Putney, a stringtown along the winding Cumberland River, grew around the old seat of one of the largest sawmills in eastern Kentucky.  I can remember well the day I came over from Pine Mountain School to find Jim Couch, a storyteller from back on the headwaters of the Kentucky River, who was said to know all the stories of the clan of tellers and ballad singers.  The houses became thicker along the blacktop, and soon I could see the chimneys of the Intermountain Lumber and Coal Company pouring out acrid smoke on the wind.  The level bottoms along the Poor Fork of the Cumberland were covered with acres of lumber stacks.  After some inquiry I found where Jim lived and stopped by the road.  His home was propped on a hillside in a small drain.  I saw three working men on the lower porch and heard the cry of playing children in the lower yard behind a paling fence.  I hallooed from the slat gate.  A friendly response came from one of the men sitting in a low chair.  He was black as a minstrel from his hard-toed shoes to his mining cap.

 

I entered the yard and clambered up the steps to the end of the porch.  Two of the men (I later learned they were Jim’s brothers Alex and Harrison) rose, and after speaking to me, they went to their homes below the road.  The seated man waved a black hand to a split bottom chair, where I sat facing him.  “Been over to Cutshin Creek,” I began, “saw your sister Mandy.  She tells me you know a lot of stories–know all the stories of the family.”

 

From Up Cutshin & Down Greasy