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 Preache[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][ix]
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]

[1]

THE BLUE-GRASS REGION

[2]

[3]

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 [4] 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. [5]