The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come

The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come?by John Fox, Jr.

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Title: The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come
Author: John Fox, Jr.
Release Date: Feb, 2000 [EBook #2059] [Most recently updated: June 9, 2002]
Edition: 11
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME
by JOHN FOX, JR.

To CURRIE DUKE DAUGHTER OF THE CHIEF AMONG MORGAN'S MEN
KENTUCKY, APRIL, 1898
CONTENTS
1. TWO RUNAWAYS FROM LONESOME 2. FIGHTING THEIR WAY 3. A "BLAB SCHOOL" ON KINGDOM COME 4. THE COMING OF THE TIDE 5. OUT OF THE WILDERNESS 6. LOST AT THE CAPITAL 7. A FRIEND ON THE ROAD 8. HOME WITH THE MAJOR 9. MARGARET 10. THE BLUEGRASS 11. A TOURNAMENT 12. BACK TO KINGDOM COME 13. ON TRIAL FOR HIS LIFE 14. THE MAJOR IN THE MOUNTAINS 15. TO COLLEGE IN THE BLUEGRASS 16. AGAIN THE BAR SINISTER 17. CHADWICK BUFORD, GENTLEMAN 18. THE SPIRIT OF '76 AND THE SHADOW OF '61 19. THE BLUE OR THE GRAY 20. OFF TO THE WAR 21. MELISSA 22. MORGAN'S MEN 23. CHAD CAPTURES AN OLD FRIEND 24. A RACE BETWEEN DIXIE AND DAWN 25. AFTER DAWS DILLON--GUERILLA 26. BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER AT LAST 27. AT THE HOSPITAL OF MORGAN'S MEN 28. PALL-BEARERS OF THE LOST CAUSE 29. MELISSA AND MARGARET 30. PEACE 31. THE WESTWARD WAY

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME
CHAPTER 1
TWO RUNAWAYS FROM LONESOME
The days of that April had been days of mist and rain. Sometimes, for hours, there would come a miracle of blue sky, white cloud, and yellow light, but always between dark and dark the rain would fall and the mist creep up the mountains and steam from the tops--only to roll together from either range, drip back into the valleys, and lift, straightway, as mist again. So that, all the while Nature was trying to give lustier life to every living thing in the lowland Bluegrass, all the while a gaunt skeleton was stalking down the Cumberland--tapping with fleshless knuckles, now at some unlovely cottage of faded white and green, and now at a log cabin, stark and gray. Passing the mouth of Lonesome, he flashed his scythe into its unlifeing shadows and went stalking on. High up, at the source of the dismal little stream, the point of the shining blade darted thrice into the open door of a cabin set deep into a shaggy flank of Black Mountain, and three spirits, within, were quickly loosed from aching flesh for the long flight into the unknown.
It was the spirit of the plague that passed, taking with it the breath of the unlucky and the unfit: and in the hut on Lonesome three were dead--a gaunt mountaineer, a gaunt daughter, and a gaunt son. Later, the mother, too, "jes' kind o' got tired," as little Chad said, and soon to her worn hands and feet came the well-earned rest. Nobody was left then but Chad and Jack, and Jack was a dog with a belly to feed and went for less than nothing with everybody but his little master and the chance mountaineer who had sheep to guard. So, for the fourth time, Chad, with Jack at his heels, trudged up to the point of a wooded spur above the cabin, where, at the foot of a giant poplar and under a wilderness of shaking June leaves, were three piles of rough boards, loosely covering three hillocks of rain-beaten earth; and, near them, an open grave. There was no service sung or spoken over the dead, for the circuit-rider was then months away; so, unnoticed, Chad stood behind the big poplar, watching the neighbors gently let down into the shallow trench a home-made coffin, rudely hollowed from the half of a bee-gum log, and, unnoticed, slipped away at the first muffled stroke of the dirt--doubling his fists into his eyes and stumbling