central Court-house square and the general assembly of the people. Go
among them; they are not dangerous. Do not use fine words, at which they
will prick up their ears uneasily; or delicate sentiments, which will
make you less liked; or indulge in flights of thought, which they
despise. Remember, here is the dress and the talk and the manners of the
street, and fashion yourself accordingly. Be careful of your speech; men
in Kentucky are human. If you can honestly praise them, do so. How they
will glow and expand! Censure, and you will get the cold shoulder. For
to them praise is friendship and censure enmity. They have wonderful
solidarity. Sympathy will on occasion flow through them like an electric
current, so that they will soften and melt, or be set on fire. There is
a Kentucky sentiment, expending itself in complacent, mellow love of the
land, the people, the institutions. You speak to them of the happiness
of living in parts of the world where life has infinite variety, nobler
general possibilities, greater gains, harder struggles; they say, "We
are just as happy here." "It is easier to make a living in Kentucky than
to keep from being run over in New York," said a young Kentuckian, and
home he went.
If you attempt to deal with them in the business of the market-place, do
not trick or cheat them. Above all things they hate and despise intrigue
and deception. For one single act of dishonor a man will pay with
life-long aversion and contempt. The rage it puts them in to be charged
with lying themselves is the exact measure of the excitement with
which they regard the lie in others. This is one of their idols--an
idol of the market-place in the true meaning of the Baconian philosophy.
The new Kentuckian has not lost an old-time trait of character: so high
and delicate a sense of personal honor that to be told he lies is the
same as saying he has ceased to be a gentleman. Along with good faith
and fair dealing goes liberality. Not prodigality; they have changed all
that. The fresh system of things has produced no more decided result
than a different regard for material interests. You shall not again
charge the Kentuckians with lacking either "the telescopic appreciation
of distant gain," or the microscopic appreciation of present gain. The
influence of money is active, and the illusion of wealth become a
reality. Profits are now more likely to pass into accumulation and
structure. There is more discussion of costs and values. Small economies
are more dwelt upon in thought and conversation. Actually you shall find
the people higgling with the dealer over prices. And yet how significant
a fact is it in their life that the merchant does not, as a rule, give
exact change over the counter! At least the cent has not yet been put
under the microscope.
[Illustration: SWAPPING HORSES.]
Perhaps you will not accept it as an evidence of progress that so many
men will leave their business all over the country for an idle day once
a month in town--nay, oftener than once a month; for many who are at
county court in this place to-day will attend it in another county next
Monday. But do not be deceived by the lazy appearance of the streets.
There are fewer idlers than of old. You may think this quiet group of
men who have taken possession of a buggy or a curb-stone are out upon a
costly holiday. Draw near, and it is discovered that there is fresh,
eager, intelligent talk of the newest agricultural implements and of
scientific farming. In fact the day is to the assembled farmers the
seedtime of ideas, to be scattered in ready soil--an informal,
unconscious meeting of grangers.
There seems to be a striking equality of stations and conditions. Having
travelled through many towns, and seen these gatherings together of all
classes, you will be pleased with the fair, attractive, average
prosperity, and note the almost entire absence of paupers and beggars.
Somehow misfortune and ill-fortune and old age save themselves here from
the last hard necessity of asking alms on the highway. But the
appearance of the people will easily lead you to a wrong inference as to
social equality. They are much less democratic than they seem, and their
dress and speech and manners in the market-place are not their best
equipment. You shall meet with these in their homes. In their homes,
too, social distinctions begin and are enforced, and men who find in the
open square a common footing never associate elsewhere. But even among
the best of the new Kentuckians will you hardly observe fidelity to
the old social ideals, which adjudged that the very flower of birth and
training must bloom in the bearing and deportment. With the crumbling
and downfall of the old system fell also the structure of fine manners,
which were at once its product and adornment.
[Illustration: GENTLEMEN OF LEISURE.]
