A Story From Hoskins Hollow..... A Community Near Oliver Springs

This story comes from a family member  . She remembers as a child visiting her great great grandmother . The elderly lady would tell stories to her grandchildren on occasion and the story below is one of those stories . The family member is in her 50's now and was very young when the story was told to her . A guesstimate as to the time these events actually took place would be late 1800's to early 1900's . This story is told in the actual words of the hearer......

This story was told to me when I was 8 to 10 years old by my GG grandmother Jordan at her home in Lafollette .I remember her as an old lady laid up in a hospital bed  . She was a diabetic and had no legs . She had some mean little dogs in her house . They were her protectors .      She told me when she was 10 or 12 years old she would play in the fields of Hoskins Hollow.......she was a Hoskins by birth and grew up there . One day she ventured into the point of the hollow where the trees and hills started and found pine needles on the ground under some downed trees . It looked like someone slept there and there were black thin hairs all in the place .  She and her dog were the only ones there . She would always pack a sandwich and some fruit to snack on  . She would leave what she did'nt eat . She would go back the next day and it would be gone . She felt safe but always felt like something was watching her . One evening at about dark she heard something scream at her......a growl and a cry . She still was not afraid . She continued to leave food under the downed trees and once hid to see if she could see what was taking the food . She once saw a large black figure in the woods she believed did not see her . It would open its mouth and breathe in large amounts of air as though it was tasting it . Other times she would only see shadows of movement in the trees .

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