THEIR TIME TO HOLLAR
D: S‘it frosted out here?
M: Frost?
D: Yeah.
M: No, they wasn’???. Night b’fore last they said they was plenty of frost. D: But when did it frost out here the firs’ time?
M: I don’ know. Now y’ see I wasn’ here. I don’ know, but they, they been frost here a right smart while, b’cause you can see wher’ it bit the, the tops of the weeds ‘n’ the punkin vines.
D: Hmmm
M: Yessir. Was any frost out where you wuz at?
D: No’am.
M: No. They wasn’ none up at Burl’s. They’uz no frost at Burl’s.
D: I don’ even know whether they have any sawyers up there where we live.
M: ‘ell I don’ ‘spect they do. ‘ell now, you know, you could tell if they had ’em. You’d hear ’em a hollerin’.
D: Yeah? M: Yessir.
D: Did you know, six weeks b’fore it’s gonna frost, the sawyers start hollerin’?
BP: Sawyer . . . that’s a bird, right? D: Huh-uh
M: Why, no. It’s sumthin’ like a grasshopper. You know a grasshopper, don’t yuh?
BP: Yeah.
M: Well, only it’s green. A sawyer is. And a katydid; have yuh heared katydid?
BP: Yeah, I know katydids.
M: Well, now that’s sim’lar to a, to a katydid, a sawyer is, only it’s a little bit bigger. They’re right there green, a light green, but it’s jus’ sim’lar to a, only they’re bigger than a katydid. An’ then they’s another kind that hollers . . .
D: Callbate?
M: Yes, a cullbate. Now they kin holler big tuh the size of ’em, an’ they’re a little thing.
D: They are?
M: Oh gosh, they’re little. I tell you, just a little flat thing, an’ you wouldn’ uh think that they could holler that big. By jiminy, they can.
D: What is it about them things a hollerin’?
M: Which, the cullbates?
D: Mmm hmm.
M: Why, I don’t know. It’s nature fer them to holler. . . . . D: Oh, I thought it meant sumthin’.
M: No sir, hit’s nature fer them, and hit goes on all the time. . . An’ the grasshoppers holler. Grasshoppers, crickets, sawyers, cullbates, all kind of things like that, holler, when it comes on their time of year tuh holler, they holler.
D: I know James uz callin’ Burl an old cullbate one . . . that one night.
[box type=”shadow”]Notes:
M is Maggie Hammons, D is Dwight Diller, and BP is Butch Perry, a lifelong friend of Dwight who lived locally near Marlinton. The Perrys were a well- known local hunting family.
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