A Tale of Mountain Music
by Manuel
S. Miller
It sometimes seems that certain persons
are born to have stories told about them.
I truly believe that the Reverend Zeb Twitchell was indeed one of these
remarkable people.
He was born and brought up
over Stockbridge Common way nearly two hundred years ago. After a few false starts in his extreme youth,
he eventually became a Methodist minister and preached in a number of churches
in this area including the church in Lympus.
He became highly esteemed in the Conference and was honored in many
ways.
Before entering the ministry
he had been a school teacher and also, being a gifted violinist, he derived
great enjoyment as well as some extra income from playing at local gatherings
and dances. Of course, after he took up
preaching he naturally stopped playing for dances as the Methodists of those
long ago days took a very dim view of such goings on. But Zeb couldn’t resist picking up the violin
occasionally in the privacy of his home and giving forth with some very
“un-churchly” tunes.
Of course, people going by
his house were bound to hear him playing and some found fault. In the course of time word got thought to the
Presiding Elder that something was going to have to be done about the Reverend
Zeb and his fiddle.
The next time the Presiding
Elder came to Lympus for a Quarterly Conference he called Zeb to one side—out
in back of the horse-sheds where they could be sure of privacy—and then
proceeded to lay the matter on the line.
He started in, “Brother Twitchell, before taking up a very personal
matter with you, I want to tell you that your ministry here in Lympus has been
very grateful and that you are personally well thought of by the members of the
Conference, so I hope you won’t misunderstand me when I say that this violin
playing has got to stop; and I mean S-T-O-P! Why, I have even been told that some
mischievous people over camp Brook way have been passing the story around among
superstitious folk, that this violin of yours is not an ordinary instrument but
is actually the ‘Devil’s Lute’ and that it is sure to bring evil to you and
everyone associated with you.” Zeb had
been expecting something of this sort but he found it hard to take such bitter
condemnation of his beloved violin and its music which he had always thought of
as a proper vehicle for the expression of the natural joy of good people on
such occasions as the marriage of young folks, the harvesting of crops, the
raising of barns, and the warming of new homes.
And that is what Zeb told the Presiding Elder, adding that he was of the
opinion that the consignment to the devil of all sprightly tunes was a mistake
that church people would some day come to regret.
The Presiding Elder was a
man of mature years and an understanding heart and he found it easy to believe
that Zeb’s soul had yearnings that only the music of his violin could
satisfy. So, after giving the matter some
thought, he made the following proposal to Zeb, “Supposing we could find a
remote place up on the side of the mountain, at least a mile from human
habitation, and you were permitted to play the violin from dark to dawn on one
night of each year, what night would you choose?”
That was a hard question to answer but Zeb
came up with a good choice. He said, “Well,
of all the occasions which have a seasonal connection, I think I like the corn
huskings best. I would choose some
clear, balmy night during the corn harvest.
In those days everybody in Lympus raised corn, good old-fashioned field
corn. They had it ground at the mill and
it was an important part of their food, year ‘round.
The Presiding Elder was
pleased at the choice and he held out his hand to Zeb. “It’s a deal, but don’t breathe a word to a
soul.”
In the days that followed,
Zeb scouted out a cozy little shelf up on the flank of Lympus Mountain. And he walked to and from it many times so he
could find his way there by the dimmest moonlight. The summer passed and the bright September
days ripened up the corn. Finally the
time came that Zeb had been waiting for.
As soon as it got dark he took his violin up to his mountain nook,
rosined up his bow, and played and played and played.
Now we all know Lympus is
famous for its echoes. There is a place
up the road a little way from here where you can hear the ticking of an alarm
clock for a quarter of a mile, I am told.
So it was not strange that a lone traveler passing over the old road which
used to skirt the base of the mountain, late that night, should hear violin
music bright and clear although the road at no point came within a half mile of
the place where Reverend Zeb was blissfully fiddling his tunes.
Some time later that night
the traveler banged on the door of the tavern down at Lilliesville and excitedly
told a strange tale of music on the mountain road. The innkeeper tried to quiet him by
explaining about the effects of moonlight and night air at high altitudes, but
he didn’t quiet down much until he was given a mug of hot peppered rum. Then, gasping for breath, he allowed himself
to be led off to bed.
Of course, before the next
day was over, the story had spread up and down the valley. But was more or less discounted as just an
innkeeper’s yarn. In the several years
that followed, a number of farm folk in the upper valley who had occasion to step
out into their yards late at night at that time of year -–possibly to
investigate a noise in the chicken coop or a barking dog—would hear the violin
music as described by the lone traveler.
Naturally, the Lympus people talked about this. And being intelligent folk, it didn’t take
them long to guess what was going on—it was the Reverend Zeb playing his violin
and maybe he was telling them it was time to get in their corn. Of course they couldn’t talk to him about his
night-time violin playing because they were quite sure he would have to stop if
a public issue was made of it.
So it went on, year after
year. The Reverend Zeb Twitchell did
well in the ministry. He was assigned to
large and important churches and even became Presiding Elder of the Danville
District. But he never neglected to come
back to Lympus Mountain when the corn was ready to
pick. And all these years it seemed to
the people of Lympus that the corn bore better than ever before. The ears were large and well filled out and
the kernels were hard and bright.
The day came when the
Reverend Zeb Twitchell was called to his reward. On a hot, hazy late summer afternoon the tall
corn waved gently in the fields of Lympus as his old friends and neighbors,
their children and grandchildren laid him lovingly to rest.
They all knew that his
violin was stilled, but could the good folk of Lympus be blamed for stepping
out into their back yards late at night when the corn stood ripe in the fields,
and listening for the sound of distant music?
And strangest of all, nobody was surprised when they heard the
rollicking notes of Zeb’s violin coming down from Lympus Mountain
true and clear as ever.
And the story goes that as
long as corn was raised in Lympus, the sound of the violin could be heard on
the mountain at harvest time.
Bethel Historical Society Editor’s
note:
Manuel
S. Miller (1908-1994) was a well-respected citizen of Bethel whose contributions to the community
spread over a number of areas—he was an inventor, businessman, church elder,
historian, and dedicated family man. “A
Tale of Mountain Music” was presented by Mr. Miller at summer service at the Lympus Church
in 1976. For more information about the
Bethel Historical Society, please visit their website found at: http://bethelvt.com
I would like to extend my thanks to the Bethel Historical Society for giving me
permission to reprint this article.
–Linda Lunna 2012
Supplementary Information about A Tale of Music Mountain
Zeb Twitchell was a
real person. He was born about 1800 in
the hill country of the upper White River
Valley in Vermont.
There is no reason to believe that his formal education extended beyond
a few winter terms in District
School, but by the time
he entered the ministry in his early thirties he had developed into a cultured
and gifted man. One thing we are told
about him is that he had a great sense of humor and that as a young man he
liked nothing better than to tell robust yarns which were inevitably climaxed
with peals of soul-satisfying laughter by all listeners.
Lympus,
at the time of the story, was a small farming community nestled in a mountain hollow in a remote section of the
towns of Bethel and Stockbridge, Vermont.
It received its strange little name because it lay in the shadow of a
massive but gently sloping and heavily wooded mountain to which the surveyors,
who ran the first lines in this region, gave the name Mountain Olympus. This, of course, was soon shortened to
“Lympus.”
Farming
is no longer a way of life there, as the lay of the land does not lend itself
to the efficient use of modern agricultural machinery. But people still live there, it is still
called Lympus, and outlanders are still thrilled at the sense of mysterious
beauty which pervades this delightful place.
---M.S. M.
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