xt71c53dz55d https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt71c53dz55d/data/mets.xml Gibbs, Commodore Perry. 192  books b92-128-29187874 English Pentecostal Publishing Co., : Louisville : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Gibbs, Commodore Perry. Big Sandy Valley (Ky.) Kentucky Social life and customs. Mountain whites (Southern States) "My old Kentucky home"  / by Commodore Perry Gibbs. text "My old Kentucky home"  / by Commodore Perry Gibbs. 192 2002 true xt71c53dz55d section xt71c53dz55d 













"MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME"


    A Thrilling Story of Kentucky

            Mountain Life

                 By

           C. Perry Gibbs



Log Cabin in Which the Author of This Story
       Was Born and Reared



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COMMODORE PERRY GIBBS

 







"My Old Kentucky Home.'



               By




  Commodore Perry Gibbs
'Pastor North e4ethodist Episcopal ehurch
      ef4Ceridian at 'hirty-eighth
      Indianapolis, Indiana



PENTECOSTAL PUBLISHING COMPANY,
       Louisville, Kentucky,

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       "MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME."

"A story and drama lecture of life and death, love
and hate, rich in patriotism, philosophy and re-
ligion; tender and sweet with pathos; full of hu-
mor and tragedy; masterful in character-analysis;
charming in description and thrilling in dramatic
action."
                       EDWIN P. MORROW,
                     Ex-Governor of Kentucky.

 This page in the original text is blank.


 







"MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME:"
   Once upon a time a young man was going to
see his sweetheart. He stopped at the Florist's
and purchased a beautiful bouquet of roses. When
he arrived at the house of the beautiful girl who
was waiting for him, he presented her the roses.
She was so overcome with joy that for the mo-
ment she forgot her dignity and threw both arms
about him and kissed him right on the lips. He
tore away and started for the door. She ran
after him, caught him by the arm, saying: "I did
not mean to embarrass you." He said: "Embar-
rass nothing! I am going after more flowers."
NowI am not writing this story for the flowers,
or the other either. I am writing it that you may
know something about "My Old Kentucky Home."
   Since I am a minister and trained to sermon-
ize, you will permit me to use a text. "If I forget
thee, 0 Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her
cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my
tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer
not Jerusalem above my chief joy." (Psalm 137:
5, 6). The Bible is good enough as it is; but will
you not allow me to put my bit of sentiment in the
text by saying: "If I forget thee, 0 'My Old Ken-
tucky Home' let my right hand forget its cunning.
If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to
the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not 'My Old
Kentucky Home' above my chief joy.'"
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MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME



   A good many years ago there lived a young
man in the New England States by the name of
Foster. One day this young man had a peculiar
sensation about his heart. He said: "I'll go court-
ing." No, not courting but "sparking." Not
many weeks hence he is in Blue Grass, Kentucky
-which is the garden spot of the world. It was
a beautiful day in June-"Knee Deep in June" as
Riley says. The young gentleman was sitting in
the shade of the old apple tree, in the front yard
of an old Kentucky mansion. With him was a
young Kentucky gentleman. On the front porch
of the old mansion were two beautiful Kentucky
girls. The sky was blue; the grass was blue; the
sun was shining bright; the birds were singing;
the flowers were blooming; the smell of the new
mown hay came up from the meadow; the darkies
were gay and all were merry, happy and bright.
Again the New Englander felt that peculiar sen-
sation and inspiration stirring his mind, heart
and soul. He took from his pocket an old envel-
ope and began to write:
"The sun shines bright in the old Kentucky home,
  'Tis summer, the darkies are gay;
The corn-top's ripe and the meadow's in the bloom,
  While the birds make music all the day;
The young folks roll on the little cabin floor,
  All merry, all happy and bright;
By'n-by hard times comes a-knocking at the door,
  Then, my old Kentucky home, good-night!



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MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME



"Weep no more, my lady, 0 weep no more today!
We will sing one song for the old Kentucky home,
For the old Kentucky home, far away.

