What Happened to the Hidden Spring?

Several years ago, I wrote a little story which is published in my book, Depression Baby. The title of the story is “BlackBerry Winter and Cobbler Too.”

I mentioned my grandfather taking me to a spring, with water coming from the granite mountainside and flowing into a bowl about the size of your bathroom sink.

This 10-year-old boy was intrigued as granddad cleaned the leaves from the bowl, and we watched as the cool, clear water soon filled it. We drank from our cupped hands, as the Cherokee who may have carved out the little bowl must’ve done decades ago. The water was cool and pleasant tasting. Today we bottle spring water and ship it to our grocery stores.

We had followed the cow trail to reach the little spring. Yes, cattle create pass through the forests as they search out the best grazing spots.

Bison or American Buffalo once lived in the Smoky Mountains. These animals were a little smaller and probably more agile than the plains Buffalo, in order to deal with the mountain environment. They most likely originally made the trails the cows used, and that the American Indians used to find wild game for food. The Buffalo must have passed here for a drink at this spring, as they traversed the mountain side.

This morning I awakened with the thought in my mind, “What happened to the little spring?” Is it still there? Or could it have dried up some time during the seventy-nine ensuing years as the ecology has changed? Is it still there furnishing water to the deer in the area?

Or maybe the wild turkeys find nourishment at this fountainhead? I want to spotted about twenty wild turkeys grazing with the cattle in a field below this garden spot, which was once the farm of my great grandfather, as Asbury Thornton Rogers.

I would like to go to the mountain place and search for the spring, but the frailty brought on by the eighty-nine years of my wonderful life will not allow this. Maybe some enterprising young relative will pick up the ball and run with it.

But this is only the musing of an old man, and what importance is this, anyway? Well, maybe it is important to the soul of the Cherokee brave who chipped away the granite stone to create this little gem…for it is really his legacy.

Click HERE to order Ray’s book Depression Baby: True Stories from Growing Up During the Great Depression in Appalachia…and Other Things
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