Produced by WebRover, Peter Vachuska, Dave Morgan, Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) MY YOUNG MASTER OPIE READ'S SELECT WORKS Old Ebenezer The Jucklins My Young Master A Kentucky Colonel On the Suwanee River A Tennessee Judge Works of Strange Power and Fascination Uniformly bound in extra cloth, gold tops, ornamental covers, uncut edges, six volumes in a box, $6.00 Sold separately, $1.00 each. [Illustration] _OPIE READ'S SELECT WORKS_ My Young Master A NOVEL BY OPIE READ Author of "The Carpetbagger," "Old Ebenezer," "The Jucklins," "On the Suwanee River," "The Colossus," "A Kentucky Colonel," "A Tennessee Judge," "Len Gansett," "Emmett Bonlore," "The Tear in the Cup and Other Stories," "The Wives of the Prophet." ILLUSTRATED CHICAGO LAIRD & LEE, PUBLISHERS Entered According to Act of Congress, in the year eighteen hundred and ninety-six, by WILLIAM H. LEE, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED [Illustration] MY YOUNG MASTER. CHAPTER I. This is the story of a master, told by his slave. As I sit now, after the flight of so many years, and gaze at the pictures in the fire--the hills and the valleys of my boyhood, so bright, so glowing--I am oppressed with the fear that my rude hand can but ill execute the work that I have undertaken. And yet, I feel the force that truth alone can lend, for although my transcript may be crude, I know that in the years now far away but which are coming toward us, my history will be read by the thoughtful man who seeks to portray the strange social conditions that once existed in our country. I was born in the State of Kentucky, on the blue-grass farm owned by Guilford Gradley. Many changes may have taken place, but in my day the northern boundary line of the farm and the southern corporate limit of the town of Litchford here came together; and I think that one of my earliest recollections is of a Sunday morning, when my young master and I got on the ground and parted the long grass to search for the line. I know it must have been on a Sunday, for the church bells were ringing, and Old Master and Old Miss (as we always called his wife) passed us on their way to town. Old Master was one of the most prominent men in the State (had been a general in the militia), and this influence was felt even by the humblest negro on the place, for to belong to a great man was of itself a social prominence not enjoyed by the bondman of the ordinary individual. Why, I remember seeing a little negro boy weep bitterly because a playmate had taunted him with the humiliating fact that his master lived in a log house. Ah, those old days, by turns a sad and a happy freak in the history of man!