Scottie MacIncheese sat in the shade of the pine tree, sipping the rich stout his wee friend had graciously provided for him. While he hummed the chorus to Whiskey in the Jar he gazed out at the rolling landscape, the vibrant colors of autumn punctuating the overwhelming greenness. The city of Atlanta lie miles off in the distance.
Scottie noted the sun was getting lower in the sky. Certainly Will was looking for him -- or maybe he was having just as much good fun as he was! Either way, he knew he must get moving on. With the aid of his hiking stick, Scottie rose to his feet.
"Now... which way do I go?" he wondered. "I cood retrace me steps, but then I'd have tae walk UP!" He gazed back from where he'd come; the trees were dense enough to not see the road, which he knew was there. And then the answer crossed before him. Between the downhill end of the big stand of trees and the next, a narrow "alley" of sorts provided a view clear to the road. A runner heading down inadvertently showed Scottie where it was.
"Ah! Goorgeous!" Scottie exclaimed, and he headed toward the alley, stepping around a pair of big, flat boulders. Once through the alley, the granite "path" curved to the right and went up to the road. "Och, I'm not wanting tae go up just quite yet." He looked around and saw, ahead and to the left, a tamped-down footpath leading past a pine. He followed it, stepping across a nature-made French drain and through some thigh-high grasses.
A long time ago, way back in history,
when all there was to drink was nothin but cups of tea.
Along came a man by the name of Charlie Mops,
and he invented a wonderful drink and he made it out of hops.
His feet touched granite again, and he looked ahead, slightly uphill. Another path, this one wider, coursed directly toward the road, past the tallest pine ahead.
He must have been an admiral a sultan or a king,
and to his praises we shall always sing.
Look what he has done for us he's filled us up with cheer!
Lord bless Charlie Mops, the man who invented
beer beer beer tiddly beer beer beer.
Scottie finally made it onto the road. He stopped to finish his Oatmeal Stout and cleanse his palate with a swig of water. He looked to his right, back up the mountain. He looked straight ahead at the plants and birds and rocks and trees. And he looked to his left, down the mountain, down, where he needed to go! And so he walked, and sang...
The Curtis bar, the James' Pub, the Hole in the Wall as well
one thing you can be sure of, its Charlie's beer they sell
so all ye lads a lasses at eleven O'clock ye stop
for five short seconds, remember Charlie Mops
1... 2... 3... 4... 5...
"Heh... more concrete pillows," Scottie pointed out the stacked rows along the left side of the road. "And thoose must be their mums and dads!" Scottie noted the much bigger granite pillows lined up just off the right side of the road.
He must have been an admiral a sultan or a king,
and to his praises we shall always sing.
Look what he has done for us he's filled us up with cheer!
Lord bless Charlie Mops, the man who invented
beer beer beer tiddly beer beer beer.
"Whoa, noew, what's that!?" Scottie said when he spied a curious thing off the left side of the road. "It looks tae be a trail marker... with white arrows... and white blazes nearby... blimey! That's the trail I followed a bit on the other side of the moontain!" Sure enough, the very-well-worn trail snaked alongside the off-road side of the stacked pillows and cut through a pair of rocks, then would have disappeared altogether on the open granite were it not marked with white blazes.
Scottie saw across the road the a matching granite column with the red Cherokee Trail insignia and white arrows. "Sooo, if I folla that trail all the way tae the other side, I'll be well on me way tae getting back to business!" Scottie turned on a heel and made a beeline for the trail on the right side of the road.
He was barely within a few yards of the marker when his wee friend made a startling appearance right atop the marker. Scottie put on the brakes. He looked to his left and right real quick so no one would see him talking to a light... nobody there. Whew!
"Are ye going tae take me along taenother beer?" The glowing figure rose up off the marker.
"I hope it's that awa," Scottie pointed up the Cherokee Trail. The glow moved in the opposite direction. "Of course," Scottie sighed. "Look, I dinnae knoo why yer being so nice and shoowing me where ye've hid these fine beers, but I really have to get back to the Meadow so I can fix me bagpipes!"
