Being A Joines:
  A Life in the Brushy Mountains


 MISCELLANEOUS


Untitled
Short Story by John E."Frail" Joines
no date

Zeb Yates had lost his best coon dog right when he needed her the worst way for he had a pair of pups coming a year old and they needed a good old experienced dog to show them how to run and tree the hard-to-tree coons. He had been expecting Queen to come back home but she had been gone for three weeks now and hadn’t come. She had run a coon across the mountain one night and he knew that she had either got hung in a hole in the ground or someone had stole her. He knew that if someone had her and ever tied her with a rope or string that she would cut it and come home. Zeb lived in a valley in the mountains of Wilkes County, North Carolina, and he had several friends who had good dogs but there was few that could run and tree a hard coon like Queen could. I can count them on the fingers of one hand and they wouldn’t sell them at no price arid it was hard for a man that had ever owned a number one dog to be satisfied with a second rate one. There is Don Reavis who has a good Black & Tan but he has a few faults, but you don’t see no dogs that don’t have a few but come to think of it there isn’t any people that don’t have no faults so why look for a perfect dog?

Well, he would go down to the general store and post on the bulletin board that he was in the market for a good coon dog but he didn’t have much hope of finding one to suit him for the good ones wasn’t for sale at this time of year. He went straight to the bulletin board and looked it over when he got to the store but it had the usual items on it, hay, corn, pigs, milk cows and farm machinery, so he wondered how to word his ad but didn’t know how much to offer for a good dog so he just put it in these words: Wanted a No. 1 coon dog, will pay a good price, and he went on in the store to see who was in there to talk to as it was the hangout of every coon hunter in the valley. There wasn’t but three in there when he came in and the first thing they wanted to know if he had heard anything from Queen, but he told them not a word and he had decided to buy himself another dog if he could find one that would suit him. They all shook their heads and looked glum and said they didn’t think he would ever find another like Queen for she as the best in the country take her in every way.

Of course there was Don’s Black & Tan that was good to strike, run and tree but he was ill with a strange dog and would growl and start a fight if you didn’t watch him and stay after him. Coyt Watt had a treeing Walker which was fast and good but was a little too timid around a mean dog. Ben Sloop’s Red Bone was a good dog but would break over and run a fox now and then. He wasn't bad but kept Ben in a sweat wondering if old Red was going to embarrass him or not. Slim Foster had a 8lue Tic bitch that was good but sometimes she wanted to tree too quick and would tree a marked tree and she couldn’t stand too much running in deep streams where she had to swim a lot. Hal Parson had a mixed breed that was No. 1 in every way but he wanted to tree a little wide at the tree and wouldn’t show you the right tree arid you had to find the coon. Oh well, even Queen would hang on a cold track sometimes too long so there didn’t seem to be any use to look for the perfect dog.

Brett Call looked at his mother’s swollen jaw and knew she was in pain from the white line around her mouth and got his coat and cap off the nails where they hung in the kitchen and said to his dog Bigun which was watching him to see if he was going hunting and if he would let him go along. They was more than boy and dog, they was a team that had to feed his mother and six brothers and sisters that was younger than him and he was just fourteen and the dog was almost two years old. "Mother, I am going over in the valley to the store and get some things we need and I’ll see if he has something to ease the pain while I am over there." His mother looted at him with so much love in her eyes that he choked up and looked the other way and she said, "Be careful, son, and don’t worry about me for I can stand the pain." He decided to take his rifle and dog and kill enough squirrels for supper for food was scarce and when you had as many mouths to feed as he did you didn’t think of much else.

He looked at his dog and thought about how he had come by him as Ken Jones had a Beagle gyp and she had a litter of pups and one in the litter was about twice as big as the rest and Ken gave it to him and they called him "the big one" and he wound up with the name, Bigun. He wasn’t the prettiest dog in the world as he was wide through his chest and head. Fair-sized ears but they didn’t hang too close to his head. But he was some dog. When you wanted to catch a horse or cow, chicken or hog, you couldn’t beat him and he was also a No. 1 rabbit and squirrel dog in the daytime and a coon dog at night. You could get $2.50 - $3.50 for a good coon hide and the meat was good to eat if it was fixed right so he had to depend on Bigun for shoes and clothes for the kids and his mother with what he could make at odd Jobs when he wasn’t working on the farm.

