led through all these long
generations."

Sid paused a moment for second wind. "When we look about we're bound to
own this is a mighty changing world. Time was when the mountain people
rode to the gatherings in Brushy Hollow in jolt wagons. They kept it up
a while, loading the whole family in the jolt wagon. But times have
changed.... A body has to sort o' keep up with the times, like Prof.
Koch. Bless you, he loads his whole pack and passel of boys and girls in
a bus and packs them hither and yon 'crost the country to show out with
their play-making. The Carolina Playmakers just naturally fetch the
mountain to Mohammed." Sid flung wide his hands, brought them slowly
together. "To get all such folks to work together that's why we formed
the American Folkways Association. What's more we've got us a magazine
to tell about what we've done and aim to do--the _Arcadian Life_
magazine, with our good friend Otto Ernest Rayburn as editor, 'way down
in the Ozarks." Sid Hatfield smiled pleasantly. "There's no excuse for
folks not being neighborly nowadays. No matter where they live, what
with good roads and the automobile--we've just got a-bound to be
neighborly. To sing together, to make music together, to show out our
crops and our posies and our handiwork together. Here in Snead's Grove
today is the third time we've bore witness that our Association is not
just a theory. We made our first bow in the Kentucky foothills in June,
the second in Maryland in August, and now in Tennessee. In October we
aim to join hands and hearts and our music in Arcadia under the Autumn
moon."

That day in Snead's Grove in Tennessee they wanted Sid Hatfield to keep
right on but taking a squint at the sun sinking in the west, he said in
conclusion, "I've got a long ways to travel back to the West Virginia
mountains but I hope we'll all be together again here in the Grove next
summer, this day a year, the Lord being willing."

VANISHING TRAIL

Perhaps it is merely the result of evolutionary process, economic rather
than intentional, that man has wiped out many reminders of the past;
that the forest primeval has passed to make room for blue grass,
tasseled corn, and tobacco; that forts and blockhouses gave way to the
settler's log house encircled by a garden patch; that the windowless
cabin has gone to make room for the weather-boarded frame of many rooms
and glass windows; that the village has vanished for the town--