Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-03-21
THE LIBRARY TABLE
By the BOOkIoVer

The story of two Kentucky families
and their collateral relatives through
more than hundred years is the ma
terial Of Joseph Hergesheimer in "The
Limestone Tree" Thei family tree OF
the Abels and the Sashes grows and
spreads in the limestone region Of Ken
lucky. The story begins with the set
Element of Kentucky at Harrodsburg
by followers of Daniel Boone and ends
with 1890. The early part Of the mar
rative recalls THE Great Meadow" by
Elizabeth MADDOX Roberts. Not family
degeneration from strong pioneer stock
Is the theme, but family growth with
the growth of the State. AS the forests
and clearings of limestone Kentucky
give place to woodland meadows,
grazing lands and stately mansions; as
thriving towns grow up on the sites of
trading posts, the men of the Sash and
Abel families become the owners of the
mansions and the leading lawyers in
the towns. Heredity Is a strong factor
in the two families. The lust for the
forest which conquered the first Ga
briel Sash Is held in control by his
descendants, but fingers in many of
them, so that in times of stress they
seek comfort and renewal in the depth
of the forest. Feuds beginning in
pioneer days lead to hatred and MUIR
der other feuds grow cut of political
differences and become more acute as
the Civil War approaches, for Ken
lucky, border State, is divided in her
own house. The unifying principle, In
the midst of all the hatreds and strife,
is love of Kentucky. Only an occa-
sional Sash or Abel leaves Kentucky
and goes farther South, and when he
returns it usually means misfortune for
the family. 1t is family superstition
that trouble comes from the South.
y
The first Gabriel Sash, son Of an
unSpeakable woman, comes out of the
forest, one of the Long Hunters. to
the settlement at Harrodsburg, where
James Abel and his wife and children
are among the settlers. Tall, gaunt,
burnsd by the sun to the color Of an
Indian, with sharp eyes like bullets, and
long, dark hair over his shoulders, he
appears in the stockade, wearing scalp
ing knife and tomahawk at his belt.
He notices Nancy Abel, wild as young
colt ard scorning all the young men
of the settlement. Nancy notices him
and wonders what his past has been
and why he is so morose. Fate, not
a kindly one. draws them together.
Gabriel is unwilling. Both instinct and
reason tell him that his place Is not
among people, that personal ties cannot
hold him. But Nancy's decision has
bsen swift. II never took notice to
girls" he tells her. ut wouldn't he
right. I got no life girl could manage
with" Nancy encourages him, almost
desperately: you might change a
little perhaps you'd come to
like the settlements" But Gabriel
doubts this. Take Harrodstown," he
says; there must be 200 people in her
right now. Two hundred! You'd be
running into first one. then another.
A day wouldn't go by but you'd have
your knife in somebody. It's different
in the woods. No happen so people
can be there" In spite OF his doubts,
he decides to take the risk. ''I' don't
know if it's bad or good" he says "but
you're my luck" The luck proves to
be bad and when their child is only a
few weeks old Gabriel leaves Nancy
and the baby and silently loses himself
in the forest, never to return. His only
farewell is: II can't take to living in
a house. I don't want for you to
strive like you do. All need Is little
fire and some tea and a piece Of
venison twisted about the end of my
ramrod. That is all. belong
to the woods. With the buffalo and
the elk. That's my luck, good or bad. /"
X X
More than a hundred years later, an
other Gabriel Sash, descendant of that
baby deserted in his cradle, sits on a
log in the woods of his estate near Lex
ington and, himself an old man, tells
to a member of the youngest generation
Of the family the story of the first Ga
briel, Sash, James Dixon Folkes, grand
son of one of the Abel women, has a
French actress for mother and has
been brought up in Paris. To him,
when he comes to visit his Kentucky
relatives, the Kentucky of 1890 is a
crude wilderness dotted with insignifi-
cant towns. He expects to find some
amusement among the racing men Of
the family and to play the Don Juan
among the pretty girls, but the spell Of
Kentucky and the history of his family
take possession of him and he decides
to remain, marry his cousin, Susan
Abel, and become a Kentuckian. 1ndh-
ferent to the decency Of order, the first
Gabriel Sash has returned, like a saw
age, to the life Of savages and Of wild
beasts Well, Paris, in its own manner,
was forest. The blood of his mother
was restless in him; suddenly he was
afraid of it; he was conscious OF other
influences. John Dixon FolkeS viewed
the slow, painful accumulation Of ira
dition: he had looked back into the
past, at the bare lives of his ancestors,
and seen them change with the chang
ing State, he had watched them change
Kentucky. The lives Of his ancestors,
one following the other, passionate and
courageous men, generations of women
with pure hearts, had created at least
a substitute for q missing safety: they
had learned how to meet disaster"
y
1.-THE picture of the South realizing
it's possibilities in the New American
Epoch was therefore a colorful picture
of an achieving region rather than a
pale print of the sensitive South. 1t
was, South thinking less highly of the
past than Of the future; a South seek
ing to do all things well rather than
merely few things big; South which
appraised work higher than talk. truth
more than dogma, integrity more than
acclaim. It was a South unafraid; not
afraid of Sinaic thunders echoed by
false prophets; not afraid to do its own
thinking nor to create in pioneer fields;
not afraid of the truth and the freedom
which truth reveals; not afraid of the
past, the present, or the future" This
is the conclusion of Howard W. Odum
in his book ON the South of the past
and of the present, IAN American
Epoch: Southern Portraiture in the
National Picture"
X X X X
A regretful look is cast at the re-
ceding past in Cecilia Beaux's auto
biography, Background With Figures"
From a New England childhood the
artist passed to apartment house life
in a large city, and to student life in
France and italy. But always the
spaciousness and leisure of earlier days
in New England lipger with glamour
in her memory She reminiSces: az