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Transcripts: Southern Appalachian English
Jake Sutton
(Cataloochee, Haywood County, North Carolina) was age 70 when interviewed. He had an eighth-grade education and was a farmer.
I'll continue a story about a panther a-runnin' a feller. His name was Bill Campbell, and his brother-in-law ----- lived in what we know as the Hickory Butt next to Pigeon River. This fellow Campbell was a-fishin' on what we call Mount Sterling Creek near the mouth of Pigeon River, and he heared something make a noise, and he looked around, and he saw a large panther a-layin' on a log fixin' to jump on him, and he had a few fish, something like eight or ten. And he jumped and broke to run, and the panther took after him, and he still had his fish pole in his hand, and he had a very steep mountain to run up, something like a mile, and this panther followed him, and he looked every minute for him, for it to catch him. So the noise of his fish pole kept the panther backward, and it never jumped on him, and directly he thowed his fish, and the panther stopped to eat his fish, and when it eat the fish, it continued on after him, and he still held to his pole, was the only protection that he thought caused the panther to not catch him. So he run up and within a hundred yards of the house and jumped the fence and screamed, and the panther just run to the fence and stopped. So he's known as Panther Bill Campbell, now lives on the waters of Cosby Creek atTennessee. So that's the story of Panther Bill.
I want to tell you a little story about one of my uncles, about bear hunting. Back about forty years ago he was on the head of what they call Mouse Creek. He found a bear trail, and he cut him out a little road in the laurel, put him a turn-a-pull on the end of his rifle gun till he could see the darkness of the bear. Along about one o'clock in the night the bear come along, and Uncle Tobe, he shot the bear. He heared it fall, and it was so dark that he couldn't see. He didn't have anything like a match. They had old flint rock to strike fire out of when they lay out, and he didn't have any fire, didn't have any lights of any kind. And he followed the noise of the bear down a ways as far down as he heared it, and hit was so dark he couldn't see any further, and he got to feeling with his gun to see if he could feel the bulk of the bear, and he couldn't feel anything. So later he crawled back up to where he first was settin', stayed there until daylight. And when daylight came, he went down to where he thought he heared the bear last, and he looked off and it had fell off over a cliff he said was something like a hundred feet high, and which mashed it up considerably. So he killed the bear and stayed all night there and didn't have any light or any way of making any fire, and he come on out then and left his bear and got help and carried the bear in. So that's about the story of Uncle Tobe's bear hunt at that time.
I'll continue the story of Uncle Tobe. Back along about the same time of the story I've just now told you, he tuck one of his boys. He was like, something like fifteen or sixteen years old, went back into the Balsam Mountains near the lookout station in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park on Mount Sterling Mountain. He told the little boy to set down there and he'd go around the hill a little further, and if anything come along, to shoot, and to hold direct on it, and that he would not be gone long. So Uncle Tobe went off and left the little boy, and he said about eleven o'clock in the night that he heared his gun fire, but still he never went back to him until daylight. He was near a mile away from the little boy at this time, and he went back around at daylight next morning and asked the boy what he'd shot at, and he told him he didn't know, that he shot at something and heared it fall. So Uncle Tobe went down to where he said that he heared the noise, and the boy had killed a large bear, the first one he'd ever been out to hunt for, and the little boy stayed there all night by hisself, and he was about fifteen or sixteen years old, and Uncle Tobe said it was a powerful bear and he had went farther than he told the little boy he was a-goin'. He went something near a mile back on into the Spruce Mountains and stayed by hisself all night, but he unluckily never got any bear. So that's about the story of Uncle Tobe's next hunt.