Judith of the Cumberlands

The girl on the sorrel nag and the two riderless animals toiled patiently up the broad, timbered flank of Big Turkey Track, following the raw red gash in the greenery that was t...

Five o'clock Friday morning found Creed, pale, hollow-eyed, a strip of Nancy's home-made sticking plaster over the cut on brow and cheek, but otherwise composed and as usual, at...

"Uh--_huh_!" said the old man as he straightened up after a long examination of Creed. "I thort so. He's got a case o' walkin' typhoid, an' looks like he's been on his feet with...

And now Judith's days strung themselves on the glowing thread of midsummer weather like black beads on a golden cord, a rosary of pain. She told each bead with sighs, facing the...

Judith awakened that morning with the song of the first thrush sounding in her ears. Day was not yet come, but she knew instantly it was near dawn, so soon as she heard the keen...

"I don't know," debated the brown beauty, surveying herself in a looking-glass by means of an awkwardly held hand-mirror. "'Pears to me this one's too little. Hit makes me look...

"Don't you trust nothin' nor nobody over thar," Nancy followed him out to the gate to reiterate. "Old Jephthah Turrentine's as big a rascal as they' is unhung. No--I wouldn't tr...

"He said you was a-goin' to stay at yo' own house to-night, an' he 'lowed ye wouldn't need the mule, an' he was mighty tired. He 'lowed hit was a mighty long ja'nt out to the Ed...

April was in the mountains. All the vast timbered slopes and tablelands of the Cumberlands were one golden dapple, as yet differentiated by darker greens and heavier shadows onl...

"The supper's all ready for you boys," Judith called in to Wade whose whistle sounded from his own room. "Hit's a settin', kivered, on the hearth; the coffee-pot's on the coals....

ALL through April Judith's project of a play-party languished. She had to pull steadily against the elders, for not only were the men hard at it making ready for the putting in...

Over the shoulder of Yellow Old Bald up came the sun, bannered and glorious; the distant ranges glowed in his splendours; the sere fields about the place were all gilded. The sm...

The Turrentine clan was gathering for consultation, Judith knew that. It was Sunday, and much of this unwonted activity passed as the ordinary Sabbath day coming and going. But...

Earlier that same Saturday evening, while Judith Barrier was fighting out her battle, and trying to tire down the restless spirit that wrung and punished her, Nancy Card, mindfu...

Long lanes of light crossed the grass from window and door of the Turrentine house; Judith's play-party was in full swing. They were dancing or playing in the big front room whi...

It was the thirty-first of October, All Souls' eve, that mystic point of contact between the worlds when quick and dead are fabled to walk the ways of earth together, to meet ey...

October had led forth her train across the Cumberlands. One night the forest was fairly green, but early risers next morning found that in the darkness while they slept the hick...

In the sickly yellow flare of the kerosene lamps around the Garyville station Judith got her first sight of Creed's face: sunken, the blood drained from it till it was colourles...

"Wade, you've got to fiddle," cried Judith peremptorily. A chair was set upon a table in the corner, the rather reluctant Wade hoisted to it, and soon "Weevily Wheat," as the tw...

When Judith left Andy in charge of her patient and mounted the ladderlike stair to her own small room under the eaves, she felt no disposition to sleep. She did not undress, but...

"I reckon that'll about do for you, my pretty young men," remarked Blatchley Turrentine as he put the last knot in the line with which he was securing Andy to a splint-bottomed...

Life closed in on Judith after that with an iron hand. She missed sorely the children's demands upon her, their play and prattle and movement about the place. Huldah was gone. W...

It was a strange thing to Judith to be left alone in the house, in charge of it and the sick man. Old Dilsey did the cooking and all the domestic labour. Had Wade been at home,...

Behind them the play was resumed in the lighted room; the whining of the fiddle, the thud and stamp of many feet, came to them softened and refined by a little distance. They we...

Judith reached the Top in the grey, disillusioning light of early dawn. The moon, a ghastly wraith, was far down in the west, the east had not yet taken any hint of rose flush,...

Old Jephthah was winding the clock when the door--which he had closed some time ago after the last retiring guests--flung violently open, Andy paused, flying foot on the thresho...

In dark silence Judith made ready a late breakfast for the boys, leaving her coffee-pot as of custom on its bed of coals in the ashes, hot bread in the Dutch oven, and a platter...

When Judith stole noiselessly into the house and up to her room, she could hear the boys preparing for bed in their own quarters, with unwonted jesting and laughter, and even so...