A Knight of the Cumberland

Name: A Knight of the Cumberland
Author: John, Jr. Fox

by John, Jr. Fox

Pages: about 66
Category: Literature & Fiction
Language: English
Reading time: 73 min at 250 wpm

Start readingThe whole book, as cards or one word at a time. 40 min at 450 wpm in Read mode.

From the opening

So up we went past Bee Rock, Preacher's Creek and Little Looney, past the mines where high on a “tipple” stood the young engineer looking down at us, and looking after the Blight as we passed on into a dim rocky avenue walled on each side with rhododendrons. I waved at him and shook my head--we would see him coming back. Beyond a deserted log-cabin we turned up a spur of the mountain. Around a clump of bushes we came on a gray-bearded mountaineer holding his horse by the bridle and from a covert high above two more men appeared with Winchesters. The Blight breathed forth an awed whisper:
I nodded sagely, “Most likely,” and the Blight was thrilled. They might have been squirrel-hunters most innocent, but the Blight had heard much talk of moonshine stills and mountain feuds and the men who run them and I took the risk of denying her nothing. Up and up we went, those two mules swaying from side to side with a motion little short of elephantine and, by and by, the Blight called out:
Accustomed to obeying the Blight's orders, I rode ahead with eyes to the front. Presently, a shriek made me turn suddenly. It was nothing--my little sister's mule had gone near a steep cliff--perilously near, as its rider thought, but I saw why I must not look back; those two little girls were riding astride on side-saddles, the booted little right foot of each dangling stirrupless--a posture quite decorous but ludicrous.
“Let us know if anybody comes,” they cried. A mountaineer descended into sight around a loop of the path above.
They changed and, passing, were grave, demure--then they changed again, and thus we climbed.

A short sample. Read the whole book

A Knight of the Cumberland

From the opening

More to read