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

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NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

1911

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COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

* * * * *

To

THE MASTER OF

BALLYHOO

* * * * *

ILLUSTRATIONS

John Fox, Jr. (from a photograph) Frontispiece

Facingpage

“Go on!” said Judith 76

“Nothin’, Ole Cap’n—­jes doin’ nothin’—­jes lookin’ for you” 132

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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 seemed destined