John Fox Jr.

Titles in Fiction category:

• Cumberland Vendetta, A

  THE cave had been their hiding-place as children; it was a secret refuge now against hunger or darkness when they were hunting in the woods. The primitive meal was finished; ashes were raked over the red coals; the slice of bacon and the little bag of meal were hung high against the rock wall; ...

• Grayson's Baby

  The first snow sifted in through the Gap that night, and in a ``shack'' of one room and a low loft a man was dead, a woman was sick to death, and four children were barely alive; and nobody even knew. For they were hill people, who sicken, suffer, and sometimes die, like animals, and make no n ...

• Heart Of The Hills, The

  Twin spirals of blue smoke rose on either side of the spur, crept tendril-like up two dark ravines, and clearing the feathery green crests of the trees, drifted lazily on upward until, high above, they melted shyly together and into the haze that veiled the drowsy face of the mountain.

• Knight of the Cumberland, A

  High noon of a crisp October day, sunshine flooding the earth with the warmth and light of old wine and, going single-file up through the jagged gap that the dripping of water has worn down through the Cumberland Mountains from crest to valley-level, a gray horse and two big mules, a man and tw ...

• Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come, The

  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 e ...

• Mountain Europa, A    

  As Clayton rose to his feet in the still air, the tree-tops began to tremble in the gap below him, and a rippling ran through the leaves up the mountain-side. Drawing off his hat he stretched out his arms to meet it, and his eyes closed as the cool wind struck his throat and face and lif ...

• Trail of the Lonesome Pine, The

  She sat at the base of the big tree--her little sunbonnet pushed back, her arms locked about her knees, her bare feet gathered under her crimson gown and her deep eyes fixed on the smoke in the valley below. Her breath was still coming fast between her parted lips. There were tiny drops a ...

Titles in Short Stories category:

• Courtin' on Cutshin

  Hit was this way, stranger. When hit comes to handlin' a right peert gal, Jeb Somers air about the porest man on Fryin' Pan, I reckon; an' Polly Ann Sturgill have got the vineg'rest tongue on Cutshin or any other crick.

• Last Stetson, The

  I

• Message in the Sand, The

  Stranger, you furriners don't nuver seem to consider that a woman has always got the devil to fight in two people at once! Hit's two agin one, I tell ye, an' hit hain't fa'r.

• On Hell-Fer-Sartain Creek

  Thar was a dancin'-party Christmas night on ``Hell fer Sartain.'' Jes tu'n up the fust crick beyond the bend thar, an' climb onto a stump, an' holler about once, an' you'll see how the name come. Stranger, hit's Hell fer sartain! Well, Rich Harp was thar from the head- waters, ...

• Passing of Abraham Shivers, The

  ``I tell ye, boys, hit hain t often a feller has the chance o' doin' so much good jes by dyin'. Fer 'f Abe Shivers air gone, shorely gone, the rest of us-- every durn one of us--air a-goin' to be saved. Fer Abe Shivers--you hain't heerd tell o' Abe? Well, you must be a stranger ...

• Preachin' on Kingdom-Come

  I've told ye, stranger, that Hell fer Sartain empties, as it oughter, of co'se, into Kingdom-Come. You can ketch the devil 'most any day in the week on Hell fer Sartain, an' sometimes you can git Glory everlastin' on Kingdom-Come. Hit's the only meetin'-house thar in twenty miles aroun'.

• Purple Rhododendron, A

  The purple rhododendron is rare. Up in the Gap here, Bee Rock, hung out over Roaring Rock, blossoms with it--as a gray cloud purples with the sunrise. This rock was tossed lightly on edge when the earth was young, and stands vertical. To get the flowers you climb the mountain to one side, an ...

• Senator's Last Trade, The

  A drove of lean cattle were swinging easily over Black Mountain, and behind them came a big man with wild black hair and a bushy beard. Now and then he would gnaw at his mustache with his long, yellow teeth, or would sit down to let his lean horse rest, and would flip meaninglessly at the bush ...

• Through the Gap

  When thistles go adrift, the sun sets down the valley between the hills; when snow comes, it goes down behind the Cumberland and streams through a great fissure that people call the Gap. Then the last light drenches the parson's cottage under Imboden Hill, and leaves an after-glow of glory on ...

• Trick O' Trade, A

  Stranger, I'm a separate man, an' I don't inquizite into no man's business; but you ax me straight, an' I tell ye straight: You watch ole Tom!