GHOST HOUND DOG ON SIMMS MOUNTAIN

The day's afterglow was gone. I looked up to assess the brightness of the constellations and suddenly, or so it seemed, there was the pure, clean slice of the new moon. I was only vaguely aware that it was new moon week, but there it was hanging up there in its usual autumnal track. It came as a pleasant surprise.

There was a crispness in the air and the good fragrance of nearby chrysanthemum foliage mingled with wood smoke. Someone had their fireplace going. I heard a dog barking somewhere way off and quickly determined it was a hound dog. For some mysterious reason I began humming, softly, the old ballad, "Barbara Allen." Two crickets were fiddlin' in the grass, in a major key and eight to the bar. I was in a minor key with only four to the bar. Does one hum in keys? Anyway, I ceased.

Seldom does one ever analyze why certain old tunes come to mind. This time I did. "Barbara Allen, you may remember, is a sad love ballad. I wasn't at all sad. Things have been going fairly well. There was that perfect new moon, the autumn fragrance and the dog.

The dog! That was it! I had once written a ballad entitled "Lost Hound Dogs" to be sung to the tune of "Barbara Allen." Remember "Barbara Allen?" "In Scarlet Town where I wa-as born, there was a fair maid dwelling. Made all the youths faint dead away for the love of Barbara Allen."

My ballad was about an old fox hunter. Made all the folks for miles around wonder if he'd become insane. Gruner was his name.

Like all the fox hunters up there, he loosed his hound one fox hunting night and joined them up at the campfire meeting place atop Simms Mountain to listen to a chase.

When the hounds had performed their musical chase, lost the trail, they were horn-blown to come in. Old Gruner's hound didn't come in. All night his fox horn could be heard echoing in the hills. And the next night and the next night until old Gruner died while out hunting for his dog.

He had notified all the folks for miles around to be on the lookout for his Black-and-tan. He posted a notice at the nearest Farm Bureau Store, all to no avail.

The housewives roundabout complained about the plaintive calls of the horn in the night and begged the menfolk to buy Gruner another fox hound. A good one. Pedigreed. They all shook their head sadly and said, "T'wouldn't be the same."

My ballad went on and on as ballads do. I touched on the smoky smell of the campfire, the moonglow on the colorful autumn leaves, the way the hunters perked up when they detected their hound was in the lead of the chase.

Each knew the sound of his dog's bark as well as the barks of all the others. They cheered them on as football or basketball fans do the players. This was their entertainment, their orchestra, their weeknight meetings. They never stayed out late for there was work to do the next day-corn harvesting, hauling in firewood for the winter, mending fences, rounding up hogs that had been on the open range all summer, plus all the livestock chores. But old Gruner let all these things go while he hunted for his hound.

Eventually I moved away from the lovely hills but the folks told me old Gruner didn't come home himself one crisp night when a new moon was in the sky, that he was buried up there on top of Simms Mountain. Folk tales have it that the ghost of an old hunter and his Black-and-tan can be seen drifting through the woods like mountain mist on a new moon night.

REJOICE!

Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime resident of Cape Girardeau.