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diff --git a/43888-0.txt b/43888-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cb235f3 --- /dev/null +++ b/43888-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5746 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43888 *** + +[Illustration: OLD STONE HOMESTEAD.] + + + + + THE BLUE-GRASS + + REGION OF KENTUCKY + + AND OTHER KENTUCKY ARTICLES + + BY JAMES LANE ALLEN. ILLUSTRATED + + [Illustration: (Publisher's logo)] + + NEW YORK + HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS + M DCCC XCII + + + + +Copyright, 1892, by HARPER & BROTHERS. + +_All rights reserved._ + + + + +PREFACE + + +The articles herein reprinted from HARPER'S and _The Century_ magazines +represent work done at intervals during the period that the author was +writing the tales already published under the title of _Flute and +Violin_. + +It was his plan that with each descriptive article should go a short +story dealing with the same subject, and this plan was in part wrought +out. Thus, with the article entitled "Uncle Tom at Home" goes the tale +entitled "Two Gentlemen of Kentucky;" and with the article entitled "A +Home of the Silent Brotherhood" goes the tale entitled "The White Cowl." +In the same way, there were to be short stories severally dealing with +the other subjects embraced in this volume. But having in part wrought +out this plan, the author has let it rest--not finally, perhaps, but +because in the mean time he has found himself engaged with other themes. + +[Illustration: JAMES LANE ALLEN + + AUTHOR OF + "THE KENTUCKY CARDINAL," + "THE CHOIR INVISIBLE," + "THE REIGN OF LAW," ETC. + + BOOK NEWS PORTRAIT N + VOL. 24. NO. 287, JULY.] + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + THE BLUE-GRASS REGION 1 + + UNCLE TOM AT HOME 45 + + COUNTY COURT DAY IN KENTUCKY 87 + + KENTUCKY FAIRS 127 + + A HOME OF THE SILENT BROTHERHOOD 169 + + HOMESTEADS OF THE BLUE-GRASS 199 + + THROUGH CUMBERLAND GAP ON HORSEBACK 229 + + MOUNTAIN PASSES OF THE CUMBERLAND 269 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + PAGE + + Old Stone Homestead _Frontispiece_ + + Blue-grass 5 + + Sheep in Woodland Pasture 9 + + Negro Cabins 15 + + Cattle in a Blue-grass Pasture 21 + + Hemp Field 25 + + Tobacco Patch 29 + + Harrodsburg Pike 33 + + A Spring-house 41 + + The Mammy 59 + + The Cook 65 + + Chasing the Rabbit 77 + + The Preacher 81 + + Wet Goods for Sale--Bowling Green 91 + + Concluding a Bargain 93 + + Court-house Square, Lexington, Kentucky 97 + + The "Tickler" 101 + + The Quack-doctor 105 + + Auctioning a Jack 109 + + Lords of the Soil 113 + + Swapping Horses 117 + + Gentlemen of Leisure 121 + + Corn-husking 131 + + Militia Muster 135 + + Products of the Soil 139 + + Cattle at Lexington Fair 143 + + Harness Horses 147 + + The Modern Tourney 151 + + The Judge's Stand--The Finish 155 + + A Dinner-party 157 + + The Race-course--The Finish 159 + + Stallions 163 + + Mules 165 + + Office of the Father Prior 177 + + Within the Gates 181 + + A Fortnightly Shave 187 + + The Garden 197 + + Old Ferry at Point Burnside 233 + + "Damn me if them ain't the damnedest beans I ever seen!" 237 + + Moonrise on Cumberland Ridge 239 + + Cumberland Falls 243 + + Native Types 247 + + Interior of a Mountaineer's Home 251 + + Mountain Courtship 255 + + A Family Burying-ground 259 + + A Mountaineer Dame 261 + + Old Corn-mill at Pineville 265 + + Map Showing Mountain Passes of the Cumberland 277 + + Cumberland Gap 281 + + Ford on the Cumberland 297 + + Kentucky River from High Bridge 309 + + + + +THE BLUE-GRASS REGION + + +I + +One might well name it Saxon grass, so much is it at home in Saxon +England, so like the loveliest landscapes of green Saxon England has it +made other landscapes on which dwell a kindred race in America, and so +akin is it to the type of nature that is peculiarly Saxon: being a +hardy, kindly, beautiful, nourishing stock; loving rich lands and apt to +find out where they lie; uprooting inferior aborigines, but stoutly +defending its new domain against all invaders; paying taxes well, with +profits to boot; thriving best in temperate latitudes and checkered +sunshine; benevolent to flocks and herds; and allying itself closely to +the history of any people whose content lies in simple plenty and +habitual peace--the perfect squire-and-yeoman type of grasses. + +In the earliest spring nothing is sooner afield to contest possession +of the land than the blue-grass. Its little green spear-points are the +first to pierce the soft rich earth, and array themselves in countless +companies over the rolling landscapes, while its roots reach out in +every direction for securer foothold. So early does this take place, +that a late hoar-frost will now and then mow all these bristling +spear-points down. Sometimes a slow-falling sleet will incase each +emerald blade in glittering silver; but the sun by-and-by melts the +silver, leaving the blade unhurt. Or a light snow-fall will cover tufts +of it over, making pavilions and colonnades with white roofs resting on +green pillars. The roofs vanish anon, and the columns go on silently +rising. But usually the final rigors of the season prove harmless to the +blue-grass. One sees it most beautiful in the spring, just before the +seed stalks have shot upward from the flowing tufts, and while the thin, +smooth, polished blades, having risen to their greatest height, are +beginning to bend, or break and fall over on themselves and their nether +fellows from sheer luxuriance. The least observant eye is now +constrained to note that blue-grass is the characteristic element of the +Kentucky turf--the first element of beauty in the Kentucky landscape. +Over the stretches of woodland pasture, over the meadows and the lawns, +by the edges of turnpike and lane, in the fence corners--wherever its +seed has been allowed to flourish--it spreads a verdure so soft in fold +and fine in texture, so entrancing by its freshness and fertility, that +it looks like a deep-lying, thick-matted emerald moss. One thinks of it, +not as some heavy, velvet-like carpet spread over the earth, but as some +light, seamless veil that has fallen delicately around it, and that +might be blown away by a passing breeze. + +[Illustration: BLUE-GRASS.] + +After this you will not see the blue-grass so beautiful. The seed ripens +in June. Already the slender seed stalks have sprung up above the +uniform green level, bearing on their summits the fuzzy, plumy, purplish +seed-vessels; and save the soft, feathery undulations of these as the +wind sweeps over them, the beauty of the blue-grass is gone. Moreover, +certain robust and persistent weeds and grasses have been growing +apace, roughening and diversifying the sward, so that the vista is less +charming. During July and August the blue-grass lies comparatively +inactive, resting from fructification, and missing, as well, frequent +showers to temper the sunshine. In seasons of severe drought it even +dies quite away, leaving the surface of the earth as bare and brown as a +winter landscape or arid plain. Where it has been closely grazed, one +may, in walking over it, stir such a dust as one would raise on a +highway; and the upturned, half-exposed rootlets seem entirely dead. But +the moderated heats and the gentle rains that usually come with the +passing of summer bring on a second vigorous growth, and in the course +of several weeks the landscape is covered with a verdure rivalling the +luxuriance of spring. + +There is something incongruous in this marvellous autumnal +rejuvenescence of the blue-grass. All nature appears content and +resting. The grapes on the sunward slopes have received their final +coloring of purple and gold; the heavy mast is beginning to drop in the +forest, followed by the silent lapse of russet and crimson leaves; the +knee-deep aftermath has paled its green in the waiting autumn fields; +the plump children are stretching out their nut-stained hands towards +the first happy fire-glow on chill, dark evenings; and the cricket has +left the sere, dead garden for a winter home at the hearth. Then, lo! +as if by some freakish return of the spring to the edge of winter the +pastures are suddenly as fresh and green as those of May. The effect on +one who has the true landscape passion is transporting and bewildering. +Such contrasts of color it is given one to study nowhere but in +blue-grass lands. It is as if the seasons were met to do some great +piece of brocading. One sees a new meaning in Poe's melancholy +thought--the leaves of the many-colored grass. + +All winter the blue-grass continues green--it is always _green_, of +course, never _blue_--and it even grows a little, except when the ground +is frozen. Thus, year after year, drawing needful nourishment from the +constantly disintegrating limestone below, flourishes here as nowhere +else in the world this wonderful grass. + +Even while shivering in the bleak winds of March, the young lambs +frolicked away from the distent teats of the ewes, with growing relish +for its hardy succulence, and by-and-by they were taken into market the +sooner and the fatter for its developing qualities. During the long +summer, foaming pails of milk and bowls of golden butter have testified +to the Kentucky housewife with what delight the cows have ruminated on +the stores gathered each plentiful day. The Kentucky farmer knows that +the distant metropolitan beef-eater will in time have good reason to +thank it for yonder winding herd of sleek young steers that are softly +brushing their rounded sides with their long, white, silky tails, while +they plunge their puffing noses into its depths and tear away huge +mouthfuls of its inexhaustible richness. Thorough-bred sire and dam and +foal in paddocks or deeper pastures have drawn from it form and quality +and organization: hardness and solidity of bone, strength of tendon, +firmness and elasticity of muscle, power of nerve, and capacity of lung. +Even the Falstaff porkers, their eyes gleaming with gluttonous +enjoyment, have looked to it for the shaping of their posthumous hams +and the padding of their long backbones in depths of snowy lard. In +winter mules and sheep and horses paw away the snow to get at the green +shoots that lie covered over beneath the full, rank growth of autumn, or +they find it attractive provender in their ricks. For all that live upon +it, it is perennial and abundant, beautiful and beneficent--the first +great natural factor in the prosperity of the Kentucky people. What +wonder if the Kentuckian, like the Greek of old, should wish to have +even his paradise well set in grass; or that, with a knowing humor, he +should smile at David for saying, "He maketh his grass to grow upon the +mountains," inasmuch as the only grass worth speaking of grows on his +beloved plain! + +[Illustration: SHEEP IN WOODLAND PASTURE.] + + +II + +But if grass is the first element in the lovely Kentucky landscape, as +it must be in every other one, by no means should it be thought sole or +chief. In Dante, as Ruskin points out, whenever the country is to be +beautiful, we come into open air and open meadows. Homer places the +sirens in a meadow when they are to sing. Over the blue-grass, +therefore, one walks into the open air and open meadows of the +blue-grass land. + +This has long had reputation for being one of the very beautiful spots +of the earth, and it is worth while to consider those elements of +natural scenery wherein the beauty consists. + +One might say, first, that the landscape possesses what is so very rare +even in beautiful landscapes--the quality of gracefulness. Nowhere does +one encounter vertical lines or violent slopes; nor are there perfectly +level stretches like those that make the green fields monotonous in the +Dutch lowlands. The dark, finely sifted soil lies deep over the +limestone hills, filling out their chasms to evenness, and rounding +their jagged or precipitous edges, very much as a heavy snow at night +will leave the morning landscape with mitigated ruggedness and softer +curves. The long, slow action of water has further moulded everything +into symmetry, so that the low ancient hills descend to the valleys in +exquisite folds and uninterrupted slopes. The whole great plain +undulates away league after league towards the distant horizon in an +endless succession of gentle convex surfaces--like the easy swing of the +sea--presenting a panorama of subdued swells and retiring surges. +Everything in the blue-grass country is billowy and afloat. The spirit +of nature is intermediate between violent energy and complete repose; +and the effect of this mild activity is kept from monotony by the +accidental perspective of position, creating variety of details. + +One traces this quality of gracefulness in the labyrinthine courses of +the restful streams, in the disposition of forest masses, in the free, +unstudied succession of meadow, field, and lawn. Surely it is just this +order of low hill scenery, just these buoyant undulations, that should +be covered with the blue-grass. Had Hawthorne ever looked on this +landscape when most beautiful, he could never have said of England that +"no other country will ever have this charm of lovely verdure." + +Characteristically beautiful spots on the blue-grass landscape are the +woodland pastures. A Kentucky wheat field, a Kentucky meadow, a Kentucky +lawn, is but a field, a meadow, a lawn, found elsewhere; but a Kentucky +sylvan slope has a loveliness unique and local. Rightly do poets make +pre-eminently beautiful countries abound in trees. John Burroughs, +writing with enthusiasm of English woods, has said that "in midsummer +the hair of our trees seems to stand on end; the woods have a frightened +look, or as if they were just recovering from a debauch." This is not +true of the Kentucky woods, unless it be in some season of protracted +drought. The foliage of the Kentucky trees is not thin nor dishevelled, +the leaves crowd thick to the very ends of the boughs, and spread +themselves full to the sky, making, where they are close together, +under-spaces of green gloom scarcely shot through by sunbeams. Indeed, +one often finds here the perfection of tree forms. I mean that rare +development which brings the extremities of the boughs to the very limit +of the curve that nature intends the tree to define as the peculiar +shape of its species. Any but the most favorable conditions leave the +outline jagged, faulty, and untrue. Here and there over the blue-grass +landscape one's eye rests on a cone-shaped, or dome-shaped, or inverted +pear-shaped, or fan-shaped tree. Nor are fulness of leafage and +perfection of form alone to be noted; pendency of boughs is another +distinguishing feature. One who loves and closely studies trees will +note here the comparative absence of woody stiffness. It is expected +that the willow and the elm should droop their branches. Here the same +characteristic strikes you in the wild cherry, the maple, and the +sycamore--even in great walnuts and ashes and oaks; and I have +occasionally discovered exceeding grace of form in hackberries (which +usually look paralytic and as if waiting to hobble away on crutches), in +locusts, and in the harsh hickories--loved by Thoreau. + +But to return to the woodland pastures. They are the last vestiges of +that unbroken primeval forest which, together with cane-brakes and +pea-vines, covered the face of the country when it was first beheld by +the pioneers. No blue-grass then. In these woods the timber has been +so cut out that the remaining trees often stand clearly revealed in +their entire form, their far-reaching boughs perhaps not even touching +those of their nearest neighbor, or interlacing them with ineffectual +fondness. There is something pathetic in the sight, and in the +thought of those innumerable stricken ones that in years agone were +dismembered for cord-wood and kitchen stoves and the vast fireplaces +of old-time negro cabins. In the well kept blue-grass pasture +undergrowth and weeds are annually cut down, so that the massive +trunks are revealed from a distance; the better because the branches +seldom are lower than from ten to twenty feet above the earth. Thus in +its daily course the sun strikes every point beneath the broad +branches, and nourishes the blue-grass up to the very roots. All +savagery, all wildness, is taken out of these pastures; they are full +of tenderness and repose--of the utmost delicacy and elegance. Over +the graceful earth spreads the flowing green grass, uniform and +universal. Above this stand the full, swelling trunks--warm browns and +pale grays--often lichen-flecked or moss-enamelled. Over these expand +the vast domes and canopies of leafage. And falling down upon these +comes the placid sunshine through a sky of cerulean blueness, and past +the snowy zones of gleaming cloud. The very individuality of the tree +comes out as it never can in denser places. Always the most truly +human object in still, voiceless nature, it here throws out its arms +to you with imploring tenderness, with what Wordsworth called "the +soft eye-music of slow-waving boughs." One cannot travel far in the +blue-grass country without coming upon one of these woodland strips. + +[Illustration: NEGRO CABINS.] + +Of the artistic service rendered the landscape of this region by other +elements of scenery--atmosphere and cloud and sky--much might, but +little will, be said. The atmosphere is sometimes crystalline, sometimes +full of that intense repose of dazzling light which one, without ever +having seen them, knows to be on canvases of Turner. Then, again, it is +amber-hued, or tinged with soft blue, graduated to purple shadows on the +horizon. During the greater part of the year the cloud-sky is one of +strongly outlined forms; the great white cumuli drift over, with every +majesty of design and grace of grouping; but there come, in milder +seasons, many days when one may see three cloud belts in the heavens at +the same time, the lowest far, far away, and the highest brushing +softly, as it were, past the very dome of the inviolable blue. You turn +your eye downward to see the light wandering wistfully among the low +distant hills, and the sweet tremulous shadows crossing the meadows with +timid cadences. It _is_ a beautiful country; the Kentucky skies are not +the cold, hard, brilliant, hideous things that so many writers on nature +style American skies (usually meaning New England skies), as contrasted +with skies European. They are at times ineffably warm in tone and tender +in hue, giving aerial distances magical and fathomless above, and +throwing down upon the varied soft harmonious greens of the landscape +below, upon its rich browns and weathered grays and whole scheme of +terrene colors, a flood of radiance as bountiful and transfiguring as it +is chastened and benign. + +But why make a description of the blue-grass region of Kentucky? What +one sees may be only what one feels--only intricate affinities between +nature and self that were developed long ago, and have become too deep +to be viewed as relations or illusions. What two human beings find the +same things in the face of a third, or in nature's? Descriptions of +scenery are notoriously disappointing to those whose taste in landscape +is different, or who have little or no sentiment for pure landscape +beauty. So one coming hither might be sorely disappointed. No +mountains; no strips of distant blue gleaming water nor lawny cascades; +no grandeur; no majesty; no wild picturesqueness. The chords of +landscape harmony are very simple; nothing but softness and amenity, +grace and repose, delicacy and elegance. One might fail at seasons to +find even these. This is a beautiful country, but not always; there come +days when the climate shows as ugly a temper as possible. Not a little +of the finest timber has been lost by storms. The sky is for days one +great blanket of grewsome gray. In winter you laugh with chattering +teeth at those who call this "the South," the thermometer perhaps +registering from twelve to fifteen degrees below zero. In summer the +name is but a half-truth. Only by visiting this region during some +lovely season, or by dwelling here from year to year, and seeing it in +all the humors of storm and sunshine, can one love it. + + +III + +But the ideal landscape of daily life must not be merely beautiful: it +should be useful. With what may not the fertility of this region be +compared? With the valleys of the Schuylkill, the Shenandoah, and the +Genesee; with the richest lands of Lombardy and Belgium; with the most +fertile districts of England. The evidences of this fertility are +everywhere. Nature, even in those places where she has been forced for +nearly a hundred years to bear much at the hands of a not always +judicious agriculture, unceasingly struggles to cover herself with +bushes of all sorts and nameless annual weeds and grasses. Even the +blue-grass contends in vain for complete possession of its freehold. One +is forced to note, even though without sentiment, the rich pageant of +transitory wild bloom that _will_ force a passage for itself over the +landscape: firmaments of golden dandelions in the lawns; vast beds of +violets, gray and blue, in dim glades; patches of flaunting sunflowers +along the road-sides; purple thistles; and, of deeper purple still and +far denser growth, beautiful ironweed in the woods; with many clumps of +alder bloom, and fast-extending patches of perennial blackberry, and +groups of delicate May-apples, and whole fields of dog-fennel and +golden-rod. And why mention indomitable dock and gigantic poke, burrs +and plenteous nightshade, and mullein and plantain, with dusty +gray-green ragweed and thrifty fox-tail?--an innumerable company. + +Maize, pumpkins, and beans grow together in a field--a triple crop. +Nature perfects them all, yet must do more. Scarce have the ploughs left +the furrows before there springs up a varied wild growth, and a fourth +crop, morning-glories, festoon the tall tassels of the Indian corn +ere the knife can be laid against the stalk. Harvest fields usually have +their stubble well hidden by a rich, deep aftermath. Garden patches, for +all that hoe and rake can do, commonly look at last like spots given +over to weeds and grasses. Sidewalks quickly lose their borders. +Pavements would soon disappear from sight; the winding of a distant +stream through the fields can be readily followed by the line of +vegetation that rushes there to fight for life, from the minutest +creeping vines to forest trees. Every neglected fence corner becomes an +area for a fresh colony. Leave one of these sweet, humanized woodland +pastures alone for a short period of years, it runs wild with a dense +young natural forest; vines shoot up to the tops of the tallest trees, +and then tumble over in green sprays on the heads of others. + +[Illustration: CATTLE IN A BLUE-GRASS PASTURE.] + +A kind, true, patient, self-helpful soil if ever there was one! Some of +these lands after being cultivated, not always scientifically, but +always without artificial fertilizers, for more than three-quarters of a +century, are now, if properly treated, equal in productiveness to the +best farming lands of England. The farmer from one of these old fields +will take two different crops in a season. He gets two cuttings of +clover from a meadow, and has rich grazing left. A few counties have at +a time produced three-fourths of the entire hemp product of the United +States. The State itself has at different times stood first in wheat +and hemp and Indian corn and wool and tobacco and flax, although half +its territory is covered with virgin forests. When lands under improper +treatment have become impoverished, their productiveness has been +restored, not by artificial fertilizers, but by simple rotation of +crops, with nature's help. The soil rests on decomposable limestone, +which annually gives up to it in solution all the essential mineral +plant food that judicious agriculture needs. + +Soil and air and climate--the entire aggregate of influences happily +co-operative--make the finest grazing. The Kentucky horse has carried +the reputation of the country into regions where even the people could +never have made it known. Your expert in the breeding of thoroughbreds +will tell you that the muscular fibre of the blue-grass animal is to +that of the Pennsylvania-bred horses as silk to cotton, and the texture +of his bone, compared with the latter's, as ivory beside pumice-stone. +If taken to the Eastern States, in twelve generations he is no longer +the same breed of horse. His blood fertilizes American stock the +continent over. Jersey cattle brought here increase in size. Sires come +to Kentucky to make themselves and their offspring famous. + +The people themselves are a fecund race. Out of this State have gone +more to enrich the citizenship of the nation than all the other States +together have been able to send into it. So at least your loyal-hearted +Kentuckian looks at the rather delicate subject of inter-State +migration. By actual measurement the Kentucky volunteers during the +Civil War were found to surpass all others (except Tennesseeans) in +height and weight, whether coming from the United States or various +countries of Europe. But for the great-headed Scandinavians, they would +have been first, also, in circumference around the forehead and occiput. +Still, Kentucky has little or no literature. + +[Illustration: HEMP FIELD.] + +One element that should be conspicuous in fertile countries does not +strike the observer here--much beautiful water; no other State has a +frontage of navigable rivers equal to that of Kentucky. But there are +few limpid, lovely, smaller streams. Wonderful springs there are, and +vast stores of water in the cavernous earth below; but the landscape +lacks the charm of this element--clear, rushing, musical, abundant. The +watercourses, ever winding and graceful, are apt to be either swollen +and turbid or insignificant; of late years the beds seem less full +also--a change consequent, perhaps, upon the denudation of forest lands. +In a dry season the historic Elkhorn seems little more than a ganglion +of precarious pools. + + +IV + +The best artists who have painted cultivated ground have always been +very careful to limit the area of the crops. Undoubtedly the +substitution of a more scientific agriculture for the loose and easy +ways of primitive husbandry has changed the key-note of rural existence +from a tender Virgilian sentiment to a coarser strain, and as life +becomes more unsophisticated it grows less picturesque. When the work of +the old-time reaper is done by a fat man with a flaming face, sitting on +a cast-iron machine, and smoking a cob pipe, the artist will leave the +fields. Figures have a terrible power to destroy sentiment in pure +landscape; so have houses. When one leaves nature, pure and simple, in +the blue-grass country, he must accordingly pick his way circumspectly +or go amiss in his search for the beautiful. If his taste lead him to +desire in landscapes the finest evidences of human labor, the high +artificial finish of a minutely careful civilization, he will here find +great disappointment. On the other hand, if he delight in those +exquisite rural spots of the Old World with picturesque bits of +homestead architecture and the perfection of horticultural and +unobtrusive botanical details, he will be no less aggrieved. What he +sees here is neither the most scientific farming, simply economic and +utilitarian--raw and rude--nor that cultivated desire for the elements +in nature to be so moulded by the hand of man that they will fuse +harmoniously and inextricably with his habitations and his work. + +The whole face of the country is taken up by a succession of farms. Each +of these, except the very small ones, presents to the eye the variation +of meadow, field, and woodland pasture, together with the homestead and +the surrounding grounds of orchard, garden, and lawn. The entire +landscape is thus caught in a vast net-work of fences. The Kentuckian +retains his English ancestors' love of enclosures; but the uncertain +tenure of estates beyond a single generation does not encourage him to +make them the most durable. One does, indeed, notice here and there +throughout the country stone-walls of blue limestone, that give an +aspect of substantial repose and comfortable firmness to the scenery. +But the farmer dreads their costliness, even though his own hill-sides +furnish him an abundant quarry. He knows that unless the foundations +are laid like those of a house, the thawing earth will unsettle them, +that water, freezing as it trickles through the crevices, will force the +stones out of their places, and that breaches will be made in them by +boys on a hunt whenever and wherever it shall be necessary to get at a +lurking or sorely pressed hare. It is ludicrously true that the most +terrible destroyer of stone-walls in this country is the small boy +hunting a hare, with an appetite for game that knows no geological +impediment. Therefore one hears of fewer limestone fences of late years, +some being torn down and superseded by plank fences or post-and-rail +fences, or by the newer barbed-wire fence--an economic device that will +probably become as popular in regions where stone and timber were never +to be had as in others, like this, where timber has been ignorantly, +wantonly sacrificed. It is a pleasure to know that one of the most +expensive, and certainly the most hideous, fences ever in vogue here is +falling into disuse. I mean the worm-fence--called worm because it +wriggled over the landscape like a long brown caterpillar, the stakes +being the bristles along its back, and because it now and then ate up a +noble walnut-tree close by, or a kingly oak, or frightened, trembling +ash--a worm that decided the destiny of forests. A pleasure it is, too, +to come occasionally upon an Osage orange hedge-row, which is a green +eternal fence. But you will not find many of these. It is generally too +much to ask of an American, even though he be a Kentuckian, to wait for +a hedge to grow and make him a fence. When he takes a notion to have a +fence, he wants it put up before Saturday night. + +[Illustration: TOBACCO PATCH.] + +If the Kentuckian, like the Englishman, is fond of fencing himself off, +like the Frenchman, he loves long, straight roads. You will not find +elsewhere in America such highways as the Kentuckian has constructed +over his country--broad, smooth, level, white, glistening turnpikes of +macadamized limestone. It is a luxury to drive, and also an expense, as +one will discover before one has passed through many toll-gates. One +could travel more cheaply on the finest railway on the continent. What +Richard Grant White thought it worth while to record as a rare and +interesting sight--a man on an English highway breaking stones--is no +uncommon sight here. All limestone for these hundreds of miles of road, +having been quarried here, there, anywhere, and carted and strewn along +the road-side, is broken by a hammer in the hand. By the highway the +workman sits--usually an Irishman--pecking away at a long rugged pile as +though he were good to live for a thousand years. Somehow, in patience, +he always gets to the other end of his hard row. + +One cannot sojourn long without coming to conceive an interest in this +limestone, and loving to meet its rich warm hues on the landscape. It +has made a deal of history: limestone blue-grass, limestone water, +limestone roads, limestone fences, limestone bridges and arches, +limestone engineering architecture, limestone water-mills, limestone +spring-houses and homesteads--limestone Kentuckians! Outside of +Scripture no people was ever so founded on a rock. It might be well to +note, likewise, that the soil of this region is what scientists call +sedentary--called so because it sits quietly on the rocks, not because +the people sit quietly on it. + +Undoubtedly the most picturesque monuments in the blue-grass country are +old stone water-mills and old stone homesteads--landmarks each for +separate trains of ideas that run to poetry and to history. The latter, +built by pioneers or descendants of pioneers, nearly a hundred years +ago, stand gray with years, but good for nameless years to come; great +low chimneys, deep little windows, thick walls, mighty fireplaces; +situated usually with keen discretion on an elevation near a spring, +just as a Saxon forefather would have placed them centuries ago. Haply +one will see the water of this spring issuing still from a recess in a +hill-side, with an overhanging ledge of rock--the entrance to this +cavern being walled across and closed with a gate, thus making, +according to ancient fashion, a simple natural spring-house and dairy. + +Something like a feeling of exasperation is apt to come over one in +turning to the typical modern houses. Nowhere, certainly, in rural +America, are there, within the same area, more substantial, comfortable +homesteads. They are nothing if not spacious and healthful, frame or +brick, two stories, shingle roofs. But they lack characteristic +physiognomy; they have no harmony with the landscape, nor with each +other, nor often with themselves. They are not beautiful when new, and +can never be beautiful when old; for the beauty of newness and the +beauty of oldness alike depend on beauty of form and color, which here +is lacking. One longs for the sight of a rural Gothic cottage, which +would harmonize so well with the order of the scenery, or for a light, +elegant villa that should overlook these light and elegant undulations +of a beautiful and varied landscape. It must be understood that there +are notable exceptions to these statements even in the outlying +districts of the blue-grass country, and that they do not apply to the +environs of the towns, nor to the towns themselves. + +Nowhere does one see masses of merely beautiful things in the country. +The slumbering art of interior decoration is usually spent upon the +parlor. The grounds around the houses are not kept in the best order. +The typical rural Kentucky housewife does not seem to have any +compelling, controlling sense of the beautiful. She invariably concedes +something to beauty, but not enough. You will find a show of flowers at +the poorest houses, though but geranium slips in miscellaneous tins and +pottery. But you do not generally see around more prosperous homes any +such parterres or beds as there is money to spend on, and time to tend, +and grounds to justify. + +[Illustration: HARRODSBURG PIKE.] + +A like spirit is shown by the ordinary blue-grass farmer. His management +strikes you as not the pink of tidiness, not the model of systematic +thrift. Exceptions exist--many exceptions--but the rule holds good. One +cannot travel here in summer or autumn without observing that weeds +flourish where they harm and create ugliness; fences go unrepaired; +gates may be found swinging on one hinge. He misuses his long-cultivated +fields; he cuts down his scant, precious trees. His energy is not +tireless, his watchfulness not sleepless. Why should they be? Human life +here is not massed and swarming. The occupation of the soil is not close +and niggard. The landscape is not even compact, much less crowded. There +is room for more, plenty for more to eat. No man here, like the ancient +Roman prætor, ever decided how often one might, without trespass, gather +the acorns that fall from his neighbors' trees. No woman ever went +through a blue-grass harvest field gleaning. Ruth's vocation is unknown. +By nature the Kentuckian is no rigid economist. By birth, education, +tradition, and inherited tendencies he is not a country clout, but a +rural gentleman. His ideal of life is neither vast wealth nor personal +distinction, but solid comfort in material conditions, and the material +conditions are easy: fertility of soil, annual excess of production over +consumption, comparative thinness of population. So he does not brace +himself for the tense struggle of life as it goes on in centres of +fierce territorial shoulder-pushing. He can afford to indulge his +slackness of endeavor. He is neither an alert aggressive agriculturist, +nor a landscape gardener, nor a purveyor of commodities to the +green-grocer. If the world wants vegetables, let it raise them. He +declines to work himself to death for other people, though they pay him +for it. His wife is a lady, not a domestic laborer; and it is her +privilege, in household affairs, placidly to surround herself with an +abundance which the lifelong female economists of the North would regard +with conscientious indignation. + +In truth, there is much evidence to show that this park-like country, +intersected by many beautiful railroads, turnpikes, and shaded +picturesque lanes, will become less and less an agricultural district, +more and more a region of unequalled pasturage, and hence more park-like +still. One great interest abides here, of course--the manufacture of +Bourbon whiskey. Another interest has only within the last few years +been developed--the cultivation of tobacco, for which it was formerly +thought that the blue-grass soils were not adapted. But as years go by, +the stock interests invite more capital, demand more attention, give +more pleasure--in a word, strike the full chord of modern interest by +furnishing an unparalleled means of speculative profit. + +Forty years ago the most distinguished citizens of the State were +engaged in writing essays and prize papers on scientific agriculture. A +regular trotting track was not to be found in the whole country. Nothing +was thought of the breeding and training of horses with reference to +development of greater speed. Pacing horses were fashionable; and two +great rivals in this gait having been brought together for a trial of +speed, in lieu of a track, paced a mighty race over a river-bottom flat. +We have changed all that. The gentlemen no longer write their essays. +Beef won the spurs of knighthood. In Kentucky the horse has already been +styled the first citizen. The great agricultural fairs of the State have +modified their exhibits with reference to him alone, and fifteen or +twenty thousand people give afternoon after afternoon to the +contemplation of his beauty and his speed. His one rival is the +thoroughbred, who goes on running faster and faster. One of the brief +code of nine laws for the government of the young Kentucky commonwealth +that were passed in the first legislative assembly ever held west of +the Alleghanies dealt with the preservation of the breed of horses. +Nothing was said of education. The Kentuckian loves the memory of Thomas +Jefferson, not forgetting that he once ran racehorses. These great +interests, not overlooking the cattle interest, the manufacture of +whiskey, and the raising of tobacco, will no doubt constitute the future +determining factors in the history of this country. It should not be +forgotten, however, that the Northern and Eastern palate becomes kindly +disposed at the bare mention of the many thousands of turkeys that +annually fatten on these plains. + + +V + +"In Kentucky," writes Professor Shaler, in his recent history, "we shall +find nearly pure English blood. It is, moreover, the largest body of +pure English folk that has, speaking generally, been separated from the +mother country for two hundred years." They, the blue-grass Kentuckians, +are the descendants of those hardy, high-spirited, picked Englishmen, +largely of the squire and yeoman class, whose absorbing passion was not +religious disputation, nor the intellectual purpose of founding a State, +but the ownership of land and the pursuits and pleasures of rural life, +close to the rich soil, and full of its strength and sunlight. They +have to this day, in a degree perhaps equalled by no others living, the +race qualities of their English ancestry and the tastes and habitudes of +their forefathers. If one knows the Saxon nature, and has been a close +student of Kentucky life and character, stripped bare of the accidental +circumstances of local environment, he may amuse himself with laying the +two side by side and comparing the points of essential likeness. It is a +question whether the Kentuckian is not more like his English ancestor +than his New England contemporary. This is an old country, as things go +in the West. The rock formation is very old; the soil is old; the race +qualities here are old. In the Sagas, in the Edda, a man must be +over-brave. "Let all who are not cowards follow me!" cried McGary, +putting an end to prudent counsel on the eve of the battle of the Blue +Licks. The Kentuckian winced under the implication then, and has done it +in a thousand instances since. Over-bravery! The idea runs through the +pages of Kentucky history, drawing them back into the centuries of his +race. It is this quality of temper and conception of manhood that has +operated to build up in the mind of the world the figure of the typical +Kentuckian. Hawthorne conversed with an old man in England who told him +that the Kentuckians flayed Tecumseh where he fell, and converted his +skin into razor-strops. Collins, the Kentucky Froissart, speaking of +Kentucky pioneers, relates of the father of one of them that he knocked +Washington down in a quarrel, and received an apology from the Father of +his Country on the following day. I have mentioned this typical Hotspur +figure because I knew it would come foremost into the mind of the reader +whenever one began to speak with candor of Kentucky life and character. +It was never a true type: satire bit always into burlesque along lines +of coarseness and exaggeration. Much less is it true now, except in so +far as it describes a kind of human being found the world over. + +But I was saying that old race qualities are apparent here, because this +is a people of English blood with hereditary agricultural tastes, and +because it has remained to this day largely uncommingled with foreign +strains. Here, for instance, is the old race conservatism that expends +itself reverentially on established ways and familiar customs. The +building of the first great turnpike in this country was opposed on the +ground that it would shut up way-side taverns, throw wagons and teams +out of employment, and destroy the market for chickens and oats. Prior +to that, immigration was discouraged because it would