make-it-yourself-or-do-without

Updated: July 16, 2026

Many times I stopped to hammer the edge smooth on a round stick. Verily this is the land of make-it-yourself-or-do-without! Yet, however destitute the mountain people may be, they are never abject. The mordant misery of hunger is borne with a sardonic grin. After a course of such diet as described above, a woman laughingly said to me: "I'm gittin' the dropsy the meat is all droppin' off my bones."

Horace Kephart - Our Southern Highlanders