February

The Hearth & Holler Gazette No. 8 — “HIPPITY HOPPITY LETS GO!”

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A Weekly Visit of Tales, Tidings, and Old-Time Country Comfort

Welcome!

It’s been a lively week in Honey Hill Country.

Before we go any further, the editor is once again obliged to remind readers — especially the newer subscribers who have joined us during the recent festivities — that The Hearth & Holler Gazette is a work of cheerful fiction set in an entirely imaginary corner of the Ozarks. Any resemblance to actual towns, rabbits, roosters, or enthusiastic carrot-throwing contests is purely coincidental, though we admit the similarities can sometimes be striking.

And lively it has been.

What began a week ago as a curious little rabbit celebration — complete with horns, races, and the occasional carrot pie — has now grown into something approaching a full-scale countryside revelry. Carrozelas are being heard from town squares, farm lanes, and ridge roads from Round Corners to Butterfield, and the sound of horns echoing through the hollers has been joined by a chorus few expected.

The roosters have begun answering.

Farmers across the region report that each time a rabbit blows a Carrozela horn, at least one rooster somewhere nearby feels duty-bound to crow in reply. What began as a novelty has now grown into a sort of musical conversation between town and barnyard, with horns sounding in the streets and rooster calls rolling back across the hills.

The result is a countryside that wakes early.

If that were not enough excitement for one week, another unexpected development has taken hold of the festivities. What began as a simple encouragement shouted by Little Red Bear to hurry along a group of young racers has now become the unofficial motto of March Madness Days.

The phrase, repeated with great enthusiasm by children and rabbits alike, is heard everywhere from the game fields to the bakery steps:

“Hippity, hoppity — let’s go!”

And go they have.

From new games and contests to dancing in the streets, Honey Hill Country appears to have discovered that when rabbits decide to celebrate Spring, they do so with remarkable dedication.

The Gazette will attempt, as faithfully as possible, to keep up.

So, with that said  — Please come on in. Your paper awaits . . . . . . 

And would you prefer Coffee or Tea with your newspaper?

 

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The Hearth & Holler Gazette No. 7 — “MARCH MADNESS DAYS BRING RABBITS AND RACKET”

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A Weekly Visit of Tales, Tidings, and Old-Time Country Comfort

Welcome!

It’s been a noisy week in Honey Hill Country.

Not troublesome noise, mind you — nothing of the sort — but the cheerful kind that arrives when rabbits outnumber common sense and every available square foot of Butterfield seems determined to host a race, a cook-off, a judging table, or a parade that may or may not have been planned in advance. March Madness Days are now fully underway, and the countryside has answered with enthusiasm, energy, and an astonishing number of competitors who appear convinced that ribbons, bragging rights, and possibly pie are within reach if they simply run fast enough.

As always, The Hearth & Holler Gazette is a work of fiction set in a place that exists most clearly in the imagination — though from time to time it may resemble somewhere you have known. But for first time visitors, it may help to know where — and when — we are, and what I am talking about

The Hearth & Holler Gazette hails from Honey Hill Country, a small, rural corner of the Missouri Ozarks, as it might have been known in the year 1904 — a time of front porches and wagon roads, oil lamps and handwritten letters, when news traveled at a human pace, and a Saturday paper was meant to be read slowly, with coffee close at hand. This is not a paper of breaking news or loud headlines. It prefers instead to notice it — the small, human-sized moments that once filled a morning without asking much in return.

The Hearth & Holler Gazette is a work of fiction — a made-up paper from a made-up place, written in the spirit of an earlier time. Any resemblance to real towns, people, or events is entirely coincidental, though we do our best to make it feel otherwise.

This must be understood at the beginning — the towns, fields, and citizens described here exist only within these pages. With that firmly agreed, the small and ordinary wonders of the week may unfold as they will. That is the way of things here. That is all we need to know, and that ought to be enough.

With that firmly understood, we may proceed to the week’s news — which presently includes athletic contests, decorated burrows, culinary triumphs, minor athletic injuries, an unscheduled victory on Cedar Lane, and a new invention producing a sound that can now be heard echoing across several hollers at once.

Hold on to your top hat.

So, with that said  — Please come on in. Your paper awaits . . . . . . 