make the already +high prices of necessary articles so exorbitant that the permanent +prosperity of the State would receive a fatal check. True, however, this +opposition was not without a certain philosophy; for in those days +people went to some distant lick for their salt, bought it warm from +the kettle at seven or eight cents a pound, and packed it home on +horseback, so that a fourth dropped away in bitter water. Coming back to +the present, the huge yellowish-red stage-coach rolls to-day over the +marbled roads of the blue-grass country. Families may be found living +exactly where their pioneer ancestors effected a heroic settlement--a +landed aristocracy, if there be such in America. Family names come down +from generation to generation, just as a glance at the British peerage +will show that they were long ago being transmitted in kindred families +over the sea. One great honored name will do nearly as much in Kentucky +as in England to keep a family in peculiar respect, after the reason for +it has ceased. Here is that old invincible race ideal of personal +liberty, and that old, unreckoning, truculent, animal rage at whatever +infringes on it. The Kentuckians were among the very earliest to grant +manhood suffrage. Nowhere in this country are the rights of property +more inviolable, the violations of these more surely punished: neither +counsel nor judge nor any power whatsoever can acquit a man who has +taken fourpence of his neighbor's goods. Here is the old land-loving, +land-holding, home-staying, home-defending disposition. This is not the +lunching, tourist race that, to Mr. Ruskin's horror, leaves its crumbs +and chicken-bones on the glaciers. The simple rural key-note of life is +still the sweetest. Now, after the lapse of more than a century, the +most populous town contains less than twenty thousand white souls. Along +with the love of land has gone comparative content with the annual +increase of flock and field. No man among them has ever got immense +wealth. Here is the old sense of personal privacy and reserve which has +for centuries intrenched the Englishman in the heart of his estate, and +forced him to regard with inexpugnable discomfort his neighbor's +boundaries. This would have been a densely peopled region, the farms +would have been minutely subdivided, had sons asked and received +permission to settle on parts of the ancestral estate. This filling in +and too close personal contact would have satisfied neither father nor +child, so that the one has generally kept his acres intact, and the +other, impelled by the same land-hunger that brought his pioneer +forefather hither, has gone hence into the younger West, where lie +broader tracts and vaster spaces. Here is the old idea, somewhat current +still in England, that the highest mark of the gentleman is not +cultivation of the mind, not intellect, not knowledge, but elegant +living. Here is the old hereditary devotion to the idea of the State. +Write the biographies of the Kentuckians who have been engaged in +national or in local politics, and you have largely the history of the +State of Kentucky. Write the lives of all its scientists, artists, +musicians, actors, poets, novelists, and you find many weary +mile-stones between the chapters. + +[Illustration: A SPRING-HOUSE.] + +Enter the blue-grass region from what point you choose--and you may do +this, so well traversed is it by railways--and you become sensitive to +its influence. If you come from the North or the East, you say: "This is +not modern America. Here is something local and unique. For one thing, +nothing goes fast here." By-and-by you see a blue-grass race-horse, and +note an exception. But you do not also except the rider or the driver. +The speed is not his. He is a mere bunch of mistletoe to the horse. +Detach him, and he is not worth timing. Human speed for the most part +lies fallow. Every man starts for the goal of life at his own natural +gait, and if he sees that it is too far off for him to reach it in a +lifetime, he does not run the faster, but has the goal moved nearer him. +The Kentuckians are not provincial. As Thoreau said, no people can long +remain provincial who have a propensity for politics, whittling, and +rapid travelling. They are not inaccessible to modern ideas, but the +shock of modern ideas has not electrified them. They have walled +themselves around with old race instincts and habitudes, and when the +stream of tendency rushes against this wall, it recoils upon itself +instead of sweeping away the barrier. + +The typical Kentuckian regards himself an American of the Americans, and +thinks as little of being like the English as he would of imitating the +Jutes. In nothing is he more like his transatlantic ancestry than in +strong self-content. He sits on his farm as though it were the pole of +the heavens--a manly man with a heart in him. Usually of the blond type, +robust, well formed, with clear, fair complexion, that grows ruddier +with age and stomachic development, full neck, and an open, kind, +untroubled countenance. He is frank, but not familiar; talkative, but +not garrulous; full of the genial humor of local hits and allusions, but +without a subtle nimbleness of wit; indulgent towards purely masculine +vices, but intolerant of petty crimes; no reader of books nor master in +religious debate, faith coming to him as naturally as his appetite, and +growing with what it feeds upon; loving roast pig, but not caring +particularly for Lamb's eulogy; loving his grass like a Greek, not +because it is beautiful, but because it is fresh and green; a peaceful +man with strong passions, and so to be heartily loved and respected or +heartily hated and respected, but never despised or trifled with. An +occasional barbecue in the woods, where the saddles of South Down mutton +are roasted on spits over the coals of the mighty trench, and the +steaming kettles of burgoo lend their savor to the nose of the hungry +political orator, so that he becomes all the more impetuous in his +invectives; the great agricultural fairs; the race-courses; the monthly +county court day, when he meets his neighbors on the public square of +the nearest town; the quiet Sunday mornings, when he meets them again +for rather more clandestine talks at the front door of the neighborhood +church--these and his own fireside are his characteristic and ample +pleasures. You will never be under his roof without being touched by the +mellowest of all the virtues of his race--simple, unsparing human +kindness and hospitality. + +The women of Kentucky have long had reputation for beauty. An average +type is a refinement on the English blonde--greater delicacy of form, +feature, and color. A beautiful Kentucky woman is apt to be exceedingly +beautiful. Her voice is low and soft; her hands and feet delicately +formed; her skin pure and beautiful in tint and shading; her eyes blue +or brown, and hair nut brown or golden brown; to all which is added a +certain unapproachable refinement. It must not for a moment be supposed, +however, that there are not many genuinely ugly women in Kentucky. + + + + +UNCLE TOM AT HOME + + +I + +On the outskirts of the towns of central Kentucky, a stranger, searching +for the picturesque in architecture and in life, would find his +attention arrested by certain masses of low frame and brick structures, +and by the multitudes of strange human beings that inhabit them. A +single town may have on its edges several of these settlements, which +are themselves called "towns," and bear separate names either +descriptive of some topographical peculiarity or taken from the original +owners of the lots. It is in these that a great part of the negro +population of Kentucky has packed itself since the war. Here live the +slaves of the past with their descendants; old family servants from the +once populous country-places; old wagon-drivers from the deep-rutted +lanes; old wood-choppers from the slaughtered blue-grass forests; old +harvesters and ploughmen from the long since abandoned fields; old cooks +from the savory, wasteful kitchens; old nurses from the softly rocked +and softly sung-to cradles. Here, too, are the homes of the younger +generation, of the laundresses and the barbers, teachers and ministers +of the gospel, coachmen and porters, restaurant-keepers and vagabonds, +hands from the hemp factories, and workmen on the outlying farms. + +You step easily from the verge of the white population to the confines +of the black. But it is a great distance--like the crossing of a vast +continent between the habitats of alien races. The air seems all at once +to tan the cheek. Out of the cold, blue recesses of the midsummer sky +the sun burns with a fierceness of heat that warps the shingles of the +pointed roofs and flares with blinding brilliancy against some +whitewashed wall. Perhaps in all the street no little cooling stretch of +shade. The unpaved sidewalks and the roadway between are but +indistinguishable parts of a common thoroughfare, along which every +upspringing green thing is quickly trodden to death beneath the +ubiquitous play and passing of many feet. Here and there, from some +shielded nook or other coign of vantage, a single plumy branch of +dog-fennel may be seen spreading its small firmament of white and golden +stars close to the ground; or between its pale green stalks the faint +lavender of the nightshade will take the eye as the sole emblem of the +flowering world. + +A negro town! Looking out the doors and windows of the cabins, lounging +in the door-ways, leaning over the low frame fences, gathering into +quickly forming, quickly dissolving groups in the dusty streets, they +swarm. They are here from milk-white through all deepening shades to +glossy blackness; octoroons, quadroons, mulattoes--some with large +liquid black eyes, refined features, delicate forms; working, gossiping, +higgling over prices around a vegetable cart, discussing last night's +church festival, to-day's funeral, or next week's railway excursion, +sleeping, planning how to get work and how to escape it. From some +unseen old figure in flamboyant turban, bending over the wash-tub in the +rear of a cabin, comes a crooned song of indescribable pathos; behind a +half-closed front shutter, a Moorish-hued _amosoro_ in gay linen thrums +his banjo in a measure of ecstatic gayety preluding the more passionate +melodies of the coming night. Here a fight; there the sound of the +fiddle and the rhythmic patting of hands. Tatters and silks flaunt +themselves side by side. Dirt and cleanliness lie down together. +Indolence goes hand in hand with thrift. Superstition dogs the slow +footsteps of reason. Passion and self-control eye each other across the +narrow way. If there is anywhere resolute virtue, round it is a weltered +muck of low and sensual desire. One sees the surviving types of old +negro life here crowded together with and contrasted with the new phases +of "colored" life--sees the transitional stage of a race, part of whom +were born slaves and are now freemen, part of whom have been born +freemen but remain so much like slaves. + +It cannot fail to happen, as you walk along, that you will come upon +some cabin set back in a small yard and half hidden, front and side, by +an almost tropical jungle of vines and multiform foliage: patches of +great sunflowers, never more leonine in tawny magnificence and +sun-loving repose; festoons of white and purple morning-glories over the +windows and up to the low eaves; around the porch and above the +door-way, a trellis of gourd-vines swinging their long-necked, grotesque +yellow fruit; about the entrance flaming hollyhocks and other brilliant +bits of bloom, marigolds and petunias--evidences of the warm, native +taste that still distinguishes the negro after some centuries of contact +with the cold, chastened ideals of the Anglo-Saxon. + +In the door-way of such a cabin, sheltered from the afternoon sun by his +dense jungle of vines, but with a few rays of light glinting through the +fluttering leaves across his seamed black face and white woolly head, +the muscles of his once powerful arms shrunken, the gnarled hands folded +idly in his lap--his occupation gone--you will haply see some old-time +slave of the class of Mrs. Stowe's Uncle Tom. For it is true that +scattered here and there throughout the negro towns of Kentucky are +representatives of the same class that furnished her with her hero; +true, also, that they were never sold by their Kentucky masters to the +plantations of the South, but remained unsold down to the last days of +slavery. + +When the war scattered the negroes of Kentucky blindly, tumultuously, +hither and thither, many of them gathered the members of their families +about them and moved from the country into these "towns;" and here the +few survivors live, ready to testify of their relations with their +former masters and mistresses, and indirectly serving to point a great +moral: that, however justly Mrs. Stowe may have chosen one of their +number as best fitted to show the fairest aspects of domestic slavery in +the United States, she departed from the common truth of history, as it +respected their lot in life, when she condemned her Uncle Tom to his +tragical fate. For it was not the _character_ of Uncle Tom that she +greatly idealized, as has been so often asserted; it was the category of +events that were made to befall him. + +As citizens of the American Republic, these old negroes--now known as +"colored gentlemen," surrounded by "colored ladies and gentlemen"--have +not done a great deal. The bud of liberty was ingrafted too late on the +ancient slave-stock to bear much fruit. But they are interesting, as +contemporaries of a type of Kentucky negro whose virtues and whose +sorrows, dramatically embodied in literature, have become a by-word +throughout the civilized world. And now that the war-cloud is lifting +from over the landscape of the past, so that it lies still clear to the +eyes of those who were once the dwellers amid its scenes, it is perhaps +a good time to scan it and note some of its great moral landmarks before +it grows remoter and is finally forgotten. + + +II + +These three types--Mrs. Stowe's Uncle Tom, and the Shelbys, his master +and mistress--were the outgrowth of natural and historic conditions +peculiar to Kentucky. "Perhaps," wrote Mrs. Stowe in her novel, "the +mildest form of the system of slavery is to be seen in the State of +Kentucky. The general prevalence of agricultural pursuits of a quiet and +gradual nature, not requiring those periodic seasons of hurry and +pressure that are called for in the business of more southern districts, +makes the task of the negro a more healthful and reasonable one; while +the master, content with a more gradual style of acquisition, had not +those temptations to hard-heartedness which always overcome frail human +nature, when the prospect of sudden and rapid gain is weighed in the +balance with no heavier counterpoise than the interests of the helpless +and unprotected." These words contain many truths. + +For it must not be forgotten, first of all, that the condition of the +slave in Kentucky was measurably determined by certain physical laws +which lay beyond the control of the most inhuman master. Consider the +nature of the country--elevated, rolling, without miasmatic districts or +fatal swamps; the soil in the main slave-holding portions of the State +easily tilled, abundantly yielding; the climate temperate and +invigorating. Consider the system of agriculture--not that of vast +plantations, but of small farms, part of which regularly consisted of +woodland and meadow that required little attention. Consider the further +limitations to this system imposed by the range of the great Kentucky +staples--it being in the nature of corn, wheat, hemp, and tobacco, not +to yield profits sufficient to justify the employment of an immense +predial force, nor to require seasons of forced and exhausting labor. It +is evident that under such conditions slavery was not stamped with those +sadder features which it wore beneath a devastating sun, amid unhealthy +or sterile regions of country, and through the herding together of +hundreds of slaves who had the outward but not the inward discipline of +an army. True, one recalls here the often quoted words of Jefferson on +the raising of tobacco--words nearly as often misapplied as quoted; for +he was considering the condition of slaves who were unmercifully worked +on exhausted lands by a certain proletarian type of master, who did not +feed and clothe them. Only under such circumstances could the culture of +this plant be described as "productive of infinite wretchedness," and +those engaged in it as "in a continual state of exertion beyond the +powers of nature to support." It was by reason of these physical facts +that slavery in Kentucky assumed the phase which is to be distinguished +as domestic; and it was this mode that had prevailed at the North and +made emancipation easy. + +Furthermore, in all history the condition of an enslaved race under the +enslaving one has been partly determined by the degree of moral +justification with which the latter has regarded the subject of human +bondage; and the life of the Kentucky negro, say in the days of Uncle +Tom, was further modified by the body of laws which had crystallized as +the sentiment of the people, slave-holders themselves. But even these +laws were only a partial exponent of what that sentiment was; for some +of the severest were practically a dead letter, and the clemency of the +negro's treatment by the prevailing type of master made amends for the +hard provisions of others. + +It would be a difficult thing to write the history of slavery in +Kentucky. It is impossible to write a single page of it here. But it may +be said that the conscience of the great body of the people was always +sensitive touching the rightfulness of the institution. At the very +outset it seems to have been recognized simply for the reason that the +early settlers were emigrants from slave-holding States and brought +their negroes with them. The commonwealth began its legislation on the +subject in the face of an opposing sentiment. By early statute +restriction was placed on the importation of slaves, and from the first +they began to be emancipated. Throughout the seventy-five years of +pro-slavery State-life, the general conscience was always troubled. + +The churches took up the matter. Great preachers, whose names were +influential beyond the State, denounced the system from the pulpit, +pleaded for the humane and Christian treatment of slaves, advocated +gradual emancipation. One religious body after another proclaimed the +moral evil of it, and urged that the young be taught and prepared as +soon as possible for freedom. Antislavery publications and addresses, +together with the bold words of great political leaders, acted as a +further leaven in the mind of the slave-holding class. As evidence of +this, when the new constitution of the State was to be adopted, about +1850, thirty thousand votes were cast in favor of an open clause in it, +whereby gradual emancipation should become a law as soon as the majority +of the citizens should deem it expedient for the peace of society; and +these votes represented the richest, most intelligent slave-holders in +the State. + +In general the laws were perhaps the mildest. Some it is vital to the +subject not to pass over. If slaves were inhumanly treated by their +owner or not supplied with proper food and clothing, they could be taken +from him and sold to a better master. This law was not inoperative. I +have in mind the instance of a family who lost their negroes in this +way, were socially disgraced, and left their neighborhood. If the owner +of a slave had bought him on condition of not selling him out of the +county, or into the Southern States, or so as not to separate him from +his family, he could be sued for violation of contract. This law shows +the opposition of the better class of Kentucky masters to the +slave-trade, and their peculiar regard for the family ties of +their negroes. In the earliest Kentucky newspapers will be found +advertisements of the sales of negroes, on condition that they would be +bought and kept within the county or the State. It was within chancery +jurisdiction to prevent the separation of families. The case may be +mentioned of a master who was tried by his Church for unnecessarily +separating a husband from his wife. Sometimes slaves who had been +liberated and had gone to Canada voluntarily returned into service under +their former masters. Lest these should be overreached, they were to be +taken aside and examined by the court to see that they understood the +consequences of their own action, and were free from improper +constraint. On the other hand, if a slave had a right to his freedom, he +could file a bill in chancery and enforce his master's assent thereto. + +But a clear distinction must be made between the mild view entertained +by the Kentucky slave-holders regarding the system itself and their +dislike of the agitators of forcible and immediate emancipation. A +community of masters, themselves humane to their negroes and probably +intending to liberate them in the end, would yet combine into a mob to +put down individual or organized antislavery efforts, because they +resented what they regarded an interference of the abolitionist with +their own affairs, and believed his measures inexpedient for the peace +of society. Therefore, the history of the antislavery movement in +Kentucky, at times so turbulent, must not be used to show the sentiment +of the people regarding slavery itself. + + +III + +From these general considerations it is possible to enter more closely +upon a study of the domestic life and relations of Uncle Tom and the +Shelbys. + +"Whoever visits some estates there," wrote Mrs. Stowe, "and witnesses +the good-humored indulgence of some masters and mistresses and the +affectionate loyalty of some slaves, might be tempted to dream of the +oft-fabled poetic legend of a patriarchal institution." Along with these +words, taken from _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, I should like to quote an extract +from a letter written me by Mrs. Stowe under date of April 30, 1886: + + "In relation to your letter, I would say that I never lived in + Kentucky, but spent many years in Cincinnati, which is separated + from Kentucky only by the Ohio River, which, as a shrewd + politician remarked, was dry one-half the year and frozen the + other. My father was president of a theological seminary at Walnut + Hills, near Cincinnati, and with him I travelled and visited + somewhat extensively in Kentucky, and there became acquainted + with those excellent slave-holders delineated in _Uncle Tom's + Cabin_. I saw many counterparts of the Shelbys--people humane, + conscientious, just and generous, who regarded slavery as an evil + and were anxiously considering their duties to the slave. But + it was not till I had finally left the West, and my husband was + settled as professor in Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, that + the passage of the fugitive-slave law and the distresses that + followed it drew this from me." + +The typical boy on a Kentucky farm was tenderly associated from infancy +with the negroes of the household and the fields. His old black "Mammy" +became almost his first mother, and was but slowly crowded out of his +conscience and his heart by the growing image of the true one. She had +perhaps nursed him at her bosom when he was not long enough to stretch +across it, sung over his cradle at noon and at midnight, taken him out +upon the velvety grass beneath the shade of the elm-trees to watch his +first manly resolution of standing alone in the world and walking the +vast distance of some inches. Often, in boyish years, when flying from +the house with a loud appeal from the incomprehensible code of +Anglo-Saxon punishment for small misdemeanors, he had run to those black +arms and cried himself to sleep in the lap of African sympathy. As he +grew older, alas! his first love grew faithless; and while "Mammy" was +good enough in her way and sphere, his wandering affections settled +humbly at the feet of another great functionary of the household--the +cook in the kitchen. To him her keys were as the keys to the kingdom of +heaven, for his immortal soul was his immortal appetite. When he stood +by the biscuit bench while she, pausing amid the varied industries that +went into the preparation of an old-time Kentucky supper, made him +marvellous geese of dough, with farinaceous feathers and genuine +coffee-grains for eyes, there was to him no other artist in the world +who possessed the secret of so commingling the useful with the +beautiful. + +[Illustration: THE MAMMY.] + +The little half-naked imps, too, playing in the dirt like glossy +blackbirds taking a bath of dust, were his sweetest, because perhaps his +forbidden, companions. With them he went clandestinely to the fatal +duck-pond in the stable lot, to learn the art of swimming on a walnut +rail. With them he raced up and down the lane on blooded alder-stalk +horses, afterwards leading the exhausted coursers into stables of green +bushes and haltering them high with a cotton string. It was one of these +hatless children of original Guinea that had crept up to him as he lay +asleep in the summer grass and told him where the best hidden of all +nests was to be found in a far fence corner--that of the high-tempered, +scolding guinea-hen. To them he showed his first Barlow knife; for them +he blew his first home-made whistle. He is their petty tyrant to-day; +to-morrow he will be their repentant friend, dividing with them his +marbles and proposing a game of hopscotch. Upon his dialect, his +disposition, his whole character, is laid the ineffaceable impress of +theirs, so that they pass into the final reckoning-up of his life here +and in the world to come. + +But Uncle Tom!--the negro overseer of the place--the greatest of all the +negroes--greater even than the cook, when one is not hungry. How often +has he straddled Uncle Tom's neck, or ridden behind him afield on a +barebacked horse to the jingling music of the trace-chains! It is Uncle +Tom who plaits his hempen whip and ties the cracker in a knot that will +stay. It is Uncle Tom who brings him his first young squirrel to tame, +the teeth of which are soon to be planted in his right forefinger. Many +a time he slips out of the house to take his dinner or supper in the +cabin with Uncle Tom; and during long winter evenings he loves to sit +before those great roaring cabin fireplaces that throw their red and +yellow lights over the half circle of black faces and on the mysteries +of broom-making, chair-bottoming, and the cobbling of shoes. Like the +child who listens to "Uncle Remus," he, too, hears songs and stories, +and creeps back to the house with a wondering look in his eyes and a +vague hush of spirit. + +Then come school-days and vacations during which, as Mrs. Stowe says, +he may teach Uncle Tom to make his letters on a slate or expound to him +the Scriptures. Then, too, come early adventures with the gun, and 'coon +hunts and 'possum hunts with the negroes under the round moon, with the +long-eared, deep-voiced hounds--to him delicious and ever-memorable +nights! The crisp air, through which the breath rises like white +incense, the thick autumn leaves, begemmed with frost, rustling +underfoot; the shadows of the mighty trees; the strained ear; the heart +leaping with excitement; the negroes and dogs mingling their wild +delight in music that wakes the echoes of distant hill-sides. Away! +Away! mile after mile, hour after hour, to where the purple and golden +persimmons hang low from the boughs, or where from topmost limbs the +wild grape drops its countless clusters in a black cascade a sheer two +hundred feet. + +Now he is a boy no longer, but has his first love-affair, which sends a +thrill through all those susceptible cabins; has his courtship, which +gives rise to many a wink and innuendo; and brings home his bride, whose +coming converts every youngster into a living rolling ball on the +ground, and opens the feasts and festivities of universal joy. + +Then some day "ole Marster" dies, and the negroes, one by one, young and +old, file into the darkened parlor to take a last look at his quiet +face. He had his furious temper, "ole Marster" had, and his sins--which +God forgive! To-day he will be buried, and to-morrow "young Marster" +will inherit his saddle-horse and ride out into the fields. + +Thus he has come into possession of his negroes. Among them are a few +whose working days are over. These are to be kindly cared for, decently +buried. Next are the active laborers, and, last, the generation of +children. He knows them all by name, capacity, and disposition; is bound +to them by life-long associations; hears their communications and +complaints. When he goes to town, he is charged with commissions, makes +purchases with their own money. Continuing the course of his father, he +sets about making them capable, contented workmen. There shall be +special training for special aptitude. One shall be made a blacksmith, a +second a carpenter, a third a cobbler of shoes. In all the general +industries of the farm, education shall not be lacking. It is claimed +that a Kentucky negro invented the hemp-brake. As a result of this +effective management, the Southern planter, looking northward, will pay +him a handsome premium for his blue-grass slave. He will have no white +overseer. He does not like the type of man. Besides, one is not needed. +Uncle Tom served his father in this capacity; let him be. + +Among his negroes he finds a bad one. What shall he do with him? Keep +him? Keeping him makes him worse, and moreover he corrupts the +others. Set him free? That is to put a reward upon evil. Sell him to +his neighbors? They do not want him. If they did, he would not sell him +to them. He sells him into the South. This is a statement, not an +apology. Here, for a moment, one touches the terrible subject of the +internal slave-trade. Negroes were sold from Kentucky into the Southern +market because, as has just been said, they were bad, or by reason of +the law of partible inheritance, or, as was the case with Mrs. Stowe's +Uncle Tom, under constraint of debt. Of course, in many cases, they were +sold wantonly and cruelly; but these, however many, were not enough to +make the internal slave-trade more than an incidental and subordinate +feature of the system. The belief that negroes in Kentucky were +regularly bred and reared for the Southern market is a mistaken one. +Mrs. Stowe herself fell into the error of basing an argument for the +prevalence of the slave-trade in this State upon the notion of exhausted +lands, as the following passage from _The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin_ +shows: + +[Illustration: THE COOK.] + + "In Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky slave-labor long + ago impoverished the soil almost beyond recovery and became + entirely unprofitable." + +Those words were written some thirty-five years ago and refer to a time +long prior to that date. Now, the fact is that at least one-half the +soil of Kentucky has never been under cultivation, and could not, +therefore, have been exhausted by slave-labor. At least a half of the +remainder, though cultivated ever since, is still not seriously +exhausted; and of the small portion still left a large share was always +naturally poor, so that for this reason slave-labor was but little +employed on it. The great slave-holding region of the State was the +fertile region which has never been impoverished. To return from this +digression, it may be well that the typical Kentucky farmer does not +find among his negroes a bad one; for in consequence of the early +non-importation of slaves for barter or sale, and through long +association with the household, they have been greatly elevated and +humanized. If he must sell a good one, he will seek a buyer among his +neighbors. He will even ask the negro to name his choice of a master and +try to consummate his wish. No purchaser near by, he will mount his +saddle-horse and look for one in the adjoining county. In this way the +negroes of different estates and neighborhoods were commonly connected +by kinship and intermarriage. How unjust to say that such a master did +not feel affection for his slaves, anxiety for their happiness, sympathy +with the evils inseparable from their condition. Let me cite the case of +a Kentucky master who had failed. He could pay his debts by sacrificing +his negroes or his farm, one or the other. To avoid separating the +former, probably sending some of them South, he kept them in a body and +sold his farm. Any one who knows the Kentuckian's love of land and home +will know what this means. A few years, and the war left him without +anything. Another case is more interesting still. A master having +failed, actually hurried his negroes off to Canada. Tried for defrauding +his creditors, and that by slave-holding jurors, he was acquitted. The +plea of his counsel, among other arguments, was the master's +unwillingness to see his old and faithful servitors scattered and +suffering. After emancipation old farm hands sometimes refused to budge +from their cabins. Their former masters paid them for their services as +long as they could work, and supported them when helpless. I have in +mind an instance where a man, having left Kentucky, sent back hundreds +of dollars to an aged, needy domestic, though himself far from rich; and +another case where a man still contributes annually to the maintenance +of those who ceased to work for him the quarter of a century ago. + +The good in human nature is irrepressible. Slavery, evil as it was, when +looked at from the remoteness of human history as it is to be, will be +adjudged an institution that gave development to certain noble types of +character. Along with other social forces peculiar to the age, it +produced in Kentucky a kind of farmer, the like of which will never +appear again. He had the aristocratic virtues: highest notions of +personal liberty and personal honor, a fine especial scorn of anything +that was mean, little, cowardly. As an agriculturist he was not driving +or merciless or grasping; the rapid amassing of wealth was not among his +passions, the contention of splendid living not among his thorns. To a +certain carelessness of riches he added a certain profuseness of +expenditure; and indulgent towards his own pleasures, towards others, +his equals or dependents, he bore himself with a spirit of kindness and +magnanimity. Intolerant of tyranny, he was no tyrant. To say of such a +man, as Jefferson said of every slave-holder, that he lived in perpetual +exercise of the most boisterous passions and unremitting despotism, and +in the exaction of the most degrading submission, was to pronounce +judgment hasty and unfair. Rather did Mrs. Stowe, while not blind to his +faults, discern his virtues when she made him, embarrassed by debt, +exclaim: "If anybody had said to me that I should sell Tom down South to +one of those rascally traders, I should have said, 'Is thy servant a dog +that he should do this thing?'" + + +IV + +But there was another person who, more than the master, sustained close +relationship to the negro life of the household--the mistress. In the +person of Mrs. Shelby, Mrs. Stowe described some of the best traits of +a Kentucky woman of the time; but perhaps only a Southern woman herself +could do full justice to a character which many duties and many burdens +endued with extraordinary strength and varied efficiency. + +She was mistress of distinct realms--the house and the cabins--and the +guardian of the bonds between the two, which were always troublesome, +often delicate, sometimes distressing. In those cabins were nearly +always some poor creatures needing sympathy and watch-care: the +superannuated mothers helpless with babes, babes helpless without +mothers, the sick, perhaps the idiotic. Apparel must be had for all. +Standing in her door-way and pointing to the meadow, she must be able to +say in the words of a housewife of the period, "There are the sheep; now +get your clothes." Some must be taught to keep the spindle and the loom +going; others trained for dairy, laundry, kitchen, dining-room; others +yet taught fine needle-work. Upon her fell the labor of private +instruction and moral exhortation, for the teaching of negroes was not +forbidden in Kentucky. + +She must remind them that their marriage vows are holy and binding; must +interpose between mothers and their cruel punishment of their own +offspring. Hardest of all, she must herself punish for lying, theft, +immorality. Her own children must be guarded against temptation and +corrupting influences. In her life no cessation of this care year in +and year out. Beneath every other trouble the secret conviction that she +has no right to enslave these creatures, and that, however improved +their condition, their life is one of great and necessary evils. Mrs. +Stowe well makes her say: "I have tried--tried most faithfully as a +Christian woman should--to do my duty towards these poor, simple, +dependent creatures. I have cared for them, instructed them, watched +over them, and known all their little cares and joys for years.... I +have taught them the duties of the family, of parent and child, and +husband and wife.... I thought, by kindness and care and instruction, I +could make the condition of mine better than freedom." Sorely +overburdened and heroic mould of woman! Fulfilling each day a round of +intricate duties, rising at any hour of the night to give medicine to +the sick, liable at any time, in addition to the cares of her great +household, to see an entire family of acquaintances arriving +unannounced, with trunks and servants of their own, for a visit +protracted in accordance with the large hospitalities of the time. What +wonder if, from sheer inability to do all things herself, she trains her +negroes to different posts of honor, so that the black cook finally +expels her from her own kitchen and rules over that realm as an autocrat +of unquestioned prerogatives? + +Mistresses of this kind had material reward in the trusty adherence of +their servants during the war. Their relations throughout this +period--so well calculated to try the loyalty of the African +nature--would of themselves make up a volume of the most touching +incidents. Even to-day one will find in many Kentucky households +survivals of the old order--find "Aunt Chloe" ruling as a despot in the +kitchen, and making her will the pivotal point of the whole domestic +system. I have spent nights with a young Kentuckian, self-willed and +high-spirited, whose occasional refusals to rise for a half-past five +o'clock breakfast always brought the cook from the kitchen up to his +bedroom, where she delivered her commands in a voice worthy of Catherine +the Great. "We shall have to get up," he would say, "or there'll be a +row!" One may yet see old negresses setting out for an annual or a +semi-annual visit to their former mistresses, and bearing some +offering--a basket of fruits or flowers. I should like to mention the +case of one who died after the war and left her two children to her +mistress, to be reared and educated. The troublesome, expensive charge +was faithfully executed. + +Here, in the hard realities of daily life, here is where the crushing +burden of slavery fell--on the women of the South. History has yet to do +justice to the noblest type of them, whether in Kentucky or elsewhere. +In view of what they accomplished, despite the difficulties in their +way, there is nothing they have found harder to forgive in the women of +the North than the failure to sympathize with them in the struggles and +sorrows of their lot, and to realize that _they_ were the real practical +philanthropists of the negro race. + + +V + +But as is the master, so is the slave, and it is through the characters +of the Shelbys that we must approach that of Uncle Tom. For of all +races, the African--superstitious, indolent, singing, dancing, +impressionable creature--depends upon others for enlightenment, +training, and happiness. If, therefore, you find him so intelligent that +he may be sent on important business, so honest that he may be trusted +with money, house, and home, so loyal that he will not seize opportunity +to become free; if you find him endowed with the manly virtues of +dignity and self-respect united to the Christian virtues of humility, +long-suffering, and forgiveness, then do not, in marvelling at him on +these accounts, quite forget his master and his mistress--they made him +what he was. And it is something to be said on their behalf, that in +their household was developed a type of slave that could be set upon a +sublime moral pinnacle to attract the admiration of the world. + +Attention is fixed on Uncle Tom first as head-servant of the farm. In a +small work on slavery in Kentucky by George Harris, it is stated that +masters chose the cruelest of their negroes for this office. It is not +true, exceptions allowed for. The work would not be worth mentioning, +had not so many people at the North believed it. The amusing thing is, +they believed Mrs. Stowe also. But if Mrs. Stowe's account of slavery in +Kentucky is true, Harris's is not. + +It is true that Uncle Tom inspired the other negroes with some degree of +fear. He was censor of morals, and reported derelictions of the lazy, +the destructive, and the thievish. For instance, an Uncle Tom on one +occasion told his master of the stealing of a keg of lard, naming the +thief and the hiding-place. "Say not a word about it," replied his +master. The next day he rode out into the field where the culprit was +ploughing, and, getting down, walked along beside him. "What's the +matter, William?" he asked, after a while; "you can't look me in the +face as usual." William burst into tears, and confessed everything. +"Come to-night, and I will arrange so that you can put the lard back and +nobody will ever know you took it." The only punishment was a little +moral teaching; but the Uncle Tom in the case, though he kept his +secret, looked for some days as though the dignity of his office had not +been suitably upheld by