Reminiscences: Deerfield, Virgina by Jack Bentley

Hunfield Va is located between Staunton and Hot Springs, the people living in this area are the funniest I have ever known and among them you find the greatest of story tellers. There are three rivers in this area, the calf, cow and bull pastures. These were named because at certain seasons one found the calves on one, cows & bull also seperated.

I lived with these wonderful people over a period of twenty years, taking my fox hounds to hunt with them as my father had done before me to visitors.

Arch Rivercomb was the greatest story teller of them all & yet he never seemed to tell a story to be funny - His brother John & Bill Lockridge were not far behind him either but Arch was the best.

Father told me stories about Arch when I was a boy - One he told me went like this, a bunch of hunters were atop a mountain, it was at night, the hound must run until the fox is caught or holed, a dog that quits in this terrible test of endurance, shames his owner and is considered worth less-- Arch kept claiming his dog Pilot as the leader - every man knows his own dog's voice & while Arch was claiming the lead dog, father walked outside the circle of light and there curled up in the leaves was Pilot - He returned and asked Arch to follow him, Arch looked down and said I wouldn't have believed that on the oath of any man in the state of Virginia.

When I met Arch I found a big man with a mild face of great strength and fascinating eyes, but after one evening I was heart broken, he hadn't said a thing funny or otherwise but seemed to appreciate everything that was said with chuckles and smiles.

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The next evening it happened, his family concisted of four large women, daughters wife & mother in tow & all talking. The subject got around to a boy who had called and in a hubbub of sound Arch spoke & you could have heard a pin drop - I fell in love when I was a mere [chunk?] of a boy, school teacher came to the valley & I fell dead in love with her. I asked her to drive to Hot Springs, I had a horse and borrowed a buggy I bought two red Lolly Pops & we was driving down the road, I decided that seeing as how I was dead in love with her I'd kiss her_ I couldn't make up my mind so I picked out a tree, I'd kiss her when I got to the tree I drove right on by. finally I made a plunge for her & kissed her plumb on the mouth, she jumped like she'd been shot & jerked her head

away and I made a red streak back to her car, the red Lolly Pop - we drove on in utter silence and then she said Arch if you pick me some flowers I'll kiss you, now the points in his story were punchuated by an explosion of air through his teeth like a blast from a steam engine coulped [sic] with his deepchested voice. To continue with the story, "I jumped out of that buggy as cute as a mountain goat in the spring time, rushed on the mountain & was breaking Hickory saplings tearing up honey suckle brush, came back with my arms full of trash & pitched it right in her lap, but I kissed her plumb to Hot Springs & back, every time the wheel turned over & I filled with the most funny feelings.