And would you prefer Coffee or Tea with your newspaper?

 

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The Hearth & Holler Gazette No. 6 — “UPRIGHT AND TRUE — MARCH MADNESS DAYS OPEN”

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A Weekly Visit of Tales, Tidings, and Old-Time Country Comfort

Welcome!

It is shaping up to be a lively week in Honey Hill Country, as March Madness Days begin in earnest and the Square fills once more with banners, brass, and bright expectation.

As always, The Hearth & Holler Gazette is a work of fiction set in a place that exists most clearly in the imagination — though from time to time it may resemble somewhere you have known. But for first time visitors, it may help to know where — and when — we are, and what I am talking about

The Hearth & Holler Gazette hails from Honey Hill Country, a small, rural corner of the Missouri Ozarks, as it might have been known in the year 1904 — a time of front porches and wagon roads, oil lamps and handwritten letters, when news traveled at a human pace,  where animals and humans interact and live side-by-side, and a Saturday paper was meant to be read slowly, with coffee close at hand. This is not a paper of breaking news or loud headlines. It prefers instead to notice it — the small, human-sized moments that once filled a morning without asking much in return.

The Hearth & Holler Gazette is a work of fiction — a made-up paper from a made-up place, written in the spirit of an earlier time. Any resemblance to real towns, people, or events is entirely coincidental, though we do our best to make it feel otherwise.

This must be understood at the beginning — the towns, fields, and citizens described here exist only within these pages. With that firmly agreed, the small and ordinary wonders of the week may unfold as they will. That is the way of things here. That is all we need to know, and that ought to be enough.

With that understood, come along — the Square is lively, the rabbits are ready, and there is a place waiting along the rail.

And would you prefer Coffee or Tea with your newspaper?

 

 

 

 

 

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The Hearth & Holler Gazette No. 5 — “FAIR DEMAND FELT ACROSS HONEY HILL”

/ jrmilson / 2 Comments

A Weekly Visit of Tales, Tidings, and Old-Time Country Comfort

Welcome!

It’s been a week of preparation in Honey Hill Country.

As always, The Hearth & Holler Gazette is a work of fiction set in a place that exists most clearly in the imagination — though from time to time it may resemble somewhere you have known. But for first time visitors, it may help to know where — and when — we are, and what I am talking about

The Hearth & Holler Gazette hails from Honey Hill Country, a small, rural corner of the Missouri Ozarks, as it might have been known in the year 1904 — a time of front porches and wagon roads, oil lamps and handwritten letters, when news traveled at a human pace, and a Saturday paper was meant to be read slowly, with coffee close at hand. This is not a paper of breaking news or loud headlines. It prefers instead to notice it — the small, human-sized moments that once filled a morning without asking much in return.

The Hearth & Holler Gazette is a work of fiction — a made-up paper from a made-up place, written in the spirit of an earlier time. Any resemblance to real towns, people, or events is entirely coincidental, though we do our best to make it feel otherwise.

This must be understood at the beginning — the towns, fields, and citizens described here exist only within these pages. With that firmly agreed, the small and ordinary wonders of the week may unfold as they will. That is the way of things here. That is all we need to know, and that ought to be enough.

Winter loosens its hold by degrees. In St. Louis, great halls rise in anticipation of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. Here at home, neighbors measure beams, set buckets beneath persistent drips, and begin planning how best to raise a roof before spring rains press their case.

Maple sap runs quietly. Rabbits consult schedules and polish sashes. Markets shift. Coin jars gather weight.

The county is not yet in motion — but it is readying itself.

So, with that said  — Please come on in. Your paper awaits . . . . . . 

And would you prefer Coffee or Tea with your newspaper?

 

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After the Steamboat Turned the Bend — When Stories Take Their Time

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A reflection on Mark Twain, the long reach of story, and where Little Red Bear first found his voice.

On February 18, 1885, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was published.

More than a century later, the river is still moving.

I first read Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn years ago — long before I understood what they were doing to me as a writer. Later came Life on the Mississippi, and more besides. At the time, I simply loved the stories. The raft. The sparks in the dark. The sound of the river settling back into itself.