his master. + +It was Uncle Tom's duty to get the others off to work in the morning. +In the fields he did not drive the work, but led it--being a +master-workman--led the cradles and the reaping-hooks, the hemp-breaking +and the corn-shucking. The spirit of happy music went with the workers. +They were not goaded through their daily tasks by the spur of pitiless +husbandry. Nothing was more common than their voluntary contests of +skill and power. My recollection reaches only to the last two or three +years of slavery; but I remember the excitement with which I witnessed +some of these hard-fought battles of the negroes. Rival hemp-breakers of +the neighborhood, meeting in the same field, would slip out long before +breakfast and sometimes never stop for dinner. So it was with cradling, +corn-shucking, or corn-cutting--in all work where rivalries were +possible. No doubt there were other motives. So much work was a day's +task; for more there was extra pay. A capital hand, by often performing +double or treble the required amount, would clear a neat profit in a +season. The days of severest labor fell naturally in harvest-time. But +then intervals of rest in the shade were commonly given; and milk, +coffee, or, when the prejudice of the master did not prevent (which was +not often), whiskey was distributed between meal-times. As a rule they +worked without hurry. De Tocqueville gave unintentional testimony to +characteristic slavery in Kentucky when he described the negroes as +"loitering" in the fields. On one occasion the hands dropped work to run +after a rabbit the dogs had started. A passer-by indignantly reported +the fact to the master. "Sir," said the old gentleman, with a hot face, +"I'd have whipped the last d----n rascal of 'em if they _hadn't_ run +'im!" + +[Illustration: CHASING THE RABBIT.] + +The negroes made money off their truck-patches, in which they raised +melons, broom-corn, vegetables. When Charles Sumner was in Kentucky, he +saw with almost incredulous eyes the comfortable cabins with their +flowers and poultry, the fruitful truck-patches, and a genuine Uncle +Tom--"a black gentleman with his own watch!" Well enough does Mrs. Stowe +put these words into her hero's mouth, when he hears he is to be sold: +"I'm feared things will be kinder goin' to rack when I'm gone. Mas'r +can't be 'spected to be a-pryin' round everywhere as I've done, +a-keepin' up all the ends. The boys means well, but they's powerful +car'less." + +More interesting is Uncle Tom's character as a preacher. Contemporary +with him in Kentucky was a class of men among his people who exhorted, +held prayer-meetings in the cabins and baptizings in the woods, +performed marriage ceremonies, and enjoyed great freedom of movement. +There was one in nearly every neighborhood, and together they wrought +effectively in the moral development of their race. I have nothing to +say here touching the vast and sublime conception which Mrs. Stowe +formed of "Uncle Tom's" spiritual nature. But no idealized manifestation +of it is better than this simple occurrence: One of these negro +preachers was allowed by his master to fill a distant appointment. +Belated once, and returning home after the hour forbidden for slaves to +be abroad, he was caught by the patrol and cruelly whipped. As the blows +fell, his only words were: "Jesus Christ suffered for righteousness' +sake; so kin I." Another of them was recommended for deacon's orders and +actually ordained. When liberty came, he refused to be free, and +continued to work in his master's family till his death. With +considerable knowledge of the Bible and a fluent tongue, he would +nevertheless sometimes grow confused while preaching and lose his train +of thought. At these embarrassing junctures it was his wont suddenly to +call out at the top of his voice, "Saul! Saul! why persecutest thou me?" +The effect upon his hearers was electrifying; and as none but a very +highly favored being could be thought worthy of enjoying this +persecution, he thus converted his loss of mind into spiritual +reputation. A third, named Peter Cotton, united the vocations of +exhorter and wood-chopper. He united them literally, for one moment +Peter might be seen standing on his log chopping away, and the next +kneeling down beside it praying. He got his mistress to make him a long +jeans coat and on the ample tails of it to embroider, by his direction, +sundry texts of Scripture, such as: "Come unto me, all ye that are heavy +laden!" Thus literally clothed with righteousness, Peter went from cabin +to cabin preaching the Word. Well for him if that other Peter could have +seen him. + +These men sometimes made a pathetic addition to their marriage +ceremonies: "Until death or _our higher powers_ do you separate!" + +Another typical contemporary of Uncle Tom's was the negro fiddler. It +should be remembered that before he hears he is to be sold South, Uncle +Tom is pictured as a light-hearted creature, capering and dancing in his +cabin. There was no lack of music in those cabins. The banjo was played, +but more commonly the fiddle. A home-made variety of the former +consisted of a crook-necked, hard-shell gourd and a piece of sheepskin. +There were sometimes other instruments--the flageolet and the triangle. +I have heard of a kettle-drum's being made of a copper still. A Kentucky +negro carried through the war as a tambourine the skull of a mule, the +rattling teeth being secured in the jawbones. Of course bones were +everywhere used. Negro music on one or more instruments was in the +highest vogue at the house of the master. The young Kentuckians often +used it on serenading bravuras. The old fiddler, most of all, was held +in reverent esteem and met with the gracious treatment of the minstrel +in feudal halls. At parties and weddings, at picnics in the summer +woods, he was the soul of melody; and with an eye to the high demands +upon his art, he widened his range of selections and perfected according +to native standards his inimitable technique. The deep, tender, pure +feeling in the song "Old Kentucky Home" is a true historic +interpretation. + +It is wide of the mark to suppose that on such a farm as that of the +Shelbys, the negroes were in a perpetual frenzy of discontent or felt +any burning desire for freedom. It is difficult to reach a true general +conclusion on this delicate subject. But it must go for something that +even the Kentucky abolitionists of those days will tell you that +well-treated negroes cared not a snap for liberty. Negroes themselves, +and very intelligent ones, will give you to-day the same assurance. It +is an awkward discovery to make, that some of them still cherish +resentment towards agitators who came secretly among them, fomented +discontent, and led them away from homes to which they afterwards +returned. And I want to state here, for no other reason than that of +making an historic contribution to the study of the human mind and +passions, that a man's views of slavery in those days did not determine +his treatment of his own slaves. The only case of mutiny and stampede +that I have been able to discover in a certain part of Kentucky, took +place among the negroes of a man who was known as an outspoken +emancipationist. He pleaded for the freedom of the negro, but in the +mean time worked him at home with the chain round his neck and the ball +resting on his plough. + +[Illustration: THE PREACHER.] + +Christmas was, of course, the time of holiday merrymaking, and the +"Ketchin' marster an' mistiss Christmus gif'" was a great feature. One +morning an aged couple presented themselves. + +"Well, what do you want for your Christmas gift?" + +"Freedom, mistiss!" + +"Freedom! Haven't you been as good as free for the last ten years?" + +"Yaas, mistiss; but--freedom mighty sweet!" + +"Then take your freedom!" + +The only method of celebrating the boon was the moving into a cabin on +the neighboring farm of their mistress's aunt and being freely supported +there as they had been freely supported at home. + +Mrs. Stowe has said, "There is nothing picturesque or beautiful in the +family attachment of old servants, which is not to be found in countries +where these servants are legally free." On the contrary, a volume of +incidents might readily be gathered, the picturesqueness and beauty of +which are due wholly to the fact that the negroes were not free, but +slaves. Indeed, many could never have happened at all but in this +relationship. I cite the case of an old negro who was buying his freedom +from his master, who continued to make payments during the war, and made +the final one at the time of General Kirby Smith's invasion of Kentucky. +After he had paid him the uttermost farthing, he told him that if he +should ever be a slave again, he wanted him for his master. Take the +case of an old negress who had been allowed to accumulate considerable +property. At her death she willed it to her young master instead of to +her sons, as she would have been allowed to do. But the war! what is to +be said of the part the negro took in that? Is there in the drama of +humanity a figure more picturesque or more pathetic than the figure of +the African slave, as he followed his master to the battle-field, +marched and hungered and thirsted with him, served and cheered and +nursed him--that master who was fighting to keep him in slavery? +Instances are too many; but the one may be mentioned of a Kentucky negro +who followed his young master into the Southern army, stayed with him +till he fell on the field, lay hid out in the bushes a week, and +finally, after a long time and many hardships, got back to his mistress +in Kentucky, bringing his dead master's horse and purse and trinkets. +This subject comprises a whole vast field of its own; and if the history +of it is ever written, it will be written in the literature of the +South, for there alone lies the knowledge and _the love_. + +It is only through a clear view of the peculiar features of slavery in +Kentucky before the war that one can understand the general status of +the negroes of Kentucky at the present time. Perhaps in no other State +has the race made less endeavor to push itself into equality with the +white. This fact must be explained as in part resulting from the +conservative ideals of Kentucky life in general. But it is more largely +due to the influences of a system which, though no longer in vogue, is +still remembered, still powerful to rule the minds of a naturally +submissive and susceptible people. The kind, affectionate relations of +the races under the old regime have continued with so little +interruption that the blacks remain content with their inferiority, and +lazily drift through life. I venture to make the statement that, +wherever in the United States they have attempted most to enforce their +new-born rights, they have either, on the one hand, been encouraged to +do so, or have, on the other, been driven to self-assertion by harsh +treatment. But treated always kindly, always as hopelessly inferior +beings, they will do least for themselves. This, it is believed, is the +key-note to the situation in Kentucky at the present time. + + + + +COUNTY COURT DAY IN KENTUCKY + + +I + +The institutions of the Kentuckian have deep root in his rich social +nature. He loves the swarm. They very motto of the State is a +declaration of good-fellowship, and the seal of the commonwealth the act +of shaking hands. Divided, he falls. The Kentuckian must be one of many; +must assert himself, not through the solitary exercise of his intellect, +but the senses; must see men about him who are fat, grip his friend, +hear cordial, hearty conversation, realize the play of his emotions. +Society is the multiple of himself. + +Hence his fondness for large gatherings: open-air assemblies of the +democratic sort--great agricultural fairs, race-courses, political +meetings, barbecues and burgoos in the woods--where no one is pushed to +the wall, or reduced to a seat and to silence, where all may move about +at will, seek and be sought, make and receive impressions. Quiet masses +of people in-doors absorb him less. He is not fond of lectures, does not +build splendid theatres or expend lavishly for opera, is almost of +Puritan excellence in the virtue of church-going, which in the country +is attended with neighborly reunions. + +This large social disposition underlies the history of the most social +of all his days--a day that has long had its observance embedded in the +structure of his law, is invested with the authority and charm of +old-time usage and reminiscence, and still enables him to commingle +business and pleasure in a way of his own. Hardly more characteristic of +the Athenian was the agora, or the forum of the Roman, than is county +court day characteristic of the Kentuckian. In the open square around +the courthouse of the county-seat he has had the centre of his +public social life, the arena of his passions and amusements, the +rallying-point of his political discussions, the market-place of his +business transactions, the civil unit of his institutional history. + +It may be that some stranger has sojourned long enough in Kentucky to +have grown familiar with the wonted aspects of a county town. He has +remarked the easy swing of its daily life: amicable groups of men +sitting around the front entrances of the hotels; the few purchasers and +promenaders on the uneven brick pavements; the few vehicles of draught +and carriage scattered along the level white thoroughfares. All day the +subdued murmur of patient local traffic has scarcely drowned the +twittering of English sparrows in the maples. Then comes a Monday +morning when the whole scene changes. The world has not been dead, but +only sleeping. Whence this sudden surging crowd of rural folk--these +lowing herds in the streets? Is it some animated pastoral come to town? +some joyful public anniversary? some survival in altered guise of the +English country fair of mellower times? or a vision of what the little +place will be a century hence, when American life shall be packed and +agitated and tense all over the land? What a world of homogeneous, +good-looking, substantial, reposeful people with honest front +and amiable meaning! What bargaining and buying and selling by +ever-forming, ever-dissolving groups, with quiet laughter and familiar +talk and endless interchange of domestic interrogatories! You descend +into the street to study the doings and spectacles from a nearer +approach, and stop to ask the meaning of it. Ah! it is county court day +in Kentucky; it is the Kentuckians in the market-place. + +[Illustration: WET GOODS FOR SALE--BOWLING-GREEN.] + + +II + +They have been assembling here now for nearly a hundred years. One of +the first demands of the young commonwealth in the woods was that its +vigorous, passionate life should be regulated by the usages of civil +law. Its monthly county courts, with justices of the peace, were derived +from the Virginia system of jurisprudence, where they formed the +aristocratic feature of the government. Virginia itself owed these +models to England; and thus the influence of the courts and of the +decent and orderly yeomanry of both lands passed, as was singularly +fitting, over into the ideals of justice erected by the pure-blooded +colony. As the town meeting of Boston town perpetuated the folkmote of +the Anglo-Saxon free state, and the Dutch village communities on the +shores of the Hudson revived the older ones on the banks of the Rhine, +so in Kentucky, through Virginia, there were transplanted by the people, +themselves of clean stock and with strong conservative ancestral traits, +the influences and elements of English law in relation to the county, +the court, and the justice of the peace. + +[Illustration: CONCLUDING A BARGAIN.] + +Through all the old time of Kentucky State-life there towers up the +figure of the justice of the peace. Commissioned by the Governor to hold +monthly court, he had not always a court-house wherein to sit, but must +buy land in the midst of a settlement or town whereon to build one, and +build also the contiguous necessity of civilization--a jail. In the rude +court-room he had a long platform erected, usually running its whole +width; on this platform he had a ruder wooden bench placed, likewise +extending all the way across; and on this bench, having ridden into +town, it may be, in dun-colored leggings, broadcloth pantaloons, a +pigeon-tailed coat, a shingle-caped overcoat, and a twelve-dollar high +fur hat, he sat gravely and sturdily down amid his peers; looking out +upon the bar, ranged along a wooden bench beneath, and prepared to +consider the legal needs of his assembled neighbors. Among them all the +very best was he; chosen for age, wisdom, means, weight and probity of +character; as a rule, not profoundly versed in the law, perhaps knowing +nothing of it--being a Revolutionary soldier, a pioneer, or a +farmer--but endowed with a sure, robust common-sense and rectitude of +spirit that enabled him to divine what the law was; shaking himself +fiercely loose from the grip of mere technicalities, and deciding by the +natural justice of the case; giving decisions of equal authority with +the highest court, an appeal being rarely taken; perpetuating his own +authority by appointing his own associates: with all his shortcomings +and weaknesses a notable, historic figure, high-minded, fearless, and +incorruptible, dignified, patient, and strong, and making the county +court days of Kentucky for wellnigh half a century memorable to those +who have lived to see justice less economically and less honorably +administered. + +But besides the legal character and intent of the day, which was thus +its first and dominant feature, divers things drew the folk together. +Even the justice himself may have had quite other than magisterial +reasons for coming to town; certainly the people had. They must +interchange opinions about local and national politics, observe the +workings of their own laws, pay and contract debts, acquire and transfer +property, discuss all questions relative to the welfare of the +community--holding, in fact, a county court day much like one in +Virginia in the middle of the seventeenth century. + + +III + +But after business was over, time hung idly on their hands; and being +vigorous men, hardened by work in forest and field, trained in foot and +limb to fleetness and endurance, and fired with admiration of physical +prowess, like riotous school-boys out on a half-holiday, they fell to +playing. All through the first quarter of the century, and for a longer +time, county court day in Kentucky was, at least in many parts of the +State, the occasion for holding athletic games. The men, young or in the +sinewy manhood of more than middle age, assembled once a month at the +county-seats to witness and take part in the feats of muscle and +courage. They wrestled, threw the sledge, heaved the bar, divided and +played at fives, had foot-races for themselves, and quarter-races for +their horses. By-and-by, as these contests became a more prominent +feature of the day, they would pit against each other the champions of +different neighborhoods. It would become widely known beforehand that +next county court day "the bully" in one end of the county would whip +"the bully" in the other end; so when court day came, and the justices +came, and the bullies came, what was the county to do but come also? The +crowd repaired to the common, a ring was formed, the little men on the +outside who couldn't see, Zaccheus-like, took to the convenient trees, +and there was to be seen a fair and square set-to, in which the fist was +the battering-ram and the biceps a catapult. What better, more +time-honored, proof could those backwoods Kentuckians have furnished of +the humors in their English blood and of their English pugnacity? But, +after all, this was only play, and play never is perfectly satisfying to +a man who would rather fight; so from playing they fell to harder work, +and throughout this period county court day was the monthly Monday on +which the Kentuckian regularly did his fighting. He availed himself +liberally of election day, it is true, and of regimental muster in the +spring and battalion muster in the fall--great gala occasions; but +county court day was by all odds the preferred and highly prized season. +It was periodical, and could be relied upon, being written in the +law, noted in the almanac, and registered in the heavens. + +[Illustration: COURT-HOUSE SQUARE, LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY] + +A capital day, a most admirable and serene day for fighting. Fights grew +like a fresh-water polype--by being broken in two: each part produced a +progeny. So conventional did the recreation become that difficulties +occurring out in the country between times regularly had their +settlements postponed until the belligerents could convene with the +justices. The men met and fought openly in the streets, the friends of +each standing by to see fair play and whet their appetites. + +Thus the justices sat quietly on the bench inside, and the people fought +quietly in the streets outside, and the day of the month set apart for +the conservation of the peace became the approved day for individual +war. There is no evidence to be had that either the justices or the +constables ever interfered. + +These pugilistic encounters had a certain law of beauty: they were +affairs of equal combat and of courage. The fight over, animosity was +gone, the feud ended. The men must shake hands, go and drink together, +become friends. We are touching here upon a grave and curious fact of +local history. The fighting habit must be judged by a wholly unique +standard. It was the direct outcome of racial traits powerfully +developed by social conditions. + + +IV + +Another noticeable recreation of the day was the drinking. Indeed the +two pleasures went marvellously well together. The drinking led up to +the fighting, and the fighting led up to the drinking; and this amiable +co-operation might be prolonged at will. The merchants kept barrels of +whiskey in their cellars for their customers. Bottles of it sat openly +on the counter, half-way between the pocket of the buyer and the shelf +of merchandise. There were no saloons separate from the taverns. At +these whiskey was sold and drunk without screens or scruples. It was not +usually bought by the drink, but by the tickler. The tickler was a +bottle of narrow shape, holding a half-pint--just enough to tickle. On a +county court day wellnigh a whole town would be tickled. In some parts +of the State tables were placed out on the sidewalks, and around these +the men sat drinking mint-juleps and playing draw poker and "old +sledge." + +Meantime the day was not wholly given over to playing and fighting and +drinking. More and more it was becoming the great public day of the +month, and mirroring the life and spirit of the times--on occasion a day +of fearful, momentous gravity, as in the midst of war, financial +distress, high party feeling; more and more the people gathered together +for discussion and the origination of measures determining the events of +their history. Gradually new features incrusted it. The politician, +observing the crowd, availed himself of it to announce his own candidacy +or to wage a friendly campaign, sure, whether popular or unpopular, of a +courteous hearing; for this is a virtue of the Kentuckian, to be polite +to a public speaker, however little liked his cause. In the spring, +there being no fairs, it was the occasion for exhibiting the fine stock +of the country, which was led out to some suburban pasture, where the +owners made speeches over it. In the winter, at the close of the old or +the beginning of the new year, negro slaves were regularly hired out on +this day for the ensuing twelvemonth, and sometimes put upon the block +before the Courthouse door and sold for life. + +[Illustration: THE "TICKLER."] + +But it was not until near the half of the second quarter of the century +that an auctioneer originated stock sales on the open square, and thus +gave to the day the characteristic it has since retained of being the +great market-day of the month. Thenceforth its influence was to be more +widely felt, to be extended into other counties and even States; +thenceforth it was to become more distinctively a local institution +without counterpart. + +To describe minutely the scenes of a county court day in Kentucky, say +at the end of the half-century, would be to write a curious page in the +history of the times; for they were possible only through the unique +social conditions they portrayed. It was near the most prosperous period +of State life under the old regime. The institution of slavery was about +to culminate and decline. Agriculture had about as nearly perfected +itself as it was ever destined to do under the system of bondage. The +war cloud in the sky of the future could be covered with the hand, or +at most with the country gentleman's broad-brimmed straw-hat. The whole +atmosphere of the times was heavy with ease, and the people, living in +perpetual contemplation of their superabundant natural wealth, bore the +quality of the land in their manners and dispositions. + +When the well-to-do Kentucky farmer got up in the morning, walked out +into the porch, stretched himself, and looked at the sun, he knew that +he could summon a sleek kindly negro to execute every wish and whim--one +to search for his misplaced hat, a second to bring him a dipper of +ice-water, a third to black his shoes, a fourth to saddle his horse and +hitch it at the stiles, a fifth to cook his breakfast, a sixth to wait +on him at the table, a seventh to stand on one side and keep off the +flies. Breakfast over, he mounted his horse and rode out where "the +hands" were at work. The chance was his overseer or negro foreman was +there before him: his presence was unnecessary. What a gentleman he was! +This was called earning one's bread by the sweat of his brow. _Whose_ +brow? He yawned. What should he do? One thing he knew he _would_ +do--take a good nap before dinner. Perhaps he had better ride over to +the blacksmith-shop. However, there was nobody there. It was county +court day. The sky was blue, the sun golden, the air delightful, the +road broad and smooth, the gait of his horse the very poetry of motion. +He would go to county court himself. There was really nothing else +before him. His wife would want to go, too, and the children. + +So away they go, he on horseback or in the family carriage, with black +Pompey driving in front and yellow Cæsar riding behind. The turnpike +reached, the progress of the family carriage is interrupted or quite +stopped, for there are many other carriages on the road, all going in +the same direction. Then pa, growing impatient, orders black Pompey to +drive out on one side, whip up the horses, pass the others, and get +ahead, so as to escape from the clouds of white limestone dust, which +settles thick on the velvet collar of pa's blue cloth coat and in the +delicate pink marabou feathers of ma's bonnet: which Pompey can't do, +for the faster he goes, the faster the others go, making all the more +dust; so that pa gets red in the face, and jumps up in the seat, and +looks ready to fight, and thrusts his head out of the window and knocks +off his hat; and ma looks nervous, and black Pompey and yellow Cæsar +both look white with dust and fear. + +A rural cavalcade indeed! Besides the carriages, buggies, horsemen, and +pedestrians, there are long droves of stock being hurried on towards the +town--hundreds of them. By the time they come together in the town they +will be many thousands. For is not this the great stock-market of the +West, and does not the whole South look from its rich plantations and +cities up to Kentucky for bacon and mules? By-and-by our family carriage +does at last get to town, and is left out in the streets along with many +others to block up the passway according to the custom. + +[Illustration: THE QUACK-DOCTOR.] + +The town is packed. It looks as though by some vast suction system it +had with one exercise of force drawn all the country life into itself. +The poor dumb creatures gathered in from the peaceful fields, and +crowded around the Court-house, send forth, each after its kind, a +general outcry of horror and despair at the tumult of the scene and the +unimaginable mystery of their own fate. They overflow into the +by-streets, where they take possession of the sidewalks, and debar +entrance at private residences. No stock-pens wanted then; none wanted +now. If a town legislates against these stock sales on the streets and +puts up pens on its outskirts, straightway the stock is taken to some +other market, and the town is punished for its airs by a decline in its +trade. + +As the day draws near noon, the tide of life is at the flood. Mixed in +with the tossing horns and nimble heels of the terrified, distressed, +half-maddened beasts, are the people. Above the level of these is the +discordant choir of shrill-voiced auctioneers on horseback. At the +corners of the streets long-haired--and long-eared--doctors in curious +hats lecture to eager groups on maladies and philanthropic cures. Every +itinerant vender of notion and nostrum in the country-side is there; +every wandering Italian harper or musician of any kind, be he but a +sightless fiddler, who brings forth with poor unison of voice and string +the brief and too fickle ballads of the time, "Gentle Annie," and "Sweet +Alice, Ben Bolt." Strangely contrasted with everything else in physical +type and marks of civilization are the mountaineers, who have come down +to "the settlemints" driving herds of their lean, stunted cattle, or +bringing, in slow-moving, ox-drawn "steamboat" wagons, maple-sugar, and +baskets, and poles, and wild mountain fruit--faded wagons, faded beasts, +faded clothes, faded faces, faded everything. A general day for buying +and selling all over the State. What purchases at the dry-goods stores +and groceries to keep all those negroes at home fat and comfortable and +comely--cottons, and gay cottonades, and gorgeous turbans, and linseys +of prismatic dyes, bags of Rio coffee and barrels of sugar, with many +another pleasant thing! All which will not be taken home in the family +carriage, but in the wagon which Scipio Africanus is driving in; Scipio, +remember; for while the New Englander has been naming his own flesh and +blood Peleg and Hezekiah and Abednego, the Kentuckian has been giving +even his negro slaves mighty and classic names, after his taste and +fashion. But very mockingly and satirically do those victorious titles +contrast with the condition of those that wear them. A surging populace, +an in-town holiday for all rural folk, wholly unlike what may be seen +elsewhere in this country. The politician will be sure of his audience +to-day in the Court-house yard: the seller will be sure of the +purchaser; the idle man of meeting one still idler; friend of seeing +distant friend; blushing Phyllis, come in to buy fresh ribbons, of being +followed through the throng by anxious Corydon. + +And what, amid this tumult of life and affairs--what of the justice of +the peace, whose figure once towered up so finely? Alas! quite outgrown, +pushed aside, and wellnigh forgotten. The very name of the day which +once so sternly commemorated the exercise of his authority has wandered +into another meaning. "County court day" no longer brings up in the mind +the image of the central Court-house and the judge on the bench. It is +to be greatly feared his noble type is dying. The stain of venality has +soiled his homespun ermine, and the trail of the office-seeker passed +over his rough-hewn bench. So about this time the new constitution of +the commonwealth comes in, to make the autocratic ancient justice over +into the modern elective magistrate, and with the end of the +half-century to close a great chapter of wonderful county court days. + +But what changes in Kentucky since 1850! How has it fared with the day +meantime? What development has it undergone? What contrasts will it +show? + +Undoubtedly, as seen now, the day is not more interesting by reason of +the features it wears than for the sake of comparison with the others it +has lost. A singular testimony to the conservative habits of the +Kentuckian, and to the stability of his local institutions, is to be +found in the fact that it should have come through all this period of +upheaval and downfall, of shifting and drifting, and yet remained so +much the same. Indeed, it seems in no wise liable to lose its meaning of +being the great market and general business day as well as the great +social and general laziness day of the month and the State. Perhaps one +feature has taken larger prominence--the eager canvassing of voters by +local politicians and office-seekers for weeks, sometimes for months, +beforehand. Is it not known that even circuit court will adjourn on this +day so as to give the clerk and the judge, the bar, the witnesses, an +opportunity to hear rival candidates address the assembled crowd? And +yet we shall discover differences. These people--these groups of twos +and threes and hundreds, lounging, sitting, squatting, taking every +imaginable posture that can secure bodily comfort--are they in any vital +sense new Kentuckians in the new South? If you care to understand +whether this be true, and what it may mean if it is true, you shall not +find a better occasion for doing so than a contemporary county court +day. + +[Illustration: AUCTIONING A JACK.] + +The Kentuckian nowadays does not come to county court to pick a quarrel +or to settle one. He _has_ no quarrel. His fist has reverted to its +natural use and become a hand. Nor does he go armed. Positively it is +true that gentlemen in this State do not now get satisfaction out of +each other in the market-place, and that on a modern county court day a +three-cornered hat is hardly to be seen. And yet you will go on defining +a Kentuckian in terms of his grandfather, unaware that he has changed +faster than the family reputation. The fighting habit and the shooting +habit were both more than satisfied during the Civil War. + +Another old-time feature of the day has disappeared--the open use of the +pioneer beverage. Merchants do not now set it out for their customers; +in the country no longer is it the law of hospitality to offer it to a +guest. To do so would commonly be regarded in the light of as great a +liberty as to have omitted it once would have been considered an +offence. The decanter is no longer found on the sideboard in the home; +the barrel is not stored in the cellar. + +Some features of the old Kentucky market-place have disappeared. The war +and the prostration of the South destroyed that as a market for certain +kinds of stock, the raising and sales of which have in consequence +declined. Railways have touched the eastern parts of the State, and +broken up the distant toilsome traffic with the steamboat wagons of the +mountaineers. No longer is the day the general buying day for the +circumjacent country as formerly, when the farmers, having great +households of slaves, sent in their wagons and bought on twelve months' +credit, knowing it would be twenty-four months' if they desired. The +doctors, too, have nearly vanished from the street corners, though on +the highway one may still happen upon the peddler with his pack, and +in the midst of an eager throng still may meet the swaying, sightless +old fiddler, singing to ears that never tire gay ditties in a cracked +and melancholy tone. + +[Illustration: LORDS OF THE SOIL.] + +Through all changes one feature has remained. It goes back to the most +ancient days of local history. The Kentuckian _will_ come to county +court "to swap horses;" it is in the blood. In one small town may be +seen fifty or a hundred countrymen assembled during the afternoon in a +back street to engage in this delightful recreation. Each rides or leads +his worst, most objectionable beast; of these, however fair-seeming, +none is above suspicion. It is the potter's field, the lazar-house, the +beggardom, of horse-flesh. The stiff and aged bondsman of the glebe and +plough looks out of one filmy eye upon the hopeless wreck of the fleet +roadster, and the poor macerated carcass that in days gone by bore its +thankless burden over the glistening turnpikes with the speed and +softness of the wind has not the strength to return the contemptuous +kick which is given him by a lungless, tailless rival. Prices range from +nothing upward. Exchanges are made for a piece of tobacco or a +watermelon to boot. + +But always let us return from back streets and side thoughts to the +central Court-house square and the general assembly of the people. Go +among them; they are not dangerous. Do not use fine words, at which they +will prick up their ears uneasily; or delicate sentiments, which will +make you less liked; or indulge in flights of thought, which they +despise. Remember, here is the dress and the talk and the manners of the +street, and fashion yourself accordingly. Be careful of your speech; men +in Kentucky are human. If you can honestly praise them, do so. How they +will glow and expand! Censure, and you will get the cold shoulder. For +to them praise is friendship and censure enmity. They have wonderful +solidarity. Sympathy will on occasion flow through them like an electric +current, so that they will soften and melt, or be set on fire. There is +a Kentucky sentiment, expending itself in complacent, mellow love of the +land, the people, the institutions. You speak to them of the happiness +of living in parts of the world where life has infinite variety, nobler +general possibilities, greater gains, harder struggles; they say, "We +are just as happy here." "It is easier to make a living in Kentucky than +to keep from being run over in New York," said a young Kentuckian, and +home he went. + +If you attempt to deal with them in the business of the market-place, do +not trick or cheat them. Above all things they hate and despise intrigue +and deception. For one single act of dishonor a man will pay with +life-long aversion and contempt. The rage it puts them in to be charged +with lying themselves is the exact measure of the excitement with +which they regard the lie in others. This is one of their idols--an +idol of the market-place in the true meaning of the Baconian philosophy. +The new Kentuckian has not lost an old-time trait of character: so high +and delicate a sense of personal honor that to be told he lies is the +same as saying he has ceased to be a gentleman. Along with good faith +and fair dealing goes liberality. Not prodigality; they have changed all +that. The fresh system of things has produced no more decided result +than a different regard for material interests. You shall not again +charge the Kentuckians with lacking either "the telescopic appreciation +of distant gain," or the microscopic appreciation of present gain. The +influence of money is active, and the illusion of wealth become a +reality. Profits are now more likely to pass into accumulation and +structure. There is more discussion of costs and values. Small economies +are more dwelt upon in thought and conversation. Actually you shall find +the people higgling with the dealer over prices. And yet how significant +a fact is it in their life that the merchant does not, as a rule, give +exact change over the counter! At least the cent has not yet been put +under the microscope. + +[Illustration: SWAPPING HORSES.] + +Perhaps you will not accept it as an evidence of progress that so many +men will leave their business all over the country for an idle day once +a month in town--nay, oftener than once a month; for many who are at +county court in this place to-day will attend it in another county next +Monday. But do not be deceived by the lazy appearance of the streets. +There are fewer idlers than of old. You may think this quiet group of +men who have taken possession of a buggy or a curb-stone are out upon a +costly holiday. Draw near, and it is discovered that there is fresh, +eager, intelligent talk of the newest agricultural implements and of +scientific farming. In fact the day is to the assembled farmers the +seedtime of ideas, to be scattered in ready soil--an informal, +unconscious meeting of grangers. + +There seems to be a striking equality of stations and conditions. Having +travelled through many towns, and seen these gatherings together of all +classes, you will be pleased with the fair, attractive, average +prosperity, and note the almost entire absence of paupers and beggars. +Somehow misfortune and ill-fortune and old age save themselves here from +the last hard necessity of asking alms on the highway. But the +appearance of the people will easily lead you to a wrong inference as to +social equality. They are much less democratic than they seem, and their +dress and speech and manners in the market-place are not their best +equipment. You shall meet with these in their homes. In their homes, +too, social distinctions begin and are enforced, and men who find in the +open square a common footing never associate elsewhere. But even among +the best of the new Kentuckians will you hardly observe fidelity to +the old social ideals, which adjudged that the very flower of birth and +training must bloom in the bearing and deportment. With the crumbling +and downfall of the old system fell also the structure of fine manners, +which were at once its product and adornment. + +[Illustration: GENTLEMEN OF LEISURE.] + + +VI + +A new figure has made its appearance in the Kentucky market-place, +having set its face resolutely towards the immemorial Court-house and +this periodic gathering together of freemen. Beyond comparison the most +significant new figure that has made its way thither and cast its shadow +on the people and the ground. Writ all over with problems that not the +wisest can read. Stalking out of an awful past into what uncertain +future! Clothed in hanging rags, it may be, or a garb that is a mosaic +of strenuous patches. Ah! Pompey, or Cæsar, or Cicero, of the days of +slavery, where be thy family carriage, thy master and mistress, now? + +He comes into the county court, this old African, because he is a +colored Kentuckian and must honor the stable customs of the country. He +does little buying or selling; he is not a politician; he has no debt +to collect, and no legal business. Still, example is powerful and the +negro imitative, so here he is at county court. It is one instance of +the influence exerted over him by the institutions of the Kentuckian, so +that he has a passion for fine stock, must build amphitheatres and hold +fairs and attend races. Naturally, therefore, county court has become a +great social day with his race. They stop work and come in from the +country, or from the outskirts of the town, where they have congregated +in little frame houses, and exhibit a quasi-activity in whatever of +business and pleasure is going forward. In no other position of life +does he exhibit his character and his condition more strikingly than +here. Always comical, always tragical, light-hearted, sociable; his +shackles stricken off, but wearing those of his own indolence, +ignorance, and helplessness; the wandering Socrates of the streets, +always dropping little shreds of observation on human affairs and bits +of philosophy on human life; his memory working with last Sunday's +sermon, and his hope with to-morrow's bread; citizen, with so much +freedom and so little liberty--the negro forms one of the conspicuous +features of a county court day at the present time. + +A wonderful, wonderful day this is that does thus always keep pace with +civilization in the State, drawing all elements to itself, and +portraying them to the interpreting eye. So that to paint the scenes of +the county court days in the past is almost to write the history of the +contemporary periods; and to do as much with one of the present hour is +to depict the oldest influences that has survived and the newest that +has been born in this local environment. To the future student of +governmental and institutional history in this country, a study always +interesting, always important, and always unique, will be county court +day in Kentucky. + + + + +KENTUCKY FAIRS + + +I + +The nineteenth century opened gravely for the Kentuckians. Little akin +as was the spirit of the people to that of the Puritans, life among them +had been almost as granitic in its hardness and ruggedness and desolate +unrelief. The only thing in the log-cabin that had sung from morning +till night was the spinning-wheel. Not much behind those women but +danger, anxiety, vigils, devastation, mournful tragedies; scarce one of +them but might fitly have gone to her loom and woven herself a garment +of sorrow. Not much behind those men but felling of trees, clearing of +land, raising of houses, opening of roads, distressing problems of +State, desolating wars of the republic. Most could remember the time +when it was so common for a man to be killed, that to lie down and die a +natural death seemed unnatural. Many must have had in their faces the +sadness that was in the face of Lincoln. + +Nevertheless, from the first, there had stood out among the Kentuckians +broad exhibitions of exuberant animal vigor, of unbridled animal +spirits. Some singularly and faithfully enough in the ancestral vein of +English sports and relaxations--dog-fighting and cock-fighting, rifle +target-shooting, wrestling matches, foot-racing for the men, and +quarter-racing for the horses. Without any thought of making spectacles +or of becoming themselves a spectacle in history, they were always ready +to form an impromptu arena and institute athletic games. They had even +their gladiators. Other rude pleasures were more characteristic of their +environment--the log-rolling and the quilting, the social frolic of the +harvesting, the merry parties of flax-pullers, and the corn-husking at +nightfall, when the men divided into sides, and the green glass +whiskey-bottle, stopped with a corn-cob, was filled and refilled and +passed from mouth to mouth, until out of those lusty throats rose and +swelled a rhythmic choral song that could be heard in the deep woods a +mile or more away: at midnight those who were sober took home those who +were drunk. But of course none of these were organized amusements. They +are not instances of taking pleasures sadly, but of attempts to do much +hard, rough work with gladness. Other occasions, also, which have the +semblance of popular joys, and which certainly were not passed over +without merriment and turbulent, disorderly fun, were really set apart +for the gravest of civic and political reasons: militia musters, +stump-speakings, county court day assemblages, and the yearly +July celebrations. Still other pleasures were of an economic or +utilitarian nature. Thus the novel and exciting contests by parties of +men at squirrel-shooting looked to the taking of that destructive +animal's scalp, to say nothing of the skin; the hunting of beehives in +the woods had some regard to the scarcity of sugar; and the nut +gatherings and wild-grape gatherings by younger folks in the gorgeous +autumnal days were partly in memory of a scant, unvaried larder, which +might profitably draw upon nature's rich and salutary hoard. Perhaps the +dearest pleasures among them were those that lay closest to their +dangers. They loved the pursuit of marauding parties, the solitary +chase; were always ready to throw away axe and mattock for rifle and +knife. Among pleasures, certainly, should be mentioned the weddings. For +plain reasons these were commonly held in the daytime. Men often rode to +them armed, and before leaving too often made them scenes of carousal +and unchastened jocularities. After the wedding came the "infare," with +the going from the home of the bride to the home of the groom. Above +everything else that seems to strike the chord of common happiness in +the society of the time, stands out to the imagination the picture of +one of these processions--a long bridal cavalcade winding slowly along a +narrow road through the silent primeval forest, now in sunlight, now in +the shadow of mighty trees meeting over the way; at the head the young +lovers, so rudely mounted, so simply dressed, and, following in their +happy wake, as though they were the augury of a peaceful era soon to +come, a straggling, broken line of the men and women who had prepared +for that era, but should never live to see its appearing. + +[Illustration: CORN HUSKING.] + +Such scenes as these give a touch of bright, gay color to the dull +homespun texture of the social fabric of the times. Indeed, when all the +pleasures have been enumerated, they seem a good many. But the effect of +such an enumeration is misleading. Life remained tense, sad, barren; +character moulded itself on a model of Spartan simplicity and hardihood, +without the Spartan treachery and cunning. + +But from the opening of the nineteenth century things grew easier. The +people, rescued from the necessity of trying to be safe, began to +indulge the luxury of wishing to be happy. Life ceased to be a warfare, +and became an industry; the hand left off defending, and commenced +acquiring; the moulding of bullets was succeeded by the coining of +dollars. + + +II + +[Illustration: MILITIA MUSTER.] + +It is against the background of such a strenuous past that we find the +Kentucky fair first projected by the practical and progressive spirit +that ruled among the Kentuckians in the year 1816. Nothing could have +been conceived with soberer purpose, or worn less the aspect of a great +popular pleasure. Picture the scene! A distinguished soldier and honored +gentleman, with a taste for agriculture and fine cattle, has announced +that on a certain day in July he will hold on his farm a "Grand Cattle +Show and Fair, free for everybody." The place is near Lexington, which +was then the centre of commerce and seat of learning in the West. The +meagre newspapers of the time have carried the tidings to every tavern +and country cross-roads. It is a novel undertaking; the like has never +been known this side of the Alleghanies. The summer morning come, you +may see a very remarkable company of gentlemen: old pioneers, +Revolutionary soldiers, volunteers of the War of 1812, walking in +picturesque twos and threes out of the little town to the green woods +where the fair is to be held; others jogging thitherward along the +bypaths and newly-opened roads through the forest, clad in homespun +from heel to head, and mindful of the cold lunches and whiskey-bottles +in their coat-pockets or saddle-bags; some, perhaps, drawn thither in +wagons and aristocratic gigs. Once arrived, all stepping around loftily +on the velvet grass, peering curiously into each other's eyes, and +offering their snuffboxes for a sneeze of convivial astonishment that +they could venture to meet under the clear sky for such an undertaking. +The five judges of the fair, coming from as many different counties, the +greatest personages of their day--one, a brilliant judge of the Federal +Court; the second, one of the earliest settlers, with a sword hanging up +at home to show how Virginia appreciated his services in the Revolution; +the third, a soldier and blameless gentleman of the old school; the +fourth, one of the few early Kentuckians who brought into the new +society the noble style of country-place, with park and deer, that +would have done credit to an English lord; and the fifth, in no respect +inferior to the others. These "perform the duties assigned them with +assiduity," and hand over to their neighbors as many as fifteen or +twenty premium silver cups, costing twelve dollars apiece. After which, +the assemblage variously disperses--part through the woods again, while +part return to town. + +Such, then, was the first Kentucky fair. It was a transplantation to +Kentucky, not of the English or European fair, but of the English +cattle-show. It resembled the fair only in being a place for buying and +selling. And it was not thought of in the light of a merry-making or +great popular amusement. It seems not even to have taken account of +manufactures--then so important an industry--or of agriculture. + +Like the first was the second fair held in the same place the year +following. Of this, little is and little need be known, save that then +was formed the first State Agricultural Society of Kentucky, which also +was the first in the West, and the second in the United States. This +society held two or three annual meetings, and then went to pieces, but +not before laying down the broad lines on which the fair continued to be +held for the next quarter of a century. That is, the fair began as a +cattle-show, though stock of other kinds was exhibited. Then it was +extended to embrace agriculture; and with branches of good husbandry it +embraced as well those of good housewifery. Thus at the early fairs one +finds the farmers contesting for premiums with their wheats and their +whiskeys, while their skilful helpmates displayed the products--the +never-surpassed products--of their looms: linens, cassinettes, jeans, +and carpetings. + +With this brief outline we may pass over the next twenty years. The +current of State life during this interval ran turbulent and stormy. Now +politics, now finance, imbittered and distressed the people. Time and +again, here and there, small societies revived the fair, but all efforts +to expand it were unavailing. And yet this period must be distinguished +as the one during which the necessity of the fair became widely +recognized; for it taught the Kentuckians that their chief interest lay +in the soil, and that physical nature imposed upon them the agricultural +type of life. Grass was to be their portion and their destiny. It taught +them the insulation of their habitat, and the need of looking within +their own society for the germs and laws of their development. As soon +as the people came to see that they were to be a race of farmers, it is +important to note their concern that, as such, they should be hedged +with respectability. They took high ground about it; they would not +cease to be gentlemen; they would have their class well reputed for fat +pastures and comfortable homes, but honored as well for manners and +liberal intelligence. And to this end they had recourse to an +agricultural literature. Thus, when the fair began to revive, with +happier auspices, near the close of the period under consideration, they +signalized it for nearly the quarter of a century afterwards by +instituting literary contests. Prizes and medals were offered for +discoveries and inventions which should be of interest to the Kentucky +agriculturist; and hundreds of dollars were appropriated for the victors +and the second victors in the writing of essays which should help the +farmer to become a scientist and not to forget to remain a gentleman. In +addition, they sometimes sat for hours in the open air while some +eminent citizen--the Governor, if possible--delivered an address to +commemorate the opening of the fair, and to review the progress +of agricultural life in the commonwealth. But there were many +anti-literarians among them, who conceived a sort of organized hostility +to what they aspersed as book-farming, and on that account withheld +their cordial support. + +[Illustration: PRODUCTS Of THE SOIL.] + + +III + +It was not until about the year 1840 that the fair began to touch-the +heart of the whole people. Before this time there had been no +amphitheatre, no music, no booths, no side-shows, no ladies. A fair +without ladies! How could the people love it, or ever come to look upon +it as their greatest annual occasion for love-making? + +An interesting commentary on the social decorum of this period is +furnished in the fact that for some twenty years after the institution +of the fair no woman put her foot upon the ground. She was thought a +bold woman, doing a bold deed, who one day took a friend and, under the +escort of gentlemen, drove in her own carriage to witness the showing of +her own fat cattle; for she was herself one of the most practical and +successful of Kentucky farmers. But where one of the sex has been, may +not all the sex--may not all the world--safely follow? From the date of +this event, and the appearance of women on the grounds, the tide of +popular favor set in steadily towards the fair. + +For, as an immediate consequence, seats must be provided. Here one +happens upon a curious bit of local history--the evolution of the +amphitheatre among the Kentuckians. At the earliest fairs the first form +of the amphitheatre had been a rope stretched from tree to tree, while +the spectators stood around on the outside, or sat on the grass or in +their vehicles. The immediate result of the necessity for providing +comfortable seats for the now increasing crowd, was to select as a place +for holding the fair such a site as the ancient Greeks might have chosen +for building a theatre. Sometimes this was the head of a deep ravine, +around the sides of which seats were constructed, while the bottom below +served as the arena for the exhibition of the stock, which was led in +and out through the mouth of the hollow. At other times advantage was +taken of a natural sink and semicircular hill-side. The slope was sodded +and terraced with rows of seats, and the spectators looked down upon the +circular basin at the bottom. But clearly enough the sun played havoc +with the complexions of the ladies, and a sudden drenching shower was +still one of the uncomfortable dispensations of Providence. Therefore a +roofed wooden structure of temporary seats made its appearance, designed +after the fashion of those used by the travelling show, and finally out +of this form came the closed circular amphitheatre, modelled on the plan +of the Colosseum. Thus first among the Kentuckians, if I mistake not, +one saw the English cattle-show, which meantime was gathering about +itself many characteristics of the English fair, wedded strangely enough +to the temple of a Roman holiday. By-and-by we shall see this form of +amphitheatre torn down and supplanted by another, which recalls the +ancient circus or race-course--a modification corresponding with a +change in the character of the later fair. + +The most desirable spot for building the old circular amphitheatre was +some beautiful tract of level ground containing from five to twenty +acres, and situated near a flourishing town and its ramifying turnpikes. +This tract must be enclosed by a high wooden paling, with here and there +entrance gates for stock and pedestrians and vehicles, guarded by +gate-keepers. And within this enclosure appeared in quick succession +all the varied accessories that went to make up a typical Kentucky fair +near the close of the old social regime; that is, before the outbreak of +the Civil War. + +[Illustration: CATTLE AT LEXINGTON FAIR.] + +Here were found the hundreds of neat stalls for the different kinds of +stock; the gay booths under the colonnade of the amphitheatre for +refreshments; the spacious cottages for women and invalids and children; +the platforms of the quack-doctors; the floral hall and the pagoda-like +structure for the musicians and the judges; the tables and seats for +private dining; the high swings and the turnabouts; the tests of the +strength of limb and lung; the gaudy awnings for the lemonade venders; +the huge brown hogsheads for iced-water, with bright tin cups dangling +from the rim; the circus; and, finally, all those tented spectacles of +the marvellous, the mysterious, and the monstrous which were to draw +popular attention to the Kentucky fair, as they had been the particular +delight of the fair-going thousands in England hundreds of years before. + +For you will remember that the Kentucky fair has ceased by this time to +be a cattle-show. It has ceased to be simply a place for the annual +competitive exhibition of stock of all kinds, which, by-the-way, is +beginning to make the country famous. It has ceased to be even the +harvest-home of the Bluegrass Region, the mild autumnal saturnalia of +its rural population. Whatever the people can discover or invent is +indeed here; or whatever they own, or can produce from the bountiful +earth, or take from orchard or flower-garden, or make in dairy, kitchen, +or loom-room. But the fair is more than all this now. It has become the +great yearly pleasure-ground of the people assembled for a week's +festivities. It is what the European fair of old was--the season of the +happiest and most general intercourse between country and town. Here the +characteristic virtues and vices of the local civilization will be found +in open flower side by side, and types and manners painted to the eye in +vividest colorings. + +Crowded picture of a time gone by! Bright glancing pageantry of life, +moving on with feasting and music and love-making to the very edge of +the awful precipice, over which its social system and its richly +nurtured ideals will be dashed to pieces below!--why not pause an +instant over its innocent mirth, and quick, awful tragedies? + + +IV + +The fair has been in progress several days, and this will be the +greatest day of all: nothing shown from morning till night but +horses--horses in harness, horses under the saddle. Ah! but _that_ will +be worth seeing! Late in the afternoon the little boys will ride for +premiums on their ponies, and, what is not so pretty, but far more +exciting, young men will contest the prize of horsemanship. And then +such racking and pacing and loping and walking!--such racing round and +round and round to see who can go fastest, and be gracefulest, and turn +quickest! Such pirouetting and curveting and prancing and cavorting and +riding with arms folded across the breast while the reins lie on the +horse's neck, and suddenly bowing over to the horse's mane, as some +queen of beauty high up in the amphitheatre, transported by the +excitement of the thousands of spectators and the closeness of the +contest, throws her flowers and handkerchief down into the arena! Ah, +yes! this will be the great day at the fair--at the modern tourney! + +[Illustration: HARNESS HORSES.] + +So the tide of the people is at the flood. For days they have been +pouring into the town. The hotels are overflowing with strangers; the +open houses of the citizens are full of guests. Strolling companies of +players will crack the dusty boards tonight with the tread of buskin and +cothurnus. The easy-going tradespeople have trimmed their shops, and +imported from the North their richest merchandise. + +From an early hour of the morning, along every road that leads from +country or town to the amphitheatre, pour the hurrying throng of people, +eager to get good seats for the day; for there will be thousands not +seated at all. Streaming out, on the side of the town, are pedestrians, +hacks, omnibuses, the negro drivers shouting, racing, cracking their +whips, and sometimes running into the way-side stands where old negro +women are selling apples and gingerbread. Streaming in, on the side of +the country, are pedestrians, heated, their coats thrown over the +shoulder or the arm; buggies containing often a pair of lovers who do +not keep their secret discreetly; family carriages with children made +conspicuously tidy and mothers aglow with the recent labors of the +kitchen: comfortable evidences of which are the huge baskets or hampers +that are piled up in front or strapped on behind. Nay, sometimes may be +seen whole wagon-loads of provisions moving slowly in, guarded by portly +negresses, whose eyes shine like black diamonds through the setting of +their white-dusted eyelashes. + +Within the grounds, how rapidly the crowd swells and surges hither and +thither, tasting the pleasures of the place before going to the +amphitheatre: to the stalls, to the booths, to the swings, to the +cottage, to the floral hall, to the living curiosities, to the swinish +pundits, who have learned their lessons in numbers and cards. Is not +that the same pig that was shown at Bartholomew's four centuries ago? +Mixed in with the Kentuckians are people of a different build and +complexion. For Kentucky now is one of the great summering States for +the extreme Southerners, who come up with their families to its +watering-places. Others who are scattered over the North return in the +autumn by way of Kentucky, remaining till the fair and the fall of the +first frost. Nay, is not the State the place for the reunion of families +that have Southern members? Back to the old home from the rice and sugar +and cotton plantations of the swamps and the bayous come young Kentucky +wives with Southern husbands, young Kentucky husbands with Southern +wives. All these are at the fair--the Lexington fair. Here, too, are +strangers from wellnigh every Northern State. And, I beg you, do not +overlook the negroes--a solid acre of them. They play unconsciously a +great part in the essential history of this scene and festival. Briskly +grooming the stock in the stalls; strolling around with carriage whips +in their hands; running on distant errands; showering a tumult of +blows upon the newly-arrived "boss" with their nimble, ubiquitous +brush-brooms; everywhere, everywhere, happy, well-dressed, sleek--the +fateful background of all this stage of social history. + +[Illustration: THE MODERN TOURNEY.] + +But the amphitheatre! Through the mild, chastened, soft-toned atmosphere +of the early September day the sunlight falls from the unclouded sky +upon the seated thousands. Ah, the women in all their silken and satin +bravery! delicate blue and pink and canary-colored petticoats, with +muslin over-dresses, black lace and white lace mantles, white kid +gloves, and boots to match the color of their petticoats. One stands up +to allow a lemonade-seller to pass; she wears a hoop-skirt twelve feet +in circumference. Here and there costumes suitable for a ball; arms and +shoulders glistening like marble in the sunlight; gold chains around the +delicate arching necks. Oh, the jewels, the flowers, the fans, the +parasols, the ribbons, the soft eyes and smiles, the love and happiness! +And some of the complexions!--paint on the cheeks, powder on the neck, +stick-pomatum plastering the beautiful hair down over the temples. No +matter; it is the fashion. Rub it in! Rub it in well--up to the very +roots of the hair and eyebrows! Now, how perfect you are, madam! You are +the great Kentucky show of life-size wax-works. + +In another part of the amphitheatre nothing but men, red-faced, excited, +standing up on the seats, shouting, applauding, as the rival horses rush +round the ring before them. It is not difficult to know who these are. +The money streams through their fingers. Did you hear the crack of that +pistol? How the crowd swarms angrily. Stand back! A man has been shot. +He insulted a gentleman. He called him a liar. Be careful. There are a +great many pistols on the fair grounds. + +In all the United States where else is there to be seen any such holiday +assemblage of people--any such expression of the national life impressed +with local peculiarities? Where else is there to be seen anything that, +while it falls far behind, approaches so near the spirit of uproarious +merriment, of reckless fun, which used to intoxicate and madden the +English populace when given over to the sports of a ruder age? + +[Illustration: THE JUDGE'S STAND--THE FINISH.] + +These are the descendants of the sad pioneers--of those early cavalcades +which we glanced at in the primeval forests a few minutes ago. These +have subdued the land, and are reclining on its tranquil autumn fulness. +Time enough to play now--more time than there ever was before; more than +there will ever be again. They have established their great fair here on +the very spot where their forefathers were massacred or put to torture. +So, at old Smithfield, the tumblers, the jesters, the buffoons, and the +dancers shouldered each other in joyful riot over the ashes of the +earlier heroes and martyrs. + +It is past high noon, and the thousands break away from the amphitheatre +and move towards a soft green woodland in another part of the grounds, +shaded by forest trees. Here are the private dinner-tables--hundreds of +them, covered with snowy linen, glittering with glass and silver. You +have heard of Kentucky hospitality; here you will see one of the +peaceful battle-fields where reputation for that virtue is fought for +and won. Is there a stranger among these thousands that has not been +hunted up and provided for? And such dinners! Old Pepys should be +here--immortal eater--so that he could go home and set down in his +diary, along with other gastronomic adventures, garrulous notes of what +he saw eaten and ate himself at the Kentucky fair. You will never see +the Kentuckians making a better show than at this moment. What courtesy, +what good-will, what warm and gracious manners! Tie a blue ribbon on +them. In a competitive exhibition of this kind the premium will stay at +home. + +But make the most of it--make the most of this harmony. For did you see +that? A father and a son met each other, turned their heads quickly and +angrily away, and passed without speaking. + +[Illustration: A DINNER-PARTY.] + +Look how these two men shake hands with too much cordiality, and search +each other's eyes. There is a man from the North standing apart +and watching with astonishment these alert, happy, efficient +negroes--perhaps following with his thoughtful gaze one of Mrs. Stowe's +Uncle Toms. A Southerner has drawn that Kentucky farmer beside a tree, +and is trying to buy one of these servants for his plantation. Yes, yes, +make the most of it! The war is coming. It is in men's hearts, and in +their eyes and consciences. By-and-by this bright, gay pageant will pass +so entirely away that even the thought of it will come back to one like +the unsubstantial revelry of a dream. By-and-by there will be another +throng filling these grounds: not in pink and white and canary, but in +blue, solid blue--blue overcoats, showing sad and cold above the snow. +All round the amphitheatre tents will be spread--not covering, as now, +the hideous and the monstrous, but the sleeping forms of young men, +athletic, sinewy, beautiful. This, too, shall vanish. And some day, when +the fierce summer sun is killing the little gray leaves and blades of +grass, in through these deserted gates will pass a long, weary, +foot-sore line of brown. Nothing in the floral hall now but cots, around +which are nurses and weeping women. Lying there, some poor young fellow, +with the death dew on his forehead, will open his shadowy eyes and +remember this day of the fair, where he walked among the flowers and +made love. + +But it is late in the afternoon, and the people are beginning to +disperse by turnpike and lane to their homes in the country, or to +hasten back into town for the festivities of the night; for to-night the +spirit of the fair will be continued in other amphitheatres. To-night +comedy and tragedy will tread the village boards; but hand in hand also +they will flaunt their colors through the streets, and haunt the +midnight alleys. In all the year no time like fair-time: parties at +private houses; hops, balls at the hotels. You shall sip the foam from +the very crest of the wave of revelry and carousal. Darkness be over it +till the east reddens! Let Bacchus be unconfined! + +[Illustration: THE RACE-COURSE--THE FINISH.] + + +V + +The fair languished during the war, but the people were not slow to +revive it upon the return of peace. Peace, however, could never bring +back the fair of the past: it was gone forever--gone with the stage and +phase of the social evolution of which it was the unique and memorable +expression. For there was no phase of social evolution in Kentucky but +felt profoundly that era of upheaval, drift, and readjustment. Start +where we will, or end where we may, we shall always come sooner or later +to the war as a great rent and chasm, with its hither side and its +farther side and its deep abyss between, down into which old things were +dashed to death, and out of which new things were born into the better +life. + +Therefore, as we study the Kentucky fair of today, more than a quarter +of a century later, we must expect to find it much changed. Withal it +has many local variations. As it is held here and there in retired +counties or by little neighborhoods it has characteristics of rural +picturesqueness that suggest the manners of the era passed away. But the +typical Kentucky fair, the fair that represents the leading interests +and advanced ideas of the day, bears testimony enough to the altered +life of the people. + +The old circular amphitheatre has been torn down, and replaced with a +straight or a slightly curved bank of seats. Thus we see the arena +turned into the race-course, the idea of the Colosseum giving way to the +idea of the Circus Maximus. In front of the bank of seats stretch a +small track for the exhibition of different kinds of stock, and a large +track for the races. This abandonment of the old form of amphitheatre is +thus a significant concession to the trotting-horse, and a sign that its +speed has become the great pleasure of the fair. + +As a picture, also, the fair of to-day lacks the Tyrolean brightness of +its predecessor; and as a social event it seems like a pensive tale of +by-gone merriment. Society no longer looks upon it as the occasion of +displaying its wealth, its toilets, its courtesies, its hospitalities. +No such gay and splendid dresses now; no such hundreds of dinner-tables +on the shaded greensward. It would be too much to say that the +disappearance of the latter betokens the loss of that virtue which the +gracious usages of a former time made a byword. The explanation lies +elsewhere. Under the old social regime a common appurtenance to every +well-established household was a trained force of negro servants. It was +the services of these that made the exercise of generous public +entertainment possible to the Kentucky housewife. Moreover, the lavish +ideals of the time threw upon economy the reproach of meanness; +and, as has been noted, the fair was then the universally recognized +time for the display of munificent competitive hospitalities. In truth, +it was the sharpness of the competition that brought in at last the +general disuse of the custom; for the dinners grew more and more +sumptuous, the labor of preparing them more and more severe, and the +expense of paying for them more and more burdensome. So to-day the +Kentuckians remain a hospitable people, but you must not look to find +the noblest exercise of their hospitality at the fair. A few dinners you +will see, but modest luncheons are not despicable and the whole tendency +of things is towards the understanding that an appetite is an affair of +the private conscience. And this brings to light some striking +differences between the old and the new Kentuckians. Along with the +circular amphitheatre, the dresses, and the dinners, have gone the +miscellaneous amusements of which the fair was ere-while the mongrel +scene and centre. The ideal fair of to-day frowns upon the side-show, +and discards every floating accessory. It would be self-sufficient. It +would say to the thousands of people who still attend it as the greatest +of all their organized pleasures, "Find your excitement, your +relaxation, your happiness, in a shed for machinery, a floral hall, and +the fine stock." But of these the greatest attraction is the last, and +of all kinds of stock the one most honored is the horse. Here, then, we +come upon a noteworthy fact: the Kentucky fair, which began as a +cattle-show, seems likely to end with being a horse-show. + +[Illustration: STALLIONS.] + +If anything is lacking to complete the contrast between the fair in the +fulness of its development before the war and the fair of to-day, what +better could be found to reflect this than the different _morale_ of the +crowd? + +You are a stranger, and you have the impression that an assemblage of +ten, fifteen, twenty thousand Kentuckians out on a holiday is pervaded +by the spirit of a mob. You think that a few broken heads is one of its +cherished traditions; that intoxication and disorderliness are its +dearest prerogatives. But nowadays you look in vain for those heated, +excited men with money lying between their fingers, who were once the +rebuke and the terror of the amphitheatre. You look in vain for heated, +excited men of any kind: there are none. There is no drinking, no +bullying, no elbowing, or shouldering, or swearing. + +[Illustration: MULES.] + +While still in their nurses' arms you may sometimes see the young +Kentuckians shown in the ring at the horse-fair for premiums. From their +early years they are taken to the amphitheatre to enjoy its color, its +fleetness, and its form. As little boys they ride for prizes. The horse +is the subject of talk in the hotels, on the street corners, in the +saloons, at the stables, on county court day, at the cross-roads and +blacksmiths' shops, in country church-yards before the sermon. The +barber, as he shaves his morning customer, gives him points on the +races. There will be found many a group of gentlemen in whose presence +to reveal an ignorance of famous horses and common pedigrees will bring +a blush to the cheek. Not to feel interested in such themes is to lay +one's self open to a charge of disagreeable eccentricity. The horse has +gradually emerged into prominence until to-day it occupies the +foreground. + + + + +A HOME OF THE SILENT BROTHERHOOD + + +I + +More than two hundred and fifty years have passed since the Cardinal de +Richelieu stood at the baptismal font as sponsor to a name that within +the pale of the Church was destined to become more famous than his own. +But the world has wellnigh forgotten Richelieu's godson. Only the +tireless student of biography now turns the pages that record his +extraordinary career, ponders the strange unfolding of his moral nature, +is moved by the deep pathos of his dying hours. Dominique Armand-Jean le +Bouthillier de Rancé! How cleverly, while scarcely out of short-clothes, +did he puzzle the king's confessor with questions on Homer, and at the +age of thirteen publish an edition of Anacreon! Of ancient, illustrious +birth, and heir to an almost ducal house, how tenderly favored was he by +Marie de Médicis; happy-hearted, kindly, suasive, how idolized by a +gorgeous court! In what affluence of rich laces did he dress; in what +irresistible violet-colored close coats, with emeralds at his +wristbands, a diamond on his finger, red heels on his shoes! How nimbly +he capered through the dance with a sword on his hip! How bravely he +planned quests after the manner of knights of the Round Table, meaning +to take for himself the part of Lancelot! How exquisitely, ardently, and +ah! how fatally he flirted with the incomparable ladies in the circle of +Madame de Rambouillet! And with a zest for sport as great as his unction +for the priestly office, how wittily--laying one hand on his heart and +waving the other through the air--could he bow and say, "This morning I +preached like an angel; I'll hunt like the devil this afternoon!" + +All at once his life broke in two when half spent. He ceased to hunt +like the devil, to adore the flesh, to scandalize the world; and +retiring to the ancient Abbey of La Trappe in Normandy--the sponsorial +gift of his Eminence and favored by many popes--there undertook the +difficult task of reforming the relaxed Benedictines. The old +abbey--situated in a great fog-covered basin encompassed by dense woods +of beech, oak, and linden, and therefore gloomy, unhealthy, and +forbidding--was in ruins. One ascended by means of a ladder from floor +to rotting floor. The refectory had become a place where the monks +assembled to play at bowls with worldlings. The dormitory, exposed to +wind, rain, and snow, had been given up to owls. In the church the +stones were scattered, the walls unsteady, the pavement was broken, the +bell ready to fall. As a single solemn reminder of the vanished spirit +of the place, which had been founded by St. Stephen and St. Bernard in +the twelfth century, with the intention of reviving in the Western +Church the bright examples of primitive sanctity furnished by Eastern +solitaries of the third and fourth, one read over the door of the +cloister the words of Jeremiah: "_Sedebit solitarius et tacebit_" The +few monks who remained in the convent slept where they could, and were, +as Chateaubriand says, in a state of ruins. They preferred sipping +ratafia to reading their breviaries; and when De Rancé undertook to +enforce reform, they threatened to whip him for his pains. He, in turn, +threatened them with the royal interference, and they submitted. There, +accordingly, he introduced a system of rules that a sybarite might have +wept over even to hear recited; carried into practice cenobitical +austerities that recalled the models of pious anchorites in Syria and +Thebais; and gave its peculiar meaning to the word "Trappist," a name +which has since been taken by all Cistercian communities embracing the +reform of the first monastery. + +In the retirement of this mass of woods and sky De Rancé passed the rest +of his long life, doing nothing more worldly, so far as is now known, +than quoting Aristophanes and Horace to Bossuet, and allowing himself to +be entertained by Pellisson, exhibiting the accomplishments of his +educated spider. There, in acute agony of body and perfect meekness of +spirit, a worn and weary old man, with time enough to remember his +youthful ardors and emeralds and illusions, he watched his mortal end +draw slowly near. And there, asking to be buried in some desolate +spot--some old battle-field--he died at last, extending his poor +macerated body on the cross of blessed cinders and straw, and commending +his poor penitent soul to the mercy of Heaven. + +A wonderful spectacle to the less fervid Benedictines of the closing +seventeenth century must have seemed the work of De Rancé in that old +Norman abbey! A strange company of human souls, attracted by the former +distinction of the great abbot as well as by the peculiar vows of the +institute, must have come together in its silent halls! One hears many +stories, in the lighter vein, regarding some of its inmates. Thus, there +was a certain furious ex-trooper, lately reeking with blood, who got +himself much commended by living on baked apples; and a young nobleman +who devoted himself to the work of washing daily the monastery +spittoons. One Brother, the story runs, having one day said there was +too much salt in his scalding-hot broth, immediately burst into tears of +contrition for his wickedness in complaining; and another went for so +many years without raising his eyes that he knew not a new chapel had +been built, and so quite cracked his skull one day against the wall of +it. + +The abbey was an asylum for the poor and helpless, the shipwrecked, the +conscience-stricken, and the broken-hearted--for that meditative type of +fervid piety which for ages has looked upon the cloister as the true +earthly paradise wherein to rear the difficult edifice of the soul's +salvation. Much noble blood sought De Rancé's retreat to wash out its +terrifying stains, and more than one reckless spirit went thither to +take upon itself the yoke of purer, sweeter usages. + +De Rancé's work remains an influence in the world. His monastery and his +reform constitute the true background of material and spiritual fact +against which to outline the present Abbey of La Trappe in Kentucky. +Even when thus viewed, it seems placed where it is only by some freak of +history. An abbey of La Trappe in Kentucky! How inharmonious with every +element of its environment appears this fragment of old French monastic +life! It is the twelfth century touching the last of the nineteenth--the +Old World reappearing in the New. Here are French faces--here is the +French tongue. Here is the identical white cowl presented to blessed St. +Alberick in the forests of Burgundy nine hundred years ago. Here is the +rule of St. Benedict, patriarch of the Western monks in the sixth +century. When one is put out at the way-side station, amid woodlands and +fields of Indian-corn, and, leaving the world behind him, turns his +footsteps across the country towards the abbey, more than a mile away, +the seclusion of the region, its ineffable quietude, the infinite +isolation of the life passed by the silent brotherhood--all bring +vividly before the mind the image of that ancient distant abbey with +which this one holds connection so sacred and so close. Is it not the +veritable spot in Normandy? Here, too, is the broad basin of retired +country; here the densely wooded hills, shutting it in from the world; +here the orchards and vineyards and gardens of the ascetic devotees; +and, as the night falls from the low, blurred sky of gray, and cuts +short a silent contemplation of the scene, here, too, one finds one's +self, like some belated traveller in the dangerous forests of old, +hurrying on to reach the porter's lodge, and ask within the sacred walls +the hospitality of the venerable abbot. + + +II + +[Illustration: OFFICE OF THE FATHER PRIOR.] + +For nearly a century after the death of De Rancé it is known that his +followers faithfully maintained his reform at La Trappe. Then the French +Revolution drove the Trappists as wanderers into various countries, and +the abbey was made a foundery for cannon. A small branch of the order +came in 1804 to the United States, and established itself for a while in +Pennsylvania, but soon turned its eyes towards the greater wilds and +solitudes of Kentucky. For this there was reason. Kentucky was early a +great pioneer of the Catholic Church in the United States. Here the +first episcopal see of the West was erected, and Bardstown held +spiritual jurisdiction, within certain parallels of latitude, over all +States and Territories between the two oceans. Here, too, were the first +Catholic missionaries of the West, except those who were to be found in +the French stations along the Wabash and the Mississippi. Indeed, the +Catholic population of Kentucky, which was principally descended from +the colonists of Lord Baltimore, had begun to enter the State as early +as 1775, the nucleus of their settlements soon becoming Nelson County, +the locality of the present abbey. Likewise it should be remembered that +the Catholic Church in the United States, especially that portion of it +in Kentucky, owes a great debt to the zeal of the exiled French clergy +of early days. That buoyancy and elasticity of the French character, +which naturally adapts it to every circumstance and emergency, was then +most demanded and most efficacious. From these exiles the infant +missions of the State were supplied with their most devoted laborers. + +Hither, accordingly, the Trappists removed from Pennsylvania, +establishing themselves on Pottinger's Creek, near Rohan's Knob, several +miles from the present site. But they remained only a few years. The +climate of Kentucky was ill suited to their life of unrelaxed +asceticism; their restless superior had conceived a desire to +christianize Indian children, and so removed the languishing settlement +to Missouri. There is not space for following the solemn march of those +austere exiles through the wildernesses of the New World. From Missouri +they went to an ancient Indian burying-ground in Illinois, and there +built up a sort of village in the heart of the prairie; but the great +mortality from which they suffered, and the subsidence of the fury of +the French Revolution recalled them in 1813 to France, to reoccupy the +establishments from which they had been banished. + +It was of this body that Dickens, in his _American Notes_, wrote as +follows: + + Looming up in the distance, as we rode along, was another of the + ancient Indian burial-places, called Monk's Mound, in memory of a + body of fanatics of the order of La Trappe, who founded a desolate + convent there many years ago, when there were no settlements + within a thousand miles, and were all swept off by the pernicious + climate; in which lamentable fatality few rational people will + suppose, perhaps, that society experienced any very severe + deprivation. + +This is a better place in which to state a miracle than discuss it; and +the following account of a heavenly portent, which is related to have +been vouchsafed the Trappists while sojourning in Kentucky, may be given +without comment: + + In the year 1808 the moon, being then about two-thirds full, + presented a most remarkable appearance. A bright, luminous + cross, clearly defined, was seen in the heavens, with its arms + intersecting the centre of the moon. On each side two smaller + crosses were also distinctly visible, though the portions of them + most distant from the moon were more faintly marked. This strange + phenomenon continued for several hours, and was witnessed by the + Trappists on their arising, as usual, at midnight, to sing the + Divine praise. + +The present monastery, which is called the Abbey of Gethsemane, owes its +origin immediately to the Abbey of La Meilleraye, of the department of +the Loire-Inférieure, France. The abbot of the latter had concluded +arrangements with the French Government to found a house in the island +of Martinique, on an estate granted by Louis Philippe; but this +monarch's rule having been overturned, the plan was abandoned in favor +of a colony in the United States. Two Fathers, with the view of +selecting a site, came to New York in the summer of 1848, and naturally +turned their eyes to the Catholic settlements in Kentucky, and to the +domain of the pioneer Trappists. In the autumn of that year, +accordingly, about forty-five "religious" left the mother-abbey of La +Meilleraye, set sail from Havre de Grace for New Orleans, went thence by +boat to Louisville, and from this point walked to Gethsemane, a +distance of some sixty miles. Although scattered among various countries +of Europe, the Trappists have but two convents in the United +States--this, the oldest, and one near Dubuque, Iowa, a colony from the +abbey in Ireland. + + +III + +[Illustration: WITHIN THE GATES.] + +The domain of the abbey comprises some seventeen hundred acres of land, +part of which is tillable, while the rest consists of a range of wooded +knobs that furnish timber to the monastery steam saw-mill. Around this +domain lie the homesteads of Kentucky farmers, who make indifferent +monks. One leaves the public road that winds across the open country and +approaches the monastery through a long, level avenue, enclosed on each +side by a hedge-row of cedars, and shaded by nearly a hundred beautiful +English elms, the offspring of a single parent stem. Traversing this +dim, sweet spot, where no sound is heard but the waving of boughs and +the softened notes of birds, one reaches the porter's lodge, a low, +brick building, on each side of which extends the high brick-wall that +separates the inner from the outer world. Passing beneath the archway of +the lodge, one discovers a graceful bit of landscape gardening--walks +fringed with cedars, beds for flowers, pathways so thickly strewn with +sawdust that the heaviest footfall is unheard, a soft turf of green, +disturbed only by the gentle shadows of the pious-looking Benedictine +trees: a fit spot for recreation and meditation. It is with a sort of +worldly start that you come upon an enclosure at one end of these +grounds wherein a populous family of white-cowled rabbits trip around in +the most noiseless fashion, and seemed ashamed of being caught living +together in family relations. + +Architecturally there is little to please the æsthetic sense in the +monastery building, along the whole front of which these grounds extend. +It is a great quadrangular pile of brick, three stories high, heated by +furnaces and lighted by gas--modern appliances which heighten the +contrast with the ancient life whose needs they subserve. Within the +quadrangle is a green inner court, also beautifully laid off. On one +side are two chapels, the one appropriated to the ordinary services of +the Church, and entered from without the abbey-wall by all who desire; +the other, consecrated to the offices of the Trappist order, entered +only from within, and accessible exclusively to males. It is here that +one finds occasion to remember the Trappist's vow of poverty. The +vestments are far from rich, the decorations of the altar far from +splendid. The crucifixion-scene behind the altar consists of wooden +figures carved by one of the monks now dead, and painted with little +art. No tender light of many hues here streams through long windows rich +with holy reminiscence and artistic fancy. The church has, albeit, a +certain beauty of its own--that charm which is inseparable from fine +proportion in stone and from gracefully disposed columns growing into +the arches of the lofty roof. But the cold gray of the interior, severe +and unrelieved, bespeaks a place where the soul comes to lay itself in +simplicity before the Eternal as it would upon a naked, solitary rock of +the desert. Elsewhere in the abbey greater evidences of votive poverty +occur--in the various statues and shrines of the Virgin, in the pictures +and prints that hang in the main front corridor--in all that appertains +to the material life of the community. + +Just outside the church, beneath the perpetual benediction of the cross +on its spire, is the quiet cemetery garth, where the dead are side by +side, their graves covered with myrtle and having each for its +head-stone a plain wooden crucifix bearing the religious name and +station of him who lies below--Father Honorius, Father Timotheus, +Brother Hilarius, Brother Eutropius. Who are they? And whence? And by +what familiar names were they greeted on the old play-grounds and +battle-fields of the world? + +The Trappists do not, as it is commonly understood, daily dig a portion +of their own graves. When one of them dies and has been buried, a new +grave is begun beside the one just filled, as a reminder to the +survivors that one of them must surely take his place therein. So, too, +when each seeks the cemetery enclosure, in hours of holy meditation, +and, standing bareheaded among the graves, prays softly for the souls of +his departed brethren, he may come for a time to this unfinished grave, +and, kneeling, pray Heaven, if he be next, to dismiss his soul in peace. + +Nor do they sleep in the dark, abject kennel, which the imagination, in +the light of mediæval history, constructs as the true monk's cell. By +the rule of St. Benedict, they sleep separate, but in the same +dormitory--a great upper room, well lighted and clean, in the body of +which a general framework several feet high is divided into partitions +that look like narrow berths. + + +IV + +We have acquired poetical and pictorial conceptions of monks--praying +with wan faces and upturned eyes half darkened by the shadowing cowl, +the coarse serge falling away from the emaciated neck, the hands +pressing the crucifix close to the heart; and with this type has been +associated a certain idea of cloistral life--that it was an existence of +vacancy and idleness, or at best of deep meditation of the soul broken +only by express spiritual devotions. There is another kind of monk, with +the marks of which we seem traditionally familiar: the monk with the +rubicund face, sleek poll, good epigastric development, and slightly +unsteady gait, with whom, in turn, we have connected a different phase +of conventual discipline--fat capon and stubble goose, and midnight +convivial chantings growing ever more fast and furious, but finally +dying away in a heavy stertorous calm. Poetry, art, the drama, the +novel, have each portrayed human nature in orders; the saint-like monk, +the intellectual monk, the bibulous, the felonious, the fighting monk +(who loves not the hermit of Copmanhurst?), until the memory is stored +and the imagination preoccupied. + +Living for a while in a Trappist monastery in modern America, one gets +a pleasant actual experience of other types no less picturesque and on +the whole much more acceptable. He finds himself, for one thing, brought +face to face with the working monk. Idleness to the Trappist is the +enemy of the soul, and one of his vows is manual labor. Whatever a +monk's previous station may have been, he must perform, according to +abbatial direction, the most menial services. None are exempt from work; +there is no place among them for the sluggard. When it is borne in mind +that the abbey is a self-dependent institution, where the healthy must +be maintained, the sick cared for, the dead buried, the necessity for +much work becomes manifest. In fact, the occupations are as various as +those of a modern factory. There is scope for intellects of all degrees +and talents of wellnigh every order. Daily life, unremittingly from year +to year, is an exact system of duties and hours. The building, covering +about an acre of ground and penetrated by corridors, must be kept +faultlessly clean. There are three kitchens--one for the guests, one for +the community, and one for the infirmary--that require each a +_coquinarius_ and separate assistants. There is a tinker's shop and a +pharmacy; a saddlery, where the broken gear used in cultivating the +monastery lands is mended; a tailor's shop, where the worn garments are +patched; a shoemaker's shop, where the coarse, heavy shoes of the monks +are made and cobbled; and a barber's shop, where the Trappist beard is +shaved twice a month and the Trappist head is monthly shorn. + +Out-doors the occupations are even more varied. The community do not +till the farm. The greater part of their land is occupied by tenant +farmers, and what they reserve for their own use is cultivated by the +so-called "family brothers," who, it is due to say, have no families, +but live as celibates on the abbey domain, subject to the abbot's +authority, without being members of the order. The monks, however, do +labor in the ample gardens, orchards, and vineyard, from which they +derive their sustenance, in the steam saw-mill and grain-mill, in the +dairy and the cheese factory. Thus picturesquely engaged one may find +them in autumn: monks gathering apples and making pungent cider, which +is stored away in the vast cellar as their only beverage except water; +monks repairing the shingle roof of a stable; monks feeding the huge +swine, which they fatten for the board of their carnal guests, or the +fluttering multitude of chickens, from the eggs and young of which they +derive a slender revenue; monks grouped in the garden around a green and +purple heap of turnips, to be stored up as a winter relish of no mean +distinction. + +Amid such scenes one forgets all else while enjoying the wealth and +freshness of artistic effects. What a picture is this young Belgian +cheese-maker, his sleeves rolled above the elbows of his brawny arms, +his great pinkish hands buried in the golden curds, the cap of his serge +cloak falling back and showing his closely clipped golden-brown hair, +blue eyes, and clear, delicate skin! Or this Australian ex-farmer, as he +stands by the hopper of grist or lays on his shoulder a bag of flour for +the coarse brown-bread of the monks. Or this dark old French opera +singer, who strutted his brief hour on many a European stage, but now +hobbles around, hoary in his cowl and blanched with age, to pick up a +handful of garlic. Or this athletic young Irishman, thrusting a great +iron prod into the glowing coals of the sawmill furnace. Or this slender +Switzer, your attendant in the refectory, with great keys dangling from +his leathern cincture, who stands by with folded hands and bowed head +while you are eating the pagan meal he has prepared for you. + +[Illustration: A FORTNIGHTLY SHAVE.] + +From various countries of the Old World men find their way into the +Abbey of Gethsemane, but among them are no Americans. Repeatedly the +latter have joined the order, and have failed to persevere up to the +final consecration of the white cowl. The fairest warning is given to +the postulant. He is made to understand the entire extent of the +obligation he has assumed; and only after passing through a novitiate, +prolonged at the discretion of the abbot, is he admitted to the vows +that must be kept unbroken till death. + + +V + +From the striking material aspects of their daily life, one is soon +recalled to a sense of their subordination to spiritual aims and +pledges; for upon them, like a spell of enchantment, lies the sacred +silence. The honey has been taken from the bees with solemnity; the +grapes have been gathered without song and mirth. The vow of life-long +silence taken by the Trappist must of course not be construed literally; +but there are only two occasions during which it is completely set +aside--when confessing his sins and when singing the offices of the +Church. At all other times his tongue becomes, as far as possible, a +superfluous member; he speaks only by permission of his superior, and +always simply and to the point. The monk at work with another exchanges +with him only the few low, necessary words, and those that provoke no +laughter. Of the three so-called monastic graces, _Simplicitas_, +_Benignitas_, _Hilaritas_, the last is not his. Even for necessary +speech he is taught to substitute a language of signs, as fully +systematized as the speech of the deaf and dumb. Should he, while at +work, wound his fellow-workman, sorrow may be expressed by striking his +breast. A desire to confess is shown by lifting one hand to the mouth +and striking the breast with the other. The maker of cheese crosses two +fingers at the middle point to let you know that it is made half of milk +and half of cream. The guest-master, whose business it is to act as your +guide through the abbey and the grounds, is warily mindful of his +special functions and requests you to address none but him. Only the +abbot is free to speak when and as his judgment may approve. It is +silence, says the Trappist, that shuts out new ideas, worldly topics, +controversy. It is silence that enables the soul to contemplate with +singleness and mortification the infinite perfections of the Eternal. + +In the abbey it is this pervasive hush that falls like a leaden pall +upon the stranger who has rushed in from the talking universe. Are these +priests modern survivals of the rapt solitaries of India? The days pass, +and the world, which seemed in hailing distance to you at first, has +receded to dim remoteness. You stand at the window of your room looking +out, and hear in the autumn trees only the flute-like note of some +migratory bird, passing slowly on towards the south. You listen within, +and hear but a key turning in distant locks and the slow-retreating +footsteps of some dusky figure returning to its lonely self-communings. +The utmost precaution is taken to avoid noise; in the dormitory not even +your guide will speak to you, but explains by gesture and signs. During +the short siesta the Trappists allow themselves, if one of them, not +wishing to sleep, gets permission to read in his so-called cell, he must +turn the pages of his book inaudibly. In the refectory, while the meal +is eaten and the appointed reader in the tribune goes through a service, +if one through carelessness makes a noise by so much as dropping a fork +or a spoon, he leaves his seat and prostrates himself on the floor until +bidden by the superior to arise. The same penance is undergone in the +church by any one who should distract attention with the clasp of his +book. + +A hard life, to purely human seeming, does the Trappist make for the +body. He thinks nothing of it. It is his evil tenement of flesh, whose +humors are an impediment to sanctification, whose propensities are to be +kept down by the practice of austerities. To it in part his monastic +vows are addressed--perpetual and utter poverty, chastity, manual labor, +silence, seclusion, penance, obedience. The perfections and glories of +his monastic state culminate in the complete abnegation and destruction +of animal nature, and in the correspondence of his earthly life with the +holiness of divine instruction. The war of the Jesuit is with the world; +the war of the Trappist is with himself. From his narrow bed, on which +are simply a coarse thin mattress, pillow, sheet, and coverlet, he rises +at 2 o'clock, on certain days at 1, on others yet at 12. He has not +undressed, but has slept in his daily garb, with the cincture around his +waist. + +This dress consists, if he be a brother, of the roughest dark-brown +serge-like stuff, the over-garment of which is a long robe; if a Father, +of a similar material, but white in color, the over-garment being the +cowl, beneath which is the black scapular. He changes it only once in +two weeks. The frequent use of the bath, as tending to luxuriousness, is +forbidden him, especially if he be young. His diet is vegetables, fruit, +honey, cider, cheese, and brown-bread. Only when sick or infirm may he +take even fish or eggs. His table-service is pewter, plain earthenware, +a heavy wooden spoon and fork of his own making, and the bottom of a +broken bottle for a salt-cellar. If he wears the white cowl, he eats but +one such frugal repast a day during part of the year; if the brown robe, +and therefore required to do more work, he has besides this meal an +early morning luncheon called "mixt." He renounces all claim to his own +person, all right over his own powers. "I am as wax," he exclaims; +"mould me as you will." By the law of his patron saint, if commanded to +do things too hard, or even impossible, he must still undertake them. + +For the least violations of the rules of his order; for committing a +mistake while reciting a psalm, responsory, antiphon, or lesson; for +giving out one note instead of another, or saying _dominus_ instead of +_domino_; for breaking or losing anything, or committing any fault while +engaged in any kind of work in kitchen, pantry, bakery, garden, trade, +or business--he must humble himself and make public satisfaction +forthwith. Nay, more: each by his vows is forced to become his brother's +keeper, and to proclaim him publicly in the community chapter for the +slightest overt transgression. For charity's sake, however, he may not +judge motives nor make vague general charges. + +The Trappist does not walk beyond the enclosures except by permission. +He must repress ineffably tender yearnings that visit and vex the human +heart in this life. The death of the nearest kindred is not announced to +him. Forgotten by the world, by him it is forgotten. Yet not wholly. +When he lays the lashes of the scourge on his flesh--it may be on his +carious bones--he does it not for his own sins alone, but for the sins +of the whole world; and in his searching, self-imposed humiliations, +there is a silent, broad out-reaching of sympathetic effort in behalf of +all his kind. Sorrow may not depict itself freely on his face. If a +suffering invalid, he must manifest no interest in the progress of his +malady, feel no concern regarding the result. In his last hour, he sees +ashes strewn upon the floor in the form of a cross, a thin scattering of +straw made over them, and his body extended thereon to die; and from +this hard bed of death he knows it will be borne on a bier by his +brethren and laid in the grave without coffin or shroud. + + +VI + +But who can judge such a life save him who has lived it? Who can say +what undreamt-of spiritual compensations may not come even in this +present time as a reward for bodily austerities? What fine realities may +not body themselves forth to the eye of the soul, strained of grossness, +steadied from worldly agitation, and taught to gaze year after year into +the awfulness and mystery of its own being and deep destiny? +"Monasticism," says Mr. Froude, "we believe to have been the realization +of the infinite loveliness and beauty of personal purity; and the saint +in the desert was the apotheosis of the spiritual man." However this may +be, here at Gethsemane you see one of the severest expressions of its +faith that the soul has ever given, either in ancient or in modern +times; and you cease to think of these men as members of a religious +order, in the study of them as exponents of a common humanity struggling +with the problem of its relation to the Infinite. One would wish to lay +hold upon the latent elements of power and truth and beauty in their +system which enables them to say with quiet cheerfulness, "We are +happy, perfectly happy." + +Excepting this ceaseless war between flesh and spirit, the abbey seems a +peaceful place. Its relations with the outside world have always been +kindly. During the Civil War it was undisturbed by the forces of each +army. Food and shelter it has never denied even to the poorest, and it +asks no compensation, accepting such as the stranger may give. The savor +of good deeds extends beyond its walls, and near by is a free school +under its control, where for more than a quarter of a century boys of +all creeds have been educated. + +There comes some late autumnal afternoon when you are to leave the +place. With a strange feeling of farewell, you grasp the hands of those +whom you have been given the privilege of knowing, and step slowly out +past the meek sacristan, past the noiseless garden, past the porter's +lodge and the misplaced rabbits, past the dim avenue of elms, past the +great iron gate-way, and, walking along the sequestered road until you +have reached the summit of a wooded knoll half a mile away, turn and +look back. Half a mile! The distance is infinite. The last rays of the +sun seem hardly able to reach the pale cross on the spire which anon +fades into the sky; and the monastery bell, that sends its mellow tones +across the shadowy landscape, is rung from an immemorial past. + +[Illustration: THE GARDEN.] + +It is the hour of the _Compline_, the _Salve_, and the _Angelus_--the +last of the seven services that the Trappist holds between 2 o'clock in +the morning and this hour of early nightfall. Standing alone in the +silent darkness you allow imagination to carry you once more into the +church. You sit in one of the galleries and look down upon the stalls of +the monks ranged along the walls of the nave. There is no light except +the feeble gleam of a single low red cresset that swings ever-burning +before the altar. You can just discern a long line of nameless dusky +figures creep forth from the deeper gloom and glide noiselessly into +their seats. You listen to the _cantus plenus gravitate_--those long, +level notes with sorrowful cadences and measured pauses, sung by a full, +unfaltering chorus of voices, old and young. It is the song that smote +the heart of Bossuet with such sadness in the desert of Normandy two and +a half centuries ago. + +Anon by some unseen hand two tall candles are lighted on the altar. The +singing is hushed. From the ghostly line of white-robed Fathers a +shadowy figure suddenly moves towards the spot in the middle of the +church where the bell-rope hangs, and with slow, weird movements rings +the solemn bell until it fills the cold, gray arches with quivering +sound. One will not in a lifetime forget the impressiveness of the +scene--the long tapering shadows that stretch out over the dimly +lighted, polished floor from this figure silhouetted against the +brighter light from the altar beyond; the bowed, moveless forms of the +monks in brown almost indiscernible in the gloom; the spectral glamour +reflected from the robes of the bowed Fathers in white; the ghastly, +suffering scene of the Saviour, strangely luminous in the glare of the +tall candles. It is the daily climax in the devotions of the Old World +monks at Gethsemane. + + + + +HOMESTEADS OF THE BLUE-GRASS + + +I + +Kentucky is a land of rural homes. The people are out in the country +with a perennial appetite and passion for the soil. Like Englishmen, +they are by nature no dwellers in cities; like older Saxon forefathers, +they have a strong feeling for a habitation even no better than a +one-story log-house, with furniture of the rudest kind, and cooking in +the open air, if, only, it be surrounded by a plot of ground and +individualized by all-encompassing fences. They are gregarious at +respectful distances, dear to them being that sense of personal worth +and importance which comes from territorial aloofness, from domestic +privacy, from a certain lordship over all they survey. + +The land they hold has a singular charm and power of infusing fierce, +tender desire of ownership. Centuries before it was possessed by them, +all ruthless aboriginal wars for its sole occupancy had resolved +themselves into the final understanding that it be wholly claimed by +none. Bounty in land was the coveted reward of Virginia troops in the +old French and Indian war. Hereditary love of land drew the earliest +settlers across the perilous mountains. Rapacity for land caused them +to rush down into the green plains, fall upon the natives, slay, +torture, hack to pieces, and sacrifice wife and child, with the swift, +barbaric hardihood and unappeasable fury of Northmen of old descending +upon the softer shores of France. Acquisition of land was the +determinative principle of the new civilization. Litigation concerning +land has made famous the decisions of their courts of law. The +surveyor's chain should be wrapped about the rifle as a symbolic epitome +of pioneer history. It was for land that they turned from the Indians +upon one another, and wrangled, cheated, and lied. They robbed Boone +until he had none left in which to lay his bones. One of the first acts +of one of the first colonists was to glut his appetite by the purchase +of all of the State that lies south of the Kentucky River. The middle +class land-owner has always been the controlling element of population. +To-day more of the people are engaged in agriculture than in all other +pursuits combined; taste for it has steadily drawn a rich stream of +younger generations hither and thither into the younger West; and +to-day, as always, the broad, average ideal of a happy life is expressed +in the quiet holding of perpetual pastures. + +Steam, said Emerson, is almost an Englishman; grass is almost a +Kentuckian. Wealth, labor, productions, revenues, public markets, public +improvements, manners, characters, social modes--all speak in common of +the country, and fix attention upon the soil. The staples attest the +predominance of agriculture; unsurpassed breeds of stock imply the +verdure of the woodlands; turnpikes, the finest on the continent, +furnish viaducts for the garnered riches of the earth, and prove the +high development of rural life, the every-day luxury of delightful +riding and driving. Even the crow, the most boldly characteristic +freebooter of the air, whose cawing is often the only sound heard in +dead February days, or whose flight amid his multitudinous fellows forms +long black lines across the morning and the evening sky, tells of fat +pickings and profitable thefts in innumerable fields. In Kentucky a +rustic young woman of Homeric sensibility might be allowed to discover +in the slow-moving panorama of white clouds her father's herd of +short-horned cattle grazing through heavenly pastures, and her lover to +see in the halo around the moon a perfect celestial racetrack. + +Comparatively weak and unpronounced are the features of urban life. The +many little towns and villages scattered at easy distances over the +State for the most part draw out a thin existence by reason of +surrounding rural populations. They bear the pastoral stamp. Up to their +very environs approach the cultivated fields, the meadows of brilliant +green, the delicate woodlands; in and out along the white highways move +the tranquil currents of rural trade; through their streets groan and +creak the loaded wagons; on the sidewalks the most conspicuous human +type is the owner of the soil. Once a month county-seats overflow with +the incoming tide of country folk, livery-stables are crowded with +horses and vehicles, court-house squares become marketplaces for +traffic in stock. But when emptied of country folk, they sink again into +repose, all but falling asleep of summer noonings, and in winter seeming +frost-locked with the outlying woods and streams. + +Remarkable is the absence of considerable cities, there being but one +that may be said truly to reflect Kentucky life, and that situated on +the river frontier, a hundred miles from the centre of the State. Think +of it! A population of some two millions with only one interior town +that contains over five thousand white inhabitants. Hence Kentucky makes +no impression abroad by reason of its urban population. Lexington, +Bowling Green, Harrodsburg, Winchester, Richmond, Frankfort, Mount +Sterling, and all the others, where do they stand in the scale of +American cities? Hence, too, the disparaging contrast liable to be drawn +between Kentucky and the gigantic young States of the West. Where is the +magnitude of the commonwealth, where the ground of the sense of +importance in the people? No huge mills and gleaming forges, no din of +factories and throb of mines, nowhere any colossal centres for rushing, +multiform American energy. The answer must be: Judge the State thus far +as an agricultural State; the people as an agricultural people. In time +no doubt the rest will come. All other things are here, awaiting +occasion and development. The eastern portions of the State now verge +upon an era of long-delayed activity. There lie the mines, the +building-stone, the illimitable wealth of timbers; there soon will be +opened new fields for commercial and industrial centralization. But +hitherto in Kentucky it has seemed enough that the pulse of life should +beat with the heart of nature, and be in unison with the slow unfolding +and decadence of the seasons. The farmer can go no faster than the sun, +and is rich or poor by the law of planetary orbits. In all central +Kentucky not a single village of note has been founded within +three-quarters of a century, and some villages a hundred years old have +not succeeded in gaining even from this fecund race more than a thousand +or two thousand inhabitants. But these little towns are inaccessible to +the criticism that would assault their commercial greatness. Business is +not their boast. Sounded to its depths, the serene sea in which their +existence floats will reveal a bottom, not of mercantile, but of social +ideas; studied as to cost or comfort, the architecture in which the +people have expressed themselves will appear noticeable, not in their +business houses and public buildings, but in their homes. If these +towns pique themselves pointedly on anything, it is that they are the +centres of genial intercourse and polite entertainment. Even commercial +Louisville must find its peculiar distinction in the number of its +sumptuous private residences. It is wellnigh a rule that in Kentucky the +value of the house is out of proportion to the value of the estate. + +But if the towns regard themselves as the provincial fortresses of good +society, they do not look down upon the home life of the country. +Between country and town in Kentucky exists a relation unique and well +to be studied: such a part of the population of the town owning or +managing estates in the country; such a part of the population of the +country being business or professional men in town. For it is strikingly +true that here all vocations and avocations of life may and do go with +tillage, and there are none it is not considered to adorn. The first +Governor of the State was awarded his domain for raising a crop of corn, +and laid down public life at last to renew his companionship with the +plough. "I retire," said Clay, many years afterwards, "to the shades of +Ashland." The present Governor (1888), a man of large wealth, lives, +when at home, in a rural log-house built near the beginning of the +century. His predecessor in office was a farmer. Hardly a man of note in +all the past or present history of the State but has had his near or +immediate origin in the woods and fields. Formerly it was the +custom--less general now--that young men should take their academic +degrees in the colleges of the United States, sometimes in those of +Europe, and, returning home, hang up their diplomas as votive offerings +to the god of boundaries. To-day you will find the ex-minister to a +foreign court spending his final years in the solitude of his +farm-house, and the representative at Washington making his retreat to +the restful homestead. The banker in town bethinks him of stocks at home +that know no panic; the clergyman studies St. Paul amid the native corn, +and muses on the surpassing beauty of David as he rides his favorite +horse through green pastures and beside still waters. + +Hence, to be a farmer here implies no social inferiority, no rusticity, +no boorishness. Hence, so clearly interlaced are urban and rural society +that there results a homogeneousness of manners, customs, dress, +entertainments, ideals, and tastes. Hence, the infiltration of the +country with the best the towns contain. More, indeed, than this: rather +to the country than to the towns in Kentucky must one look for the local +history of the home life. There first was implanted under English and +Virginian influences the antique style of country-seat; there flourished +for a time gracious manners that were the high-born endowment of the +olden school; there in piquant contrast were developed side by side the +democratic and aristocratic spirits, working severally towards equality +and caste; there was established the State reputation for effusive +private hospitalities; and there still are peculiarly cherished the +fading traditions of more festive boards and kindlier hearthstones. If +the feeling of the whole people could be interpreted by a single saying, +it would perhaps be this: that whether in town or country--and if in the +country, not remotely here or there, but in wellnigh unbroken succession +from estate to estate--they have attained a notable stage in the +civilization of the home. This is the common conviction, this the idol +of the tribe. The idol itself may rest on the fact of provincial +isolation, which is the fortress of self-love and neighborly devotion; +but it suffices for the present purpose to say that it is an idol still, +worshipped for the divinity it is thought to enshrine. Hence you may +assail the Kentuckian on many grounds, and he will hold his peace. You +may tell him that he has no great cities, that he does not run with the +currents of national progress; but never tell him that the home life of +his fellows and himself is not as good as the best in the land. +Domesticity is the State porcupine, presenting an angry quill to every +point of attack. To write of homes in Kentucky, therefore, and +particularly of rural homes, is to enter the very citadel of the popular +affections. + + +II + +At first they built for the tribe, working together like beavers in +common cause against nature and their enemies. Home life and domestic +architecture began among them with the wooden-fort community, the idea +of which was no doubt derived from the frontier defences of Virginia, +and modified by the Kentuckians with a view to domestic use. This +building habit culminated in the erection of some two hundred rustic +castles, the sites of which in some instances have been identified. It +was a singularly fit sort of structure, adjusting itself desperately and +economically to the necessities of environment. For the time society +lapsed into a state which, but for the want of lords and retainers, was +feudalism of the rudest kind. There were gates for sally and swift +retreat, bastions for defence, and loop-holes in cabin walls for deadly +volleys. There were hunting-parties winding forth stealthily without +horn or hound, and returning with game that would have graced the great +feudal halls. There was siege, too, and suffering, and death enough, God +knows, mingled with the lowing of cattle and the clatter of looms. Some +morning, even, you might have seen a slight girl trip covertly out to +the little cottonpatch in one corner of the enclosure, and, blushing +crimson over the snowy cotton-bolls, pick the wherewithal to spin her +bridal dress; for in these forts they married also and bore children. +Many a Kentucky family must trace its origin through the tribal +communities pent up within a stockade, and discover that the family +plate consisted then of a tin cup, and, haply, an iron fork. + +But, as soon as might be, this compulsory village life broke eagerly +asunder into private homes. The common building form was that of the +log-house. It is needful to distinguish this from the log-house of the +mountaineer, which is found throughout eastern Kentucky to-day. +Encompassed by all difficulties, the pioneer yet reared himself a +better, more enduring habitation. One of these, still intact after the +lapse of more than a century, stands as a singularly interesting type of +its kind, and brings us face to face with primitive architecture. +"Mulberry Hill," a double house, two and a half stories high, with a +central hall, was built in Jefferson County, near Louisville, in 1785, +for John Clark, the father of General George Rogers Clark. + +The settlers made the mistake of supposing that the country lacked +building-stone, so deep under the loam and verdure lay the whole +foundation rock; but soon they discovered that their better houses had +only to be taken from beneath their feet. The first stone house in the +State, and withal the most notable, is "Traveller's Rest," in Lincoln +County, built in 1783 by Governor Metcalf, who was then a stone-mason, +for Isaac Shelby, the first Governor of Kentucky. To those who know the +blue-grass landscape, this type of homestead is familiar enough, with +its solidity of foundation, great thickness of walls, enormous, low +chimneys, and little windows. The owners were the architects and +builders, and with stern, necessitous industry translated their +condition into their work, giving it an intensely human element. It +harmonized with need, not with feeling; was built by the virtues, and +not by the vanities. With no fine balance of proportion, with details +few, scant, and crude, the entire effect of the architecture was not +unpleasing, so honest was its poverty, so rugged and robust its purpose. +It was the gravest of all historic commentaries written in stone. Varied +fate has overtaken these old-time structures. Many have been torn down, +yielding their well-chosen sites to newer, showier houses. Others became +in time the quarters of the slaves. Others still have been hidden away +beneath weather-boarding--a veneer of commonplace modernism--as though +whitewashed or painted plank were finer than roughhewn