John Fox, Junior, Kentucky's master maker of mountain myths, was born at Stony Point, near Paris, Kentucky, December 16, 1863, the son of a schoolmaster. He was christened "John William Fox, Junior," but he early discarded his middle name. By his father he was largely fitted for Kentucky, now Transylvania, University, which institution he entered at the age of fifteen, spending the two years of 1878-1880 there, when he left and went to Harvard. Mr. Fox was graduated from Harvard in 1883, the youngest man in his class. Though he had written nothing during his collegiate career, upon quitting Cambridge he joined the staff of the New York Sun and later entered Columbia Law School. He soon abandoned law and went with the New York Times, where he remained several months, when illness—blind and blessed goddess in disguise!—compelled him to go south in search of health. At length he found himself high up in the Cumberland Mountains, associated with his father and brother in a mining venture. He also taught school for a time, but the mountaineers of Kentucky were upon him, and he began to weave romances about them. Mr. Fox's first story, A Mountain Europa (New York, 1894), originally appeared in two parts in The Century Magazine for September and October, 1892. It was dedicated to James Lane Allen, whom its author had to thank for encouragement when he stood most in need of it. On Hell-fer-Sartain Creek, which followed fast upon the heels of his first book, made Mr. Fox famous in a fortnight. Written in a day and a half, Harper's Weekly paid him the munificent sum of six dollars for it, and printed it back with the advertisements in the issue for November 24, 1894. The ending was transposed just a bit and a word or two discarded for apter words before it was published in book form; and these revisions were very fine, greatly improving the tale. In its most recent dress it counts less than five small pages; and it may be read in as many minutes. The mountain dialect prevails throughout. It "admits an epic breadth," the biggest thing Mr. Fox has done hitherto, and now generally regarded as a very great short-story.
A Cumberland Vendetta and Other Stories (New York, 1895), contained, besides the title-story, first published in The Century, a reprinting of A Mountain Europa—which made the third time it had been printed in three years—The Last Stetson, and On Hell-fer-Sartain Creek. This volume was followed by Mr. Fox's finest work, entitled Hell-fer-Sartain and Other Stories (New York, 1897). Of the ten stories in this little volume but four of them are in correct English, the others, the best ones, being in dialect. The last and longest story, A Purple Rhododendron, originally appeared in The Southern Magazine, a now defunct periodical of Louisville, Kentucky. The Kentuckians (New York, 1897), was published a short time after Hell-fer-Sartain and Other Stories. This novelette pitted a man of the Blue Grass against a man of the Kentucky hills, and the struggle was not overly severe; the reading world did little more than remark its appearance and its passing.
When the Spanish-American war was declared Mr. Fox went to Cuba as a Rough Rider, but left that organization to act as correspondent for Harper's Weekly. He witnessed the fiercest fighting from the firing lines, and his own experiences were largely written into his first long novel, entitled Crittenden (New York, 1900). This tale of love with war entwined was well told; and its concluding clause: "God was good that Christmas!" has become one of his most famous expressions. After the war Mr. Fox returned to the South. Bluegrass and Rhododendron (New York, 1901), was a series of descriptive essays upon life in the Kentucky mountains, in which Mr. Fox did for the hillsmen what Mr. Allen had done for the customs and traditions of his own section of the state in The Bluegrass Region of Kentucky. It also embodied his own personal experiences as a member of the police guard in Kentucky and Virginia. The word "rhododendron" is Mr. Fox's shibboleth, and he seemingly never tires of writing it.
The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come (New York, 1903), is his best long novel so far. The boy, Chad, is, perhaps, his one character-contribution to American fiction; and the boy's dog, "Jack," stands second to the little hero in the hearts of the thousands who read the book. The opening chapters are especially fine. The love story of The Little Shepherd is most attractive; and the Civil War is presented in a manner not wholly laborious. After Hell-fer-Sartain this novel is far and away the best thing Mr. Fox has done.
Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories (New York, 1904), contained the title-story and five others, including The Last Stetson, which had appeared many years before in Harper's Weekly, and later in A Cumberland Vendetta. Mr. Fox attempted to reach the theatre of the Russian-Japanese War, as a correspondent for Scribner's Magazine, but he was not allowed to join the ever advancing armies. His experiences may be read in Following the Sun-Flag (New York, 1905), with its tell-tale sub-title: "a vain pursuit through Manchuria." His next work was a novelette, A Knight of the Cumberland (New York, 1906), first published as a serial in Scribner's Magazine. It was well done and rather interesting.
Mr. Fox spent the greater part of the year of 1907 in work upon The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (New York, 1908), a story that must be placed beside The Little Shepherd when any classification of the author's work is made. The heroine, June, is none other than Chad in feminine garb. The book contains some of the most excellent writing Mr. Fox has done, the descriptions being especially fine. It was dramatized by Eugene Walter and successfully produced. A few months after the publication of The Trail, the author married Fritzi Scheff, the operatic star, to whom he had inscribed his story. They have a home at Big Stone Gap, in the Virginia mountains.
In April, 1912, Mr. Fox's most recent novel, The Heart of the Hills, began as a serial in Scribner's, to be concluded in the issue for March, 1913. It is red with recent happenings in Kentucky, happenings which are, at the present time, too hackneyed to be of very great interest to the people of that state.[39] It must be remembered always that Mr. Fox is a story-teller pure and simple, and that he seemingly makes little effort to arrive at the stage of perfection in the mere matter of writing that characterizes the work of a group of his contemporaries. That he is a wonderful maker of short-stories in the mountain dialect is certain; but that he is a great novelist is yet to be established.
Bibliography. Current Literature Magazine (New York, September, 1903); Little Pilgrimages Among the Men Who Have Written Famous Books, by E. F. Harkins, (Boston, 1903, Second Series); Library of Southern Literature (Atlanta, 1909, v. iv).
THE CHRISTMAS TREE ON PIGEON[40]
[From Collier's Weekly (December 11, 1909)]