BALLAD OF THE BARK EATER
THE STORY OF ABEL JACOB was told to me over several days in the late winter of 1852 while visiting a man colorfully known as Picker T. T. Dennis, who lived just outside of North Creek. I was sent to Mr. Dennis by the purveyor of a store there in town when I asked where the tallest tales were told.
He insisted that he tell me his story outside around a small fire, which he made every morning during my stay. Being but a humble transcriber, I obliged him, assuming it was to be a simple tale of half truths and whole lies regarding his mountain-man ways. Instead what I was told is the following. So I will not go into further details here. Save for one.
Picker Dennis is like other stentorian storyspinning creatures I have met in many ways.
However, how and what he retold to me had the sheer weight of truth that I have never experienced in my life as a listening man. There was something to his words which moved me to my core.
THE GREAT SILENCE
Abel Jacob walked with knees and chin held high, carrying his new life on his back. The boy knew that there would surely be hard times, yet this day was not to be one of them. As he walked the trails, crisp with either snow or a healthy frost, he found his lungs filling with not just the air of the mountain but the pride of a decision.
He walked what seemed like 20 miles that day, ambling along the lowlands