His father had died in a car wreck last winter and it took every cent they had to bury him. He could get by on what they made together but his mother needed an operation on an embedded wisdom tooth and the dentist wouldn’t do it unless he had a hundred dollars and try as hard as he could he couldn’ t come up with any way that he could get it. His mother had tried to teach him to trust in God and ask him for his needs but he had never took her very seriously but he had reached the place where he didn’t know where to turn.

So he pulled off his cap ad bowed his head and said in a whisper: "God I’m asking you to make a way for my mother to have the operation. I know you don’t know me and I am ashamed to ask but I don’t know anywhere else to go and I can’t stand to see her suffer even though I know she would never tell me that she was in pain for she wouldn’t want to worry me. God, if you will do this I’ll thank you from the bottom of my heart. Amen. He wiped the tears from his eyes and looked around to see if anyone had heard and then he straightened up his shoulders and said I don’t care if they did, I meant every word of it, so there.

Going on across Long Ridge, as the local people called it but which was really a large mountain, he killed six squirrels and two rabbits from his dog and he had a pretty good load. When he got to the general store he stopped at the bulletin board and the first thing that caught his eyes was where the man wanted the coon dog and he gasped for breath as he read it for he had asked God for a way to get a hundred dollars and here it was on the board. Oh no, he couldn’t sell Bigun for he was more than a dog. But he remembered hearing the preacher say that you didn’t play with God almighty for you would regret it all the days of your life and then burn in h--l and he had asked God to make a way and He had made it and he had to live up to his end of the bargain.

So he squared his shoulders and held his head high as he marched into the store and asked Si Hawkins if he knew where he could get in touch with Zeb Yates. Si looked at him and jerked his thumb over at the group of men at the other end of the store and said, "Thar he is in the red plaid jacket, son." The boy strode across the room with the dog at his heels and said, "You Mr. Yates?" Zeb looked at the boy and liked what he saw and said in a soft low voice, "Yes, son. What can I do for you?" "That your ad wanting a No. 1 coon dog out there on the wall?" asked the boy. "Yes," said Zeb, "do you know where I might find one?" "Yes, I have him," said the boy. "Where is he?" "Right there," said the boy, and Zeb saw that he was fighting back tears and he looked into his eyes and saw the hurt and misery in them and he wondered what was going on but he knew enough not to push too fast when pressure was built up that high for things had a habit of exploding when you did so, he decided to go slow and easy until things began to clear up.

When the men looked at the small heavy built dog they started to laugh but a glance from Zeb killed it before it got going for although Zeb Yates had the name of being easygoing, when he looked at you like that you didn’t laugh. He took a good look at the dog and what he saw pleased him for the dog was a little wide through the head and breast but he tapered off in the hips and he stood up on the balls of his feet balanced good and he had his alert large eyes on the boy’s face watching every expression and sensing that something was wrong but not knowing what it was, he was ready for anything. He wasn’t nervous but he had every muscle taut as a banjo string waiting for the boy to give a command and he would give every ounce of his strength to carry it through. He asked the boy softly if the dog treed good and if he was a good strike dog and if he was broke good. He knew that if anything will relax a dog man and put him at ease, talking about his dog will do so, but the boy didn’t take the bait like he thought he would. He looked at the man for a minute and reached in his coat and pulled out the squirrels and rabbits and said, "He treed the squirrels as I come over the ridge so you know he will tree." Zeb smiled and said that he didn’t need no squirrel and rabbit dog but was looking for a coon dog. The boy looked him in the eyes and told him that he was looking at a No. 1 coon dog and if he didn’t believe it just to set a date and he would go with any dog or dogs and show him that his dog was as good as he would find or maybe a little better than he could find anywhere else. "I can show you better than I can tell you," he said.

Now Zeb felt the boy’s anger mount up and he let it sting him a little and he said, "I’m going to let you prove that so bring him over here at the store Saturday night about seven o’clock and if he will do the work and I like him I’ll give you a hundred dollars for him. By the way, why do you want to sell him?" The boy looked at him and said, "I don’t want to sell him but my mother needs an operation on her jaw and the dentist said he had to have a hundred dollars. Si Hawkins looked over at the boy and said, "Maybe you can tree old Rip Van Winkle, or Old Rip for short, for I have a standing offer of a hundred dollars for his hide but nobody has been able to collect it so far. He either trees in a rock den or gets into the big swamp and outsmarts the dogs and they can’t tree him so I offered one hundred dollars to the man that brings in his hide. You don’t think that your dog can tree him do you sonny?" he asked as he winked at the men. The boy looked down at the dog and said softly, "If any dog can tree him, you can, can’t you boy?" And the dog wagged his tail and whined through his nose, and Zeb had a feeling that the dog understood what the boy said and he was telling him that he would tree the coon.