gray-stone. But +one is glad to discover that in numerous instances they are the +preferred homes of those who have taste for the old in native history, +and pride in family associations and traditions. On the thinned, open +landscape nothing stands out with a more pathetic air of nakedness than +one of these stone houses, long since abandoned and fallen into ruin. +Under the Kentucky sky houses crumble and die without seeming to grow +old, without an aged toning down of colors, without the tender memorials +of mosses and lichens, and of the whole race of clinging things. So not +until they are quite overthrown does Nature reclaim them, or draw once +more to her bosom the walls and chimneys within whose faithful bulwarks, +and by whose cavernous, glowing recesses, our great-grandmothers and +great-grandfathers danced and made love, married, suffered, and fell +asleep. + +Neither to the house of logs, therefore, nor to that of stone must we +look for the earliest embodiment of positive taste in domestic +architecture. This found its first, and, considering the exigencies of +the period, its most noteworthy expression in the homestead of brick. No +finer specimen survives than that built in 1796, on a plan furnished by +Thomas Jefferson to John Brown, who had been his law student, remained +always his honored friend, and became one of the founders of the +commonwealth. It is a rich landmark, this old manor-place on the bank of +the Kentucky River, in Frankfort. The great hall with its pillared +archway is wide enough for dancing the Virginia reel. The suites +of high, spacious rooms; the carefully carved wood-work of the +window-casings and the doors; the tall, quaint mantel-frames; the deep +fireplaces with their shining fire-dogs and fenders of brass, brought +laboriously enough on pack-mules from Philadelphia; the brass +locks and keys; the portraits on the walls--all these bespeak the +early implantation in Kentucky of a taste for sumptuous life and +entertainment. The house is like a far-descending echo of colonial Old +Virginia. + +Famous in its day--for it is already beneath the sod--and built not +of wood, nor of stone, nor of brick, but in part of all, was +"Chaumière," the home of David Meade during the closing years of the +last, and the early years of the present, century. The owner, a +Virginian who had been much in England, brought back with him +notions of the baronial style of country-seat, and in Jessamine +County, some ten miles from Lexington, built a home that lingers in +the mind like some picture of the imagination. It was a villa-like +place, a cluster of rustic cottages, with a great park laid out in +the style of Old World landscape-gardening. There were artificial +rivers spanned by bridges, and lakes with islands crowned by +temples. There were terraces and retired alcoves, and winding ways +cut through flowering thickets. A fortune was spent on the grounds; +a retinue of servants was employed in nurturing their beauty. +The dining-room, wainscoted with walnut and relieved by deep +window-seats, was rich with the family service of silver and glass; +on the walls of other rooms hung family portraits by Thomas Hudson +and Sir Joshua Reynolds. Two days in the week were appointed +for formal receptions. There Jackson and Monroe and Taylor were +entertained; there Aaron Burr was held for a time under arrest; +there the old school showed itself in buckles and knee-breeches, and +rode abroad in a yellow chariot with outriders in blue cloth and +silver buttons. + +Near Lexington may be found a further notable example of early +architecture in the Todd homestead, the oldest house in the region, +built by the brother of John Todd, who was Governor of Kentucky +Territory, including Illinois. It is a strong, spacious brick +structure reared on a high foundation of stone, with a large, square +hall and square rooms in suites, connected by double doors. To the +last century also belongs the low, irregular pile that became the +Wickliffe, and later the Preston, house in Lexington--a striking +example of the taste then prevalent for plain, or even commonplace, +exteriors, if combined with interiors that touched the imagination +with the suggestion of something stately and noble and courtly. + +These are a few types of homes erected in the last century. The wonder +is not that such places exist, but that they should have been found in +Kentucky at such a time. For society had begun as the purest of +democracies. Only a little while ago the people had been shut up within +a stockade. Stress of peril and hardship had levelled the elements of +population to more than a democracy: it had knit them together as one +endangered human brotherhood. Hence the sudden, fierce flaring up of +sympathy with the French Revolution; hence the deep re-echoing war-cry +of Jacobin emissaries. But scarcely had the wave of primitive conquest +flowed over the land, and wealth followed in its peaceful wake, before +life fell apart into the extremes of social caste. The memories of +former position, the influences of old domestic habits were powerful +still; so that, before a generation passed, Kentucky society gave proof +of the continuity of its development from Virginia. The region of the +James River, so rich in antique homesteads, began to renew itself in the +region of the blue-grass. On a new and larger canvas began to be painted +the picture of shaded lawns, wide portals, broad staircases, great +halls, drawing-rooms, and dining-rooms, wainscoting, carved wood-work, +and waxed hard-wood floors. In came a few yellow chariots, morocco-lined +and drawn by four horses. In came the powder, the wigs, and the queues, +the ruffled shirts, the knee-breeches, the glittering buckles, the +high-heeled slippers, and the frosty brocades. Over the Alleghanies, in +slow-moving wagons, came the massive mahogany furniture, the sunny +brasswork, the tall silver candlesticks, the nervous-looking, thin +legged little pianos. In came old manners and old speech and old +prides: the very Past gathered together its household gods and made an +exodus into the Future. + +Without due regard to these essential facts the social system of the +State must ever remain poorly understood. Hitherto they have been but +little considered. To the popular imagination the most familiar type +of the early Kentuckian is that of the fighter, the hunter, the rude, +heroic pioneer and his no less heroic wife: people who left all things +behind them and set their faces westward, prepared to be new creatures +if such they could become. But on the dim historic background are the +stiff figures of another type, people who were equally bent on being +old-fashioned creatures if such they could remain. Thus, during the +final years of the last century and the first quarter of the present +one, Kentucky life was richly overlaid with ancestral models. Closely +studied, the elements of population by the close of this period +somewhat resembled a landed gentry, a robust yeomanry, a white +tenantry, and a black peasantry. It was only by degrees--by the dying +out of the fine old types of men and women, by longer absence from the +old environment and closer contact with the new--that society lost its +inherited and acquired its native characteristics, or became less +Virginian and more Kentuckian. Gradually, also, the white tenantry +waned and the black peasantry waxed. The aristocratic spirit, in +becoming more Kentuckian, unbent somewhat its pride, and the +democratic, in becoming more Kentuckian, took on a pride of its own; +so that when social life culminated with the first half-century, there +had been produced over the Blue-grass Region, by the intermingling of +the two, that widely diffused and peculiar type which may be described +as an aristocratic democracy, or a democratic aristocracy, according +to one's choosing of a phrase. The beginnings of Kentucky life +represented not simply a slow development from the rudest pioneer +conditions, but also a direct and immediate implantation of the best +of long-established social forms. And in nowise did the latter embody +itself more persuasively and lastingly than in the building of costly +homes. + + +III + +With the opening of the present century, that taste had gone on +developing. A specimen of early architecture in the style of the old +English mansion is to be found in "Locust Grove," a massive and +enduring structure--not in the Blue-grass Region, it is true, but +several miles from Louisville--built in 1800 for Colonel Croghan, +brother-in-law of Gen. George Rogers Clark; and still another remains +in "Spring Hill," in Woodford County, the home of Nathaniel Hart, who +had been a boy in the fort at Boonesborough. Until recently a further +representative, though remodelled in later times, survived in the +Thompson place at "Shawnee Springs," in Mercer County. + +Consider briefly the import of such country homes as +these--"Traveller's Rest," "Chaumière," "Spring Hill," and "Shawnee +Springs." Built remotely here and there, away from the villages or +before villages were formed, in a country not yet traversed by +limestone highways or even by lanes, they, and such as they, were the +beacon-lights, many-windowed and kind, of Kentucky entertainment. +"Traveller's Rest" was on the great line of emigration from Abingdon +through Cumberland Gap. Its roof-tree was a boon of universal shelter, +its very name a perpetual invitation to all the weary. Long after the +country became thickly peopled it, and such places as it, remained the +rallying-points of social festivity in their several counties, or drew +their guests from remoter regions. They brought in the era of +hospitalities, which by-and-by spread through the towns and over the +land. If one is ever to study this trait as it flowered to perfection +in Kentucky life, one must look for it in the society of some fifty +years ago. Then horses were kept in the stables, servants were kept in +the halls. Guests came uninvited, unannounced; tables were regularly +set for surprises. "Put a plate," said an old Kentuckian of the time +with a large family connection--"always put a plate for the last one +of them down to the youngest grandchild." What a Kentuckian would have +thought of being asked to come on the thirteenth of the month +and to leave on the twentieth, it is difficult to imagine. The +wedding-presents of brides were not only jewels and silver and gold, +but a round of balls. The people were laughed at for their too +impetuous civilities. In whatever quarter of the globe they should +happen to meet for the hour a pleasing stranger, they would say in +parting, "And when you come to Kentucky, be certain to come to my +house." + +Yet it is needful to discriminate, in speaking of Kentucky +hospitality. Universally gracious towards the stranger, and quick to +receive him for his individual worth, within the State hospitality ran +in circles, and the people turned a piercing eye on one another's +social positions. If in no other material aspect did they embody the +history of descent so sturdily as in the building of homes, in no +other trait of home life did they reflect this more clearly than in +family pride. Hardly a little town but had its classes that never +mingled; scarce a rural neighborhood but insisted on the sanctity of +its salt-cellar and the gloss of its mahogany. The spirit of caste was +somewhat Persian in its gravity. Now the Alleghanies were its +background, and the heroic beginnings of Kentucky life supplied its +warrant; now it overleaped the Alleghanies, and allied itself to the +memories of deeds and names in older States. But if some professed to +look down, none professed to look up. Deference to an upper class, if +deference existed, was secret and resentful, not open and servile. The +history of great political contests in the State is largely the +victory and defeat of social types. Herein lies a difficulty: you +touch any point of Kentucky life, and instantly about it cluster +antagonisms and contradictions. The false is true; the true is false. +Society was aristocratic; it was democratic; it was neither; it was +both. There was intense family pride, and no family pride. The +ancestral sentiment was weak, and it was strong. To-day you will +discover the increasing vogue of an _heraldica Kentuckiensis_, and +to-day an absolute disregard of a distinguished past. One tells but +partial truths. + +Of domestic architecture in a brief and general way something has been +said. The prevailing influence was Virginian, but in Lexington and +elsewhere may be observed evidences of French ideas in the glasswork +and designs of doors and windows, in rooms grouped around a central +hall with arching niches and alcoves; for models made their way from +New Orleans as well as from the East. Out in the country, however, at +such places as those already mentioned, and in homes nearer town, as +at Ashland, a purely English taste was sometimes shown for woodland +parks with deer, and, what was more peculiarly Kentuckian, elk and +buffalo. This taste, once so conspicuous, has never become extinct, +and certainly the landscape is receptive enough to all such stately +purposes. At "Spring Hill" and elsewhere, to-day, one may stroll +through woods that have kept a touch of their native wildness. There +was the English love of lawns, too, with a low matted green turf +and wide-spreading shade-trees above--elm and maple, locust and +poplar--the English fondness for a home half hidden with evergreens +and creepers and shrubbery, to be approached by a leafy avenue, a +secluded gate-way, and a gravelled drive; for highways hardly admit to +the heart of rural life in Kentucky, and way-side homes, to be dusted +and gazed at by every passer-by, would little accord with the spirit +of the people. This feeling of family seclusion and completeness also +portrayed itself very tenderly in the custom of family graveyards, +which were in time to be replaced by the democratic cemetery; and no +one has ever lingered around those quiet spots of aged and drooping +cedars, fast-fading violets, and perennial myrtle, without being made +to feel that they grew out of the better heart and fostered the finer +senses. + +Another evidence of culture among the first generations of Kentuckians +is to be seen in the private collections of portraits, among which one +wanders now with a sort of stricken feeling that the higher life of +Kentucky in this regard never went beyond its early promise. Look into +the meagre history of native art, and you will discover that nearly all +the best work belongs to this early time. It was possible then that a +Kentuckian could give up law and turn to painting. Almost in the +wilderness Jouett created rich, luminous, startling canvases. Artists +came from older States to sojourn and to work, and were invited or +summoned from abroad. Painting was taught in Lexington in 1800. Well for +Jouett, perhaps, that he lived when he did; better for Hart, perhaps, +that he was not born later: they might have run for Congress. One is +prone to recur time and again to this period, when the ideals of +Kentucky life were still wavering or unformed, and when there was the +greatest receptivity to outside impressions. Thinking of social life as +it was developed, say in and around Lexington--of artists coming and +going, of the statesmen, the lecturers, the lawyers, of the dignity and +the energy of character, of the intellectual dinners--one is inclined to +liken the local civilization to a truncated cone, to a thing that should +have towered to a symmetric apex, but somehow has never risen very high +above a sturdy base. + +But to speak broadly of home life after it became more typically +Kentuckian, and after architecture began to reflect with greater +uniformity the character of the people. And here one can find material +comfort, if not æsthetic delight; for it is the whole picture of human +life in the Blue-grass Region that pleases. Ride east and west, or +north and south, along highway or by-way, and the picture is the same. +One almost asks for relief from the monotony of a merely well-to-do +existence, almost sighs for the extremes of squalor and splendor, that +nowhere may be seen, and that would seem so out of place if anywhere +confronted. On, and on, and on you go, seeing only the repetition of +field and meadow, wood and lawn, a winding stream, an artificial pond, a +sunny vineyard, a blooming orchard, a stone-wall, a hedge-row, a tobacco +barn, a warehouse, a race-track, cattle under the trees, sheep on the +slopes, swine in the pools, and, half hidden by evergreens and +shrubbery, the homelike, unpretentious houses that crown very simply and +naturally the entire picture of material prosperity. They strike you as +built not for their own sakes. Few will offer anything that lays hold +upon the memory, unless it be perhaps a front portico with Doric, Ionic, +or Corinthian columns; for the typical Kentuckian likes to go into his +house through a classic entrance, no matter what inharmonious things may +be beyond; and after supper on summer evenings nothing fills him with +serener comfort than to tilt his chair back against a classic support, +as he smokes a pipe and argues on the immortality of a pedigree. + +On the whole, one feels that nature has long waited for a more exquisite +sense in domestic architecture; that the immeasurable possibilities of +delightful landscape have gone unrecognized or wasted. Too often there +is in form and outline no harmony with the spirit of the scenery, and +there is dissonance of color--color which makes the first and strongest +impression. The realm of taste is prevailingly the realm of the want of +taste, or of its meretricious and commonplace violations. Many of the +houses have a sort of featureless, cold, insipid ugliness, and interior +and exterior decorations are apt to go for nothing or for something +worse. You repeat that nature awaits more art, since she made the land +so kind to beauty; for no transformation of a rude, ungenial landscape +is needed. The earth does not require to be trimmed and combed and +perfumed. The airy vistas and delicate slopes are ready-made, the +parklike woodlands invite, the tender, clinging children of the summer, +the deep, echoless repose of the whole land, all ask that art be laid on +every undulation and stored in every nook. And there are days with such +Arcadian colors in air and cloud and sky--days with such panoramas of +calm, sweet pastoral groups and harmonies below, such rippling and +flashing of waters through green underlights and golden interspaces, +that the shy, coy spirit of beauty seems to be wandering half sadly +abroad and shunning all the haunts of man. + +But little agricultural towns are not art-centres. Of itself rural life +does not develop æsthetic perceptions, and the last, most difficult +thing to bring into the house is this shy, elusive spirit of beauty. +The Kentucky woman has perhaps been corrupted in childhood by tasteless +surroundings. Her lovable mission, the creation of a multitude of small, +lovely objects, is undertaken feebly and blindly. She may not know how +to create beauty, may not know what beauty is. The temperament of her +lord, too, is practical: a man of substance and stomach, sound at heart, +and with an abiding sense of his own responsibility and importance, +honestly insisting on sweet butter and new-laid eggs, home-made bread +and home-grown mutton, but little revelling in the delicacies of +sensibility, and with no more eye for crimson poppies or blue +corn-flowers in his house than amid his grain. Many a Kentucky woman +would make her home beautiful if her husband would allow her to do it. + +Amid a rural people, also, no class of citizens is more influential than +the clergy, who go about as the shepherds of the right; and without +doubt in Kentucky, as elsewhere, ministerial ideals have wrought their +effects on taste in architecture. Perhaps it is well to state that this +is said broadly, and particularly of the past. The Kentucky preachers +during earlier times were a fiery, zealous, and austere set, proclaiming +that this world was not a home, but wilderness of sin, and exhorting +their people to live under the awful shadow of Eternity. Beauty in every +material form was a peril, the seductive garment of the devil. Wellnigh +all that made for æsthetic culture was put down, and, like frost on +venturesome flowers, sermons fell on beauty in dress, entertainment, +equipage, houses, church architecture, music, the drama, the +opera--everything. The meek young spirit was led to the creek or pond, +and perhaps the ice was broken for her baptism. If, as she sat in the +pew, any vision of her chaste loveliness reached the pulpit, back came +the warning that she would some day turn into a withered hag, and must +inevitably be "eaten of worms." What wonder if the sense of beauty pined +or went astray, and found itself completely avenged in the building of +such churches? And yet there is nothing that even religion more surely +demands than the fostering of the sense of beauty within us, and through +this also we work towards the civilization of the future. + + +IV + +Many rural homes have been built since the war, but the old type of +country life has vanished. On the whole, there has been a strong +movement of population towards the towns, rapidly augmenting their +size. Elements of showiness and freshness have been added to their +once unobtrusive architecture. And, in particular, that art movement +and sudden quickening of the love of beauty which swept over this +country a few years since has had its influence here. But for the most +part the newer homes are like the newer homes in other American +cities, and the style of interior appointment and decoration has few +native characteristics. As a rule the people love the country life +less than of yore, since an altered social system has deprived it of +much leisure, and has added hardships. The Kentuckian does not regard +it as part of his mission in life to feed fodder to stock; and +servants are hard to get, the colored ladies and gentlemen having +developed a taste for urban society. + +What is to be the future of the Blue-grass Region? When population +becomes denser and the pressure is felt in every neighborhood, who will +possess it? One seems to see in certain tendencies of American life the +probable answer to this question. The small farmer will be bought out, +and will disappear. Estates will grow fewer and larger. The whole land +will pass into the hands of the rich, being too precious for the poor to +own. Already here and there one notes the disposition to create vast +domains by the slow swallowing up of contiguous small ones. Consider in +this connection the taste already shown by the rich American in certain +parts of the United States to found a country-place in the style of an +English lord. Consider, too, that the landscape is much like the +loveliest of rural England; that the trees, the grass, the sculpture of +the scenery are such as make the perfect beauty of a park; that the fox, +the bob-white, the thoroughbred, and the deer are indigenous. +Apparently, therefore, one can foresee the distant time when this will +become the region of splendid homes and estates that will nourish a +taste for out-door sports and offer an escape from the too-wearying +cities. On the other hand, a powerful and ever-growing interest is that +of the horse, racer or trotter. He brings into the State his increasing +capital, his types of men. Year after year he buys farms, and lays out +tracks, and builds stables, and edits journals, and turns agriculture +into grazing. In time the Blue-grass Region may become the Yorkshire of +America. + +But let the future have its own. The country will become theirs who +deserve it, whether they build palaces or barns. One only hopes that +when the old homesteads have been torn down or have fallen into ruins, +the tradition may still run that they, too, had their day and deserved +their page of history. + + + + +THROUGH CUMBERLAND GAP ON HORSEBACK + + +I + +Fresh fields lay before us that summer of 1885. We had left the rich, +rolling plains of the Blue-grass Region in central Kentucky and set +our faces towards the great Appalachian uplift on the south-eastern +border of the State. There Cumberland Gap, that high-swung gate-way +through the mountain, abides as a landmark of what Nature can do when +she wishes to give an opportunity to the human race in its migrations +and discoveries, without surrendering control of its liberty and its +fate. It can never be too clearly understood by those who are wont to +speak of "the Kentuckians" that this State has within its boundaries +two entirely distinct elements of population--elements distinct in +England before they came hither, distinct during more than a century +of residence here, and distinct now in all that goes to constitute a +separate community--occupations, manners and customs, dress, views of +life, civilization. It is but a short distance from the blue-grass +country to the eastern mountains; but in traversing it you detach +yourself from all that you have ever experienced, and take up the +history of English-speaking men and women at the point it had reached +a hundred or a hundred and fifty years ago. + +Leaving Lexington, then, which is in the midst of the blue-grass +plateau, we were come to Burnside, where begin the navigable waters of +the Cumberland River, and the foot-hills of the Cumberland Mountains. + +Burnside is not merely a station, but a mountain watering-place. The +water is mostly in the bed of the river. We had come hither to get +horses and saddle-bags, but to no purpose. The hotel was a sort of +transition point between the civilization we had left and the primitive +society we were to enter. On the veranda were some distinctly modern and +conventional red chairs; but a green and yellow gourd-vine, carefully +trained so as to shut out the landscape, was a genuine bit of local +color. Under the fine beeches in the yard was swung a hammock, but it +was made of boards braced between ropes, and was covered with a +weather-stained piece of tarpaulin. There were electric bells in the +house that did not electrify; and near the front entrance three barrels +of Irish potatoes, with the tops off, spoke for themselves in the +absence of the bill of fare. After supper, the cook, a tall, blue-eyed, +white fellow, walked into my room without explanation, and carried away +his guitar, showing that he had been wont to set his sighs to music in +that quarter of the premises. The moon hung in that part of the +heavens, and no doubt ogled him into many a midnight frenzy. Sitting +under a beech-tree in the morning, I had watched a child from some city, +dressed in white and wearing a blue ribbon around her goldenish hair, +amuse herself by rolling old barrels (potato barrels probably, and she +may have had a motive) down the hill-side and seeing them dashed to +pieces on the railway track below. By-and-by some of the staves of one +fell in, the child tumbled in also, and they all rolled over together. +Upon the whole, it was an odd overlapping of two worlds. When the +railway was first opened through this region a young man established a +fruit store at one of the stations, and as part of his stock laid in a +bunch of bananas. One day a mountaineer entered. Arrangements generally +struck him with surprise, but everything else was soon forgotten in an +adhesive contemplation of that mighty aggregation of fruit. Finally he +turned away with this comment: "Damn me if them ain't the damnedest +beans _I_ ever seen!" + +[Illustration: OLD FERRY AT POINT BURNSIDE.] + +The scenery around Burnside is beautiful, and the climate bracing. In +the valleys was formerly a fine growth of walnut, but the principal +timbers now are oak, ash, and sycamore, with yellow pine. I heard of a +wonderful walnut tree formerly standing, by hiring vehicles to go and +see which the owner of a livery-stable made three hundred and fifty +dollars. Six hundred were offered for it on the spot. The hills are +filled with the mountain limestone--that Kentucky oolite of which the +new Cotton Exchange in New York is built. Here was Burnside's depot of +supplies during the war, and here passed the great road--made in part a +corduroy road at his order--from Somerset, Kentucky, to Jacksborough, +over which countless stores were taken from central Kentucky and regions +farther north into Tennessee. Supplies were brought up the river in +small steamboats or overland in wagons, and when the road grew +impassable, pack-mules were used. Sad sights there were in those sad +days: the carcasses of animals at short intervals from here to +Knoxville, and now and then a mule sunk up to his body in mire, and +abandoned, with his pack on, to die. Here were batteries planted and +rifle-pits dug, the vestiges of which yet remain; but where the forest +timbers were then cut down a vigorous new growth has long been +reclaiming the earth to native wildness, and altogether the aspect of +the place is peaceful and serene. Doves were flying in and out of the +cornfields on the hill-sides; there were green stretches in the valleys +where cattle were grazing; and these, together with a single limestone +road that wound upward over a distant ridge, recalled the richer scenes +of the blue-grass lands. + +Assured that we should find horses and saddlebags at Cumberland Falls, +we left Burnside in the afternoon, and were soon set down at a station +some fifteen miles farther along, where a hack conveyed us to another +of those mountain watering-places that are being opened up in various +parts of eastern Kentucky for the enjoyment of a people that has never +cared to frequent in large numbers the Atlantic seaboard. + +[Illustration: "DAMN ME IF THEM AIN'T THE DAMNEDEST BEANS I EVER SEEN!"] + +As we drove on, the darkness was falling, and the scenery along the road +grew wilder and grander. A terrific storm had swept over these heights, +and the great trees lay uptorn and prostrate in every direction, or +reeled and fell against each other like drunken giants--a scene of +fearful elemental violence. On the summits one sees the tan-bark oak; +lower down, the white oak; and lower yet, fine specimens of yellow +poplar; while from the valleys to the crests is a dense and varied +undergrowth, save where the ground has been burned over, year after +year, to kill it out and improve the grazing. Twenty miles to the +south-east we had seen through the pale-tinted air the waving line of +Jellico Mountains in Tennessee. Away to the north lay the Beaver Creek +and the lower Cumberland, while in front of us rose the craggy, scowling +face of Anvil Rock, commanding a view of Kentucky, Tennessee, and +Virginia. The utter silence and heart-oppressing repose of primeval +nature was around us. The stark white and gray trunks of the immemorial +forest dead linked us to an inviolable past. The air seemed to blow upon +us from over regions illimitable and unexplored, and to be fraught with +unutterable suggestions. The full-moon swung itself aloft over the sharp +touchings of the green with spectral pallor; and the evening-star stood +lustrous on the western horizon in depths of blue as cold as a sky of +Landseer, except where brushed by tremulous shadows of rose on the verge +of the sunlit world. A bat wheeled upward in fantastic curves out of his +undiscovered glade. And the soft tinkle of a single cow-bell far below +marked the invisible spot of some lonely human habitation. By-and-by we +lost sight of the heavens altogether, so dense and interlaced the +forest. The descent of the hack appeared to be into a steep abyss of +gloom; then all at once we broke from the edge of the woods into a +flood of moonlight; at our feet were the whirling, foaming rapids of the +river; in our ears was the roar of the cataract, where the bow-crowned +mist rose and floated upward and away in long trailing shapes of +ethereal lightness. + +[Illustration: MOONRISE ON CUMBERLAND RIDGE.] + +The Cumberland River throws itself over the rocks here with a fall of +seventy feet, or a perpendicular descent of sixty-two, making a mimic +but beautiful Niagara. Just below, at Eagle Falls, it drops over its +precipice in a lawny cascade. The roar of the cataract, under favorable +conditions, may be heard up and down stream a distance of ten or twelve +miles. You will not find in mountainous Kentucky a more picturesque +spot. + +While here, we had occasion to extend our acquaintance with native +types. Two young men came to the hotel, bringing a bag of small, hard +peaches to sell. Slim, slab-sided, stomachless, and serene, mild, and +melancholy, they might have been lotos-eaters, only the suggestion of +poetry was wanting. Their unutterable content came not from the lotus, +but from their digestion. If they could sell their peaches, they would +be happy; if not, they would be happy. What they could not sell, they +could as well eat; and since no bargain was made on this occasion, +they took chairs on the hotel veranda, opened the bag, and fell to. I +talked with the Benjamin of his tribe: + +"Is that a good 'coon dog?" + +"A mighty good 'coon dog. I hain't never seed him whipped by a varmint +yit." + +"Are there many 'coons in this country?" + +"Several 'coons." + +"Is this a good year for 'coons?" + +"A mighty good year for 'coons. The woods is full o' varmints." + +"Do 'coons eat corn?" + +"'Coons is bad as hogs on corn, when they git tuk to it." + +"Are there many wild turkeys in this country?" + +"Several wild turkeys." + +"Have you ever caught many 'coons?" + +"I've cotched high as five 'coons out o' one tree." + +"Are there many foxes in this country?" + +"Several foxes." + +"What's the best way to cook a 'coon?" + +"Ketch him and parbile him, and then put him in cold water and soak +him, and then put him in and bake him." + +"Are there many hounds in this country?" + +"Several hounds." + +Here, among other discoveries, was a linguistic one--the use of +"several" in the sense of a great many, probably an innumerable +multitude, as in the case of the 'coons. + +They hung around the hotel for hours, as beings utterly exempt from +all the obligations and other phenomena of time. + + "Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?" + +The guide bespoken the evening before had made arrangements for our +ride of some eighteen miles--was it not forty?--to Williamsburg; and +in the afternoon made his appearance with three horses. Of these one +was a mule, with a strong leaning towards his father's family. Of the +three saddles one was a side-saddle, and another was an army saddle +with refugee stirrups. The three beasts wore among them some seven +shoes. My own mincing jade had none. Her name must have been Helen of +Troy (all horses are named in Kentucky), so long ago had her great +beauty disappeared. She partook with me of the terror which her own +movements inspired; and if there ever was a well-defined case in which +the man should have carried the beast, this was the one. While on her +back I occasionally apologized for the injustice of riding her by +handing her some sour apples, the like of which she appeared never to +have tasted before, just as it was told me she had never known the +luxury of wearing shoes. It is often true that the owner of a horse in +this region is too poor or too mean to have it shod. + +Our route from Cumberland Falls lay through what is called "Little +Texas," in Whitley County--a wilderness some twenty miles square. I +say route, because there was not always a road; but for the guide, +there would not always have been a direction. Rough as the country +appears to one riding through it on horseback, it is truly called +"flat woods country;" and viewed from Jellico Mountains, whence the +local elevations are of no account, it looks like one vast sweep of +sloping, densely-wooded land. Here one may see noble specimens of +yellow poplar in the deeper soil at the head of the ravines; pin-oak, +and gum and willow, and the rarely beautiful wild-cucumber. Along the +streams in the lowlands blooms the wild calacanthus, filling the air +with fragrance, and here in season the wild camellia throws open its +white and purple splendors. + +It was not until we had passed out of "Little Texas" and reached +Williamsburg, had gone thence to Barbourville, the county-seat of the +adjoining county of Knox, and thence again into Bell County, that we +stopped at an old way-side inn on the Wilderness road from Kentucky +through Cumberland Gap. Around us were the mountains--around us the +mountaineers whom we wished to study. + +[Illustration: CUMBERLAND FALLS.] + +II + +Straight, slim, angular, white bodies; average or even unusual stature, +without great muscular robustness; features regular and colorless; +unanimated but intelligent; in the men sometimes fierce; in the women +often sad; among the latter occasional beauty of a pure Greek type; a +manner shy and deferential, but kind and fearless; eyes with a slow, +long look of mild inquiry, or of general listlessness, or of unconscious +and unaccountable melancholy; the key of life a low minor strain, losing +itself in reverie; voices monotonous in intonation; movements uninformed +by nervousness--these are characteristics of the Kentucky mountaineers. +Living to-day as their forefathers lived a hundred years ago; hearing +little of the world, caring nothing for it; responding feebly to the +influences of civilization near the highways of travel in and around the +towns, and latterly along the lines of railway communication; but sure +to live here, if uninvaded and unaroused, in the same condition for a +hundred years to come; lacking the spirit of development from within; +devoid of sympathy with that boundless and ungovernable activity +which is carrying the Saxon race in America from one state to another, +whether better or worse. The origin of these people, the relation they +sustain to the different population of the central Kentucky region--in +fine, an account of them from the date of their settling in these +mountains to the present time, when, as it seems, they are on the point +of losing their isolation, and with it their distinctiveness--would +imprison phases of life and character valuable alike to the special +history of this country and to the general history of the human mind. + +The land in these mountains is all claimed, but it is probably not all +covered by actual patent. As evidence, a company has been formed to +speculate in lands not secured by title. The old careless way of marking +off boundaries by going from tree to tree, by partly surveying and +partly guessing, explains the present uncertainty. Many own land by +right of occupancy, there being no other claim. The great body of the +people live on and cultivate little patches which they either own, or +hold free, or pay rent for with a third of the crop. These not +unfrequently get together and trade farms as they would horses, no deed +being executed. There is among them a mobile element--squatters--who +make a hill-side clearing and live on it as long as it remains +productive; then they move elsewhere. This accounts for the presence +throughout the country of abandoned cabins, around which a new forest +growth is springing up. Leaving out of consideration the few instances +of substantial prosperity, the most of the people are abjectly poor, and +they appear to have no sense of accumulation. The main crops raised are +corn and potatoes. In the scant gardens will be seen patches of cotton, +sorghum, and tobacco; flax also, though less than formerly. Many make +insufficient preparation for winter, laying up no meat, but buying a +piece of bacon now and then, and paying for it with work. In some +regions the great problem of life is to raise two dollars and a half +during the year for county taxes. Being pauper counties, they are exempt +from State taxation. Jury fees are highly esteemed and much sought +after. The manufacture of illicit mountain whiskey--"moonshine"--was +formerly, as it is now, a considerable source of revenue; and a +desperate sub-source of revenue from the same business has been the +betrayal of its hidden places. There is nothing harder or more dangerous +to find now in the mountains than a still. + +[Illustration: NATIVE TYPES.] + +Formerly digging "sang," as they call ginseng, was a general occupation. +For this China was a great market. It has nearly all been dug out except +in the wildest parts of the country, where entire families may still be +seen "out sangin'." They took it into the towns in bags, selling it at a +dollar and ten cents--perhaps a dollar and a half--a pound. This was +mainly the labor of the women and the children, who went to work +barefooted, amid briers and chestnut burs, copperheads and rattlesnakes. +Indeed, the women prefer to go barefooted, finding shoes a trouble and +constraint. It was a sad day for the people when the "sang" grew scarce. +A few years ago one of the counties was nearly depopulated in +consequence of a great exodus into Arkansas, whence had come the news +that "sang" was plentiful. Not long since, during a season of scarcity +in corn, a local store-keeper told the people of a county to go out and +gather all the mandrake or "May-apple" root they could find. At first +only the women and children went to work, the men holding back with +ridicule. By-and-by they also took part, and that year some fifteen tons +were gathered, at three cents a pound, and the whole country thus got +its seed-corn. Wild ginger was another root formerly much dug; also to +less extent "golden-seal" and "bloodroot." The sale of feathers from a +few precarious geese helps to eke out subsistence. Their methods of +agriculture--if methods they may be styled--are the most primitive. +Ploughing is commonly done with a "bull-tongue," an implement hardly +more than a sharpened stick with a metal rim; this is often drawn by an +ox, or a half-yoke. But one may see women ploughing with two oxen. +Traces are made of hickory or papaw, as also are bed-cords. Ropes are +made of lynn bark. In some counties there is not so much as a +fanning-mill, grain being winnowed by pouring it from basket to basket, +after having been threshed with a flail, which is a hickory withe some +seven feet long. Their threshing-floor is a clean place on the ground, +and they take up grain, gravel, and dirt together, not knowing, or