Another tale from the Kitty Keeton Memoirs:
Now for a story about the teacher Pipes after he quit teaching and took a mail route out of Oakland City. He was driving a Model Ford touring on the route south east of Oakland City in what is called the Shy Bottoms, old South Fork river, I believe it is stripped up now for coal roads. Not there now.
Pipes was a singer, a whistler, and jolly. He was driving slowly around a bend and looked up and an Elephant came up out of the river and started waddling meeting him. He said he hit the brakes, throwed the door open, and was striding as if he should make a dive for the river that the Elephant had come out of — or sit there and let the Elephant take his trunk and run the car over with him in it. Then about that time a fellow’s head with a red cap on popped up from the river from the same place the Elephant had covered. Then he knew he was herding the Brute. He said the man said that they were leaving Huntingburg going to Princeton for a show. Trucks broke down and since they didn’t have a car ordered in time to take the Southern freight to Princeton, they had to drive him and he was going away from the rock roads as it hurt the animal’s feet. Most of the Pipes family are dead now, including the teacher.
Everyone seems to enjoy the old Kitty Keeton stories. If you knew him, he was quite the storyteller. I think he would appreciate the next generation “listening” to his stories about Pike County. As a barber and a “lawyer” he heard it all.
