Among The Mountains of North Carolina

Where and How I Spend My Annual Vacation After The World’s Series Is Over

By JOE JACKSON

Wherever Ty Cobb is mentioned, there must be Joe Jackson have a word to say in his own defense. For Joe is most often linked with the wonderful Tiger star by virtue of his greatness in every department where Cobb is great. The batting duel between these two outfielders, a duel which has continued for the past three years, is one of the most spectacular in the history of the game, and it is this duel which has demonstrated more than anything else could do, the surpassing ability of the famous Clevelander. Joe also likes hunting, though he chooses the mountains of North Carolina for his, and there he has had a variety of adventures.

Many people wonder what there is about hunting which attracts so many big league players. Whatever it is, it is a fact that the average big leaguer can’t resist the temptation to get out into the open air in some likely game country with his gun and his dogs and live as near like the wild Indians as he can. To me it is the most natural thing in the world. The smell of freshly burned powder wipes away all memory of the dust of the diamond. It is a complete vacation, and the big leaguer certainly needs a vacation after six months spent in the grind and hurry and bustle of the season. Any men who are interested in athletics are interested in hunting. Ball players are athletes first and players afterward, and they all take to the woods and the gun as ducks do to water. The two go hand in hand, so it is the rarest thing in the world to find a player who is not a hunter in an amateur way as well.

Every good sportsman has his favorite stamping ground. They are as different as the men who visit them. Some choose the woods and mountains, others the lakes and streams. Some are never content unless they can take a long jaunt, no matter how good the game may be nearer home. Others are well satisfied to hunt where they can find anything to hunt, no matter where the locality may be. To my mind it makes little difference. A man wants to move out of his own back yard to feel that he is going somewhere, if only for a few miles, but outside that getting away from home it makes no difference to me where I go. In fact, I have generally gone on my hunts into the mountains of western North Carolina, not so many miles from the town where I was born.

There ay be better hunting grounds than this; I suppose there are. I make no claim that North Carolina has the best in the world by any means. But I know there is game country down there that is good enough for me, and I believe would be good enough for anyone. There are all kinds of birds, principally quail, which are very plentiful; there is a good variety of bigger game, foxes, deer and a few black bears, and there are a good many squirrels, rabbits and such game. The man who wants to use a shotgun can find good hunting everywhere, and the man who wants to carry a rifle has always the chance to come on some really big game that will test the sureness of his eye and the quality of his rifle.

For the past few seasons I have gone to these mountains every fall after I was through with baseball. It is the greatest pleasure in the world to me to get out into the freedom of the outer air, away from everything that reminds of city life. Not that city life isn’t all right in its place, but it is always a relief to me to get away from things and people into the mountains where I can breathe air with the smell of pine in it and enjoy the open, and life in the open. It is a greater pleasure to me to hunt in this way than it is to play baseball, and I am as much interested in the game that is my profession as the next man.

This country is very attractive. It is not only a good game country, but a fine country for scenery. The mountains are not high, but they have many sharp peaks, and the valleys are steep and wild. There is always something likely to turn up rambling around the ridges and gorges, among the great trees; always the prospect of stumbling upon some game trail which will repay you for all your effort.

My wife generally accompanied me on these trips. We were fortunate to have the use of a very snug little cabin on a hillside, splendidly situated. There was a spring just back of the cabin which supplied us with the purest of water, fresh from the rock ledges in the interior of the mountain and as cold as ice. Our cabin was built of logs roughly hewed and put together without much effort to get a pretty effect. But no on cares for pretty effects in the wilderness. There the wilder things are, the better you like them, and that was the way with out little house. It might not have made much of an appearance to an outsider, but it was snug and comfortable, and furnished us with a headquarters in the very heart of the best game country in this section.

In hunting, as in everything else, the common tendency is to overlook what is near at hand and easy to get for what takes more effort and skill. While birds and squirrels and rabbits were always numerous, and would have afforded me a great deal more opportunity to shoot something, I always preferred to take a gamble on bigger game. So instead of taking a shotgun with me on my jaunts about the woods, I invariably took my old and much-tried Winchester rifle. And while I cannot boast of the number of trophies that others may show, and never made any claims to being a great hunter, I know how it seems to take a quick shot at a deer plunging away through the underbrush and see him stagger and go crashing down among the fallen branches. It is an exhilarating moment to think that you have accomplished what you set out to accomplish, and can go home well content with the result of the day’s toil.

My wife usually accompanied me on these little trips, and we lived a good deal as the Indians used to live in the days when they hunted over these same mountain peaks and gorges. Whatever we could kill in the hunt we had to eat, but outside that the things we brough with us would not make a very large bill of fare. At that, there is nothing so pleasant in my eyes as life in the open, free from all care, with nothing to bother you, dependent upon what you can find in the woods and valleys. It seems to me that is the ideal way to live, and I would not mind in the least if I lived that way all the year through. But I suppose that would interfere a little with my baseball playing, and, after all, all hunting is only a vacation. But you may be very sure that I have no homesick feeling for a diamond when I am off alone in the mountains of North Carolina. And when I leave them, the most pleasant thought I have is the thought that I shall come back to visit them again as soon as I have the opportunity.