Dollar In The Holler

By Eugene Chapman

About the Book
Eighteen-year-old Eugene lives in the holler of the wild and beautiful West Virginia forests. In this slice- of-life tale, Eugene learns to live off the land and how to make money in his small town by hunting, fishing, canning, and even through lessons of moonshine making and growing marijuana. Anything a young man can do to make a dollar in the holler. With snippets of small-town Appalachian life, Dollar In The Holler is a wild venture into a small section of the United States, its people, and all the facts of life that make up country living. With romance, folk tales, action, and mystery, this is a story for lovers of any genre.

About the Author
Eugene Chapman is just your average working man who set out to write a book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dorrance Publishing Company
• Release date: Jun 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9798888126950

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The contents of this work, including, but not limited to, the accuracy of events, people, and places depicted; opinions expressed; permission to use previously published materials included; and any advice given or actions advocated are solely the responsibility of the author, who assumes all liability for said work and indemnifies the publisher against any claims stemming from publication of the work.

All Rights Reserved

Copyright © 2023 by Eugene Chapman

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted, downloaded, distributed, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, including photocopying and recording, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented without permission in writing from the publisher.

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ISBN: 979-8-88812-195-5

eISBN: 979-8-88812-695-0

Chapter 1: Lucy

I want to tell you a story. When I was a young boy, I grew up very poor. I didn’t have much money. What I did have was a good mom and dad. He worked for the house movers and made the best living he knew how. When he wasn’t working, he was out hunting, fishing, diggin’ roots, just out to survive.

Out in these woods, my mom taught me how to go to church and pray ask for forgiveness when I done wrong. She showed me how to catch wild game and stuff like that. Because if you live in West Virginia, you’re gonna do a lot of wrong, you’re gonna do anything to make a dollar because the poor people ain’t gotta change if you ain’t been born with a silver spoon in your mouth. Because the people that got money don’t want you to have a good jobs because they want their family to have them. They want them to be better than anyone else.

It was a hot, hot summer day. School was out for the summer. I was out mowing grass, was outside sweating. I finished that up and went on to the porch. A truck pulled up, and he said, I hear you are interested in working in hay today.

I said, I got all the time in the world, just got done mowing grass.

He said, Well, come on.

I got up, went over the hill, and jumped in the truck.

He said, I bought a farm out the road. I’m new to this town. The name is Hank.

I told him, Nice meet you; my name’s Eugene.

He said, I’ll pay ya five dollars an hour.

I said, Well, I’m interested or I wouldn’t be ridin’ with ya, ya know. Any money will help.

He said, I need ya for about five hours and all the water you can drink.

I appreciate it, Hank, and we got out there, and he had all the hay all balled up, out in the field. There were a couple other guys waiting on us, so I handed hay up to them there on a wagon, and it was hot. I think I drank more water than I ever did that day. We were putting in the hay and stuff, and here comes a girl, walking through the barn. She said, Dinner is ready, guys. You boys ready to eat?

I was like, Sure. What we having?

She said, We are having fish and hushpuppies.

I said, It sounds good to me, as long as we don’t have to pay for our meal. Then everyone started laughing.

Hank said, No, it’s for working today.

So we all went into the house, took our hats off, and sat at the dinner table. She gave us some plates and silverware, and we got what we wanted and sat around the table, bullshitting a little. Well, I ate till I couldn’t hardly walk any. I overdone it that time.

We went back out to the barn to finish up for the day, and Hank came and asked me if I didn’t care, if his daughter Lucy could run me home. I said I didn’t care; it was better than walking home, right? He said, Well, I understand that.

We finally got all the hay in the barn before it started raining, and Hank brought us back to the house. I got my twenty-five dollars and the other two got their twenty-five dollars. We worked hard for that twenty-five dollars, all of us did. If you ever put in hay, you know what I’m saying; it’s hotter than crap, dusty in the top of the barn and the tin roof; that sun beating down makes it ten times hotter, with no wind, air moving around. When you work in hay, you earn your money.

Hank said, I think you need to take this feller home, and she said, Okay, Dad.

I thought she was a beauty queen in my mind; she was cute as hell. Here’s my chance, when she’s taking me home.