VI
A new figure has made its appearance in the Kentucky market-place,
having set its face resolutely towards the immemorial Court-house and
this periodic gathering together of freemen. Beyond comparison the most
significant new figure that has made its way thither and cast its shadow
on the people and the ground. Writ all over with problems that not the
wisest can read. Stalking out of an awful past into what uncertain
future! Clothed in hanging rags, it may be, or a garb that is a mosaic
of strenuous patches. Ah! Pompey, or Cæsar, or Cicero, of the days of
slavery, where be thy family carriage, thy master and mistress, now?
He comes into the county court, this old African, because he is a
colored Kentuckian and must honor the stable customs of the country. He
does little buying or selling; he is not a politician; he has no debt
to collect, and no legal business. Still, example is powerful and the
negro imitative, so here he is at county court. It is one instance of
the influence exerted over him by the institutions of the Kentuckian, so
that he has a passion for fine stock, must build amphitheatres and hold
fairs and attend races. Naturally, therefore, county court has become a
great social day with his race. They stop work and come in from the
country, or from the outskirts of the town, where they have congregated
in little frame houses, and exhibit a quasi-activity in whatever of
business and pleasure is going forward. In no other position of life
does he exhibit his character and his condition more strikingly than
here. Always comical, always tragical, light-hearted, sociable; his
shackles stricken off, but wearing those of his own indolence,
ignorance, and helplessness; the wandering Socrates of the streets,
always dropping little shreds of observation on human affairs and bits
of philosophy on human life; his memory working with last Sunday's
sermon, and his hope with to-morrow's bread; citizen, with so much
freedom and so little liberty--the negro forms one of the conspicuous
features of a county court day at the present time.
A wonderful, wonderful day this is that does thus always keep pace with
civilization in the State, drawing all elements to itself, and
portraying them to the interpreting eye. So that to paint the scenes of
the county court days in the past is almost to write the history of the
contemporary periods; and to do as much with one of the present hour is
to depict the oldest influences that has survived and the newest that
has been born in this local environment. To the future student of
governmental and institutional history in this country, a study always
interesting, always important, and always unique, will be county court
day in Kentucky.
KENTUCKY FAIRS
I
The nineteenth century opened gravely for the Kentuckians. Little akin
as was the spirit of the people to that of the Puritans, life among them
had been almost as granitic in its hardness and ruggedness and desolate
unrelief. The only thing in the log-cabin that had sung from morning
till night was the spinning-wheel. Not much behind those women but
danger, anxiety, vigils, devastation, mournful tragedies; scarce one of
them but might fitly have gone to her loom and woven herself a garment
of sorrow. Not much behind those men but felling of trees, clearing of
land, raising of houses, opening of roads, distressing problems of
State, desolating wars of the republic. Most could remember the time
when it was so common for a man to be killed, that to lie down and die a
natural death seemed unnatural. Many must have had in their faces the
sadness that was in the face of Lincoln.
