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[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

  <DW64> 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 <DW72>s 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