diff options
Diffstat (limited to '43888-8.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 43888-8.txt | 6135 |
1 files changed, 0 insertions, 6135 deletions
diff --git a/43888-8.txt b/43888-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index a51379b..0000000 --- a/43888-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6135 +0,0 @@ -Project Gutenberg's The Blue-Grass Region of Kentucky, by James Lane Allen - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Blue-Grass Region of Kentucky - and other Kentucky Articles - -Author: James Lane Allen - -Release Date: October 5, 2013 [EBook #43888] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLUE-GRASS REGION OF KENTUCKY *** - - - - -Produced by David Garcia, Wayne Hammond and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Kentuckiana Digital Library) - - - - - - -[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 prętor, 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 Cęsar 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 Cęsar -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 Cęsar, 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 ęsthetic 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 medięval 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 -"Chaumičre," 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," "Chaumičre," "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 ęsthetic 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 ęsthetic 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 ęsthetic 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 medięval 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 THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLUE-GRASS REGION OF KENTUCKY *** - -***** This file should be named 43888-8.txt or 43888-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/3/8/8/43888/ - -Produced by David Garcia, Wayne Hammond and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Kentuckiana Digital Library) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, -set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to -copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to -protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project -Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you -charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you -do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the -rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose -such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and -research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do -practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is -subject to the trademark license, especially commercial -redistribution. - - - -*** START: FULL LICENSE *** - -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK - -To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project -Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at - www.gutenberg.org/license. - - -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works - -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy -all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. -If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the -terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or -entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. - -1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement -and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic -works. See paragraph 1.E below. - -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" -or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the -collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an -individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are -located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from -copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative -works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg -are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project -Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by -freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of -this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with -the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by -keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project -Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. - -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in -a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check -the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement -before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or -creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project -Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning -the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United -States. - -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: - -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate -access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently -whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the -phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project -Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, -copied or distributed: - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived -from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is -posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied -and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees -or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work -with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the -work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 -through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the -Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or -1.E.9. - -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional -terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked -to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the -permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. - -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. - -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License. - -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any -word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or -distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than -"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version -posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), -you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a -copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon -request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other -form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. - -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided -that - -- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is - owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he - has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the - Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments - must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you - prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax - returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and - sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the - address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to - the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." - -- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or - destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium - and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of - Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any - money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days - of receipt of the work. - -- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set -forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from -both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael -Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the -Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. - -1.F. - -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm -collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic -works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain -"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or -corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual -property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a -computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by -your equipment. - -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right -of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. - -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with -your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with -the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a -refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity -providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to -receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy -is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further -opportunities to fix the problem. - -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER -WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO -WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. - -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. -If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the -law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be -interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by -the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any -provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. - -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance -with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, -promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, -harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, -that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do -or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm -work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any -Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. - - -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm - -Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers -including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists -because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from -people in all walks of life. - -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. -To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation -and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 -and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org - - -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive -Foundation - -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent -permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. - -The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. -Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered -throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at 809 -North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email -contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the -Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact - -For additional contact information: - Dr. Gregory B. Newby - Chief Executive and Director - gbnewby@pglaf.org - -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide -spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. - -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To -SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any -particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate - -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. - -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. - -Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. -To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate - - -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic -works. - -Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm -concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared -with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project -Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. - -Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. -unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily -keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: - - www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. |