moveable possessions pos-sessions COMing was done gypsy fashion at a log fire some little wayoff the entrance to the tree Generally the pot sat beside the tire simmering and stewing Time only bread was ashcake ash-cake For drink n there was tL choIce of sassafras tea unsweetened and moonshine whisky The man of course was a moon shiner He was also a deadshotpar tlcuiarly in the case of a revenuer He was able thus to feed his family by working about hall the time His wife looked after the clothing exchanging surplus peltry twIce a year for coarse cloth salt and snuff at the nearest crossroads store fifteen miles away Eleven children were horn in the hollow tree and grew up Into siren ping men and women One of the boys stood six feet nine Ine1eswhen he could be persuaded 0 stand at all Usually he carried him elt In rather the shape of a crescent Each of the eleven was cradled in thc half of a smaller hollow tree smoothed out inside in-side with the ax and hhbedded with leaves It did not need rockers rock log itself at the slightest touch As the bIg tree became crowded hollo logs were sought one for each ctllld chopped to convenient lengths mid dragged close about the tire Into their open ends the bigger children crept feet foremost turned their heads to the fire md slept snug through all sorts of weather Of course the logs were only for storms and severe I weather When it was fine the wnole family slept out doors It wa presumably pre-sumably a happy family mill certainly a healthy one though tw ht barefoot the year round and nevJr 50 much as heard of hygiene The whole brood grew up innocent of contact with doctors doc-tors ministers or schoolmasters As the owner of a summer cottage down the alley said upon discovering them The truth is they dont know enough even to be sick |