The boy looked at Zeb and told him that he would be there at the store Saturday night and he would love to try for Old Rip. He bought a few groceries and some clove oil for his mother’s jaw and left the store, and when he was gone the men all started laughing and talking at once about how foolish the boy was to think he could bilk an old coon hunter out of a hundred dollars with a rabbit dog and him a mixed breed at that, but Zeb said, "Men, that boy don’t want to sell that dog no more than he wants to sell his right arm but he has to for his mother. Don’t be too surprised if he ain’t hard to outdo on a coon for there is a lot of dog in that hide and if he thinks that boy wants him to do anything he will bust his hide trying to do it for him. Did you see how they looked at each other? I want to know if anyone knows anything about that boy, where he lives and all that."

Si spoke up and said that his father had bought the Tilley place over on the other side of Long Ridge but got killed last winter in a car wreck and left a house full of kids and a widow and the boy was the oldest one and he was trying to farm and working at odd jobs but you know how hard it is to make a living in these mountains. "That boy brought in some nice coon hides last winter but I don’t know if he caught them with this dog or not as the dog didn’t look to be over two years old and he would have been a puppy last winter. "Zeb said, "I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he didn’t catch them with him." He turned to the men and said, "I want you boys to bring the four best dogs in the valley Saturday and go hunting and no smart remarks for the boy and the dog will get a fair shake or I’ll know why, and I want to see if we can strike Old Rip for I got a funny feeling when that boy said he will tree him if any dog can and saw the look that passed between them." Someone said, "You wouldn’t buy that dog, would you, Zeb, no better than he looks?" Zeb said softly, "I never judge a man or dog on what I see at a glance for you have to look inside to see what they are made of."

Saturday night ro1led around and by seven o’clock there was quite a few coon hunters and friends there for words get around fast in a mountain village and the boy wasn’t and people began to mutter and talk, "He won’t show. Might have known he wasn't no coon dog." But Zeb said, "Just wait a few minutes, he’ll show and tell why he is late." Then someone said, "I see a light coming in a hurry and it must be him." Then he rushed up and said all out of breath, "I’m sorry that I am late but the cows got out and we had to drive them up and fix the fence before I could come," and Zeb thought under his breath, "Didn’t eat no supper and ran all the way across the mountain to keep his word." Zeb walked into the store and came out with a thick slice of cheese, some crackers, a cake and a can drink and handed it to the boy and said, "I know you can use this if you walked fast all the way over here." The boy was about to refuse it but he looked at his dog, back at Zeb, and took it and thanked him and started to eat but when he thought no one was looking he slipped the cheese to his dog and ate the crackers and cake, and Zeb saw it and the tears came into his eyes and he was glad that it was night and no one could see that he was getting soft in his old age. Well, they finally got started and they decided to go over to a large creek by the name of Falls Creek and see if they couldn’t strike Old Rip as it was on one of his runs and it was the night he was due. Don had his Black Tan, Coyt his treeing Walker, Ben had old Red, Slim had his Blue Tick bitch, Hal had his mixed breed Lead, and they was counted the best in the valley after Queen got gone and everyone knew that if the Beagle could run and tree with them that he had to be good.

