Burl — Reading Companion

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In Category - Young Readers Enchanted Adventures

Authors: Heady, Morrison, 1829-1915 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2008 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Christian fiction; Methodists -- Fiction Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 62,167

Reading time 271 min

Text sections 6

Burl — Reading Companion can be approached with a clearer sense of reading commitment from its source measurements: 62,167 words, 4 hr 31 min estimated reading time, and 6 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 30.8 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Christian fiction,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #27363

Morrison Heady, blind and deaf, wrote this 1886 Methodist novel about Burlman Rennuls, a black woodsman in Kentucky. The narrative voice blends dialect, humor, and vivid description, with a distinctive, sometimes rule-breaking style.

Editorial Edition Score 4.7/5

★★★★★ ★★★★★

Calculated from edition completeness, EPUB availability, text structure and catalogue metadata. Not a user rating.

How this score is calculated

Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg27363

Read the Text

CHAPTER I. PAGE How Big Black Burl Figured in the Paradise 9

CHAPTER II. How Little Bushie Figured in the Paradise 17

CHAPTER III. How Big Black Burl and Bushie Figured in Each Other's Eyes 26

CHAPTER IV. How Somebody was Lost in the Paradise 39

CHAPTER V. How Grumbo Figured in the Paradise 46

CHAPTER VI. How Big Black Burl Figured on the War-path by Day 52

CHAPTER VII. How Big Black Burl Figured on the War-path by Night 60

CHAPTER VIII. How Big Black Burl Figured in a Quandary 67

CHAPTER IX. How Big Black Burl Figured in Ambush 73

CHAPTER X. How Big Black Burl Figured in the Fight 81

CHAPTER XI. How Little Bushie Figured in the Fight 90

CHAPTER XII. How Big Black Burl and Grumbo Figured After the Fight 99

CHAPTER XIII. How Big Black Burl Figured in his Triumph 109

CHAPTER XIV. How Big Black Burl Figured in Oratory 117

CHAPTER XV. How Big Black Burl Sewed it Up in his War-cap 127

CHAPTER XVI. How Big Black Burl Figured on the Peace-path 136

CHAPTER XVII. How the Glory of his Race Figured in his Rising 147

CHAPTER XVIII. How the Eagle and the Lion and the Big Bear Figured in the Great North-west 154

CHAPTER XIX. How Big Black Burl Figured at the Death-stake 164

CHAPTER XX. How Kumshakah Figured in The Light of the Setting Sun 174

CHAPTER XXI. How the Glory of his Race Figured in his Setting 180

HOW BIG BLACK BURL FIGURED IN THE PARADISE.

Six feet six he stood in his moccasins, yet seemed not tall, so broad he was and ponderously thick. He had an elephantine leg, with a foot like a black-oak wedge; a chimpanzean arm, with a fist like a black-oak maul; eyes as large and placid as those of an ox; teeth as large and even as those of a horse; skin that was not skin, but ebony; a nose that was not a nose, but gristle; hair that was not hair, but wool; and a grin that was not a grin, but ivory sunshine. Such was the outward man of Big Black Burl.

Brave as a lion, deliberate as a bear, patient as an ox, faithful as a mastiff, affectionate as a Newfoundland dog, sagacious as a crow, talkative as a magpie, and withal as cheery and full of song as a sky-lark. Such was the inward man of Big Black Burl.

Built up and limbed as just described, our hero, as you may well imagine, must have been a man of prodigious bodily strength. To be sure, a tall, supple, well-knit, athletic white man like Simon Kenton, for example, might, in a wrestling-match and by some unexpected sleight of foot, have kicked his heels from under him and brought him flat on his back with ease. But keeping him there would have been an altogether different matter. That would have taken Simon Kenton, Daniel Boone, and Benjamin Logan, all men of uncommon bone and muscle, and all upon him at once; and even then he would have tumbled and tousled them so lustily as at last to force them from sheer loss of breath to yield the point and let him up.

The station, in and around which our colored hero was wont to figure, was one of the most exposed points along the northern border, and, being the rendezvous of many of Kentucky's boldest hunters, was looked upon by the more interior settlements as their bulwark of defense against incursions of the Indians. Now, be it known that in the numerous skirmishes which took place in that quarter between the Reds and the Whites, Big Black Burl played a rather conspicuous part; proving himself for deeds of warlike prowess a signal illustration of African valor--a worthy representative, indeed, of his great countryman Mumbo Jumbo, the far-famed giant-king of Congo. In testimony whereof, there were the scalps of his enemies taken by his own hand in secret ambush and in open fight, and which, strung together like pods of red pepper, or cuttings of dried pumpkin, hung blackening in the smoke of his cabin.

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Morrison Heady, blind and deaf, wrote Burl in a style that the preface itself calls “peculiar” and “original,” breaking “away from the trammels of recognized laws of language.” The novel follows Burlman Rennuls, a black woodsman in Kentucky, whose speech is rendered in dense dialect: “Betsy Grumbo bites pow'ful hard when she gits a chance.” Heady’s prose shifts between Burl’s colloquial voice and more formal, almost poetic description, as when “the appetizing smell of savory meat broiling on glowing embers began to fill the air.” This contrast in registers is a central feature of the narrative.

Dialect and Narrative Voice

Burl’s speech is thick with phonetic spelling and colloquial phrasing: “jes' wait a bit, an' I'll see what I kin do for you.” The narrator, however, often steps in with a more literary tone, using words like “divested” and “incompatibleness.” This creates a layered effect where the reader hears both the character’s voice and the author’s commentary. The preface notes that Heady’s style is “his own,” and the dialect is not merely decorative—it carries humor and character. For instance, Burl’s remark that “Betsy Grumbo bites pow'ful hard” is followed by a narrative aside about his surgical skill, blending folk wisdom with dry wit.

Pacing Through Action and Dialogue

Heady controls pace by alternating rapid action with extended dialogue. In the excerpt, after a violent encounter, the pace slows as Burl bandages a wound “with critical narrowness” while his “fluent tongue went on, and on, and on.” The description of cooking venison is leisurely, with details about “choice slices” and “glowing embers,” yet the scene is punctuated by Burl’s comic asides to the dead savage. This rhythm—bursts of violence followed by patient, humorous conversation—gives the narrative a distinctive, unhurried quality that rewards close reading.

Descriptive Detail and Sensory Language

Despite Heady’s blindness, the prose is rich in visual and sensory detail. The campfire scene includes “the appetizing smell of savory meat” and “the whites of his eyes in his blandest manner.” The narrator notes that Bushie ate “not that he was hungry at all, but so delightful did he find it to be eating again with his precious old black chum.” Such observations reveal character through action rather than exposition. The physical world—buckskin, hunting knives, venison—is rendered with precision, grounding the story in a tangible frontier setting.

Readers should attend to how Heady’s own disabilities may have shaped his attention to sound, touch, and gesture—the “alphabet upon his hand” mentioned in the preface. The novel’s humor and warmth emerge in the gaps between Burl’s rough speech and the narrator’s formal asides. Approach the text as a work of deliberate craft, not merely a historical curiosity.

Reading about Burlman Rennuls reminded me of my grandfather’s quiet hands splitting kindling, how he’d hum hymns without hearing them. That same ache of invisible labor surfaces in The Job: An American Novel — Key Ideas to Explore, where work becomes a language nobody else speaks. Both books feel like listening at a door, catching fragments of a life that’s almost too heavy to hold. I set them down softly, the way you close a door on a sleeping child.