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Uncle Can
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Let your mind's eye watch as they make white whiskey. Be there when the law raids. See how Uncle Can avoids the law when the woods are full of revenuers. Learn how they hid the smoke. Hear the rhythm of the thump keg. Find where the liquor was hidden for fifty years. Some called this mild mannered little man a bootlegger, a blockader. To others, he was a saint. Here is the opening scene from
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"Canton he, ain’t nothin but a no-count bootlegger!" Mama said. "You know that blamed good and well, Will Vance." "He’s your brother!" Dad said. "I want’a take little Quill along when I go over to Bone Valley, to visit with him. Woman, you ain’t but five-foot-three; when you’re riled up about liquor, your temper makes you tall as a stack pole. You know that." "The law’s always after Canton. What if they come while y’all are there? What if they put both of you in jail? A licker still ain’t nothing but the Devil’s kitchen!" Of course, Mama didn’t hold to alcohol in any fashion; not even in camphor oil to rub on sore joints. Dad kept some liquor down in the barn, buried in a barrel of shelled corn. To keep it cold, he told me. To hide it from Mama, I figure. Talk like that scared me. Dad wrapped both his hands around the coffee cup and stared at it, without saying another word.
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