"They hunt no more for the possum and the coon,
  On the meadow, the hill and the shore;
They sing no more by the glimmer of the moon,
  On the bench by the old cabin door;
The day goes by like a shadow o'er the heart,
  With sorrow where all was delight;
The time has come when the darkies have to part,
  Then, my old Kentucky home, good-night!

"The head must bow and the back will have to
      bend,
  Wherever the darkey may go;
A few more days, and the trouble all will end,
  In the field where the sugar-canes grow;
A few more days for to tote the weary load,-
  No matter, 'twill never be light;
A few more days till we totter on the road,
  Then, my old Kentucky home, good-night!"

  The two beautiful girls on the porch joined the
two young men; a bee buzzed above them; a yel-
low butterfly zigzagged by; blackbirds chattered
in the firs. The quartette put their heads together
and began singing "My Old Kentucky Home." The
birds that had been singing so gaily in the tops of
the trees came down on the lower limbs and
turned their heads side-wise to listen to the sweet-



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MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME



est music they had ever heard. The darkies down
in the cornfield who had been singing:
      "Trouble, 0 Lawd!
      Nothin' but trouble in lan' of Canaan,"
forgot their trouble and came up near the old
apple tree to listen to the music that warmed
their hearts. At once "My Old Kentucky Home"
won its way into the hearts of the American peo-
ple. Wherever you go in this fair land of ours
you will hear "My Old Kentucky Home" ringing
from every cabin and mansion. Yonder on
Flander's Field, the night cold and dark and long,
a zeppelin droning overhead, the whiz-z-z of a
cannon-ball across the trench-you could hear a
doughboy's voice ringing out over the field on the
midnight air:
"Weep no more, my lady, 0 weep no more today !
We will sing one song for the old Kentucky home,
For the old Kentucky home, far away."
   Now, my old Kentucky home that I want to
tell you about is just as great a contrast as you
can image. That you may see my old Kentucky
home and know it, I will take you to the very
heart of the mountains of eastern Kentucky. Do
not, be afraid of being lost for you cannot lose a
Kentucky mountaineer; he always goes back the
way he came. So we will journey to my old Ken-
tucky home the way I came. We are now in In-
dianapolis, Indiana; at the Union Depot we will
Durchase a ticket over the Big Four Railroad to



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MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME



Cincinnati; here we will take the Chesapeake 
Ohio Railroad. We cross the Ohio River to the
Kentucky side,-we go up the Ohio-on and on
we go. At times we think the train will plunge
into the River; on and on we go for over two
hundred miles. We arrive at Ashland, and five
miles beyond Ashland we come to Catlettsburg
at the mouth of Big Sandy River. At the mouth
of Big Sandy the States of Ohio, West Virginia
and Kentucky meet. Big Sandy River rises in
Old Virginia, flowing directly northward through
the mountains, forming the boundary line be-
tween West Virginia and Kentucky and emptying
into the Ohio River at Catlettsburg between Ash-
land, Kentucky and Huntington, West Virginia.
Twenty years ago there was no railroad up Big
Sandy River. My old Kentucky home was over
one hundred miles from any railroad. Now the
Big Sandy Division of the C.  0. goes up the
river through the mountains, joining the Sea
Board and Air Line to the coast.
   Now, we are on our way up Big Sandy River.
It is an April day; a day of mist and rain. Some-
times, for hours, there is a miracle of blue sky,
white cloud and yellow light, but always between
dark and dark the rain is falling and the mist is
creeping up the mountains and rises from-the
tops, only to roll together from either range, drip
back into the narrow valleys and lift, straight-
way, as mist, rain or fog. You can reach out of
the car window and touch the great stone walls