not +caring for, the use of a sieve. + +[Illustration: INTERIOR OF A MOUNTAINEER'S HOME.] + +The grain is ground at their homes in a hand tub-mill, or one made by +setting the nether millstone in a bee-gum, or by cutting a hole in a +puncheon-log and sinking the stone into it. There are, however, other +kinds of mills: the primitive little water-mill, which may be +considered almost characteristic of this region; in a few places +improved water-mills, and small steam-mills. It is the country +of mills, farm-houses being furnished with one as with coffee-pot or +spinning-wheel. A simpler way of preparing corn for bread than by even +the hand-mill is used in the late summer and early autumn, while the +grain is too hard for eating as roasting-ears, and too soft to be ground +in a mill. On a board is tacked a piece of tin through which holes have +been punched from the under side, and over this tin the ears are rubbed, +producing a coarse meal, of which "gritted bread" is made. Much pleasure +and much health they get from their "gritted bread," which is sweet and +wholesome for a hungry man. + +Where civilization has touched on the highways and the few improved +mills have been erected, one may see women going to mill with their +scant sacks of grain, riding on a jack, a jennet, or a bridled ox. But +this is not so bad as in North Carolina, where, Europa like, they ride +on bulls. + +Aside from such occupations, the men have nothing to do--a little work +in the spring, and nine months' rest. They love to meet at the country +groceries and cross-roads, to shoot matches for beef, turkeys, or +liquor, and to gamble. There is with them a sort of annual succession +of amusements. In its season they have the rage for pitching horseshoes, +the richer ones using dollar pieces. In consequence of their abundant +leisure, the loneliness of the mountains, and their bravery and vigor, +quarrels are frequent and feuds deadly. Personal enmities soon serve to +array entire families in an attitude of implacable hostility; and in the +course of time relatives and friends take sides, and a war of +extermination ensues. The special origins of these feuds are various: +blood heated and temper lost under the influence of "moonshine;" +reporting the places and manufacturers of this; local politics; the +survival of resentments engendered during the Civil War. These, together +with all causes that lie in the passions of the human heart and spring +from the constitution of all human society, often make the remote and +insulated life of these people turbulent, reckless, and distressing. + +But while thus bitter and cruel towards each other, they present to +strangers the aspect of a polite, kind, unoffending, and most hospitable +race. They will divide with you shelter and warmth and food, however +scant, and will put themselves to trouble for your convenience with an +unreckoning, earnest friendliness and good-nature that is touching to +the last degree. No sham, no pretence; a true friend, or an open enemy. +Of late they have had much occasion to regard new-comers with distrust, +which, once aroused, is difficult to dispel; and now they will wish to +know you and your business before treating you with that warmth which +they are only too glad to show. + +The women do most of the work. From the few sheep, running wild, which +the farm may own, they take the wool, which is carded, reeled, spun, and +woven into fabrics by their own hands and on their rude implements. One +or two spinning-wheels will be found in every house. Cotton from their +little patches they clean by using a primitive hand cotton-gin. Flax, +much spun formerly, is now less used. It is surprising to see from what +appliances they will bring forth exquisite fabrics: garments for +personal wear, bedclothes, and the like. When they can afford it they +make carpets. + +They have, as a rule, luxuriant hair. In some counties one is struck by +the purity of the Saxon type, and their faces in early life are often +handsome. But one hears that in certain localities they are prone to +lose their teeth, and that after the age of thirty-five it is a rare +thing to see a woman whose teeth are not partly or wholly wanting. The +reason is not apparent. They appear passionately fond of dress, and +array themselves in gay colors and in jewelry (pinchbeck), if their +worldly estate justifies the extravagance. Oftener, if young, they have +a modest, shy air, as if conscious that their garb is not decorous. +Whether married or unmarried, they show much natural diffidence. It +is told that in remoter districts of the mountains they are not allowed +to sit at the table with the male members of the household, but serve +them as in ancient societies. Commonly, in going to church, the men ride +and carry the children, while the women walk. Dancing in some regions is +hardly known, but in others is a favorite amusement, and in its +movements men and women show grace. The mountain preachers oppose it as +a sin. + +[Illustration: MOUNTAIN COURTSHIP.] + +Marriages take place early. They are a fecund race. I asked them time +and again to fix upon the average number of children to a family, and +they gave as the result seven. In case of parental opposition to +wedlock, the lovers run off. There is among the people a low standard of +morality in their domestic relations, the delicate privacies of home +life having little appreciation where so many persons, without regard to +age or sex, are crowded together within very limited quarters. + +The dwellings--often mere cabins with a single room--are built of +rough-hewn logs, chinked or daubed, though not always. Often there is a +puncheon floor and no chamber roof. One of these mountaineers, called +into court to testify as to the household goods of a defendant neighbor, +gave in as the inventory, a string of pumpkins, a skillet without a +handle, and "a wild Bill." "A wild Bill" is a bed made by boring +auger-holes into a log, driving sticks into these, and overlaying them +with hickory bark and sedge-grass--a favorite couch. The low chimneys, +made usually of laths daubed, are so low that the saying, inelegant +though true, is current, that you may sit by the fire inside and spit +out over the top. The cracks in the walls are often large enough to give +ingress and egress to child or dog. Even cellars are little known, +potatoes sometimes being kept during winter in a hole dug under the +hearthstone. More frequently a trap-door is made through the plank +flooring in the middle of the room, and in a hole beneath are put +potatoes, and, in case of wealth, jellies and preserves. Despite the +wretchedness of their habitations and the rigors of mountain climate, +they do not suffer with cold, and one may see them out in snow knee-deep +clad in low brogans, and nothing heavier than a jeans coat and +hunting-shirt. + +The customary beverage is coffee, bitter and black, not having been +roasted but burnt. All drink it, from the youngest up. Another beverage +is "mountain tea," which is made from the sweet-scented golden-rod and +from winter-green--the New England checkerberry. These decoctions they +mollify with home-made sorghum molasses, which they call "long +sweetening," or with sugar, which by contrast is known as "short +sweetening." + +Of home government there is little or none, boys especially setting +aside at will parental authority; but a sort of traditional sense of +duty and decorum restrains them by its silent power, and moulds them +into respect. Children while quite young are often plump to roundness, +but soon grow thin and white and meagre like the parents. There is +little desire for knowledge or education. The mountain schools have +sometimes less than half a dozen pupils during the few months they are +in session. A gentleman who wanted a coal bank opened, engaged for the +work a man passing along the road. Some days later he learned that his +workman was a schoolteacher, who, in consideration of the seventy-five +cents a day, had dismissed his academy. + +[Illustration: A FAMILY BURYING-GROUND.] + +Many, allured by rumors from the West, have migrated thither, but nearly +all come back, from love of the mountains, from indisposition to cope +with the rush and vigor and enterprise of frontier life. Theirs, they +say, is a good lazy man's home. + +Their customs respecting the dead are interesting. When a husband dies +his funeral sermon is not preached, but the death of the wife is +awaited, and vice versa. Then a preacher is sent for, friend and +neighbor called in, and the respect is paid both together. Often two or +three preachers are summoned, and each delivers a sermon. More peculiar +is the custom of having the services for one person repeated; so that +the dead get their funerals preached several times, months and years +after their burial. I heard of the pitiful story of two sisters who had +their mother's funeral preached once every summer as long as they lived. +You may engage the women in mournful conversation respecting the dead, +but hardly the men. In strange contrast with this regard for ceremonial +observances is their neglect of the graves of their beloved, which they +do not seem at all to visit when once closed, or to decorate with those +symbols of affection which are the common indications of bereavement. + +Nothing that I have ever seen is so lonely, so touching in its neglect +and wild, irreparable solitude, as one of these mountain graveyards. On +some knoll under a clump of trees, or along some hill-side where +dense oak-trees make a mid-day gloom, you walk amid the unknown, +undistinguishable dead. Which was father and which mother, where are +lover and stricken sweetheart, whether this is the dust of laughing babe +or crooning grandam, you will never know: no foot-stones, no +head-stones; sometimes a few rough rails laid around, as you would make +a little pen for swine. In places, however, one sees a picket-fence put +up, or a sort of shed built over. + +[Illustration: A MOUNTAINEER DAME.] + +Traditions and folk-lore among them are evanescent, and vary widely in +different localities. It appears that in part they are sprung from the +early hunters who came into the mountains when game was abundant, sport +unfailing, living cheap. Among them now are still-hunters, who know the +haunts of bear and deer, needing no dogs. They even now prefer wild +meat--even "'possum" and "'coon" and ground-hog--to any other. In Bell +County I spent the day in the house of a woman eighty years old, who was +a lingering representative of a nearly extinct type. She had never been +out of the neighborhood of her birth, knew the mountains like a garden, +had whipped men in single-handed encounter, brought down many a deer and +wild turkey with her own rifle, and now, infirm, had but to sit in her +cabin door and send her trained dogs into the depths of the forests to +discover the wished-for game. A fiercer woman I never looked on. + + +III + +Our course now lay direct towards Cumberland Gap, some twenty miles +southward. Our road ran along the bank of the Cumberland River to the +ford, the immemorial crossing-place of early travel--and a beautiful +spot--thence to Pineville, situated in that narrow opening in Pine +Mountain where the river cuts it, and thence through the valley of +Yellow Creek to the wonderful pass. The scenery in this region is one +succession of densely wooded mountains, blue-tinted air, small +cultivated tracts in the fertile valleys, and lovely watercourses. + +Along the first part of our route the river slips crystal-clear over its +rocky bed, and beneath the lone green pendent branches of the trees that +crowd the banks. At the famous ford it was only two or three feet deep +at the time of our crossing. This is a historic point. Here was one of +the oldest settlements in the country; here the Federal army destroyed +the houses and fences during the Civil War; and here Zollikoffer came to +protect the Kentucky gate that opens into East Tennessee. At Pineville, +just beyond, we did not remain long. For some reasons not clearly +understood by travellers, a dead-line had been drawn through the midst +of the town, and not knowing on which side we were entitled to stand, +we hastened on to a place where we might occupy neutral ground. + +The situation is strikingly picturesque: the mountain looks as if cleft +sheer and fallen apart, the peaks on each side rising almost +perpendicularly, with massive overhanging crests wooded to the summits, +but showing gray rifts of the inexhaustible limestone. The river when +lowest is here at an elevation of nine hundred and sixty feet, and the +peaks leap to the height of twenty-two hundred. Here in the future will +most probably pass a railroad, and be a populous town, for here is the +only opening through Pine Mountain from "the brakes" of Sandy to the +Tennessee line, and tributary to the watercourses that centre here are +some five hundred thousand acres of timber land. + +The ride from Pineville to the Gap, fourteen miles southward, is most +beautiful. Yellow Creek becomes in local pronunciation "Yaller Crick." +One cannot be long in eastern Kentucky without being struck by the +number and character of the names given to the watercourses, which were +the natural avenues of migratory travel. Few of the mountains have +names. What a history is shut up in these names! Cutshin Creek, where +some pioneer, they say, damaged those useful members; but more probably +where grows a low greenbrier which cuts the shins and riddles +the pantaloons. These pioneers had humor. They named one creek +"Troublesome," for reasons apparent to him who goes there; another, "No +Worse Creek," on equally good grounds; another, "Defeated Creek;" and a +great many, "Lost Creek." In one part of the country it is possible for +one to enter "Hell fur Sartain," and get out at "Kingdom Come." Near by +are "Upper Devil" and "Lower Devil." One day we went to a mountain +meeting which was held in "a school-house and church-house" on +"Stinking Creek." One might suppose they would have worshipped in a more +fragrant locality; but the stream is very beautiful, and not malodorous. +It received its name from its former canebrakes and deer licks, which +made game abundant. Great numbers were killed for choice bits of venison +and hides. Then there are "Ten-mile Creek" and "Sixteen-mile Creek," +meaning to clinch the distance by name; and what is philologically +interesting, one finds numerous "_Trace_ Forks," originally "_Trail_ +Forks." + +[Illustration: OLD CORN-MILL AT PINEVILLE.] + +Bell County and the Yellow Creek Valley serve to illustrate the +incalculable mineral and timber resources of eastern Kentucky. Our road +at times cut through forests of magnificent timbers--oak (black and +white), walnut (black and white), poplar, maple, and chestnut, beech, +lynn, gum, dogwood, and elm. Here are some of the finest coal-fields in +the world, the one on Clear Creek being fourteen feet thick. Here are +pure cannel-coals and coking-coals. At no other point in the Mississippi +Valley are iron ores suitable for steel-making purposes so close to fuel +so cheap. With an eastern coal-field of 10,000 square miles, with an +area equally large covered with a virgin growth of the finest economic +timbers, with watercourses feasible and convenient, it cannot be long +before eastern Kentucky will be opened up to great industries. +Enterprise has already turned hither, and the distinctiveness of the +mountaineer race already begins to disappear. The two futures before +them are, to be swept out of these mountains by the in-rushing spirit of +contending industries, or to be aroused, civilized, and developed. + +Long before you come in sight of the great Gap, the idea of it dominates +the mind. While yet some miles away it looms up, 1675 feet in elevation, +some half a mile across from crest to crest, the pinnacle on the left +towering to the height of 2500 feet. + +It was late in the afternoon when our tired horses began the long, +winding, rocky climb from the valley to the brow of the pass. As we +stood in the passway, amid the deepening shadows of the twilight and the +solemn repose of the mighty landscape, the Gap seemed to be crowded with +two invisible and countless pageants of human life, the one passing +in, the other passing out; and the air grew thick with unheard +utterances--primeval sounds, undistinguishable and strange, of creatures +nameless and never seen by man; the wild rush and whoop of retreating +and pursuing tribes; the slow steps of watchful pioneers; the wail of +dying children and the songs of homeless women; the muffled tread of +routed and broken armies--all the sounds of surprise and delight, +victory and defeat, hunger and pain, and weariness and despair, that the +human heart can utter. Here passed the first of the white race who led +the way into the valley of the Cumberland; here passed that small band +of fearless men who gave the Gap its name; here passed the "Long +Hunters;" here rushed the armies of the Civil War; here has passed the +wave of westerly emigration, whose force has spent itself only on the +Pacific slopes; and here in the long future must flow backward and +forward the wealth of the North and the South. + + + + +MOUNTAIN PASSES OF THE CUMBERLAND + + +I + +The writer has been publishing during the last few years a series of +articles on Kentucky. With this article the series will be brought to a +close. Hitherto he has written of nature in the Blue-grass Region and of +certain aspects of life; but as he comes to take leave of his theme, he +finds his attention fixed upon that great mountain wall which lies along +the southeastern edge of the State. At various points of this wall are +now beginning to be enacted new scenes in the history of Kentucky; and +what during a hundred years has been an inaccessible background, is +becoming the fore-front of a civilization which will not only change the +life of the State within, but advance it to a commanding position in +national economic affairs. + +But it should not be lost sight of that in writing this article, as in +writing all the others, it is with the human problem in Kentucky that he +is solely concerned. He will seem to be dealing with commercial +activities for their own sake. He will write of coals and ores and +timbers, of ovens and tunnels and mines; but if the reader will bear +with him to the end, he will learn that these are dealt with only for +the sake of looking beyond them at the results which they bring on: +town-making in various stages, the massing and distributing of wealth, +the movements of population, the dislodgment of isolated customs--on the +whole, results that lie in the domain of the human problem in its +deepest phases. + +Consider for a moment, then, what this great wall is, and what influence +it has had over the history of Kentucky and upon the institutions and +characteristics of its people. + +You may begin at the western frontier of Kentucky on the Mississippi +River, about five hundred miles away, and travel steadily eastward +across the billowy plateau of the State, going up and up all the time +until you come to its base, and above its base it rises to the height of +some three thousand feet. For miles before you reach it you discover +that it is defended by a zone of almost inaccessible hills with steep +slopes, forests difficult to penetrate, and narrow jagged gorges; and +further defended by a single sharp wall-like ridge, having an elevation +of about twenty-two hundred feet, and lying nearly parallel with it, at +a distance of about twenty miles. Or, if you should attempt to reach +this wall from the south, you would discover that from that side also it +is hardly less hostile to approach. Hence it has stood in its virgin +wilderness, a vast isolating and isolated barrier, fierce, beautiful, +storm-racked, serene; in winter, brown and gray, with its naked woods +and rifts of stone, or mantled in white; in summer, green, or of all +greens from darkest to palest, and touched with all shades of bloom; in +autumn, colored like the sunset clouds; curtained all the year by +exquisite health-giving atmospheres, lifting itself all the year towards +lovely, changing skies. + +Understand the position of this natural fortress-line with regard to the +area of Kentucky. That area has somewhat the shape of an enormous flat +foot, with a disjointed big toe, a roughly hacked-off ankle, and a +missing heel. The sole of this huge foot rests solidly on Tennessee, the +Ohio River trickles across the ankle and over the top, the big toe is +washed entirely off by the Tennessee River, and the long-missing heel is +to be found in Virginia, never having been ceded by that State. Between +the Kentucky foot and the Virginia heel is piled up this immense, bony, +grisly mass of the Cumberland Mountain, extending some three hundred +miles north-east and south-west. + +It was through this heel that Kentucky had to be peopled. The thin, +half-starved, weary line of pioneer civilizers had to penetrate it, and +climb this obstructing mountain wall, as a line of travelling ants might +climb the wall of a castle. In this case only the strongest of the +ants--the strongest in body, the strongest in will--succeeded in getting +over and establishing their colony in the country far beyond. Luckily +there was an enormous depression in the wall, or they might never have +scaled it. During about half a century this depression was the +difficult, exhausting entrance-point through which the State received +the largest part of its people, the furniture of their homes, and the +implements of their civilization; so that from the very outset that +people represented the most striking instance of a survival of the +fittest that may be observed in the founding of any American +commonwealth. The feeblest of the ants could not climb the wall; the +idlest of them would not. Observe, too, that, once on the other side, it +was as hard to get back as it had been to get over. That is, the +Cumberland Mountain kept the little ultramontane society isolated. Being +isolated, it was kept pure-blooded. Being isolated, it developed the +spirit and virtues engendered by isolation. Hence those traits +for which Kentuckians were once, and still think themselves, +distinguished--passion for self-government, passion for personal +independence, bravery, fortitude, hospitality. On account of this +mountain barrier the entire civilization of the State has had a +one-sided development. It has become known for pasturage and +agriculture, whiskey, hemp, tobacco, and fine stock. On account of it +the great streams of colonization flowing from the North towards the +South, and flowing from the Atlantic seaboard towards the West, have +divided and passed around Kentucky as waters divide and pass around an +island, uniting again on the farther side. It has done the like for the +highways of commerce, so that the North has become woven to the South +and the East woven to the West by a connecting tissue of railroads, +dropping Kentucky out as though it had no vital connection, as though it +were not a controlling point of connection, for the four sections of the +country. Thus keeping out railroads, it has kept out manufactures, kept +out commerce, kept out industrial cities. For three-quarters of a +century generations of young Kentuckians have had to seek pursuits of +this character in other quarters, thus establishing a constant draining +away from the State of its resolute, vigorous manhood. Restricting the +Kentuckians who have remained to an agricultural type of life, it has +brought upon them a reputation for lack of enterprise. More than all +this has that great barrier wall done for the history of Kentucky. For, +within a hundred years, the only thing to take possession of it, slowly, +sluggishly overspreading the region of its foot-hills, its vales and +fertile slopes--the only thing to take possession of it and to claim it +has been a race of mountaineers, an idle, shiftless, ignorant, lawless +population, whose increasing numbers, pauperism, and lawlessness, whose +family feuds and clan-like vendettas, have for years been steadily +gaining for Kentucky the reputation for having one of the worst +backwoods populations on the continent, or, for that matter, in the +world. + +But for the presence of this wall the history of the State, indeed the +history of the United States, would have been profoundly different. Long +ago, in virtue of its position, Kentucky would have knit together, +instead of holding apart, the North and the South. The campaigns and the +results of the Civil War would have been changed; the Civil War might +never have taken place. But standing as it has stood, it has left +Kentucky, near the close of the first century of its existence +as a State, with a reputation somewhat like the shape of its +territory--unsymmetric, mutilated, and with certain parts missing. + +But now consider this wall of the Cumberland Mountain from another point +of view. If you should stand on the crest at any point where it forms +the boundary of Kentucky; or south of it, where it extends into +Tennessee; or north of it, where it extends into Virginia--if you should +stand thus and look northward, you would look out upon a vast area of +coal. For many years now it has been known that the coal-measure rocks +of eastern Kentucky comprise about a fourth of the area of the State, +and are not exceeded in value by those of any other State. It has been +known that this buried solar force exceeds that of Great Britain. Later +it has become known that the Kentucky portion of the great Appalachian +coal-field contains the largest area of rich cannel-coals yet +discovered, these having been traced in sixteen counties, and some of +them excelling by test the famous cannel-coal of Great Britain; later it +has become known that here is to be found the largest area of +coking-coal yet discovered, the main coal--discovered a few years ago, +and named the "Elkhorn"--having been traced over sixteen hundred square +miles, and equalling American standard coke in excellence. + +[Illustration: MAP SHOWING MOUNTAIN PASSES OF THE CUMBERLAND.] + +Further, looking northward, you look out upon a region of iron ores, the +deposits in Kentucky ranking sixth in variety and extent among those to +be found in all other States, and being better disposed for working than +any except those of Virginia, Tennessee, and Alabama. For a hundred +years now, it should be remembered in this connection, iron has been +smelted in Kentucky, been and been an important article of commerce. As +early as 1823 it was made at Cumberland Gap, and shipped by river to +markets as remote as New Orleans and St. Louis. At an early date, also, +it was made in a small charcoal forge at Big Creek Gap, and was hauled +in wagons into central Kentucky, where it found a ready market for such +purposes as plough-shares and wagon tires. + +Further, looking northward, you have extending far and wide before you +the finest primeval region of hard-woods in America. + +Suppose, now, that you turn and look from this same crest of the +Cumberland Mountain southward, or towards the Atlantic seaboard. In that +direction there lie some two hundred and fifty thousand square miles of +country which is practically coalless; but practically coalless, it is +incalculably rich in iron ores for the manufacture of iron and steel. +You look out upon the new industrial empire of the United States, with +vast and ever-growing needs of manufactures, fuel, and railroads. That +is, for a hundred miles you stand on the dividing line of two distinct +geological formations: to the north, the Appalachian coal-fields; to the +south, mountains of iron ores; rearing itself between these, this +immense barrier wall, which creates an unapproachable wilderness not +only in southeastern Kentucky, but in East Tennessee, western +Virginia, and western North Carolina--the largest extent of country in +the United States remaining undeveloped. + +But the time had to come when this wilderness would be approached on all +sides, attacked, penetrated to the heart. Such wealth of resources could +not be let alone or remain unused. As respects the development of the +region, the industrial problem may be said to have taken two forms--the +one, the development of the coal and iron on opposite sides of the +mountains, the manufacture of coke and iron and steel, the establishment +of wood-working industries, and the delivery of all products to the +markets of the land; second, the bringing together of the coals on the +north side and the ores throughout the south. In this way, then, the +Cumberland Mountain no longer offered a barrier merely to the +civilization of Kentucky, but to the solution of the greatest economic +problem of the age--the cheapest manufacture of iron and steel. But +before the pressure of this need the mountain had to give way and +surrender its treasures. At any cost of money and labor, the time had to +come when it would pay to bring these coals and ores together. But how +was this to be done? The answer was simple: it must be done by means of +natural water gaps and by tunnels through the mountain. It is the object +of this paper to call attention to the way in which the new civilization +of the South is expected to work at four mountain passes, and to point +out some of the results which are to follow. + + +II + +On the Kentucky side of the mighty wall of the Cumberland Mountain, and +nearly parallel with it, is the sharp single wall of Pine Mountain, the +westernmost ridge of the Alleghany system. For about a hundred miles +these two gnarled and ancient monsters lie crouched side by side, +guarding between them their hidden stronghold of treasure--an immense +valley of timbers and irons and coals. Near the middle point of this +inner wall there occurs a geological fault. The mountain falls apart as +though cut in twain by some heavy downward stroke, showing on the faces +of the fissure precipitous sides wooded to the crests. There is thus +formed the celebrated and magnificent pass through which the Cumberland +River--one of the most beautiful in the land--slips silently out of its +mountain valley, and passes on to the hills and the plateaus of +Kentucky. In the gap there is a space for the bed of this river, and on +each side of the river space for a roadway and nothing more. + +[Illustration: CUMBERLAND GAP.] + +Note the commanding situation of this inner pass. Travel east along Pine +Mountain or travel west, and you find no other water gap within a +hundred miles. Through this that thin, toiling line of pioneer +civilizers made its way, having scaled the great outer Cumberland +wall some fifteen miles southward. But for this single geological fault, +by which a water gap of the inner mountain was placed opposite a +depression in the outer mountain, thus creating a continuous passway +through both, the colonization of Kentucky, difficult enough even with +this advantage, would have been indefinitely delayed, or from this side +wholly impossible. Through this inner portal was traced in time the +regular path of the pioneers, afterwards known as the Wilderness Road. +On account of the travel over this road and the controlling nature of +the site, there was long ago formed on the spot a little backwoods +settlement, calling itself Pineville. It consisted of a single +straggling line of cabins and shanties of logs on each side of a +roadway, this road being the path of the pioneers. In the course of time +it was made the county-seat. Being the county-seat, the way-side +village, catching every traveller on foot or on horse or in wagons, +began some years ago to make itself still better known as the scene of +mountain feuds. The name of the town when uttered anywhere in Kentucky +suggested but one thing--a blot on the civilization of the State, a +mountain fastness where the human problem seems most intractable. A few +such places have done more to foster the unfortunate impression which +Kentucky has made upon the outside world than all the towns of the +blue-grass country put together. + +Five summers ago, in 1885, in order to prepare an article for HARPER'S +MAGAZINE on the mountain folk of the Cumberland region, I made my way +towards this mountain town, now riding on a buck-board, now on a horse +whose back was like a board that was too stiff to buck. The road I +travelled was that great highway between Kentucky and the South which at +various times within a hundred years has been known as the Wilderness +Road, or the Cumberland Road, or the National Turnpike, or the "Kaintuck +Hog Road," as it was called by the mountaineers. It is impossible to +come upon this road without pausing, or to write of it without a +tribute. It led from Baltimore over the mountains of Virginia through +the great wilderness by Cumberland Gap. All roads below Philadelphia +converged at this gap, just as the buffalo and Indian trails had earlier +converged, and just as many railroads are converging now. The +improvement of this road became in time the pet scheme of the State +governments of Virginia and Kentucky. Before the war millions of head of +stock--horses, hogs, cattle, mules--were driven over it to the southern +markets; and thousands of vehicles, with families and servants and +trunks, have somehow passed over it, coming northward into Kentucky, or +going southward on pleasure excursions. During the war vast commissary +stores passed back and forth, following the movement of armies. But +despite all this--despite all that has been done to civilize it since +Boone traced its course in 1790, this honored historic thoroughfare +remains to-day as it was in the beginning, with all its sloughs and +sands, its mud and holes, and jutting ledges of rock and loose bowlders, +and twists and turns, and general total depravity. + +It is not surprising that when the original Kentuckians were settled +on the blue-grass plateau they sternly set about the making of good +roads, and to this day remain the best road-builders in America. One +such road was enough. They are said to have been notorious for +profanity, those who came into Kentucky from this side. Naturally. +Many were infidels--there are roads that make a man lose faith. It is +known that the more pious companies of them, as they travelled along, +would now and then give up in despair, sit down, raise a hymn, and +have prayers before they could go farther. Perhaps one of the +provocations to homicide among the mountain people should be reckoned +this road. I have seen two of the mildest of men, after riding over it +for a few hours, lose their temper and begin to fight--fight their +horses, fight the flies, fight the cobwebs on their noses, fight +anything. + +Over this road, then, and towards this town, one day, five summers ago, +I was picking my course, but not without pale human apprehensions. At +that time one did not visit Pineville for nothing. When I reached it I +found it tense with repressed excitement. Only a few days previous +there had been a murderous affray in the streets; the inhabitants had +taken sides; a dead-line had been drawn through the town, so that those +living on either side crossed to the other at the risk of their lives; +and there was blue murder in the air. I was a stranger; I was innocent; +I was peaceful. But I was told that to be a stranger and innocent and +peaceful did no good. Stopping to eat, I fain would have avoided, only +it seemed best not to be murdered for refusing. All that I now remember +of the dinner was a corn-bread that would have made a fine building +stone, being of an attractive bluish tint, hardening rapidly upon +exposure to the atmosphere, and being susceptible of a high polish. A +block of this, freshly quarried, I took, and then was up and away. But +not quickly, for having exchanged my horse for another, I found that the +latter moved off as though at every step expecting to cross the +dead-line, and so perish. The impression of the place was one never to +be forgotten, with its squalid hovels, its ragged armed men collected +suspiciously in little groups, with angry, distrustful faces, or peering +out from behind the ambush of a window. + +A few weeks ago I went again to Pineville, this time by means of one of +the most extensive and powerful railroad systems of the South. At the +station a 'bus was waiting to take passengers to the hotel. The station +was on one side of the river, the hotel on the other. We were driven +across a new iron bridge, this being but one of four now spanning the +river formerly crossed at a single ford. At the hotel we were received +by a porter of metropolitan urbanity and self-esteem. Entering the +hotel, I found it lighted by gas, and full of guests from different +parts of the United States. In the lobby there was a suppressed murmur +of refined voices coming from groups engaged in serious talk. +As by-and-by I sat in a spacious dining-room, looking over a +freshly-printed bill of fare, some one in the parlors opposite was +playing on the piano airs from "Tannhäuser" and "Billee Taylor." The +dining-room was animated by a throng of brisk, tidy, white young +waiting-girls, some of whom were far too pretty to look at except from +behind a thick napkin; and presently, to close this experience of the +new Pineville, there came along such inconceivable flannel-cakes and +molasses that, forgetting industrial and social problems, I gave myself +up to the enjoyment of a problem personal and gastric; and erelong, +having spread myself between snowy sheets, I melted away, as the butter +between the cakes, into warm slumber, having first poured over myself a +syrup of thanksgiving. + +The next morning I looked out of my window upon a long pleasant valley, +mountain-sheltered, and crossed by the winding Cumberland; here and +there cottages of a smart modern air already built or building; in +another direction, business blocks of brick and stone, graded streets +and avenues and macadamized roads; and elsewhere, saw and planing mills, +coke ovens, and other evidences of commercial development. Through the +open door of a church I saw a Catholic congregation already on its +knees, and the worshippers of various Protestant denominations were +looking towards their own temples. The old Pineville, happily situated +farther down the river, at the very opening of the pass, was rapidly +going to ruins. The passion for homicide had changed into a passion for +land speculation. The very man on whose account at my former visit the +old Pineville had been divided into two deadly factions, whose name +throughout all the region once stood for mediæval violence, had become a +real-estate agent. I was introduced to him. + +"Sir," said I, "I don't feel so _very_ much afraid of you." + +"Sir," said he, "I don't like to run myself." + +Such, briefly, is the impression made by the new Pineville--a new people +there, new industries, new moral atmosphere, new civilization. + +The explanation of this change is not far to seek. By virtue of its +commanding position as the only inner gateway to the North, this pass +was the central point of distribution for south-eastern Kentucky. +Flowing into the Cumberland, on the north side of the mountain, is Clear +Creek, and on the south side is Strait Creek, the two principal streams +of this region, and supplying water-power and drainage. Tributary to +these streams are, say, half a million acres of noble timber land; in +the mountains around, the best coals, coking and domestic; elsewhere, +iron ores, pure brown, hematite, and carbonates; inexhaustible +quantities of limestone, blue-gray sandstone, brick clays; gushing from +the mountains, abundant streams of healthful freestone water; on the +northern hill-sides, a deep loam suitable for grass and gardens and +fruits. Add to this that through this water-gap, following the path of +the Wilderness Road, as the Wilderness Road had followed the path of the +Indian and the buffalo--through this water-gap would have to pass all +railroads that should connect the North and South by means of that +historic and ancient highway of traffic and travel. + +On the basis of these facts, three summers ago a few lawyers in +Louisville bought 300 acres of land near the riotous old town of +Pineville, and in the same summer was organized the Pine Mountain Iron +and Coal Company, which now, however, owns about twenty thousand acres, +with a capital stock of $2,000,000. It should be noted that Southern men +and native capital began this enterprise, and that although other +stockholders are from Chicago and New England, most of the capital +remains in the State. Development has been rapidly carried forward, and +over five hundred thousand dollars' worth of lots have been sold the +present year. It is pleasant to dwell upon the future that is promised +for this place; pleasant to hear that over six hundred acres in this +pleasant valley are to be platted; that there are to be iron-furnaces +and electric lights, concrete sidewalks and a street railway, more +bridges, brick-yards, and a high-school; and that the seventy-five coke +ovens now in blast are to be increased to a thousand. Let it be put down +to the credit of this vigorous little mountain town that it is the first +place in that region to put Kentucky coke upon the market, and create a +wide demand for it in remote quarters--Cincinnati alone offering to take +the daily output of 500 ovens. + +Thus the industrial and human problems are beginning to solve themselves +side by side in the backwoods of Kentucky. You begin with coke and end +with Christianity. It is the boast of Pineville that as soon as it +begins to make its own iron it can build its houses without calling on +the outside world for an ounce of material. + + +III + +Middlesborough! For a good many years in England and throughout the +world the name has stood associated with wealth and commercial +greatness--the idea of a powerful city near the mouth of the Tees, in +the North Riding of Yorkshire, which has become the principal seat of +the English iron trade. It is therefore curious to remember that near +the beginning of the century there stood on the site of this powerful +city four farm-houses and a ruined shrine of St. Hilda; that it took +thirty years to bring the population up to the number of one hundred and +fifty-four souls; that the discovery of ironstone, as it seems to be +called on that side, gave it a boom, as it is called on this; so