Judith of the Cumberlands

								

route as he would give me, bringing up, after about a thousand miles of
it, at my home. To follow the itinerary that the old soldier marked out
on the map for me was to leave railroads and modern civilisation as we
know it, penetrate the wild heart of the region, and, depending on the
wayside dwellers for hospitality and lodging from night to night, be
forcibly thrust into an intimate comprehension of a phase of American
life which is perhaps the most primitive our country affords.
I was more than eight weeks making this trip, carrying with me all
necessary baggage on my capacious, cowgirl saddle with its long and
numerous buckskin tie-strings. At first I shrank very much from riding up
to a cabin--a young woman, alone, with garments and outfit that must
challenge the attention and curiosity of these people--in the dusk of
evening or in a heavy rain-storm, and asking in set terms for lodging.
But it took only a few days for me to find that here I was never to be
stared at, wondered at, nor questioned; and that, proffering my request
under such conditions, I was met by instant hospitality, and a grave,
uninquiring courtesy unsurpassed and not always equalled in the best
society, and I seemed to evoke a swift tenderness that was almost
compassion.
During this journey I became acquainted with some features of mountain
life which I might never have known otherwise. My best friends in the
mountains in the neighbourhood of my own home had always been a little
shy of discussing moonshine whiskey and moonshiners; but here I earned a
dividend upon my misfortunes, being more than once taken for a revenue
spy; and in the apologetic amenities of those who had misjudged me, which
followed my explanations and proofs of innocence, I have been shown in a
spirit of atonement, illicit still and "hideout." I have heard old
Jephthah Turrentine make his protest against the government's attitude
toward the mountain man and his "blockaded still." I have foregathered
with the revenuers in the settlements at the foot of the circling purple
ranges, and been shown the specially made axes and hooks they carry with
them for breaking up and destroying the simple appurtenances of the
illicit manufacture. Knowing that Blatch Turrentine's still must have
cost him three hundred dollars, I cannot wonder that a mountain man, a
thrifty fellow like Blatch, should have lingered, even in great danger,
over the project of carrying it with him.
These dwellers in the southern mountain region, the purest American
strain left to us, hold the interest and appeal of a changing, vanishing
type. The tide of enlightenment and commercial prosperity must presently
sweep in and absorb them. And so I might hope that a faithful picture of
the life and manners I have sought to represent in Judith of the
Cumberlands would be the better worth while.



                                                             A. Mac G.