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10   MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME



where they were blasted away for a road bed
The few valleys or bottoms are very narrow. In
most places the ridges come down to the very wa-
ter's edge. The railroad winds about as it follows
the river. In many places you may look on before
and see the engine crawling around the mountain
side. At a few places you will think the engine is
coming back to meet you. In some places in the
mountains you must look straight up to see the
sky at all. Great white tumbling clouds are piled
high above the mountains. Squirrels chatter
a.mong the trees; the forest which covers the
mountain sides, is full of singing birds; the
crows are cawing in the woods across the river;
little streams run down from the mountain side
with banks that are green to the very water's
edge. A worn rail-fence encloses small fields.
Nestled among the rocks and trees on the side of
th3 mountain may be seen the corner of a log
cabin. The mountain sides are showered with
pink and white laurel; we mountaineers call it
"ivy." The train creeps by another log cabin set
in the hillside, and then past another and another;
and always several children are standing in the
door and the mother peering over their heads.
Each little railroad station on the mountain side
is crowded with mountaineers. At one of these
little stations the train stops; we step off; the
train goes on and leaves us. We look around for
some way to go over to my old Kentucky home.
Well, there is no flying machine, no carriage, no

 






MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME



taxi. There are three ways we may go. We may
go- on an ox-cart, on horseback or take your foot
in hand and go dusty road fashion. Just take your
choice. We will go down the river about one
mile, then we will go up Muddy Branch, over little
Whipperwill Hill, over Big Whipperwill Hill, on
to Road Branch, down Road Branch to Tom's
Creek. The maze of the mountains deepens. Now
and then we ride up branches, with cliffs a hun-
dred feet high on either side, and small streams
trickling down the mountain side. We come to a
deep, narrow valley, through which flows a creek,
emptying about ten miles farther on into Big
Sandy River. The creek can be followed thirty or
forty miles back into the mountains, and, and for
the full distance, it is beautified with trees and
bushes. Here at the mouth of a mountain ravine
on Road Branch of old Tom's Creek, is the dearest
spot on earth to me. You could not find a more
favorable spot for my old Kentucky home. Just
at the mouth of the ravine is a gigantic yellow wil-
low, four or five feet in diameter and near two
hundred feet high. In the ravine on the west
side of the cabin stands a great weeping willow.
It's long robe-like branches hang down and reach
to the ground. On the east side of the cabin
stands a wonderful old walnut. To the north a
great cove, reaching to the mountain top. Geese
and ducks are hunting crawfish in the little creek
that runs in front of the log cabin, half hidden
by willows at the edge of the forest. My old Ken-



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tucky home is a large log cabin, with a lean-to
in the rear. The space between the logs is chinked
up with mud and chips. -It is provided with a
puncheon floor, a stone fireplace and a stick and
mud chimney. There is one window with a swing-
ing board shutter, and the roof is covered with
boards of our own splitting. It is comfortable,
rain-tight, wind-tight, snow-tight and cold-tight.
Here I was born; here I grew to manhood.
   For the time being let us forget our beautiful
city with all its wealth, culture, education, relig-
ion and comfortable homes-and live in the very
heart of the mountains of Kentucky that we may
see, know and understand the Kentucky moun-
taineer. My people have lived in the mountains
of Kentucky for five generations. I am the first
of the family to leave the mountains.
   First let us consider the geography of the
mountains. So the class in geography may stand;
but we must learn a part of our geography all
over. Out of the mountains the schools teach that
there are four directions-east, west, north and
south. In the mountains of Kentucky we have
only three directions, namely: up the creek, down
the creek and over the hill. If a mountaineer by
chance crosses the ridge over to another creek or
river and meets another mountaineer, something
like this conversation will take place: "Whar you
from, stranger, an' what's yo' business over hyeh,
an' whar you goin' and what moight yo' name
be" "From yon side o' the mountain, an' I'm a

 






MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME



huntin', an' I'm a goin' up the creek an' then over
the hill."
   The hills and mountains in eastern Kentucky
are very steep. A few years ago I came to In-
diana and stood by the side of a beautiful, auburn-
haired, blue-eyed Hoosier school teacher. She
held my hand and I held hers, and the minister
said the words that made us one. I asked my
bride, "Where will we spend our honey-moon"
She said, "I want to go to the mountains of Ken-
tucky." We made the trip and spent two months
in the very heart of the Kentucky mountains.
When we returned to Indiana we visited with my
wife's father, a practical Hoosier farmer. He
looked at me; I was tall, slim and just from the
hills. He could not trust me for the whole truth
in the matter, so he turned to his daughter and
said: "Are those mountains steep " Here is what
his daughter said: "The mountaineers plant their
corn on the mountain side. The soil is very fertile
and will grow anything. The mountain farmer
does not plow his ground; the horse would fall off
the hill and break its neck. He puts his seed corn
in his pocket, takes a hoe in hand and goes up on
the mountain side. The first thing he does is to
dig a hole for a toe-hold; then he digs another
small hole and drops in three or four grains of
corn, digs a little soil over it, then another and
another until the row is completed around the
mountain side. Then another row is dug in and
another until the mountain side is all planted. In



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14   MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME



a few weeks the corn is up. Then the mountain-
eer cuts the weeds and digs dirt up around the
corn and the corn stalks grows straight up by
the mountain side. When the stalk is full grown
there will be a big ear of corn and sometimes two
ears on each stalk. The stalk grows up by the
side of the mountain, the wind blows and the stalk
begins to weave to and fro and the rubbing
against the mountain side wears the ear of corn
off the stalk. Yes, the hills are steep! They are
so steep that you must hold to a bush to pull your-
self up or to let yourself down the mountain side.
One day a sheep was grazing on the mountain side
and stumbled and fell and rolled down the moun-
tain side and into an old mud chimney and down
into the cabin!"
   My people are farmers; they were farmers
two hundred years ago. My father owned one
hundred and sixty acres of mountain land, and
there was only one-half an acre of level ground.
All the farming was done on the mountain side.
No farm is complete without a meadow. There is
no word in our language that is so full of music,
poetry and life as the word "meadow." Don't call
your meadow a grass field or hay field. If you
are growing old, if you are worried and nervous
and tired, go out into the meadow where the sky
is blue, the grass is blue, the flowers blooming,
the sunshine bright, the water flowing; spend
two months out in this meadow and your hair
will cease to turn gray and all the wrinkles will

 






MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME



leave your face. We had our meadow on the old
mountain farm. Just in front of the log cabin
there is a small brook or branch. Just across the
stream is the mountain rising almost straight up
toward the sky. On this mountain side was our
meadow. The wild grass, blue grass, orchard
grass, red top, timothy and clover grow up fine
and high. When it was ready to mow or cut
down we did not use a modern machine; we went
out to the old shed and took down from the wall
an old scythe blade, the kind that Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob used; then we went out to the mountain
side to cut down or mow the grass. The moun-
tain stands right up in front of us, and the blade
of the sickle sticks into the mountain side. What
can be done Well, we put our sickle under our
arm or on our shoulder and go up to the top of the
mountain. Then we cut a swath down the moun-
tain to the branch, then climb back and cut down
again and again until all is cut down. When the
grass is well cured, we go up to the top of the
mountain and gather the hay into a rick or cylin-
der around the mountain side, then we begin to
roll it down the mountain. It will of its own
weight gather the hay as it rolls, growing larger
and larger until at last it reaches the bottom-a
big cylinder of hay, and all we have to do then
is to open the barn doors and roll the hay into the
barn. So much for the geography of the moun-
tains of Kentucky; I shall pass on to the people



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16   MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME



of the mountains and give something of their
history.
   Blue Grass is the garden of the world. The
land is a great series of wooded parks such as one
might have found in "Merrie England," except
that stone walls take the place of hedge along the
highways and pikes. 'It is a land of peace and
plenty that is close to luxury for all. And, broad-
cast, through the people, is the upright sturdiness
of the Scotch-Irishman, without his narrowness
and bigotry; the grace and chivalry of the Cava-
lier. Here we find the highest type of education,
refinement and culture. Old Transylvania Uni-
versity at Lexington was the first seat of learning
planted beyond the Alleghenies. Boone loved the
land from the moment his eagle eye swept its
shaking wilderness from a mountain top, and
every man who followed him loved the land no
less. Once a Kentuckian-always a Kentuckian!
   The Kentucky mountaineer is entirely differ-
ent from a Blue Grass Kentuckian. I am a real
one hundred per cent Kentucky mountaineer. My
people came over mountains, the Alleghenies, at
the close of the Revolutionary War and settled in
the very heart of the Kentucky mountains and
have lived there ever since. Kentucky Mountains!
No humor in that phrase to the Kentucky moun-
taineer. There never was-there is none now. To
him those rugged hills are the pet shrine of the
Great Mother of freedom and liberty. The Great
Mother of Nature fashioned those mountains with

