The Jucklins A Novel   By: Opie Percival Read (1852-1939)

OPIE READ'S SELECT WORKS Old Ebenezer The Jucklins My Young Master A Kentucky Colonel On the Suwanee River A Tennessee Judge Works of Strange Power and Fascination Uniformly bound in extra cloth, gold tops, ornamental covers, uncut edges, six volumes in a box, $6.00 Sold separately, $1.00 each.

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OPIE READ'S SELECT WORKS

THE JUCKLINS A NOVEL

BY

OPIE READ

Author of "Old Ebenezer," "My Young Master," "On the Suwanee River," "A Kentucky Colonel," "A Tennessee Judge," "The Colossus," "Emmett Bonlore," "Len Gansett," "The Tear in The Cup, and Other Stories," "The Wives of The Prophet."

ILLUSTRATED

CHICAGO LAIRD & LEE, PUBLISHERS

Entered according to Act of Congress in the year eighteen hundred and ninety six, by

WILLIAM H. LEE,

In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.

(ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

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THE JUCKLINS

CHAPTER I.

The neighbors and our family began to laugh at me about as far back as I can remember, and I think that the first serious remark my father ever addressed to me was, "Bill, you are too lazy to amount to anything in this life, so I reckon we'll have to make a school teacher of you." I don't know why he should have called me lazy; I suppose it must have been on account of my awkwardness. Lazy, why, I could sit all day and fish in one place and not get a bite, while my more industrious companions would, out of sheer exhaustion of patience, be compelled to move about; and I hold that patience is the very perfection of industry.

In the belief that I could never amount to anything I gradually approached my awkward manhood. I grew fast, and I admit that I was always tired; and who is more weary than a sprout of a boy? My brothers were active of body and quick of judgment, and I know that Ed, my oldest brother, won the admiration of the neighborhood when he swapped horses with a stranger and cheated him unmercifully. How my father did laugh, and mother laughed, too, but she told Ed that he must never do such a thing again. With what envy did I look upon this applause. I knew that Ed's brain was no better than mine; and as I lay in bed one night I formed a strong resolve and fondly hugged it unto myself. I owned a horse, a good one; and I would swap him off for two horses I would cheat some one and thereby win the respect of my fellows. My secret was sweet and I said nothing. By good chance a band of gypsies came our way; I would swindle the rascals. I went to their camp, leading my horse, and after much haggling, I came home with two horses. It was night when I reached home, and I put my team into the stable, and barred up my secret until the sun of a new day could fall upon it. Well, the next morning one of the horses was dead, and the other one was so stiff that we had to shove him out of the stall. My father snorted, my poor mother wept, and for nights afterward I slipped out and slept in the barn, burrowed under the hay that I might not hear the derisive titter of my brother Ed.