that +ten years ago it had some sixty thousand people, its hundred and thirty +blast-furnaces, besides other industries, and an annual output in +pig-iron of nearly two million tons. + +But there is now an English Middlesborough in America, which is already +giving to the name another significance in the stock market of London +and among the financial journals of the realm; and if the idea of its +founders is ever realized, if its present rate of development goes on, +it will in time represent as much wealth in gold and iron as the older +city. + +In the mere idea of the American or Kentucky Middlesborough--for while +it seems to be meant for America, it is to be found in Kentucky--there +is something to arrest attention on the score of originality. That the +attention of wealthy commoners, bankers, scientists, and iron-masters of +Great Britain--some of them men long engaged in copper, tin, and gold +mines in the remotest quarters of the globe--that the attention of such +men should be focussed on a certain spot in the backwoods of Kentucky; +that they should repeatedly send over experts to report on the +combination of mineral and timber wealth; that on the basis of such +reports they should form themselves into a company called "The American +Association, Limited," and purchase 60,000 acres of land lying on each +side of the Cumberland Mountain, and around the meeting-point of the +States of Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky; that an allied association, +called "The Middlesborough Town Company," should place here the site of +a city, with the idea of making it the principal seat of the iron and +steel manufacture of the United States; that they should go to work to +create this city outright by pouring in capital for every needed +purpose; that they should remove gigantic obstacles in order to connect +it with the national highways of commerce; that they should thus expend +some twenty million dollars, and let it be known that all millions +further wanted were forthcoming--in the idea of this there is enough to +make one pause. + +As one cannot ponder the idea of the enterprise without being impressed +with its largeness, so one cannot visit the place without being struck +by the energy with which the plan is being wrought at. "It is not +sufficient to know that this property possesses coal and iron of good +quality and in considerable quantities, and that the deposits are +situated close together, but that they exist in such circumstances as +will give us considerable advantages over any competitors that either +now exist or whose existence can in any way be foreseen in the near +future." Such were the instructions of these English capitalists to +their agent in America. It was characteristic of their race and of that +method of business by which they have become the masters of commerce the +world over. In it is the germ of their idea--to establish a city for the +manufacture of iron and steel which, by its wealth of resources, +advantages of situation, and complete development, should place +competition at a disadvantage, and thus make it impossible. + +It yet remains to be seen whether this can be done. Perhaps even the +hope of it came from an inadequate knowledge of how vast a region they +had entered, and how incalculable its wealth. Perhaps it was too much to +expect that any one city, however situated, however connected, however +developed, should be able to absorb or even to control the development +of that region and the distribution of its resources to all points of +the land. It suggests the idea of a single woodpecker's hoping to carry +off the cherries from a tree which a noble company of cats and jays and +other birds were watching; or of a family of squirrels who should take +up their abode in a certain hole with the idea of eating all the walnuts +in a forest. But however this may turn out, these Englishmen, having +once set before themselves their aim, have never swerved from trying to +attain it; and they are at work developing their city with the hope that +it will bring as great a change in the steel market of the United States +as a few years ago was made in the iron market by the manufacture of +Southern iron. + +If you take up in detail the working out of their plan of development, +it is the same--no stint, no drawing back or swerving aside, no +abatement of the greatest intentions. They must have a site for their +city--they choose for this site what with entire truthfulness may be +called one of the most strategic mountain passes in American history. +They must have a name--they choose that of the principal seat of the +English iron trade. They must have a plant for the manufacture of steel +by the basic process--they promise it shall be the largest in the United +States. They want a tannery--it shall be the biggest in the world. A +creek has to be straightened to improve drainage--they spend on it a +hundred thousand dollars. They will have their mineral resources +known--they order a car to be built, stock it with an exposition of +their minerals, place it in charge of technical experts, and set it +going over the country. They take a notion to establish a casino, +sanitarium, and hotel--it must cost over seven hundred thousand dollars. +The mountain is in their way--that mighty wall of the Cumberland +Mountain which has been in the way of the whole United States for over a +hundred years--they remove this mountain; that is, they dig through it a +great union tunnel, 3750 feet long, beginning in Kentucky, running under +a corner of Virginia, and coming out in Tennessee. Had they done nothing +but this, they would have done enough to entitle them to the gratitude +of the nation, for it is an event of national importance. It brings the +South and the Atlantic seaboard in connection with the Ohio Valley and +the Lakes; it does more to make the North and the South one than any +other single thing that has happened since the close of the Civil War. + +On the same trip that took me to Pineville five summers ago, I rode from +that place southward towards the wall of Cumberland Mountain. I wished +to climb this wall at that vast depression in it known as Cumberland +Gap. It was a tranquil afternoon as I took my course over the ancient +Wilderness Road through the valley of the Yellow Creek. Many a time +since, the memory of that ride has come back to me--the forests of +magnificent timbers, open spaces of cleared land showing the +amphitheatre of hills in the purple distance, the winding of a shadowy +green-banked stream, the tranquil loneliness, the purity of primeval +solitude. The flitting of a bird between one and the azure sky overhead +was company, a wild flower bending over the water's edge was friendship. +Nothing broke rudely in upon the spirit of the scene but here and there +a way-side log-cabin, with its hopeless squalor, hopeless human inmates. +If imagination sought relief from loneliness, it found it only in +conjuring from the dust of the road that innumerable caravan of life +from barbarism to civilization, from the savage to the soldier, that has +passed hither and thither, leaving the wealth of nature unravished, its +solitude unbroken. + +In the hush of the evening and amid the silence of eternity, I drew the +rein of my tired horse on the site of the present town. Before me in the +mere distance, and outlined against the glory of the sky, there towered +at last the mighty mountain wall, showing the vast depression of the +gap--the portal to the greatness of the commonwealth. Stretching away in +every direction was a wide plain, broken here and there by wooded +knolls, and uniting itself with graceful curves to the gentle slopes of +the surrounding mountains. The ineffable beauty, the vast repose, the +overawing majesty of the historic portal, the memories, the +shadows--they are never to be forgotten. + +[Illustration: FORD ON THE CUMBERLAND.] + +A few weeks ago I reached the same spot as the sun was rising, having +come thither from Pineville by rail. As I stepped from the train I saw +that the shadowy valley of my remembrance had been incredibly +transformed. Some idea of the plan of the new town may be understood +from the fact that Cumberland Avenue and Peterborough Avenue, +intersecting each other near the central point of it, are, when +completed, to be severally three and a half or four and a half miles +long. There are twenty avenues and thirty streets in all, ranging from a +hundred feet to sixty feet wide. So long and broad and level are the +thoroughfares that the plan, as projected, suggests comparison with +Louisville. The valley site itself contains some six thousand available +acres. + +It should be understood that the company owns property on the Tennessee +side of the gap, and that at the foot of the valley, where a +magnificent spring gushes out, with various other mineral springs near +by--chalybeate and sulphur--it is proposed to establish a hotel, +sanitarium, and casino which shall equal in sumptuousness the most noted +European spas. + +As I stood one day in this valley, which has already begun to put on the +air of civilization, with its hotel and railway station and mills and +pretty homesteads, I saw a sight which seemed to me a complete epitome +of the past and present tendencies there at work--a summing up of the +past and a prophecy of the future. Creeping slowly past the station--so +slowly that one knows not what to compare it to unless it be the +minute-hand on the dial of a clock--creeping slowly along the Wilderness +Road towards the ascent of Cumberland Gap, there came a mountain wagon, +faded and old, with its dirty ragged canvas hanging motionless, and +drawn by a yoke of mountain oxen which seemed to be moving in their +sleep. On the seat in front, with a faded shovel-hat capping his mass of +coarse tangled hair, and wearing but two other garments--a faded shirt +and faded breeches--sat a faded, pinched, and meagre mountain boy. The +rope with which he drove his yoke had dropped between his clasped knees. +He had forgotten it; there was no need to remember it. His starved white +face was kindled into an expression of passionate hunger and excitement. +In one dirty claw-like hand he grasped a small paper bag, into the open +mouth of which he had thrust the other hand, as a miser might thrust his +into a bag of gold. He had just bought, with a few cents, some sweetmeat +of civilization which he was about for the first time to taste. I sat +and watched him move away and begin the ascent to the pass. Slowly, +slowly, winding now this way and now that across the face of the +mountain, now hidden, now in sight, they went--sleeping oxen, crawling +wagon, starved mountain child. At length, as they were about +disappearing through the gap, they passed behind a column of the white +steam from a saw-mill that was puffing a short distance in front of me; +and, hidden in that steam, they disappeared. It was the last of the +mountaineers passing away before the breath of civilization. + + +IV + +Suppose now that you stand on the south side of the great wall of the +Cumberland Mountain at Cumberland Gap. You have come through the +splendid tunnel beneath, or you have crawled over the summit in the +ancient way; but you stand at the base on the Tennessee side in the +celebrated Powell's River Valley. + +Turn to the left and follow up this valley, keeping the mountain on your +left. You are not the first to take this course: the line of human ants +used to creep down it in order to climb over the wall at the gap. Mark +how inaccessible this wall is at every other point. Mark, also, that as +you go two little black parallel iron threads follow you--a railroad, +one of the greatest systems of the South. All along the mountain slope +overhanging the railroad, iron ore; beyond the mountain crest, timbers +and coals. Observe, likewise, the features of the land: water abundant, +clear, and cold; fields heavy with corn and oats; an ever-changing +panorama of beautiful pictures. The farther you go the more rich and +prosperous the land, the kinder the soil to grains and gardens and +orchards; bearing its burden of timbers--walnut, chestnut, oak, and +mighty beeches; lifting to the eye in the near distance cultivated +hillsides and fat meadows; stretching away into green and shadowy valley +glades; tuneful with swift, crystal streams--a land of lovely views. + +Remember well this valley, lying along the base of the mountain wall. It +has long been known as the granary of south-west Virginia and east +Tennessee; but in time, in the development of civilization throughout +the Appalachian region, it is expected to become the seat of a dense +pastoral population, supplying the dense industrial population of new +mining and manufacturing towns with milk, butter, eggs, and fruit and +vegetables. But for the contiguity of such agricultural districts to the +centres of ores and coals, it would perhaps be impossible to establish +in these remote spots the cities necessary to develop and transport +their wealth. + +Follow this valley up for a distance of sixty miles from Cumberland Gap +and there pause, for you come to the head of the valley, and you have +reached another pass in the mountain wall. You have passed out of +Tennessee into Virginia, a short distance from the Kentucky border, and +the mountain wall is no longer called the Cumberland: twenty miles +southwest of where you now are that mountain divided, sending forth this +southern prong, called Stone Mountain, and sending the rest of itself +between the State line of Kentucky and Virginia, under the name of the +Big Black Mountain. Understand, also, the general bearings of the spot +at which you have arrived. It is in that same Alleghany system of +mountains--the richest metalliferous region in the world--the northern +section of which long ago made Pittsburgh; the southern section of which +has since created Birmingham; and the middle section of which, where you +now are, is claimed by expert testimony, covering a long period of years +and coming from different and wholly uninterested authorities, to be the +richest of the three. + +This mountain pass not being in Kentucky, it might be asked why in a +series of articles on Kentucky it should deserve a place. The answer is +plain: not because a Kentuckian selected it as the site of a hoped for +city, or because Kentuckians have largely developed it, or because +Kentuckians largely own it, and have stamped upon it a certain excellent +social tone; but for the reason that if the idea of its development is +carried out, it will gather towards itself a vast net-work of railways +from eastern Kentucky, the Atlantic seaboard, the South, and the Ohio +and Mississippi valleys, which will profoundly affect the inner life of +Kentucky, and change its relations to different parts of the Union. + +Big Stone Gap! It does not sound very big. What is it? At a certain +point of this continuation of Cumberland Mountain, called Stone +Mountain, the main fork of Powell's River has in the course of ages worn +itself a way down to a practical railroad pass at water-level, thus +opening connection between the coking coal on the north and the iron +ores on the south of the mountain. No pass that I have ever seen--except +those made by the Doe River in the Cranberry region of North +Carolina--has its wild, enrapturing loveliness; towering above on each +side are the mountain walls, ancient and gray and rudely disordered; at +every coign of vantage in these, grasping their precipitous buttresses +as the claw of a great eagle might grasp the uttermost brow of a cliff, +enormous trees above trees, and amid the trees a green lace-work of +undergrowth. Below, in a narrow, winding channel piled high with +bowlders, with jutting rocks and sluice-like fissures--below and against +these the river hurls itself, foaming, roaring, whirling, a long cascade +of white or lucent water. This is Big Stone Gap, and the valley into +which the river pours its full strong current is the site of the town. A +lofty valley it is, having an elevation of 1600 feet above the sea, with +mountains girdling it that rise to the height of 4000--a valley the +surface of which gently rolls and slopes towards these encircling bases +with constant relief to the eye, and spacious enough, with those opening +into it, to hold a city of the population of New York. + +This mountain pass, lying in the heart of this reserved wilderness of +timbers, coals, and ores, has always had its slender thread of local +history. It was from a time immemorial a buffalo and Indian trail, +leading to the head-waters of the Cumberland and Kentucky rivers; during +the Civil War it played its part in certain local military exploits and +personal adventures of a quixotian flavor; and of old the rich farmers +of Lee County used to drive their cattle through it to fatten on the +pea-vine and blue-grass growing thick on the neighboring mountain tops. +But in the last twenty-five years--that quarter of the century which has +developed in the United States an ever-growing need of iron and steel, +of hard-woods, and of all varieties of coal; a period which has seen one +after another of the reserve timber regions of the country thinned and +exhausted--during the past twenty-five years attention has been turned +more and more towards the forests and the coal-fields in the region +occupied by the south Alleghany Mountain system. + +It was not enough to know that at Big Stone Gap there is a water-gap +admitting the passage of a railway on each side at water-level, and +connecting contiguous workable coals with ores; not enough repeatedly to +test the abundance, variety, and purity of both of these; not enough to +know that a short distance off a single vertical section of coal-measure +rocks has a thickness above drainage level of 2500 feet, the thickest in +the entire Appalachian coalfield from Pennsylvania to Alabama; not +enough that from this point, by available railroad to the Bessemer steel +ores in the Cranberry district of North Carolina, it is the shortest +distance in the known world separating such coke and such ores; not +enough that there are here superabundant limestone and water, the south +fork of Powell's River winding about the valley, a full, bold current, +and a few miles from the town the head-waters of this same river having +a fall of 700 feet; not enough that near by is a rich agricultural +region to supply needed markets, and that the valley itself has a +natural drainage, delightful climate, and ideal beauty--all this was not +enough. It had to be known that the great water-gap through the mountain +at this point, by virtue of its position and by virtue of its relation +to other passes and valleys leading to it, necessitated, sooner or +later, a concentration here of railroad lines for the gathering, the +development, and the distribution of its resources. + +From every imaginable point of view a place like this is subject to +unsparing test before it is finally fixed upon as a town site and enters +upon a process of development. Nothing would better illustrate the +tremendous power with which the new South, hand in hand with a new +North, works with brains and capital and science. A few years ago this +place was seventy miles from the nearest railroad. That road has since +been built to it from the south; a second is approaching it from a +distance of a hundred and twenty miles on the west; a third from the +east; and when the last two come together this point will be on a great +east and west trunk line, connecting the Ohio and Mississippi valleys +with the Atlantic seaboard. Moreover, the Legislature of Kentucky has +just passed an act incorporating the Inter-State Tunnel Railroad +Company, and empowering it to build an inter-State double-track highway +from the head-waters of the Cumberland and Kentucky rivers to Big Stone +Gap, tunnelling both the Black and Cumberland Mountains, and affording a +passway north and south for the several railways of eastern Kentucky +already heading towards this point. The plan embraces two double-track +toll tunnels, with double-track approaches between and on each side of +the tunnel, to be owned and controlled by a stock company which shall +allow all railroads to pass on the payment of toll. If this enterprise, +involving the cost of over two million dollars, is carried out, the +railroad problem at Big Stone Gap, and with it the problem of developing +the mineral wealth of southwest Virginia and south-east Kentucky, would +seem to be practically solved. + +That so many railroads should be approaching this point from so many +different directions seems to lift it at once to a position of +extraordinary importance. + +But it is only a few months since the nearest one reached there; and, +since little could be done towards development otherwise, at Big Stone +Gap one sees the process of town-making at an earlier stage than at +Middlesborough. Still, there are under construction water-works, from +the pure mountain river, at an elevation of 400 feet, six miles from +town, that will supply daily 2,500,000 gallons of water; two +iron-furnaces of a hundred tons daily capacity; an electric-light plant, +starting with fifty street arc lights, and 750 incandescent burners for +residences, and a colossal hotel of 300 rooms. These may be taken as +evidences of the vast scale on which development is to be carried +forward, to say nothing of a steam street railway, belt line, lumber and +brick and finishing plants, union depot, and a coke plant modelled after +that at Connellsville. And on the whole it may be said that already over +a million dollars' worth of real estate has been sold, and that eight +land, coal, and iron development companies have centred here the +development of properties aggregating millions in value. + +It is a peculiarity of these industrial towns thus being founded in one +of the most beautiful mountain regions of the land that they shall not +merely be industrial towns. They aim at becoming cities or homes for +the best of people; fresh centres to which shall be brought the newest +elements of civilization from the North and South; retreats for jaded +pleasure-seekers; asylums for invalids. And therefore they are laid out +for amenities and beauty as well as industry--with an eye to using the +exquisite mountain flora and park-like forests, the natural boulevards +along their watercourses, and the natural roadways to vistas of +enchanting mountain scenery. What is to be done at Middlesborough will +not be forgotten. At Big Stone Gap, in furtherance of this idea, there +has been formed a Mountain Park Association, which has bought some three +thousand acres of summit land a few miles from the town, with the idea +of making it a game preserve and shooting park, adorned with a rambling +club-house in the Swiss style of architecture. In this preserve is High +Knob, perhaps the highest mountain in the Alleghany range, being over +four thousand feet above sea-level, the broad summit of which is +carpeted with blue-grass and white clover in the midst of magnificent +forest growth. + +[Illustration: KENTUCKY RIVER FROM HIGH BRIDGE.] + + +V + +Suppose once more that you stand outside the Cumberland or Stone +Mountain at the gap. Now turn and follow down the beautiful Powell's +Valley, retracing your course to Cumberland Gap. Pass this, continuing +down the same valley, and keeping on your right the same parallel +mountain wall. Mark once more how inaccessible it is at every point. +Mark once more the rich land and prosperous tillage. Having gone about +thirty miles beyond Cumberland Gap, pause again. You have come to +another pass--another remarkable gateway. You have travelled out of +Kentucky into Tennessee, and the Cumberland Mountain has changed its +name and become Walden's Mountain, distant some fifteen miles from the +Kentucky State line. + +It is necessary once more to define topographical bearings. Running +north-east and south-west is this Cumberland Mountain, having an +elevation of from twenty-five hundred to three thousand feet. Almost +parallel with it, from ten to twenty miles away, and having an elevation +of about two thousand feet, lies Pine Mountain, in Kentucky. In the +outer or Cumberland Mountain it has now been seen that there are three +remarkable gaps: Big Stone Gap on the east, where Powell's River cuts +through Stone Mountain; Cumberland Gap intermediate, which is not a +water-gap, but a depression in the mountain; and Big Creek Gap in the +west, where Big Creek cuts through Walden's Mountain--the last being +about forty miles distant from the second, about ninety from the first. +Now observe that in Pine Mountain there are three water-gaps having a +striking relation to the gaps in the Cumberland--that is, behind +Cumberland Gap is the pass at Pineville; behind Big Stone Gap and beyond +it at the end of the mountain are the Breaks of Sandy; and behind Big +Creek Gap are the Narrows, a natural water-gap connecting Tennessee with +Kentucky. + +But it has been seen that the English have had to tunnel Cumberland +Mountain at Middlesborough in order to open the valley between Pine and +Cumberland mountains to railroad connections with the south. It has also +been seen that at Big Stone Gap it has been found necessary to plan for +a vast tunnel under Big Black Mountain, and also under Pine Mountain, in +order to establish north and south connections for railroads, and +control the development of south-east Kentucky and south-west Virginia. +But now mark the advantage of the situation at Big Creek Gap: a +water-gap at railroad level giving entrance from the south, and +seventeen miles distant a corresponding water-gap at railroad level +giving exit from the south and entrance from the north. There is thus +afforded a double natural gateway at this point, and at this point +alone--an inestimable advantage. Here, then, is discovered a third +distinct centre in Cumberland Mountain where the new industrial +civilization of the South is expected to work. All the general +conditions elsewhere stated are here found present--timbers, coals, and +ores, limestone, granite, water, scenery, climate, flora; the beauty is +the same, the wealth not less. + +With a view to development, a company has bought up and owns in fee +20,000 acres of coal lands and some seven thousand of iron ore in the +valley and along the foot-hills on the southern slope of the mountain. +They have selected and platted as a town site over sixteen hundred acres +of beautiful valley land, lying on both sides of Big Creek where it cuts +through the mountain, 1200 feet above the sea-level. But here again one +comes upon the process of town-making at a still earlier stage of +development. That is, the town exists only on paper, and improvement has +not yet begun. Taken now, it is in the stage that Middlesborough, or Big +Stone Gap, was once in. So that it should not be thought any the less +real because it is rudimentary or embryonic. A glance at the wealth +tributary to this point will soon dispel doubt that here in the future, +as at the other strategic mountain passes of the Cumberland, is to be +established an important town. + +Only consider that the entire 20,000 acres owned by the Big Creek Gap +Company are underlain by coal, and that the high mountains between the +Pine and Cumberland contain vertical sections of greater thickness of +coal-measure rocks than are to be found anywhere else in the vast +Appalachian field; that Walnut Mountain, on the land of the company--the +western continuation of the Black Mountain and the Log Mountain of +Kentucky--is 3300 feet above sea, and has 2000 feet of coal-measures +above drainage; and that already there has been developed the existence +of six coals of workable thickness above drainage level, five of them +underlying the entire 20,000 acres, except where small portions have +been cut away by the streams. + +The lowest coal above drainage--the Sharpe--presents an outcrop about +twenty feet above the bed of the stream, and underlies the entire +purchase. It has long been celebrated for domestic use in the locality. +An entry driven in about sixty feet shows a twelve-inch cannel-coal with +a five-inch soft shale, burning with a brilliant flame, and much used in +Powell's Valley; also a bituminous coal of forty-three-inch thickness, +having a firm roof, cheaply minable, and yielding a coke of over 93 per +cent. pure carbon. + +The next coal above is a cannel-coal having an outcrop on the Middle +Fork of Big Creek of thirty-six inches, and on the north slope of the +mountains, six miles off, of thirty-eight inches, showing a persistent +bed throughout. + +Above this is the Douglass coal, an entry of forty feet into which shows +a thickness of fifty inches, with a good roof, and on the northern slope +of the mountains, at Cumberland River, a thickness of sixty inches. This +is a gas coal of great excellence, yielding also a coke, good, but high +in sulphur. Above the Douglass is an unexplored section of great +thickness, showing coal stains and coals exposed, but undeveloped. + +The uppermost coal discovered, and the highest opened in Tennessee--the +Walnut Mountain coal--is a coking variety of superior quality, +fifty-eight inches thick, and though lying near the top of the mountain, +protected by a sandstone roof. It is minable at a low cost, admirable +for gas, and is here found underlying some two thousand acres. + +As to the wealth of iron ores, it has been said that the company owns +about seven thousand acres in the valley and along the southern slopes +of Cumberland Mountain. There is a continuous outcrop of the soft red +fossiliferous, or Clinton, iron ore, ten miles long, nowhere at various +outcrops less than sixty inches thick, of exceptional richness and +purity, well located for cheap mining, and adjacent to the coal beds. +Indeed, where it crosses Big Creek at the gap, it is only a mile from +the coking coal. Lying from one to two hundred feet above the drainage +level of the valley, where a railroad is to be constructed, and parallel +to this road at a distance of a few hundred feet, this ore can be put on +cars and delivered to the furnaces of Big Creek Gap at an estimated cost +of a dollar a ton. Of red ore two beds are known to be present. + +Parallel and near to the red fossiliferous, there has been developed +along the base of Cumberland Mountain a superior brown ore, the +Limonite--the same as that used in the Low Moor, Longdale, and other +furnaces of the Clifton Forge district. This--the Oriskany--has been +traced to within ten miles of the company's lands, and there is every +reason to believe that it will be developed on them. At the beginning of +this article it was stated that iron of superior quality was formerly +made at Big Creek Gap, and found a ready market throughout central +Kentucky. + +Parallel with the ore and easily quarriable is the subcarboniferous +limestone, one thick stratum of which contains 98 per cent. of carbonate +of lime; so that, with liberal allowance for the cost of crude material, +interest, wear and tear, it is estimated that iron can here be made at +as low a cost as anywhere in the United States, and that furnaces will +have an advantage in freight in reaching the markets of the Ohio Valley +and the farther South. Moreover, the various timbers of this region +attain a perfection seldom equalled, and by a little clearing out of the +stream, logs can be floated at flood tides to the Clinch and Tennessee +rivers. To-day mills are shipping these timbers from Boston to the Rocky +Mountains. + +Situated in one of the most beautiful of valleys, 1200 feet above +sea-level, surrounded by park-like forests and fertile valley lands, +having an abundance of pure water and perfect drainage, with iron ore +only a mile from coke, and a double water-gap giving easy passage for +railroads, Big Creek Gap develops peculiar strength and possibilities of +importance, when its relation is shown to those cities which will be its +natural markets, and to the systems of railroads of which it will be the +inevitable outlet. Within twenty miles of it lie three of the greatest +railroad systems of the South. It is but thirty-eight miles from +Knoxville, and eight miles of low-grade road, through a fertile +blue-grass valley, peopled by intelligent, prosperous farmers, will put +it in connection with magnetic and specular ores for the making of +steel, or with the mountain of Bessemer ore at Cranberry. Its coke is +about three hundred miles nearer to the Sheffield and Decatur furnaces +than the Pocahontas coke which is now being shipped to them. It is +nearer St. Louis and Chicago than their present sources of supply. It is +the nearest point to the great coaling station for steamships now +building at Brunswick. And it is one of the nearest bases of supply for +Pensacola, which in turn is the nearest port of supply for Central and +South America. + +No element of wealth or advantage of position seems lacking to make this +place one of the controlling points of that vast commercial movement +which is binding the North and the South together, and changing the +relation of Kentucky to both, by making it the great highway of railway +connection, the fresh centre of manufacture and distribution, and the +lasting fountain-head of mineral supply. + + +VI + +Attention is thus briefly directed to that line of towns which are +springing up, or will in time spring up, in the mountain passes of the +Cumberland, and are making the backwoods of Kentucky the fore-front of a +new civilization. Through these three passes in the outer wall of +Cumberland Mountain, and through that pass at Pineville in the inner +wall behind Cumberland Gap--through these four it is believed that there +must stream the railroads carrying to the South its timbers and coals; +to the North its timbers, coal, and iron; and carrying to both from +these towns, as independent centres of manufacture, all those products +the crude materials of which exist in economic combinations on the +spot. + +It is idle to say that all these places cannot become important. The +competition will be keen, and the fittest will survive; but all these +are fit to survive, each having advantages of its own. Big Stone Gap +lies so much nearer the East and the Atlantic seaboard; Big Creek Gap so +much nearer the West and the Ohio and Mississippi valleys and the Lakes; +Cumberland Gap and Pineville so much nearer an intermediate region. + +But as the writer has stated, it is the human, not the industrial, +problem to be solved by this development that possessed for him the main +interest. One seems to see in the perforation and breaking up of +Cumberland Mountain an event as decisive of the destiny of Kentucky as +though the vast wall had fallen, destroying the isolation of the State, +bringing into it the new, and letting the old be scattered until it is +lost. But while there is no space here to deal with those changes that +are rapidly passing over Kentucky life and obliterating old manners and +customs, old types of character and ideals of life, old virtues and +graces as well as old vices and horrors--there is a special topic too +closely connected with the foregoing facts not to be considered: the +effect of this development upon the Kentucky mountaineers. + +The buying up of the mountain lands has unsettled a large part of these +people. Already there has been formed among them a class of tenants +paying rent and living in their old homes. But in the main there are +three movements among them. Some desert the mountains altogether, and +descend to the Blue-grass Region with a passion for farming. On +county-court days in blue-grass towns it has been possible of late to +notice this peculiar type mingling in the market-places with the +traditional type of blue-grass farmer. There is thus going on, +especially along the border counties, a quiet interfusion of the two +human elements of the Kentucky highlander and the Kentucky lowlander, so +long distinct in blood, physique, history, and ideas of life. To less +extent, the mountaineers go farther west, beginning life again beyond +the Mississippi. + +A second general tendency among them is to be absorbed by the +civilization that is springing up in the mountains. They flock to these +towns, keep store, are shrewd and active speculators in real estate, and +successful developers of small capital. The first business house put up +in the new Pineville was built by a mountaineer. + +But the third, and, as far as can be learned, the most general movement +among them is to retire at the approach of civilization to remoter +regions of the mountains, where they may live without criticism or +observation their hereditary, squalid, unambitious, stationary life. But +to these retreats they must in time be followed, therefrom dislodged, +and again set going. Thus a whole race of people are being scattered, +absorbed, civilized. You may go far before you will find a fact so full +of consequences to the future of the State. + +Within a few years the commonwealth of Kentucky will be a hundred years +old. All in all, it would seem that with the close of its first century +the old Kentucky passes away; and that the second century will bring in +a new Kentucky--new in many ways, but new most of all on account of the +civilization of the Cumberland. + +THE END + + + + +FLUTE AND VIOLIN, + +And Other Kentucky Tales and Romances. By JAMES LANE ALLEN. With +Illustrations. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 50. + + + A careful perusal of the six tales here printed reveals and + emphasizes a rare talent and a power in romantic fiction which are + as rare as they are acceptable.... Our native fiction can show + nothing finer in its way than these beautiful Kentucky stories, + which are all the better for having a Southern flavor, and + picturing an ideal side of Southern life.--_Hartford Courant._ + + The stories of this volume are fiction of high artistic + value--fiction to be read and remembered as something rare, fine, + and deeply touching.--_Independent_, N. Y. + + These are beautiful sketches.... Never, perhaps, has the charm + of Kentucky scenery been more vividly and invitingly illustrated + than in this work, and for tenderness of touch and pathetic + interest few stories can equal "Sister Dolorosa." In all the + tales there is a delicious spice of romance, while the artistic + taste in which they are told makes them models of good story + telling.--_Observer_, N. Y. + + Very charming stories.... "Two Gentlemen of Kentucky" is an + especially delightful sketch.--_N. Y. Sun._ + + In these stories Mr. Allen has given us some tender and touching + work, which is characteristic and unhackneyed, and of which the + individual flavor is most refreshing. There is, too, a power in + these tales which touches the reader.--_Boston Courier._ + + All the stories are unusual in character, scene, and treatment, + and all will repay careful reading.--_San Francisco Chronicle._ + + With the temperament and sympathies of the idealist, Mr. James + Lane Allen combines the fidelity to detail usually associated + only with the strict adherent of realism in art, and the result + is--for the reader somewhat satiated with the outpourings of + conventional story-writers--a series of entirely new and grateful + sensations.--_Boston Beacon._ + +PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. + +[Illustration: hand]_The above work is for sale by all booksellers, or +will be sent by the publishers, postage prepaid, to any part of the +United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._ + + + + +BY CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. + + + AS WE WERE SAYING. With Portrait, and Illustrated by H. W. MCVICKAR + and others. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 00. + + So dainty and delightsome a little book may it be everybody's good + hap to possess.--_Evangelist_, N. Y. + + + Who but Mr. Warner could dandle these trifles so gracefully + before the mind and make their angles flash out new and hidden + meanings.--_Critic_, N. Y. + + OUR ITALY. An Exposition of the Climate and Resources of Southern + California. Illustrated. 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, Gilt Top and + Uncut Edges, $2 50. + + Mr. Warner is a prince of travellers and sight-seers--so genial, + so kindly, so ready to be pleased, so imperturable under + discomfort, so full of interpretation, so prophetic in hope.... + In this book are a little history, a little prophecy, a few + fascinating statistics, many interesting facts, much practical + suggestion, and abundant humor and charm.--_Evangelist_, N. Y. + + A LITTLE JOURNEY IN THE WORLD. A Novel. Post 8vo, Half Leather, + Gilt Top and Uncut Edges, $1 50. + + The vigor and vividness of the tale and its sustained interest are + not its only or its chief merits. It is a study of American life + of to-day, possessed with shrewd insight and fidelity.--George + William Curtis. + + STUDIES IN THE SOUTH AND WEST. With Comments on Canada. Post 8vo, + Half Leather, Gilt Top and Uncut Edges, $1 75. + + A witty, instructive book, as brilliant in its pictures as it is + warm in its kindness: and we feel sure that it is with a patriotic + impulse that we say that we shall be glad to learn that the number + of its readers bears some proportion to its merits and its power + for good.--N. Y. Commercial Advertiser. + + THEIR PILGRIMAGE. Richly Illustrated by C. S. REINHART. Post 8vo, + Half Leather, Gilt Top and Uncut Edges, $2 00. + + Mr. Warner's pen-pictures of the characters typical of each + resort, of the manner of life followed at each, of the humor and + absurdities peculiar to Saratoga, or Newport, or Bar Harbor, as + the case may be, are as good-natured as they are clever. The + satire, when there is any, is of the mildest, and the general tone + is that of one glad to look on the brightest side of the cheerful, + pleasure-seeking world.--_Christian Union_, N. Y. + +PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. + +[Illustration: hand]_The above works are for sale by all booksellers, or +will be sent by the publishers, postage prepaid, to any part of the +United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of price._ + +...... + +Transcriber's Note: + +Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Blue-Grass Region of Kentucky, by +James Lane Allen + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43888 *** |