The Starbucks   By: Opie Percival Read (1852-1939)

A New Novel

by

OPIE READ

Author of "The Jucklins," "Old Ebenezer," "My Young Master," "A Tennessee Judge," "A Kentucky Colonel," "Len Gansett," "On the Suwanee River," "Emmett Bonlore," Etc.

[Illustration: "SHE WAS THE ONLY MOTHER I KNOWED."]

Character Illustration, True to Life, Reproduced in Colors

Laird & Lee, Chicago

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1902, by William H. Lee, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE I. The People of the Hills, 9 II. Jim, the Preacher, 17 III. Getting Acquainted, 32 IV. At the Post Office, 50 V. Couldn't Quarrel in Peace, 63 VI. Hadn't Listened, 84 VII. Not So Far Out of the World, 102 VIII. The Spirit that Played with Her, 111 IX. At Dry Fork, 118 X. Tied to a Tree, 134 XI. Reading the News, 148 XII. Didn't Do Anything Heroic, 166 XIII. Might Wipe her Feet on Him, 183 XIV. An Old Man Preached, 198 XV. The Girl and the Churn, 207 XVI. The Appointment Comes, 220 XVII. Not to Tell Her a Lie, 234 XVIII. Down the Road, 252 XIX. Old Folks Left Alone, 263 XX. Met it in the Road, 271 XXI. Into the World beyond the Hills, 279 XXII. Came to Weep, 287 XXIII. A Trip Not Without Incident, 296 XXIV. Two Fruitful Witnesses, 303 XXIV. Too Proud to Beg, 312

ILLUSTRATIONS

REPRODUCED IN COLORS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS

PAGE

"She was the only mother I knowed," Frontispiece

"Them what hain't had trouble ain't had no cause to look fur the Lord," 48

"Yes, I d d d do say so, a a a atter a f f f fashion." 80

"Kotch 'em stealin' hosses, I reckon." 128

"Well," Margaret exclaimed, "I never was so surprised." 208

"Go on erway an' let me talk ter myse'f. You kain't talk." 240

"If you air the Jedge, I am sorter diserp'inted in you." 288

"Jedge, there ain't no better man than he is, an' for the Lord's sake don't hang him." 304

"THE STARBUCKS."

[From the Drama of the Same Name.]

CHAPTER I.

THE PEOPLE OF THE HILLS.

In every age of the world people who live close to nature have, by the more cultivated, been classed as peculiar. An ignorant nation is brutal, but an uneducated community in the midst of an enlightened nation is quaint, unconsciously softened by the cultivation and refinement of institutions that lie far away. In such communities live poets with lyres attuned to drollery. Moved by the grandeurs of nature, the sunrise, the sunset, the storm among the mountains, the tiller of the gullied hill side field is half dumb, but with those apt "few words which are seldom spent in vain," he charicatures his own sense of beauty, mingling rude metaphor with the language of "manage" to a horse.