noon
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 . I was taking them , according to promise , where the feet of other women than mountaineers had never trod -- beyond the crest of the Big Black -- to the waters of the Cumberland -- the lair of moonshiner and feudsman , where is yet pocketed a civilization that , elsewhere , is long ago gone .