Blue-grass and Rhododendron: Out-doors in Old Kentucky

After Br'er Rabbit in the Blue-grass

After Br'er Rabbit in the Blue-grass After Br'er Rabbit in the Blue-grass F OR little more than a month Jack Frost has been busy-that arch-imp of Satan who has got himself enshrined in the hearts of little children. After the clear sunset of some late October day, when the clouds have hung low and kept the air chill, he has a good night for his--evil work. By dawn the little magician has spun a robe of pure white, and drawn it close to the breast of the earth. The first light turns it silver, and shows the flowers and jewels with which wily Jack has decked it, so that it may be mistaken for a wedding-gown, perhaps, instead of a winding-sheet. The sun, knowing better, lifts, lets loose his tiny warriors, and, from pure love of beauty, with one stroke smites it gold. Then begins a battle which ends soon in crocodile tears of reconciliation from dauntless little Jack, with the blades of grass and the leaves in their scarlet finery sparkling with the joy of another day's deliverance, and the fields grown gray and aged in a single night. On just such a morning, and before the fight is quite done, saddle79 Blue-grass and Rhododendron horses are stepping from big white barns in certain counties of the Blue-grass, and, sniffing the cool air, are being led to old-fashioned stiles, from which a little later they bear master or mistress out to the turnpike and past flashing fields to the little county-seat several miles away. There in the court-house square they gather, the gentlefolk of country and town, and from that point they start into the country the other way. It is a hunting-meet. Br'er Rabbit is the quarry, and they are going for him on horseback without dog, stick, snare, or gun-a unique sport, and, so far as I know, confined wholly to the Blue-grass. There is less rusticity than cosmopolitanism in that happy land. The townspeople have farms, and the farmers own stores; intercourse between town and country is unrestrained; and as for social position, that is a question one rarely hears discussed: one either has it unquestioned, or one has it not at all. So out they go, the hunters on horseback, and the chaperons and spectators in buggies, phaetons, and rockaways, through a morning that is cloudless and brilliant, past fields that are sober with autumn, and woods that are dingy with oaks and streaked with the fire of sumac and maple. New hemp lies in shining swaths on each side, while bales of last year's crop are going to market along the white turnpike. Already the farmers 80 After Br'er Rabbit are turning over the soil for the autumn sowing of wheat. Corn-shucking is just over, and ragged darkies are straggling from the fields back to town. Through such a scene move horse and vehicle, the riders shouting, laughing, running races, and a quartet, perhaps, in a rockaway singing some old-fashioned song full of tune and sentiment. Six miles out, they turn in at a gate, where a big square brick house with a Grecian portico stands far back in a wooded yard, with a fish-pond on one side and a great smooth lawn on the other. Other hunters are waiting there, and the start is made through a Blue-grass woodland, greening with a second spring, and into a sweep of stubble and ragweed. There are two captains of the hunt. One is something of a wag, and has the voice of a trumpet. "Form a line, and form a good un! " he yells, and the line stretches out with a space of ten or fifteen feet between each horse and his neighbor on each side. The men are dressed as they please, the ladies as they please. English blood gets expression, as usual, in independence absolute. There is a sturdy disregard of all considerations of form. Some men wear leggings, some high boots; a few have brown shooting-coats. Most of them ride with the heel low and the toes turned, according to temperament. The Southern 8r Blue-grass and Rhododendron woman's long riding-skirt has happily been laid aside. These young Dianas wear the usual habit; only the hat is a derby, a cap, sometimes...