Years later, walking through EPCOT at Walt Disney World, I wandered into a special exhibit of personal items belonging to Mark Twain. Behind glass sat a simple fountain pen he had once held in his own hand.

Not a monument.
Not a statue.

A pen.

I remember standing there, thinking about the ordinary act of writing — the scratch of nib against paper, the slow forming of sentences, the patience of revision. That pen had once rested between his fingers while he shaped rivers, boys, steamboats, sparks.

And I felt, in a very quiet way, connected.

There is a passage from Huckleberry Finn that has stayed with me all these years . . . .

“Once or twice of a night we would see a steamboat slipping along in the dark, and now and then she would belch a whole world of sparks up out of her chimbleys, and they would rain down in the river and look awful pretty; then she would turn a corner and her lights would wink out and her powwow shut off and leave the river still again; and by and by her waves would get to us, a long time after she was gone, and joggle the raft a bit, and after that you wouldn’t hear nothing for you couldn’t tell how long, except maybe frogs or something.”

It is not dramatic. It is not moralizing. It is simply noticing.

The sparks.
The bend in the river.
The long delay before the waves arrive.

There is something in that river passage that has followed me all these years — the way the sparks fall, the way the steamboat disappears around the bend, the way the waves arrive long after she is gone. Those gentle waves are still reaching me. Without my fully realizing it at the time, they found their way into Little Red Bear. He would not make a speech about it. He would simply watch the sparks, listen to the frogs, and notice how the raft rocks a little after the noise has faded. Red has always trusted the quiet aftermath more than the loud arrival. In many ways, I suspect that is where he was born — somewhere between Twain’s river and the stillness that follows.

Stories turn the bend.

The sparks fade.
The whistle grows faint.
The river grows still.

And years later, the waves arrive.

Some of them began their journey in February of 1885, though it would take many years before they reached a desk of my own. Some reached me standing in EPCOT, looking at a fountain pen once held in Mark Twain’s hand. And some are still arriving, rocking the raft just enough to remind me why I began writing in the first place.

If Little Red Bear ever feels steady beneath you, if his voice ever sounds like it trusts the quiet more than the noise, you now know where that began.

Somewhere on a river.
Somewhere after the steamboat turned the bend.

‘Till next time, then — Jim  (and Red!)

P.S. from Little Red Bear

Sometimes the river seems still, but the current is moving steady and sure beneath the surface. Stories are like that. They keep shaping us quietly — and then one day, we notice the raft has carried us farther than we realized.

“The Adventures of Little Red Bear: The First Holler!”

These illustrations were created with the assistance of AI.

 

 

The Hearth & Holler Gazette No. 4 — “A WEEK OF MELT AND MUD ACROSS THE HOLLERS”

/ jrmilson / 2 Comments

A Weekly Visit of Tales, Tidings, and Old-Time Country Comfort

Welcome!

It has been a mud bound week in Honey Hill Country. Another marked by delays, detours, growing shortages of everyday staples, and the steady work of getting on with things anyway.

Regular readers may recall that last week we introduced period-style illustrations, offering a visual record of events alongside the printed words of selected stories. This week, we take another big step forward — introducing our new staff editorial cartoonist, Clarence “Clary” Moss. Clary will be introducing his first editorial cartoon in the pages of the Gazette today, and will be a featured weekly contributor going forward.

But before we go any further, for first time visitors, it may help to know where — and when — we are, and what I am talking about

The Hearth & Holler Gazette hails from Honey Hill Country, a small, rural corner of the Missouri Ozarks, as it might have been known in the year 1904 — a time of front porches and wagon roads, oil lamps and handwritten letters, when news traveled at a human pace, and a Saturday paper was meant to be read slowly, with coffee close at hand. This is not a paper of breaking news or loud headlines. It prefers instead to notice it — the small, human-sized moments that once filled a morning without asking much in return.

The Hearth & Holler Gazette is a work of fiction — a made-up paper from a made-up place, written in the spirit of an earlier time. Any resemblance to real towns, people, or events is entirely coincidental, though we do our best to make it feel otherwise.

So, with that said  — Please come on in. Your newspaper awaits . . . . . . 

And would you prefer Coffee or Tea with your newspaper?

 

Continue reading →