So they went over to Falls Creek and Zeb said, "Let’s put them up the creek and walk up on the ridge east of there, and if there is a coon in the county and they strike we can hear them from up there." So they let all the dogs loose, and a rabbit jumped up and took off up the road, and when he made his first jump the Beagle went up on his toes but when he saw what it was he eased back on the balls of his feet, and Zeb had that feeling that some coon hunters was in for a surprise that night. He heard several snide remarks about, "Too small to run a coon, Can’t keep up with a real coon hound, Might last thirty minutes in a real hard race if the water wasn’t too deep," but all he could think of was how he wished he had Queen here tonight. They put the dogs up the creek and started up the ridge, and the boy got in front and Zeb was hard pushed to keep up with him and he had never had many people to push him when he started climbing a mountain. All at once the boy said to him, "Mr. Yates, tell me about old Rip." Zeb looked at him and smiled in the dark and said, "You can call me Zeb, son, for real coon hunters don’t Mr. one another," and he felt some tightness leave the boy and he went on, "Old Rip got his name from being around so long and I guess he is the daddy of more coons than any other coon in these parts and all his offspring are more intelligent than other coons. Run longer and are harder to catch than the other coons around here. You see, there are a few of us oldtimers that used to hunt this area when there wasn't nothing but mountain coons up here and they was hard to catch, but people wasn’t satisfied with them and wanted to help out so they ordered coons from down on the coast and Florida through the Wild Life but they are easy to catch, and some people like to catch them but I don’t. I like to feel like my dog has done something when I catch a coon. You can tell the old mountain coons by their size and color. They are a lot darker and longer and thinner and it takes a good dog to kill one. I know a lot of hunters that say that they have treed Old Rip where they could get him but wouldn’t because they wanted to save him for seed, but I don’t believe that for I have had as good a dog as anyone and I have never seen him. I don’t know if I would take him if I treed him where I could or not for we never know what we will do until we face up to something. I love to think that I would leave him for seed but I don’t know."

They arrived at the top of the ridge and they stomped and listened to see if they could hear any of the dogs but all was quiet. They hadn’t been there very long until they heard the others coming up the ridge talking as they came, and Zeb wondered what was on the boy’s mind as he wasn’t talking very much but he thought he understood and he knew that the boy was carrying a load for one so young but he wasn’t crying about it and Zeb liked him for that. The others arrived about that time and asked if they had heard the dogs but Zeb told them no, and someone said it was about time they was striking but all was quiet and still. All at once the boy said, "I hear Bigun on the far side of that ridge and he has a pretty good track and he is coming this way." Zeb couldn’t hear a thing and he wondered if the boy was making it up for he thought to himself that it would push a fast dog to get over that ridge from where they had turned them loose but all at once he heard him and he liked his mouth. Not too coarse but clear as a bell and the kind you can hear a long way and don’t drown out in a pack, and he was moving good too as he hit the top of the ridge and started down toward Falls Creek and they heard the Walker whine a time or two going to him from on up the creek. Coyt slapped his knee and said, "We will find out in a minute if he is big enough to run with coon dogs when my Walker gets there." The boy gave a fast glance at Coyt but didn’t say anything and Zeb thought to himself, "If I am any judge of a dog’s speed, and I hunted this section all my life, you don’t have to worry about the boy’s dog running up with your Walker if he can hold that gait for he sure ain’t standing still."

About that time big Red and the Walker hit the track ahead of the Beagle at the same time and they started to make hound music, but when the Beagle got to the place where they hit he hushed up and Zeb looked at the boy and asked, "What now?" The boy said softly, "He won’t open on a covered track for he has to be in front where the track is clear when he opens on it." Zeb shook his head for a dog really has to move to run in front and if he don’t open only when he is in front you don’t hear him much unless he can really pour it on. But the Beagle was quiet for only a minute or two and he was letting it roll out faster and clear as a bell. About that time they hit the creek and turned up the creek and the other three dogs met them, and they was at a loss for a minute and the Beagle hit it off up the side of the mountain and the others fell in behind him.

The coon went about half way up the mountain and cut back to the creek but they pushed him so hard that he couldn’t outrun them up the creek so he turned back up the mountainside where he could go up rock cliffs where the dogs had to go around and he could gain a little time on them, and first one dog then another was hitting off first but the Beagle was never ouiet long at a time and every time he opened he was in front. All at once someone said, "That is Old Rip that they are running for they are working up the creek and any other coon would be working down the creek as hard as they are pushing him," and they all agreed that he was right. The dogs had decided that there wasn’t any use in trying to outrun the Beagle so they had settled down to running the track and wasn’t trying to whip ahead of him and they was moving at a fast clip and making some good music when they came to a small branch and an old deserted farm with the fields grown over with briers and broomsedge and young pines, and they made a loss and one or two of the dogs barked a few tree barks and someone said, "He has treed." But Zeb said, "No, he is letting them know that he is a smart coon and here is where you grade the pups from the coon dogs and how I wish Queen was here. I have never known just what an old coon does for dogs to be running him hard and fast and then have them cold trail him for thirty or forty minutes and then take off like he was shot out of a gun and maybe run him for an hour or two and then trail him again. Oh, I heard how they walk on their toes so they don’t leave no scent or walk backward and all that, but who taught them to do that? And who was lucky enough to put a light on them and see them doing that? Anyway, I know that they can do that, and do it. You might say that they never done your dog like that and all I can say is that you have never run a mountain coon."