Nevertheless, from the first, there had stood out among the Kentuckians
broad exhibitions of exuberant animal vigor, of unbridled animal
spirits. Some singularly and faithfully enough in the ancestral vein of
English sports and relaxations--dog-fighting and cock-fighting, rifle
target-shooting, wrestling matches, foot-racing for the men, and
quarter-racing for the horses. Without any thought of making spectacles
or of becoming themselves a spectacle in history, they were always ready
to form an impromptu arena and institute athletic games. They had even
their gladiators. Other rude pleasures were more characteristic of their
environment--the log-rolling and the quilting, the social frolic of the
harvesting, the merry parties of flax-pullers, and the corn-husking at
nightfall, when the men divided into sides, and the green glass
whiskey-bottle, stopped with a corn-cob, was filled and refilled and
passed from mouth to mouth, until out of those lusty throats rose and
swelled a rhythmic choral song that could be heard in the deep woods a
mile or more away: at midnight those who were sober took home those who
were drunk. But of course none of these were organized amusements. They
are not instances of taking pleasures sadly, but of attempts to do much
hard, rough work with gladness. Other occasions, also, which have the
semblance of popular joys, and which certainly were not passed over
without merriment and turbulent, disorderly fun, were really set apart
for the gravest of civic and political reasons: militia musters,
stump-speakings, county court day assemblages, and the yearly
July celebrations. Still other pleasures were of an economic or
utilitarian nature. Thus the novel and exciting contests by parties of
men at squirrel-shooting looked to the taking of that destructive
animal's scalp, to say nothing of the skin; the hunting of beehives in
the woods had some regard to the scarcity of sugar; and the nut
gatherings and wild-grape gatherings by younger folks in the gorgeous
autumnal days were partly in memory of a scant, unvaried larder, which
might profitably draw upon nature's rich and salutary hoard. Perhaps the
dearest pleasures among them were those that lay closest to their
dangers. They loved the pursuit of marauding parties, the solitary
chase; were always ready to throw away axe and mattock for rifle and
knife. Among pleasures, certainly, should be mentioned the weddings. For
plain reasons these were commonly held in the daytime. Men often rode to
them armed, and before leaving too often made them scenes of carousal
and unchastened jocularities. After the wedding came the "infare," with
the going from the home of the bride to the home of the groom. Above
everything else that seems to strike the chord of common happiness in
the society of the time, stands out to the imagination the picture of
one of these processions--a long bridal cavalcade winding slowly along a
narrow road through the silent primeval forest, now in sunlight, now in
the shadow of mighty trees meeting over the way; at the head the young
lovers, so rudely mounted, so simply dressed, and, following in their
happy wake, as though they were the augury of a peaceful era soon to
come, a straggling, broken line of the men and women who had prepared
for that era, but should never live to see its appearing.
[Illustration: CORN HUSKING.]
Such scenes as these give a touch of bright, gay color to the dull
homespun texture of the social fabric of the times. Indeed, when all the
pleasures have been enumerated, they seem a good many. But the effect of
such an enumeration is misleading. Life remained tense, sad, barren;
character moulded itself on a model of Spartan simplicity and hardihood,
without the Spartan treachery and cunning.
But from the opening of the nineteenth century things grew easier. The
people, rescued from the necessity of trying to be safe, began to
indulge the luxury of wishing to be happy. Life ceased to be a warfare,
and became an industry; the hand left off defending, and commenced
acquiring; the moulding of bullets was succeeded by the coining of
dollars.
II
[Illustration: MILITIA MUSTER.]
It is against the background of such a strenuous past that we find the
Kentucky fair first projected by the practical and progressive spirit
that ruled among the Kentuckians in the year 1816. Nothing could have
been conceived with soberer purpose, or worn less the aspect of a great
popular pleasure. Picture the scene! A distinguished soldier and honored
gentleman, with a taste for agriculture and fine cattle, has announced
that on a certain day in July he will hold on his farm a "Grand Cattle
Show and Fair, free for everybody." The place is near Lexington, which
was then the centre of commerce and seat of learning in the West. The
meagre newspapers of the time have carried the tidings to every tavern
and country cross-roads. It is a novel undertaking; the like has never
been known this side of the Alleghanies. The summer morning come, you
may see a very remarkable company of gentlemen: old pioneers,
Revolutionary soldiers, volunteers of the War of 1812, walking in
picturesque twos and threes out of the little town to the green woods
where the fair is to be held; others jogging thitherward along the
bypaths and newly-opened roads through the forest, clad in homespun
from heel to head, and mindful of the cold lunches and whiskey-bottles
in their coat-pockets or saddle-bags; some, perhaps, drawn thither in
wagons and aristocratic gigs. Once arrived, all stepping around loftily
on the velvet grass, peering curiously into each other's eyes, and
offering their snuffboxes for a sneeze of convivial astonishment that
they could venture to meet under the clear sky for such an undertaking.
