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By
EDWIN CARLILE LITSEY
NEW YORK
A. S. Barnes and Company
MCMII
Copyright, 1902
By A. S. Barnes and Company
Published June, 1902
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Reprinted July, 1902
UNIVERSITY PRESS · JOHN WILSON
AND SON · CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.
TO HER
It seems a little strange that I, Abner Stone, now verging upon myseventieth year, should bring pen, ink, and paper before me, with theavowed purpose of setting down the love story of my life, which I hadthought locked fast in my heart forever. A thing very sacred to me; ofthe world, it is true, yet still apart from it, the blessed memory of itall has abode in my breast with the unfading distinctness of an oldpicture done in oils, and has brightened the years I have thus far livedon the shadowed slope of life. And now has come the firm belief that the[viii]world may be made better by the telling of this story—as my life hasbeen made better by having lived it—and so I shall essay the brief andsimple task before my fingers have grown too stiff to hold the pen,trusting that some printer of books will be good enough to put my storyinto a little volume for all who would care to read. And I, as I pursuethe work which I have appointed unto myself, shall again stroll throughthe meadows and forests of dear Kentucky, shall tread her dusty highwaysunder the spell of a bygone June, and shall sit within the portals of anold home whose floors are now pressed by an alien foot. Now, ere I havescarce begun, the recollections come upon me like a flood, and this pagebecomes blurred to my failing sight. O Memory! Memory! and the visionsof thine!