This is a story set in the North Carolina Mountains. It is about two families of Scotch-Irish
and also French decent. It centers on one 11 year old girl and her 6 year old sister and two
boy cousins, one 13 years old and the other is 8 years old. The story begins in the year 1914.
The author got many ideas for this book from an elderly lady (in her 90s) who was asked to
take part in an oral history for her community by the Director of the Rural Life Museum
which was part of the University Library. At that time the author of this book was a student
at the University and she was studying to be a teacher as well as an art student.
The sweet elderly lady decided she wanted to write this story down into a book and she
wanted to add illustrations, at least ten of them. (We ended up with 40 illustrations) This
is what brought these two together. While the lady was writing her book of community
history, the University decided to ask the lady and the student (author) to do an Elderhostal
Class for the University.
The lady told the author (artist) many stories she did not put in her book, one of these
stories became the "Fire" and another the "Grandfather". There really was a Frenchman
who came to this community with his trained monkey that danced beside the organ grinder.
And that little monkey is really buried in the family cemetery.
The author also included stories that her father told her such as the "Ghost". This story was
of a haunting young women who killed her husband in the early 1800s. She was hung for
it in 1838 and this too is a true story from these mountains.