Well, I might hit up on her; maybe I’ll get me a date or something

We got in the old Ford truck, and going down the road there, she said, Where do you live?

I said, Oh, just down the road by Old Mile Road, on top of the bank in the blue-and-white trailer.

She said, All right, I’ll drop ya off. I know where you’re talking about, I think I do at least.

I introduced myself as Eugene, and she said her name was lucy. I’m new to this town.

I said, I see that. Would you like to go out sometime?

She said, Well, I don’t know if my dad will like that too good.

I laughed, ya know, and said, What he don’t know won’t hurt him.

She said, Well, I’ll think about it. I’ll get back in touch with you.

I said, All right.

She asked, Why would you want someone like me? I’m chunky."

I said, "Oh, the bigger the berry the sweeter the juice. There’s just something about you, maybe the curly brown hair or the big butt. You’re just a cutie pie

She said, Oh, tHank you, in the sweetest voice.

She about missed my stop because we were talking, and I was like, Hey, hey, hey, right here’s where I live, as she looked at me and smoke from the tires just rolling. I got out of the truck and asked, When will I hear back from you?

She said, Oh, you may or may not. Time tells everything.

Oh, you are right, hon.

When I started walking up the hill, Dad was out on the porch, drinking iced tea, when he said, What was it all about?

She ’bout missed my stop.

Dad noticed she left a hell of a black mark on the road, and I agreed; she sure did.

Dad said, If ya ain’t got nothing to do in the morning, I’ll let you go root hunting with me.

I said, All right, Dad. We will go out root hunting, but ginseng ain’t in season.

Dad said, We will dig anything we see. We don’t care what season it is. We will dig any of the roots.

A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do to make a living.

He said, That’s right.

So, we went up there, sat around on the porch a little bit, and enjoyed the evening. The sun started to go down over the hills. It was the prettiest sunset anyone has ever did see in their life, with all the different colors.

I told Dad, Well, I’m going over the hill there and talking to my friends for a little while.

He said, Well, make sure you’re home at a decent time because we are getting up early.

I got to my friend’s house, and we sat around, talking about deer hunting.

Can’t wait. I hope I get a big one, ten pointer or more.

He said, Yeah, me too.

It started to get late, around eight or nine o’clock. I was like, Oh shit, I gotta get home because I gotta get up early in the morning. My old man and I are going root hunting in the morning.

My friend said, I understand that, Eugene.

I started going back up to the house and jumped in the house and washed my ole dirty ass, and it was about ten o’clock about the time I got out of the shower. I lay down in bed. I fell asleep, and before I knew it, Dad was raring and roaring and ready to go.

He said, Get up! Get up! He was rippin’ and ready to roll. I thought it was about eight o’clock, looked outside, it was still dark out, and got up and looked at the clock; it was only five o’clock.

I was about half up and said, Hell, it ain’t even daylight yet.

He said, We need an early start to eat breakfast, so we can get in the woods when it is just turning daylight.

Mom cooked sausage, biscuits and gravy that morning. Boy, it was good, and we ate and talked about all the roots we were going to find. He said, We can save some of the ginseng or yellow roots back to make medicine, in case someone gets sick this winter.

He said, We will go to a place where I know where we can dig it. We will make some cough syrup in case we get sick.

So, we went out towards Cherry Ridge and went up over the hill and around, then pulled off to the side of the road. And I saw some No Trespassing signs, and hell, we just tore them down, so the game warden couldn’t get on to us if he came along. And we took off walking up the hill, around the hill, across the creek, soaked on my shoes, started to think this was gonna be a bad day, then went around this one acorn tree, then around a big ole sycamore tree. And we found some yellow root down in valley in the holler. And found a big patch of yellow root, and we started digging and got tired and started to take a break to watch the squirrels play in the treetops, and was kinda thirsty, so I got a drink out of the creek. Knew it was safe because it was being filtered by the rocks in a steady stream. And then we started digging some more and Dad found the biggest root he ever did find in his life. It was as big as a carrot. He knew he probably get a hundred dollars out of that one root after it was dried. We finally got it all dug out. We had a whole feed sack of yellow roots and tops a piece. Walked on around the hillside, looking for more roots, and we ran into about ten stocks of ginseng, and it had berries on it.

 Dad said, "Pull them berry