An aged, gray-haired and very wrinkled old woman, arrayed in the outlandish calico costume of the mountains, was summoned as a witness in court to tell what she knew about a fight in her house. She took the witness-stand with evidences of backwardness and proverbial Bourbon verdancy. The Judge asked her in a kindly voice what took place. She insisted it did not amount to much, but the Judge by his persistency finally got her to tell the story of the bloody fracas.
“Now, I tell ye, Jedge, it didn’t amount to nuthn’. The fust I knowed about it was when Bill Saunder called Tom Smith a liar, en Tom knocked him down with a stick o’ wood. One o’ Bill’s friends then cut Tom with a knife, slicin’ a big chunk out o’ him. Then Sam Jones, who was a friend of Tom’s, shot the other feller and two more shot him, en three or four others got cut right smart by somebody. That nachly caused some excitement, Jedge, en then they commenced fightin’.”