Well, it wasn’t but a few minutes until the Beagle let out a cry up the branch and the other dogs took off after him, and he was running hard and they had a time catching up with him. And Zeb looked over at Coyt and said, "I believe that he will make a coon dog if he is hunted enough." Coyt said he didn’t believe he could last much longer and for us to just wait awhile, but the dogs had topped the mountain by that time and Slim said, "Boys, if that is Old Rip, and I believe it is, let’s go across that ridge and they will come down Shanty Branch and hit the big swamp and there he will mess them up until they won’t know where he is." But the boy said, "He will have to take a tree before the night is over." Slim said, "Son, you have never run Old Rip before or you wouldn’t talk like that." They all took off over the other ridge and Zeb and the boy got a way ahead of the others and the boy said, "Zeb, I am sorry that you lost your dog for I know how it must hurt you for I know how much you can love a good dog when you have hunted with it a lot."

And when they got to the ridge where they could hear the dogs if they came to the big swamp they sat down against a big tree and all at once the boy said, "Listen, I hear Bigun and there is a new dog with him but I don't hear the rest of them. Zeb listened as hard as he could for ever so long and then he began to pick up the bell tone voice of the Beagle and he heard the sound of another dog and then they popped up over the ridge and he couldn't believe his ears for a minute for it was Queen running for all she was running for all she was worth and the Beagle was leading her and letting that clear bell-like mouth really ring out in the cold mountain air and Zeb said, I wonder what happened to the other dogs, and the boy said, "I hear them coming trying to catch up." And the other men caught up then and heard old Queen and the Beagle putting the fire to the coon track and the other dogs behind try to catch up. They couldn’t believe their ears and asked Zeb what happened and Zeb said, "I don’t know what happened and don’t guess we will ever know but they picked up Queen somewhere and her and the Beagle got ahead of the other dogs but they will catch up the first bobble they make in the swamp."

And then the Beagle and Queen hushed for five minutes and the others caught up and then Queen struck it off and they all put in with her and they didn’t hear the Beagle for a minute or two, and then he grabbed the lead again and the race was on and Zeb said, "I don’t see how that Beagle can keep in front in the water because he will have to swim where the other dogs can wade. But he didn’t know that the Beagle didn’t do as much swimming in the swap as he did jumping from one bunch of grass and swamp weed to another and he could jump eight and ten feet at a time and it was faster than trying to swim but you had to have a good nose to do that and hold the track down, but the Beagle had that and he had a trick or two that he had learned from running coons by himself and one was that he could run a coon at a fast clip for a couple of hours and then double the speed on him and you would catch him off balance or surprise him and he would climb a tree. He knew that this wasn't no ordinary coon for he was old and smart and he hadn’t got the urge to push him up a tree. He knew the other dogs was getting tired for they wasn’t pushing him as hard as they did at first. Just as he was getting set to try to make him climb, this new dog came in the race and he had to speed up to outrun her but she was slacking off a little now so he was about ready to make his move. One dog had quit the race but the others was hanging on. When Slim’s Blue Tick bitch come out she looked as if she had had it, but Zeb couldn’t tell that the Beagle had let up one and he knew that it was pushing Queen to the utmost to keep up and the other dogs was still running only because they had too much grit to quit. I don’t know where the Beagle gets his stamina from. But what he didn’t know was that the coon dogs was only out of the lot one or two nights a week in the winter and not that much in the summer time and the Beagle was out every day and night in the week chasing hogs, cows, rabbits, squirrels, coons and chickens, or running and playing with the children.