 






MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME



loving hands. She shut the land in with a mighty
barrier of mountains to keep the mob out. She
spread broad, level prairies beyond, that the mob
might glide by or be tempted to the other side,
where the earth was level and there was no need
to climb. She filled those Kentucky mountains
with flowers, grass, trees, fish, birds and wild
beasts, just as she made Eden for Adam and Eve.
It is a Promised Land! And when the chosen
came, they found the earth ready to receive them
-lifted above the baneful breath of river-bottom
and marshland, drained by rivers and creeks full
of fish, filled with woods full of game. For those
chosen people-such, too, seemed God's purpose.
God meant to the race upon whom He had smiled
a benediction for a thousand years. The race
that obstacles but strengthen, that thrives best
under an alien effort to kill, that has ever con-
quered its conquerors, and that seems bent on
the task of carrying the best ideals any age has
ever known back to the Old World from which it
sprang. God only knows! He knows that His
must suffer if they stray too far from His great
life-giving heart. And how He has followed close
when this Saxon race seemed likely to stray too
far. Here in the very heart of the mountains of
Kentucky are gathered a goodly family of the sons
and daughters of the Saxon race, in the arms of
nature in virgin lands that they might suckle
again and keep the old blood fresh and strong.
Here the Kentucky mountaineer has lived for a



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century and a half, shut in with gray mountain
and shining river. The Kentucky mountaineer
was shut off from Blue Grass and the nation and
left to fight with savage nature, savage beast and
savage man.    Thus the mountaineers have
strength of heart and body and brain. They have
learned to stand together and mind their own bus-
iness; and meddle not at all; to think their own
thoughts and die for them if need be. And na-
ture holds the Kentucky mountaineer close today.
Woodrow Wilson said, "They are a part of the
original stuff out of which America was made."
   The Kentucky mountaineer believes in God.
No people or nation need expect to rise to a high
order of civilization and prosperity, and abide,
without a firm belief in God. If history proves
any one thing it is this fact. Egypt, Babylonia,
Greece and the old Roman Empire died and
passed away because the people composing these
great nations did not believe in God. Well, the
Kentucky mountaineer believes in God! These
mountaineers must be brothers because of their
isolation and peril; to be brothers means to love
one another; to love one another is to love God.
The Kentucky mountaineer may not know how to
read or write but he has inherited a faith in God
that cannot be shaken. Every mountain cabin has
its Bible; they call it "God's Book," "The Holy
Bible," "The Word of God" and "Mother's Book."
There may not be one in the family who is able
to read the Bible, but that makes no difference,

 






MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME



they love the old Book and keep it with tender af-
fection.
   The history of the people of the mountains of
Kentucky has a very important place in our na-
tional life. A young man with coon-skin cap and
an old flint-lock rifle living in North Carolina,
heard of a wonderful country beyond the Alle-
gheny Mountains called the "Dark and Bloody
Ground." Daniel Boone with a few companions,
blazed his way through the forest and over moun-
tains into the strange territory. He spent a few
months exploring the streams and valleys, and
then returned home. He told his neighbors and
friends what a goodly land it was, full of wild
animals and game of all kinds. One day twenty-
five or thirty families of men, women, boys and
girls, with horses and mules, cattle and sheep,
pigs and goats, geese and ducks, chickens and
turkeys and with large covered wagons gathered
together and started through the wilderness on
their way to Kentucky or the "Dark and Bloody
Ground." If you will travel the "Old Wilderness
Trail," the way our fathers came, you will find
lonely graves all along the way, mute witnesses of
the sacrifices of life that this great central west
might become the very heart of our nation. Many
parties and companies of pioneers were com-
pletely destroyed by the Indians. It is safe to say
that one-half of the people now living in Ken-
tucky, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois are the children
of those brave men and women who traveled the



