A Knight of the Cumberland

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 two young girls. On the gray horse, I led the tortuous way. After me came my small sister-and after her and like her, mule-back, rode the Blight-dressed as she would be for a gallop in Central Park or to ride a hunter in a horse show.