The brilliance of the figure's light dimmed. It began to drift slowly off, heading down the road.
Scottie realized that somehow he'd... disappointed it... hurt its feelings, if it was what he suspected. "Och! Naw wait a minute!"
The glow stopped. "I'll go with ye," Scottie said. "But ye have tae not go disappearing after ye show me the beer. I have tae ask ye somethin', and I want an honest answer. Deal?"
The glow paused a moment, then brightened. It flitted up, did a loop, and zipped off down the road. "Och! I get meself intae the damndest things!" Scottie mused.
A barrel of malt, a bushel of hops, you stir it around with a stick,
the kind of lubrication to make your engine tick.
40 pints of wallop a day will keep away the quacks.
Its only eight pence hapenny and one and six in tax,
1... 2... 3... 4... 5...He must have been an admiral a sultan or a king,
and to his praises we shall always sing.
Look what he has done for us he's filled us up with cheer!
Lord bless Charlie Mops, the man who invented
beer beer beer tiddly beer beer beer.
The Lord bless Charlie Mops!
As Scottie walked and sang he noticed large concrete drainpipes jutting out from under the left side of the road. Just beyond the third one, and before the next row of stacked concrete pillows, Scottie's wee friend glided to the ground and zigged along a narrow footpath down to the open granite.
It headed straight downhill and rounded the tip of a small grassy island with a pair of trees on each end. It then turned most of the way to the left and headed downhill toward another island just uphill from a large stand of trees. It glided downhill of the small island and along a rocky path, then out onto granite again.
Scottie kept up easily, wondering where on earth they were going. He followed the glowing thing past bunches of grasses on the right…
…and then it turned downhill again, and then right again, into shady hollow with a soft pine straw floor. Along the edges of flat triangular slices of granite it went, right to the last one in the line, a triangle pointing uphill.
"Now remember," Scottie cautioned. "You are supposed to stick around after ye show me the beer's hiding place!" The glowing figure settled atop the far bottom corner of the triangular rock. "There?" Scottie asked. The glow rose and hovered a few feet away while Scottie moved in, cleared away the pine straw, reached under the rock and removed a bottle...
"Wow! That's different! Pretty label!" A quick pffft! and glug-glug-glug and Scottie had himself another beer in his cup. He sat down on the rock and his wee friend moved in front of him.
Scottie took a good swallow of the beer and thought about how to phrase his question...
"That dream I had whilst I was a'sleepin atop the moontain -- you were in it, weren't ye?" The glow intensified briefly; Scottie took that as a 'yes'.
"So ye are one of the wee folk, aren't ye?" Again the light brightened. "Are ye guin tae show me yer true self, like ye did in my dream?" Scottie asked with a smile. He took another swig of his beer...
The glowing cloudy orb sat there for a few moments, then slowly grew brighter and brighter, and with a sudden flash the cloud was gone! Scottie gasped. "My God in Heaven!"
For there, in front of him, was the same feminine wee folk he'd seen in his dream. A beautiful little creature of pale skin and slender human form, hovering there unabashed with a knowing smile on her lovely little face.
"I have tae thank ye uncoly, my wee friend, fer sharing these fine brews with me. I'm wholly undeserving," Scottie said genuinely.
She flitted right up to Scottie and planted a wee kiss upon his nose. Then she winked, nodded her head, and with a flash the cloud was back, shrouding her in mystery. The glowing orb flew over Scottie's shoulder and away uphill.
Scottie sat there a bit longer, reminiscing over the experiences of the day. He eventually stood, stretched, and found his way back to the road, and back up to the white-blazed Cherokee Trail, and from there, onward and upward over the mountain and back down the other side and on to his camp in the Meadow...
COLORS: Multicolored - label on stamp backing shows how the stamp is inked. If applicable, the stamp impression in the logbook shows how it would be colored with pencils later on.