"Hillbillies had a great sense of humor, usually humor of character which often was pungent. Humor of character is personal and to be effective requires that the hearers know the victim of the joke. Hillbillies took delight in 'gulling'. Gulling was in effect play-acting of the most realistic sort. If a stranger was within hearing, two or more hillmen would strike up a conversation with each other in deliberately audible tones. With great exaggeration they would rehearse or vividly tell an oft-reported happening. Their demeanor would be so serious and they so seemingly oblivious of an audience, the gullible stranger would be completely taken in. Such duping was wry fun for the natives and it gave them a sense of superiority over the gullible outlander. Their everyday humor was droll humor, sly and sometimes offcolor, more closely related to British humor of understatement than to the traditional American frontier humor of overstatement...." [That sounds very much like my daddy, who will go out in the yard ever' so often, dig a hole, put something dated in the present in the bottom, fill it partially with dirt, then put in something that is much older before filling the hole back in. I told him once that archaelogists 10,000 years from now were going to be a-cussin' his name; he just laughed and laughed, and when he could finally speak, he said, "Shore wish I could be there!" I've considered doing the same, over on this side of the river, just so's they know we're related.] One last quote from the book, which states something that is still quite true today. "Hillmen had a strong sense of family. They staunchly defended the virtue of wife, daughter, and hound dog, though not necessarily in that order. A good boy was one who was good to his mother. As outlanders began to come into the Ozarks to live, settlers became clannish. They fought among themselves, over the most trivial of matters such as the spelling of a family name; but they resented intrusion by another and invariably united against outsiders, sometimes violently turning upon an innocent bystander. These hillfolk asked only to be let alone and allowed to 'stomp their own snakes.' Native Ozarkers were suspicious of 'furriners' and not without cause, for some outlanders who came into the area on business took advantage of them. First it was fur, beeswax, and yarb [herb] buyers; then land speculators, peddlers, and bushwhackers. There were timber buyers and railroad tie buyers and later, range hog and cattle buyers. Egg, fruit, cotton, and tobacco buyers came. As they had little, if any, means of transporting their produce to a favorable market, hillmen were at the mercy of unscrupulous traders. It was natural then that Ozarkers became suspicious of all straangers. In later years there was the added fear that the stranger might be a game warden looking for poachers or a federal agent hunting moonshiners or one to tell them how to run their farms. Hillmen transferred their deep suspicions of outsiders, whom they felt threatened their freedoms, to new settlers and it took a long time for newcomers to prove themselves and be accepted. Even today, though Ozarkers are overtly courteous and respectful, an outlander is seldom fully accepted into whatever remains of the Ozarkers' fragmented society. Considering their experience with outlanders, it is not surprising that hillbillies became as sharp bargainersd as the proverbial New England Yankees. It is said of one family that on a rainy afternoon their menfolk could go out in the barn lot and make five dollars each just trading knives among themselves. In business dealings, however, These Last were honest folk whose word was bond. Once they had 'shook' on a deal it was considered final and inviolable. No written word or signature was needed." I will post some of the names of folks in the pictures of the book shortly. (Gettin' ready for a yard sale, y'know...) Vonda