TOMAHAWK HOLLOW

Times were getting better………..the price of dried poke root had jumped to one and one quarter cents per pound. I dug a lot of poke root that spring!

Coy Ham owned a country store located over the hill south of our home. The nearest way to get to his store was across the hill and down through a long meadow called the Tomahawk Hollow. The valley was about two miles long and ended at Coy’s store on the lower end of the John Alley Creek.

Coy bought all kinds of roots and herbs that grew wild throughout this mountainous region. He wouldn’t pay cash……..you had to take merchandise or a due bill you could use later for merchandise at his establishment.

I usually took due bills for my roots and herbs and traded them to my Father for cash money.

Poke has a root somewhat like a sweet potato. I would wander all over the hills and hollows with a mattock digging poke root. I would tote it back home where I would wash it in the creek. When it was clean I would chop it into small pieces with an ax or hatchet then spread it out on top of the spring house to dry in the sun. A sack of dried poke root would weigh about fifty or sixty pounds.

I had two sacks of dried poke root and had put them on a wooden wheelbarrow I had made. My Mother helped me push it up through the apple orchard to the top of the hill. It was all the way down hill from there and she went back to the house.

Frank Miller from Wilkes County always grazed a herd of cattle on the pasture land in the Tomahawk Hollow each summer. I didn’t know it at the time, but he had brought a big red bull and put him in with the herd for breeding purposes.

About half way down the valley on the hillside to the right was an early June apple tree. The apples were just beginning to turn ripe and I hadn’t had a good apple since the last fall. I just couldn’t resist going by that apple tree.

I had left my wheelbarrow with the poke root on the main path and walked over to the apple tree. All at once I heard a loud snorting noise. I looked around and right there, about fifty feet away was the biggest, the meanest and the ugliest bull I had ever laid eyes on. He had his head down to the ground and his right hoof was pawing the dirt. His eyes were staring at me and he was snorting and blowing dust all over the place.

I was up that apple tree in one second flat!

I sat in that apple tree for about three hours munching on half ripe apples while that old bull circled around and around, stopping every now and then to paw the ground, snort and blow dust.

Finally, I could hear a cow mooing way back up the hollow toward home. All of a sudden that old bull jerked his head up and took off toward that cow as fast as he could. I jumped down from that tree and took off toward Coy’s store as fast as I could go with my wheelbarrow of dried poke root.

I bought a pack of ready roll cigarettes and Coy gave me a due bill for one dollar and twenty-nine cents. I took the main road back home, up the John Alley Creek and around the road close to the Fairview Church, a distance of about four miles.

I met Duddie Bennett on my way home. He worked for Mr. Miller and told me that they were going to take that old bull back to Wilkes County the next week.

Duddie got ducks on my ready roll cigarette and I got a green apple belly ache!

In that old outhouse
Down below,
You’d think a real smart man
Should know
To place his elbows
On his knees
And stay
That way
All day.
And never, ever eat green apples
Again!