NORTHERN GEORGIA SKETCHES
By Will N. Harben
Chicago
A. C. McClurg & Co.
1900
Original
Original
DEDICATION
TO JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF THE KINDLY ENCOURAGEMENT
WHICH MADE THIS BOOK POSSIBLE.
THE AUTHOR
I am indebted to the publishers of The Century Magazine, Lippincott’s Magazine, The Ladies Home Journal, Book News, The Black Cat, and to the Bachelier Syndicate for the courteous permission to reprint the sketches contained in this volume.
WILL N. HARBEN.
Dalton, Ga.
CONTENTS
A HUMBLE ABOLITIONIST
Andrew Duncan and his wife trudged along the unshaded road in the beating sunshine, and paused to rest under the gnarled white-trunked sycamore trees. She wore a drooping gown of checked homespun, a sun-bonnet of the same material, the hood of which was stiffened with invisible strips of cardboard, and a pair of coarse shoes just from the shop. Her husband was barefooted, his shirt was soiled, and he wore no coat to hide the fact. His trousers were worn to shreds about the ankles, but their knees were patched with new cloth.
“I never was as thirsty in all my born days,” he panted, as he looked down into the bluish depths of a road-side spring. “Gee-whilikins! ain’t it hot?”
“An’ some fool or other’s run off with the drinkin’-gourd,” chimed in his wife. “Now ain’t that jest our luck?”
“We ’ll have to lap it up dog-fashion, I reckon,” Andrew replied, ruefully, “an’ this is the hardest spring to git down to I ever seed. Hold on, Ann; I ’ll fix you.”
As he spoke he knelt on the moss by