Old Rip had tried about every trick he knew but they wasn’t working like they usually did. Oh, they would throw the dogs off for a few minutes at a time but he just wan’ t getting as much rest as he was used to getting for these dogs had kept him moving for over four hours now at a fast clip and he decided that he had better make one more loop through the swamp to get a start and head for the big rock den at the top of the ridge, So he made his circle over toward the men and then he turned and ran right back through the dogs. He had done this many times before and it would mess them up for there would be fresh scent going each way and the dogs would get excited and run back and forward until they got so much dog scent mixed with the coon scent that they couldn’t make heads or tails out of it and he could sink himself and just let the tip of his nose stick out of the water and the dogs wouldn’t find him and when they got scattered over the swamp he would slip out and go to the den.

So when he made his circle and turned to run back through the dogs the Beagle decided to turn on the speed and make him climb a tree. So he quit letting out the bell tone and cut it down to a short hacking bark that sounded like a dog trying to get a bark out but something cutting it off in the middle and he got the wind scent of Old Rip in his nose and it was as if he was looking at him. And for the first time Old Rip felt fear flow through his body and he gave off more scent so the Beagle sensed the fear and he reached back into the reserve that people and animals have and turned on more speed. And Slim said, "My God, what is that?" And the boy said, "That is Bigun and he is going to catch that coon if he don’t climb."

Every man there couldn’t believe his ears for the Beagle went back across the swamp a lot faster than they had ever heard any dog go and the coon took to the ridge but he had to climb or get caught so he went up a big white oak without a leaf on it and the Beagle was quiet for about a minute and then he started treeing with the best chopping mouth that Zeb had ever heard on any dog. It made his hair stand on end to listen to it and all at once he wanted that dog worse than anything that he had ever wanted and then shame ran down through him as he remembered how the boy and dog looked at each other. He had Queen back and here he was lusting after the kid’s dog. He felt like kicking himself. Of course the boy wouldn’t have to sell now for somehow he knew that Old Rip was up that tree and the boy would take his hide to Si and get the hundred dollars he needed and he was glad that the boy didn’t have to sell the dog for they was part of each other. They got to the tree and someone spotted Old Rip laying on a lower limb and he was some coon to look at and his right foot was on the side of a limb and two toes was missing from off his foot and every one knew without a doubt that it was Old Rip.

Hal Parson had his rifle and he loaded it and handed it to Brett and said, "Here, boy ,he is yours, all fair and square because your dog struck him, outran all the other dogs and treed him and that is something that our dogs can’t do for they have had a lot of chances and didn’t do it. I want to ask you to forgive me for what I thought about your dog although I didn’t say nothing. You can have the honor of shooting him out and I for one will hold my dog and not let him put his mouth on him with yours for he isn’t in the same class with him." Ben Sloop spoke up and said, "I think that Hal has pretty well spoke for all of us so go ahead and shoot him." The boy took the gun and the other men caught their dogs and all at once the boy felt sorry for the men and. for Old Rip and he looked at Zeb and said, "I can't shoot him and if any of you want the reward here is the gun, and Zeb, if you think you would be interested in my dog you can still have him for a hundred dollars." Zeb cleared his throat and said, "I don't know if I like him or not. I want you to promise to hunt with me some more, son, until I find out if he is my kind of dog. I didn’t like his mouth when he ran that last race before he treed. Oh, by the way, if I remember right that place over there where you live has a lot of black locust on it and I need about two hundred posts and if I get someone to help cut and load them, would you let me have them? I figure they should be worth about sixty cents apiece." The boy’s face lit up and he said, "I sure would and what day do you think you can come after them?" Zeb looked at the men and said, "Can I get some of you to help me cut and load them Monday?" The men said, "Well, I guess we all can help and it won’t take but a couple of hours to get them."

The boy took off up the road home with a spring in his step that can only come from being at peace inside and out, and he looked up at the stars and said, "Thank you Jesus for what you have done this night." Zeb looked at the men and said in a low voice, "Men, you have just saw a man and his dog and there isn’t a one here that is fit to be in his company but you all can find out from Si what size clothes that the whole family wears and if they find a box of clothing and groceries on the porch Sunday when they come home from church it won’t hurt no one and you all will feel much cleaner inside and out than you do now. And I think it is time for us to go home so we can be at church tomorrow" And as he walked away he heard one of them say, "Beats me why Zeb bought two hundred locust posts when he has more black locust trees than anybody in the valley, but you know Zeb, and I didn’t say anything." Zeb smiled and looked up at the stars for a minute and then pulled off his old cap and bowed his head and said, "Thank you Jesus. I love the way you do things."