The five judges of the fair, coming from as many different counties, the
greatest personages of their day--one, a brilliant judge of the Federal
Court; the second, one of the earliest settlers, with a sword hanging up
at home to show how Virginia appreciated his services in the Revolution;
the third, a soldier and blameless gentleman of the old school; the
fourth, one of the few early Kentuckians who brought into the new
society the noble style of country-place, with park and deer, that
would have done credit to an English lord; and the fifth, in no respect
inferior to the others. These "perform the duties assigned them with
assiduity," and hand over to their neighbors as many as fifteen or
twenty premium silver cups, costing twelve dollars apiece. After which,
the assemblage variously disperses--part through the woods again, while
part return to town.
Such, then, was the first Kentucky fair. It was a transplantation to
Kentucky, not of the English or European fair, but of the English
cattle-show. It resembled the fair only in being a place for buying and
selling. And it was not thought of in the light of a merry-making or
great popular amusement. It seems not even to have taken account of
manufactures--then so important an industry--or of agriculture.
Like the first was the second fair held in the same place the year
following. Of this, little is and little need be known, save that then
was formed the first State Agricultural Society of Kentucky, which also
was the first in the West, and the second in the United States. This
society held two or three annual meetings, and then went to pieces, but
not before laying down the broad lines on which the fair continued to be
held for the next quarter of a century. That is, the fair began as a
cattle-show, though stock of other kinds was exhibited. Then it was
extended to embrace agriculture; and with branches of good husbandry it
embraced as well those of good housewifery. Thus at the early fairs one
finds the farmers contesting for premiums with their wheats and their
whiskeys, while their skilful helpmates displayed the products--the
never-surpassed products--of their looms: linens, cassinettes, jeans,
and carpetings.
With this brief outline we may pass over the next twenty years. The
current of State life during this interval ran turbulent and stormy. Now
politics, now finance, imbittered and distressed the people. Time and
again, here and there, small societies revived the fair, but all efforts
to expand it were unavailing. And yet this period must be distinguished
as the one during which the necessity of the fair became widely
recognized; for it taught the Kentuckians that their chief interest lay
in the soil, and that physical nature imposed upon them the agricultural
type of life. Grass was to be their portion and their destiny. It taught
them the insulation of their habitat, and the need of looking within
their own society for the germs and laws of their development. As soon
as the people came to see that they were to be a race of farmers, it is
important to note their concern that, as such, they should be hedged
with respectability. They took high ground about it; they would not
cease to be gentlemen; they would have their class well reputed for fat
pastures and comfortable homes, but honored as well for manners and
liberal intelligence. And to this end they had recourse to an
agricultural literature. Thus, when the fair began to revive, with
happier auspices, near the close of the period under consideration, they
signalized it for nearly the quarter of a century afterwards by
instituting literary contests. Prizes and medals were offered for
discoveries and inventions which should be of interest to the Kentucky
agriculturist; and hundreds of dollars were appropriated for the victors
and the second victors in the writing of essays which should help the
farmer to become a scientist and not to forget to remain a gentleman. In
addition, they sometimes sat for hours in the open air while some
eminent citizen--the Governor, if possible--delivered an address to
commemorate the opening of the fair, and to review the progress
of agricultural life in the commonwealth. But there were many
anti-literarians among them, who conceived a sort of organized hostility
to what they aspersed as book-farming, and on that account withheld
their cordial support.
[Illustration: PRODUCTS Of THE SOIL.]
III
It was not until about the year 1840 that the fair began to touch-the
heart of the whole people. Before this time there had been no
amphitheatre, no music, no booths, no side-shows, no ladies. A fair
without ladies! How could the people love it, or ever come to look upon
it as their greatest annual occasion for love-making?
An interesting commentary on the social decorum of this period is
furnished in the fact that for some twenty years after the institution
of the fair no woman put her foot upon the ground. She was thought a
bold woman, doing a bold deed, who one day took a friend and, under the
escort of gentlemen, drove in her own carriage to witness the showing of
her own fat cattle; for she was herself one of the most practical and
successful of Kentucky farmers. But where one of the sex has been, may
not all the sex--may not all the world--safely follow? From the date of
this event, and the appearance of women on the grounds, the tide of
popular favor set in steadily towards the fair.
