The despot of Broomsedge Cove

On a certain steep and savage slope of the Great Smoky Mountains, the primeval wilderness for many miles is unbroken save by one meagre clearing. The presence of humanity upon t...

“I reckon Jake Baintree mus’ be innercent,” observed Bowles, with the mild eye and voice of the temporizer. “He war twenty when it happened, an’ he be twenty-five now—a year old...

It was an impressive moment when the old preacher, his white hair and his lined face ghastly in the unnatural light of the day, forged out into the current, leading a young girl...

Teck Jepson had seldom known the twinge of ridicule. He looked away convinced that she was secretly laughing in triumph at his discomfiture because of this adroit turn of the co...

Locked in the stony grasp of the mountains was Broomsedge Cove. Rugged with sudden deep depressions and abrupt declivities, heavily wooded here and anon broken by crags and defy...

The late moon came stealing into the broad, uninclosed passage between the two rooms of his mother’s house, before he had finished his supper. He looked at it from the dusky red...

“Marcelly’s plumb outdone, I know, ’kase _ye_ hev fund out ez she war streck with yer good looks, Teck, an’ called ye han’some. Laws-a-massy, gals air mighty purblind an’ foolis...

The specious Dake nodded his head convincingly. “I’ll be bound I did,” he said equivocally, and yet so unequivocally that the momentary fears of the candidate were set at rest.

Jube was in his own person the most pointed contradiction of his assertion. Piety as it was expressed in Broomsedge Cove proved itself there as elsewhere no hereditary quality,...

They called to him, as he passed the forge, for news of Eli Strobe. He shook his head; he had no news to give. The votes had been counted, and the local politicians, even in thi...

It was the first rebuke he had ever given her, and he quailed as the words passed his lips. But she took no heed of them; her sense of loss was so poignant as to dull all resent...

“Teck Jepson gone an’ c’mitted murder,—laws-a-massy! I jes’ feel how the members o’ the church in Piomingo Cove ez be always a-laffin’ an’ gibin’ at we-uns, will crack thar heel...

“I don’t keer ef thar be forty, or a hunderd. An’ ef Satan hev got a mind, he kin set on the anvil down yander or work at the forge ez a constancy ’fore I’ll be fool enough agin...

The smell of the smoke from the green wood, with the pungent, aromatic suggestions of its sap, was still stronger as he stood by the door. He hesitated for a moment; then with a...

He flushed with a sudden sense of mortification, but his store of patience was very great in this emergency—he, who could usually command so little. “Ye didn’t useter show it so...

The bellows ceased to sigh. Bereft of its breath, the riotous white flaring of the forge fire sank suddenly into a listless yellow flame and a dull tawny coal. The shop, transfo...

“I war powerful glad Marcelly met up with we-uns, Mis’ Strobe,” he said, as he sat on the opposite side of the fire, his elbows on his knees, his hat pushed back on his sleek bl...

“Ye hev all done got sot agin me hyar,” he said, “even Is’bel. Ez ter Mis’ Strobe, she never war hurt with perliteness, nohow; leastways not ter me. An’ you-uns all think heap o...

“Ain’t ye never hearn, though, whar they buried him?” Eli persisted, with growing pertinacity. “I didn’t ’low ez ’twar you-uns ez preached the fun’ral sermon,” with an angry sne...

The sunshine was on her bare head. The rich chestnut-brown of her hair showed such lustre and depth of color in the broad light, such gloss and fineness. And how it waved and cu...

“_Yes_-sum!” said Clem, eagerly awaiting a pause that he might interject this earnestly acquiescent formula. For all his bashfulness, he scarcely withdrew his eyes from her face...

She looked sharply at him, seeking to discern in his open, ingenuous countenance any indication that he divined that she had more definite knowledge of the intruders than he had...

“That she kin!” sourly exclaimed Peter Bryce, whose infelicitous love affairs had been so widely bruited abroad, at the time when he and Maria White, subsequently Mrs. Bowles, q...

“Hang him fur a-killin’ of Sam’l Keale, o’ course,” said Bassett casually, his unthinking face repulsive in its lack of any expression that might attest some protest of humanity...

The white light of the fire flaring up as Clem worked the bellows with one hand, while holding the metal in the coals with the other, revealed the stranger to the scrutiny of Je...

The words rang out with the sonorous intensity of his voice. A faint echo came from the crag above the forge. The moonlight stood motionless in the door. Without, the frosty woo...

“You see,” said Rathburn, leaning forward and tapping the burly mountaineer on the knee, looking up at him the while with eyes that grew fiery revealing the angry, smarting woun...

“Marcelly,” cried the irate little dame, “what ails ye ter stan’ thar in the door a-lookin’ out at the moon ez big-eyed ez a ow-_el_, ez ef ye war bound ter watch ter see the ma...

“I be sorry ye hev got tired o’ me. I ain’t ez school-larned ez ye, though I ain’t like a ignorant mountaineer, nuther. I hev larned some in books, an’ I be one o’ them ez kin l...

“Jake,” he said, an insistent inward monitor clamoring against him, “you don’t know how sorry I am that I was so—so harsh.” He adopted in his uncertainty a word that Baintree of...

To Marcella a new glow of interest was shed upon the sombre scene; often she looked up at those more open expanses, wondering where, in the vast bewilderment of the fastnesses,...

But the gleeful Bob, with distended ruddy cheeks, and two rows of snaggled white teeth, and gleaming eyes almost eclipsed in rolls of fat, continued his blithe circuit, finding...

The acrid tone, the bitter hatred in his face, made a strong impression upon the man who had inspired them, now that he was constrained to be still and observe the demonstration...

The parson might have esteemed it a more difficult task, but Eli Strobe, with a cheerfulness predicated on the possibility of securing a spiritual mind in good season for spirit...

“Naw, sir!” exclaimed Dake. “I jes’ argufied with him fur a good hour an’ better, tryin’ ter pint out his jewty ter the benighted critter, fairly sodden in the pride o’ his reli...

“Waal, sir!” she soliloquized. “I never knowed ez ennybody hed moved up ter this old house,—ez be fairly fallin’ ter pieces,” she added, her critical eye taking note of the dila...

Perhaps it was a pity, for the sake of discipline in the abstract and the promulgation of correct housekeeping principles, that these were merely mythical women to whose methods...

As she jogged off down the bridle-path, she noted the threatening aspect of the day. All above the circling sombre purple mountains, on every side, darkening clouds hung in sini...

After a little she raised her eyes and smiled brilliantly at him, as if to make amends. She said no more, but as she strung the peppers silently listened to Mrs. Bowles, who now...

She had risen from the doorstep. She was looking casually around, as if she were about to go. Her voice had sunk unaccountably. “Jes’ kase I ’lowed it mought hev been him ez tre...

“Little Classics.” Each in one volume. 18mo. I. Exile. II. Intellect. III. Tragedy. IV. Life. V. Laughter. VI. Love. VII. Romance. VIII. Mystery. IX. Comedy. X. Childhood. XI. H...