Uncle Franks Calling (standard:adventure, 1408 words)
Author: stanley mcqueen kentucky backwoods writer	Added: May 11 2009	Views/Reads: 3445/2086	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
tales of a mountain circit riding preacher, sharing his journeys in the backwoods of Knetucky in the days of old"

Uncle Frank Calling.. Uncle Franks sets before the fire place in our
house he is old now and his hair has turned to white with age he come 
to visit us on his trip to Kentucky..., he is preacher and has been one 
going on fifty years, he has spend most of his life riding around threw 
the back woods county of Kentucky, spreading the word of God, most men 
would dare to do this knowing the danger that is in this remote 
unsettled place, Franks was raised in Kentucky along with my Mother 
there was just the two of them, and Frank was called of God too preach 
the word of God, tonight he sets here telling us kid about his 
journeys, Well now you young folks has a lot to learn about the ways of 
mountain folks, he said pulling on his pipe of Kentucky tobacco,  and 
he blows a cloud of blue smoke into the air, I was just twenty three 
when the lord spoke to me in a little church house your grandpa and 
grandma attended and took me and your mother Martha to when we both 
were young  folks just like you are now,   I worked me out a mule 
plowing corn ground and helping clear ground , and it was rough work 
for sure, using a ax and the power of my back to make a way to travel 
around and make my calling of the lord was not easy at all, but with 
the grace of God and a lot of hard work, I managed to accomplish my 
venture and bought me a find mule to ride and do my work for the lord, 
Folks back then made fun of me and told me that I would starve to death 
, taking up preaching and traveling along into no man land, to preach 
the Gospel, but with my faith in my pocket and a young heart I I headed 
out on my journey , I rode plume up in the southern part of Kentucky 
and those old narrow paths were hard to travel on ,  small wagon roads 
with a song on my lips and ,I recall one settlement I stopped at where 
folks had come down from Virginia to settle in Kentucky  those folks 
had carved out a wide place in the woods and made sort of a camp site 
so they could hunt game for a time so they could go on after 
replenishing there provisions , they were a friendly sort of folks and 
invited me to their camp with a hardy welcome, we had nightly meeting 
of worship and they jumped right in and  took of the lord mercy well, 
the leader was a young married man and his wife Sara, they seem to be 
the masters of the camp,  and the others were kin folks of theirs , one 
night as we were in worship a band of Indians  come  to the camp and I 
declare I thought we were going to be killed , they were about  six of 
them and a they were on foot, they shot and arrow that just missed my 
head and it landed in a big oak that stood  just behind me,  I raised 
my big black holy Bible at them and they watch my every move they seem 
astonished at me and my gestures waving a square thing that neither  of 
them knew what this was I am guessing it sort of spooked them , maybe 
they thought it was some sort of weapon that us white folks had, I 
don't rightly know but they scampered off like a bunch of mice that a 
Tom cat was after. Those folks in the camp knew that the Bible has 
saved our scalps, and they claimed that the Bible waving at the Indians 
has saved them from being slaughtered, and they thanked me for my visit 
with them and the fine word of the lord God, they were anxious to head 
on and I traveled a good distance along with this crew of folks till we 
come to a larger settlement a sort of fort like place that a group of 
settlers has built a fort to stand off the savage Indians from invading 
them and killing them, I thought this was a good place to preach the 
word of the lord and I was right , I stayed a good while and preach 
sermons to the folks and then made my way on my journey preaching in 
other places, Then I hit a place that never took kindly to a preacher, 
and I don't know whether you grandkids, would know about a person  
being tar and feathered, what those folks done to me will be spoken at 
the judgment bar of God, they melted tar in a big kettle and they had 
me tied up like a hog and they let the tar be cooled till it would 
still smear on my flesh and then they broke a feather pillow and tossed 
those  feathers all over my body, and then feathers stickling to the 
tar made me a trifling site to behold, they set me on my mule and 
slapped old mike butt and away I went I was tared and feathered and run 
out of their settlement, because  they rejected being preached too, Ii 
had a hard time ever wearing off those tar and chicken feathers , I had 
to scrap and scrap myself with and old hunting knife  I carried for 
skinning game and such, you young folks would not know about such 
things  that can happen to a preacher of the Gospel , and then there 
was another time shortly after that , that I nearly lost my life ,on a 
lonely backwoods wagon trail , when I come across and old she bear that 
has two twin cubs, she crossed my path and spooked my mule and he 
bolted and I fell off and that old she bear come at me with her teeth 
showing she was protection her babies bears, I climb a skinny popular 
tree that I knew she could not climb and she kept me in that tree for 
three full days and children I thought I would starve to death, but she 
give up on eating me up , and finely went on her merry way with those 


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