For, as an immediate consequence, seats must be provided. Here one
happens upon a curious bit of local history--the evolution of the
amphitheatre among the Kentuckians. At the earliest fairs the first form
of the amphitheatre had been a rope stretched from tree to tree, while
the spectators stood around on the outside, or sat on the grass or in
their vehicles. The immediate result of the necessity for providing
comfortable seats for the now increasing crowd, was to select as a place
for holding the fair such a site as the ancient Greeks might have chosen
for building a theatre. Sometimes this was the head of a deep ravine,
around the sides of which seats were constructed, while the bottom below
served as the arena for the exhibition of the stock, which was led in
and out through the mouth of the hollow. At other times advantage was
taken of a natural sink and semicircular hill-side. The slope was sodded
and terraced with rows of seats, and the spectators looked down upon the
circular basin at the bottom. But clearly enough the sun played havoc
with the complexions of the ladies, and a sudden drenching shower was
still one of the uncomfortable dispensations of Providence. Therefore a
roofed wooden structure of temporary seats made its appearance, designed
after the fashion of those used by the travelling show, and finally out
of this form came the closed circular amphitheatre, modelled on the plan
of the Colosseum. Thus first among the Kentuckians, if I mistake not,
one saw the English cattle-show, which meantime was gathering about
itself many characteristics of the English fair, wedded strangely enough
to the temple of a Roman holiday. By-and-by we shall see this form of
amphitheatre torn down and supplanted by another, which recalls the
ancient circus or race-course--a modification corresponding with a
change in the character of the later fair.
The most desirable spot for building the old circular amphitheatre was
some beautiful tract of level ground containing from five to twenty
acres, and situated near a flourishing town and its ramifying turnpikes.
This tract must be enclosed by a high wooden paling, with here and there
entrance gates for stock and pedestrians and vehicles, guarded by
gate-keepers. And within this enclosure appeared in quick succession
all the varied accessories that went to make up a typical Kentucky fair
near the close of the old social regime; that is, before the outbreak of
the Civil War.
[Illustration: CATTLE AT LEXINGTON FAIR.]
Here were found the hundreds of neat stalls for the different kinds of
stock; the gay booths under the colonnade of the amphitheatre for
refreshments; the spacious cottages for women and invalids and children;
the platforms of the quack-doctors; the floral hall and the pagoda-like
structure for the musicians and the judges; the tables and seats for
private dining; the high swings and the turnabouts; the tests of the
strength of limb and lung; the gaudy awnings for the lemonade venders;
the huge brown hogsheads for iced-water, with bright tin cups dangling
from the rim; the circus; and, finally, all those tented spectacles of
the marvellous, the mysterious, and the monstrous which were to draw
popular attention to the Kentucky fair, as they had been the particular
delight of the fair-going thousands in England hundreds of years before.
For you will remember that the Kentucky fair has ceased by this time to
be a cattle-show. It has ceased to be simply a place for the annual
competitive exhibition of stock of all kinds, which, by-the-way, is
beginning to make the country famous. It has ceased to be even the
harvest-home of the Bluegrass Region, the mild autumnal saturnalia of
its rural population. Whatever the people can discover or invent is
indeed here; or whatever they own, or can produce from the bountiful
earth, or take from orchard or flower-garden, or make in dairy, kitchen,
or loom-room. But the fair is more than all this now. It has become the
great yearly pleasure-ground of the people assembled for a week's
festivities. It is what the European fair of old was--the season of the
happiest and most general intercourse between country and town. Here the
characteristic virtues and vices of the local civilization will be found
in open flower side by side, and types and manners painted to the eye in
vividest colorings.
Crowded picture of a time gone by! Bright glancing pageantry of life,
moving on with feasting and music and love-making to the very edge of
the awful precipice, over which its social system and its richly
nurtured ideals will be dashed to pieces below!--why not pause an
instant over its innocent mirth, and quick, awful tragedies?
IV