The Project Gutenberg EBook of Crittenden, by John Fox, Jr.

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Title: Crittenden
A Kentucky Story of Love and War

Author: John Fox, Jr.

Release Date: May 5, 2006 [EBook #18318]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRITTENDEN ***

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[Illustration: John Fox, Jr.]

CRITTENDEN

A KENTUCKY STORY OF

LOVE AND WAR

BY

JOHN FOX, JR.

ILLUSTRATED BY

F. GRAHAM COOTES

* * * * *

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1911

* * * * *

COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

* * * * *

To

THE MASTER OF

BALLYHOO

* * * * *

ILLUSTRATIONS

John Fox, Jr. (from a photograph) Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

"Go on!" said Judith 76

"Nothin', Ole Cap'n--jes doin' nothin'--jes lookin' for you" 132

* * * * *

CRITTENDEN

I

Day breaking on the edge of the Bluegrass and birds singing the dawn in.
Ten minutes swiftly along the sunrise and the world is changed: from
nervous exaltation of atmosphere to an air of balm and peace; from grim
hills to the rolling sweep of green slopes; from a high mist of thin
verdure to low wind-shaken banners of young leaves; from giant poplar to
white ash and sugar-tree; from log-cabin to homesteads of brick and
stone; from wood-thrush to meadow-lark; rhododendron to bluegrass; from
mountain to lowland, Crittenden was passing home.

He had been in the backwoods for more than a month, ostensibly to fish
and look at coal lands, but, really, to get away for a while, as his
custom was, from his worse self to the better self that he was when he
was in the mountains--alone. As usual, he had gone in with bitterness
and, as usual, he had set his face homeward with but half a heart for
the old fight against fate and himself that se