Rono, Ind., a mile below, with its limewashed buildings set in a bower of trees, at the base of a bald bluff, is a rather pretty study in gray and green and white. The most notable feature is a little school-house-like Masonic hall set high on a stone foundation, with a steep outer stairway—which gives one an impression that Rono is a victim of floods, and that the brethren occasionally come in boats to lodge-meetings.
Concordia, Ky. (681 miles), rests on the summit of a steep clay bank, from which men were loading a barge with bark. Great piles of blocks, for staves, ornamented the crest of the rise—a considerable industry for these parts, we were told. But the photographer, whom we were chasing, had "taken" every Concordian who wished his services, and moved on to Derby, another Kentucky village, which at last we found, six miles father down the river.
The principal occupation of the people of Derby is getting out timber from the hillside forests, six to ten miles in the interior. Oak, elm, and sycamore railway-ties are the specialty, these being worth twenty cents each when landed upon the wharf. A few months ago, Derby was completely destroyed by fire, but, although the timber business is on the wane here, much of the place was rebuilt on the old foundations; hence the fresh, unpainted buildings, with battlement fronts, which, with the prevalence of open-door saloons and a woodsy swagger on the part of the inhabitants, give the place a breezy, frontier aspect now seldom to be met with this side of the Rockies.
Here at last was the traveling photographer. His tent, flapping loudly in the wind, occupied an empty lot in the heart of the village—a saloon on either side, and a lumberman's boarding house across the way, where the "artist" was at dinner, pending which I waited for him at the door of his canvas gallery. He evidently seeks to magnify his calling, does this raw youth of the camera, by affecting what he conceives to be the traditional garb of the artistic Bohemian, but which resembles more closely the costume of the minstrel stage—a battered silk hat, surmounting flowing locks glistening with hair-oil; a loose velveteen jacket, over a gay figured vest; and a great brass watch-chain, from which dangle silver coins. As this grotesque dandy, evidently not long from his native village, came mincing across the road in patent-leather slippers, smoking a cigarette, with one thumb in an arm-hole of his vest, and the other hand twirling an incipient mustache, he was plainly conscious of creating something of a swell in Derby.
It was a crazy little dark-room to which I was shown—a portable affair, much like a coffin-case, which I expected momentarily to upset as I stood within, and be smothered in a cloud of ill-smelling chemicals. However, with care I finally emerged without accident, and sufficiently compensated the artist, who seemed not over-favorable to amateur competition, although he chatted freely enough about his business. It generally took him ten days, he said, to "finish" a town of five or six hundred inhabitants, like Derby. He traveled on steamers with his tenting outfit, but next season hoped to have money enough to "do the thing in style," in a houseboat of his own, an establishment which would cost say four hundred dollars; then, in the winter, he could beach himself at some fair-sized town, and perhaps make his board by running a local gallery, taking to the water again on the earliest spring "fresh." "I could live like a fight'n' cock then, cap'n, yew jist bet yer bottom dollar!"
The temperature mounted with the progress of the day; and, the wind dying down, the atmosphere was oppressive. By the time Stephensport, Ky. (695 miles), was reached, in the middle of the afternoon, the sun was beating fiercely upon the glassy flood, and our awning came again into play, although it could not save us from the annoyance of the reflection. The barren clay bank at the mouth of Sinking Creek, upon which lies Stephensport, seemed fairly ablaze with heat, as I went up into the straggling hamlet to seek for supplies. There were no eggs to be had here; but, at last, milk was found in the farther end of the village, at a modest little cottage quite embowered in roses, with two century plants in tubs in the back-yard, and a trim fruit and vegetable garden to the rear of that, enclosed in palings. I remained a few minutes to chat with the little housewife, who knows her roses well, and is versed in the gentle art of horticulture. But her horizon is painfully narrow—first and dearest, the plants about her, which is not so bad; in a larger way, Stephensport and its petty affairs; but beyond that very little, and that little vague.
It is ever thus, in such far-away, side-tracked villages as this—the world lies in the basin of the hills which these people see from their doors; if they have something to love and do for, as this good woman has in her bushes, seeds, and bulbs, then may they dwell happily in rustic obscurity; but where, as is more common, the small-beer of neighborhood gossip is their meat and drink, there are no folk on the footstool more wretched than the denizens of a dead little hamlet like Stephensport.
We are housed this night on the Kentucky side, a mile-and-a-half above Cloverport, whose half-dozen lights are glimmering in the stream. In the gloaming, while dinner was being prepared, a ragged but sturdy wanderer came into camp. He was, he said, a mountaineer looking for work on the bottom farms; heretofore he had, when he wanted it, always found it; but this season no one appeared to have any money to expend for labor, and it seemed likely he would be obliged to return home without receiving an offer. We made the stranger no offer of a seat at our humble board, having no desire that he pass the night in our neighborhood; for darkness was coming on apace, and, if he long tarried, the woodland road would be as black as a pocket before he could reach Cloverport, his alleged destination. So starting him off with a biscuit or two, he was soon on his way toward the village, whistling a lively tune.