The South
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Out To Rockhold, Ky.
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Prof.  R.C.  Hitchcock

I wanted to see the people and especially the church and Sunday-school at this outpost.  Now one can go out there by rail, but that is prosaic.  It is not apostolic; those apostles tied on their sandals, girt up their garments and walked.  But I found I couldn’t do that way, for there was the big Cumberland to cross and several creeks, not to speak of “runs,” “branches” and mud-holes.  The circuit riders?  Yes, they went on horseback; that must be my way, so I consulted Brother Tupper and he borrowed Mr. Perkins’s horse, noted as being an easy-going roadster.  Easy?  Well, I do suppose the horse was all right, but I must indulge in one groan.  It was a long time since I had been on horseback.  I wanted to go to the stable to get on, but the young man insisted on bringing the steed down to the hotel as soon as he had his feed, and in due time he came, a tall fellow, and I doubted my ability to get my foot up to that stirrup, and somewhat whether I could boost myself over into the saddle if I did; so I quietly and gently coaxed him up to the piazza and actually succeeded the first time trying.  How many of the gentlemen, sitting in their Sunday best on the piazza, smiled, I do not know—­I didn’t dare to look.  I know I sat up ever so stiff and tried to look just as if I had been a circuit rider for forty years or so.

I must cross the river to begin with.  Now they hadn’t given me any whip and I didn’t dare ask the owner of the horse—­“Colt, gone four”—­he said, for a whip or even a switch, but I wondered what I would do if the animal should take it into his head to turn around or do something awkward right in the middle of the river.  I didn’t want to get off, for I must get on again.  As good luck would have it there was a kind-eyed man sitting on a stone by the riverside, and I asked him to get me a stick.  He gave me one he had in his hand and I felt better.

“Does the ford go right straight across?” I asked.  “No, you must make a curve up towards the dam or you will get into deep water, and there are boulders too, you must avoid, or your horse may fall down.”

A curve!  Now a straight line, two points being given, can be defined.  And if I could steer for some given point on the opposite bank, I could hit it if the current did not take me down stream; but a curve is awfully uncertain, and my mind was in a state of perturbation.  However, I got across with nothing worse than a good spattering.

I wish I could paint the pictures constantly opening on the view as I rode along.  Forest clad mountains rose on every side with huge cliffs peering grimly out.  Sometimes these cliffs overhung the road and occasionally a great slab of slate projected sufficiently to furnish shelter for a family.  In one place a farmer had taken advantage of this and made his stable under a rock.  A great slab of shaly slate