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"Old Wilderness Trail" over the mountains into
Blue Grass about one hundred and fifty years ago.
Among these early pioneers were the Clays,
Clarks, Brockenridges, Taylors, Harrisons, Lin-
coIns, Marshalls, Rileys and the Cartwrights.
   George Washington had a body-guard of one
hundred picked men. Caleb Gibbs was the cap-
tain of this company. When the Revolutionary
War closed these brave men made their way
through the mountains and settled in Kentucky.
Three brothers-Caleb, James and John Gibbs,
were on their way through these mountains.
Caleb was a college graduate. They had married
beautiful girls in Old Virginia. This party found
the mountains full of wild animals, deer, bear,
wild hogs, etc. Caleb loved hunting and fishing.
He built a small log cabin for himself and his
wife. John and James went on to Blue Grass to
find a good settlement. Caleb and his young wife
fell in love with the mountains; the spell of the
mountains came over them and they stayed and
became mountaineers. The day came when these
settlers ceased to come across the mountains and
the "Old Wilderness Trail" was closed. The only
connecting link between the Mountains and Blue
Grass was broken, and for nearly one hundred
and fifty years the mountaineers have been shut
up in the mountains, isolated from the outside
world.
   Caleb Gibbs taught his children to read, write
and spell. He lived to be an old man and then

 






MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME



died, and his children buried him on the mountain
side. Three was no one left to teach his grand-
children; education just died out, and for years
our people were without schools. We mountain
people have multiplied until every river, creek and
mountain side is dotted with log cabins, filled to
overflowing with bright eyed boys and girls.
   We mountaineers have flowing through our
veins the purest Anglo-Saxon blood in the world.
The settlers were mostly English, Scotch and
Irish, with a sprinkling of Germans. These peo-
ple have not changed; they still use the spoken
word of Shakespear. Will blood tell Lincoln,
Jackson and Clay are the answer. These people
today are the original stuff out of which America
was made. The story of George Washington
praying all alone in the forest at Valley Forge is
told again and again in every mountain cabin un-
til it has found a lodging place in the heart of ev-
ery mountain child. We may be very ignorant
about theology and even not able to read the Bible,
but nevertheless our chief characteristic is a
mighty faith in God.
   Not many years ago I was with a surveying
party in the very heart of the mountains. A
gaunt mountaineer died and he must be buried;
there was no minister so there was no service
sung or spoken over the dead. There was no un-
dertaker, so the neighbors cut down a big hollow
poplar tree, sawed off a log and scooped it out
for a casket. They dug the grave and carried the



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dead man up on the mountain side and buried
him. There were three other graves there-the
mother, a daughter and a son. The only member
left of this family was a blue-eyed, white-haired
Scotch-Irish boy about nine years old. After the
dirt was filled in and the grave made and the
neighbors were going away, following the many
mountain paths, the little mountain lad stood by
the new-made grave weeping. His little dog had
trudged up to the point of the mountain and was
standing 'by his little master, and it seemed to me
that the little dog was the only bit of life on earth
that had any sympathy for the boy. Doubling his
fists into his eyes and stumbling away from the
grave a few feet, his little body dropped to the
earth and quivered like an autumn leaf. This
little mountain boy with pure Scotch-Irish blood
in his heart had never been to school; he had
never heard of a Sunday school. In a moment he
lifted his head and said, "O God, help me; I am
all alone." He arose and disappeared down the
mountain side. This boy was the kind of stuff out
of which George Washington and Abraham Lin-
coln were made.
   We mountaineers are patriots; we know but
one flag-the Red, White and Blue. We have been
with Old Glory ever since Betsy Ross stitched the
stars and stripes together. We mountaineers were
with Old Glory at Concord and Lexington. We
were with Old Glory and old Hickory Jackson at
New Orleans. We were with Old Glory at Gettys-

 






MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME



burg. We were with old Glory at San Juan Hill
with Teddy. We were with Old Glory at Chateau
Thierry. Thirty thousand young men from the
mountains and hills of Kentucky rushed to Camp
Taylor at Louisville when the World War brought
Old Glory into the fight. These mountain boys
were awkward and green. They had stood on the
mountain side so long that one leg was shorter
than the other so they could hardly keep from
falling over on one side on level ground. They
were herded around by the officers like a flock of
sheep. One day on the practice field each boy
was given a trusty old rifle; every boy smiled-
had they not shot the squirrel through the head
in the highest trees in the mountains The old
army officer with all his military dignity cried,
"Ready, aim, fire !" Every time those boys touched
the trigger it was a bull's eye. The old army
officer forgot his military dignity and reached up
and took off his cap, and crushing it in his strong
hand he cried, "Look out, Kaiser, we are coming !"
When the war was over and General Pershing
pointed out the hero of the World War, it was
Sergeant York of the mountains of Eastern Ten-
nessee, a lad just like these in the mountains of
Kentucky.
   When the Civil War began the Kentucky
mountaineers, almost to a man, rallied to Lincoln.
My father, then a lad of only sixteen years,
slipped away from the mountain cabin and walked
forty miles to General Garfield's Camp where he



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24    MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME



was arrested by the guard and taken before the
General. Father told Garfield that he had walked
forty miles to join the Union Army and Garfield
wrote his name down and ordered a uniform
brought. The sleeves of the blouse and the legs
of the trousers had to be cut off a bit as my father
was so small. It was not long until father was
ordered to the army of the Potomac; he had a part
in many battles. At the close he was with Sher-
man on the famous "March to the Sea." He was
ordered back to Grant's army. When Lee came to
Grant to surrender and Grant said, "Lee, keep
your sword," father was standing within forty
feet of the great General.
   When father was discharged from the army he
returned to the mountains of Kentucky. He met
a blue-eyed, black-headed, Scotch girl by the name
of Matilda Jane Daniels. He looked at her and
she looked at him; he loved her and she loved him.
One day he held her hand and she held his and
somebody said the words and they became one.
On Whipperwill Creek, a small stream emptying
into Tom's Creek, they built a log cabin, set deep
into a shaggy flank of the mountain. I will not
attempt to describe this cabin. I will only say
that the creek was their wash basin, and every-
thing about the cabin was in harmony with the
wash basin.
   One day the stork brought the first baby to the
cabin, and finding it a good place to leave babies,
he brought one the next year. Mother had no

 






MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME



little bed or cradle for the babies and she needed
one so badly. Necessity is the mother of inven-
tion, so that Scotch heart throbbing with love
for those babies began to look about for something
to take the place of a little bed or cradle. She had
father to take the lid off an old trunk some one
had brought with them across the mountains from
Virginia. She turned the lid upside down on the
floor and spread an old skin or blanket in it and
placed the baby in the lid and rocked it to sleep.
Then along came another baby and pushed this
one out; and then another and another until I
was the seventh baby in the old trunk lid. Then
along came another one and pushed me out. They
continued to come until eleven babies had been
rocked in that old trunk lid. Now, I love the wal-
nut, mahogany and quartered oak furniture of our
homes, but the dearest piece of furniture on earth
to me is that old trunk lid that rocked eleven
babies to manhood and womanhood.
   In the meantime mother had to work in the
corn-field on the mountain side. The children
were all small and there was no one to help fath-
er raise enough corn to feed a pig or two that we
might have corn-pone and pork to live on through
the year. If you make a trip up into the moun-
tains of Kentucky in May, June and July you will
see beautiful girls up on the mountain side with
old dresses and split bonnets on, bare footed, with
old hoes in their hands, hoeing corn. These girls
have the beautiful southern hair and dreamy



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26    MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME



eyes, teeth like a flock of sheep, and roses on their
cheeks that no artist could paint. By the time
these girls are thirty years old their teeth are
gone, the luster is gone from their hair, their
wonderful dreamy eyes have faded and sunk deep
and the roses are gone from their cheeks. Wh