"Nothin', Ole Cap'n--jes doin' nothin'--jes lookin' for you" 132


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CRITTENDEN




I


Day breaking on the edge of the Bluegrass and birds singing the dawn in.
Ten minutes swiftly along the sunrise and the world is changed: from
nervous exaltation of atmosphere to an air of balm and peace; from grim
hills to the rolling sweep of green slopes; from a high mist of thin
verdure to low wind-shaken banners of young leaves; from giant poplar to
white ash and sugar-tree; from log-cabin to homesteads of brick and
stone; from wood-thrush to meadow-lark; rhododendron to bluegrass; from
mountain to lowland, Crittenden was passing home.

He had been in the backwoods for more than a month, ostensibly to fish
and look at coal lands, but, really, to get away for a while, as his
custom was, from his worse self to the better self that he was when he
was in the mountains--alone. As usual, he had gone in with bitterness
and, as usual, he had set his face homeward with but half a heart for