THE REAL AMERICA IN ROMANCE
Volume X
SUSTAINED HONOR
The Age of Liberty Established
By
JOHN R. MUSICK
ILLUSTRATIONS BY
FREELAND A. CARTER
1909
PREFACE.
Written history is generally too scholastic to interest the great mass
of readers. Dignified and formal, it deals mainly with great events, and
often imperfectly with these, because, not pausing to present clear
impression by the associations of individual life, it conveys a stiff
and unnatural opinion of the past. Historians ignore the details which
go to make up the grand sum total of history, and from the very best
histories one can get but a meagre idea of the life and times of the
people of bygone ages. It is these minor details of past events which
lend to fiction its greatest charm, and attract the multitude, by
appearing more like truth. Although untrue in the particular
combinations, scenes and plots delineated, yet well written fiction is
drawn from nature and experience, and these facts in life, as with
chessmen, are only arranged in new but natural positions. History should
include everything in the nature, character, customs and incidents, both
general and individual, that contribute to originate what is peculiar
in a people, or what causes their advancement or decline. So broad is
its scope, that nothing is too mighty for its grasp--so searching,
scarce anything is too minute. Were written history a clear transcript
of valuable incidents, it would be more enticing than the most
fascinating fiction.
It is the purpose of this volume to deal with some of the remote and
direct causes of the second war with England, by endeavoring, as nearly
as our ability will permit, to transport the reader back to the scenes
of eighty or ninety years ago, and give views of the incidents which
clustered around the events of that time.
The war of 1812 has been properly termed by some historians the second
war for independence; for, in truth, the independence of the United
States of America was not established until after that event. Great
Britain across the ocean and the horde of Tories still in America had
not abandoned all hope of yet making the United States a dependency of
the country from which she had fought seven long years to free herself.
The war of 1812 was never fought to a finish. In some respects it was a
drawn fight. Its results were not satisfactory to the patriotic
American, and certainly were not to Great Britain. The contemptible
"Peace Faction" continually crippled the administration all through the
contest of nearly three years.
After studying the patriotism of New England through the War of the
Revolution, one is surprised at the unpatriotic actions of that section
of the United States in 1812. One can hardly believe that it was party
fealty and political hatred of the democratic party alone which made
these formerly patriotic colonies and States hot-beds of sedition and
treason. It looks as if those States, having built up a flourishing
trade with Great Britain, cared little about the impressment of sailors,
or the enslaving of their countrymen, so long as they filled their own
pockets. The men seized were usually poor, and their happiness, liberty
and life were lightly regarded in comparison with the prosperity of the
"Peace Party" merchant. If patriotism were dormant in the East, however,
in the growing West, and the generous South it was strong. From those
sections came the hardy sons of liberty, who taught Johnny Bull anew to
respect the rights of the common people. Though the treaty of peace was
not satisfactory in many particulars, it more clearly defined the lines
between the United States and British possessions in America, leaving
the fishery question and the right to search and impressment in an
unsettled condition, giving the "Peace Party" an opportunity to say, "I
told you so."
An attempt is made in this story to cover the whole period of the war
and the causes leading up to it, treating it from the standpoint of an
individual of the time. The pioneers of seventy-five years ago were a
hardy race, long since disappeared. We hope that from Fernando Stevens,
the hero of this volume, the reader may derive some idea of pioneer life
as it then was. Fernando Stevens was a namesake of the cabin-boy of
Christopher Columbus on his first voyage to America, Hernando Estevan,
of whom he was a lineal descendant. The hero of this volume was a son of
Albert Stevens, a Revolutionary soldier, who was a son of Colonel Noah
Stevens, of the French and Indian War, who was a son of Elmer Stevens of
early Virginia history, a son of Robert Stevens of the time of Bacon's
Rebellion. He was a son of John Smith Stevens, of the early Virginia
history, who was the son of Philip Stevens, or Philip Estevan, the young
Spaniard who was the personal friend of Captain John Smith and helped
lay the foundation of Jamestown. He was a son of Francisco Estevan of
St. Augustine, who was a son of Christopher Estevan of Cuba, a companion
of Pizarro and De Soto, and he was a son of Hernando Estevan, who went
as cabin-boy with Columbus on his memorable first voyage in which he
discovered the Western Hemisphere.
This scion of a long line of stalwart but not famous ancestors is the
one whose adventures we now narrate. Like his ancestors, he was only one
of the rank and file of Americans, whose names are seldom seen in print,
but who, after all, go to make up the true history of our glorious
republic. Fernando's adventures, with those of Morgianna, the mysterious
waif of the sea, form the romance of this story.
JOHN E. MUSICK.
KIRKSVILLE, Mo., July 11th, 1893.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
THE YOUNG EMIGRANT
CHAPTER II.
MORGIANNA
CHAPTER III.
JEFFERSONIANISM
CHAPTER IV.
BRITISH CRUISERS
CHAPTER V.
FERNANDO'S JOURNEY EAST. HE MEETS WITH QUEER PEOPLE
CHAPTER VI.
WAR FEELING OF 1811
CHAPTER VII.
FERNANDO'S FRIEND GETS HIM INTO A SERIOUS SCRAPE
CHAPTER VIII.
THE BELLE OF THE BEACH
CHAPTER IX.
THE ENGLISHMAN'S DILEMMA
CHAPTER X.
THE SILENT GUNNER
CHAPTER XI.
SHIPWRECK, ESCAPE AND RETURN TO OHIO
CHAPTER XII.
WAR
CHAPTER XIII.
THE PEACE PARTY
CHAPTER XIV.
FERNANDO SEES SERVICE
CHAPTER XV.
ON LAND
CHAPTER XVI.
ON WATER
CHAPTER XVII.
THE CRUISER'S THREAT
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE SAVING SHOT
CHAPTER XIX.
NEW ORLEANS
CHAPTER XX.
CONCLUSION
HISTORICAL INDEX
CHRONOLOGY
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
They took a last look at the spots which were hallowed by association
Emigrants' wagon crossing a stream
Morgianna
Carried the ship by the board after a terrible hand-to-hand conflict
Stephen Decatur
"Do you think dar is any Angler-Saxun blood in dese veins?"
Fulton's _Clermont_, the first steamboat
As near perfection as a girl of sixteen can be
That smile and that eternal stare disconcerted the British officer
"You surrender easily,"
He sat down on a broken mast
The boatswain's mate brought the terrible scourge hissing and crackling
on the young and tender back
He saw Captain Bones and his lieutenant trying to hide behind a barrel
It soon became evident that he did not intend to drown her
Henry Clay
John C. Calhoun
"Lave it all to me"
James Madison
Tecumseh
"My brave Kentucky lads, to us is accorded the honor of winning this
battle. Forward!"
They came together in an earnest struggle
"My father will protect me; I want no other protection"
Sukey's thumb lifted the hammer of his gun
Packenham fell bleeding and dying in the arms of Sir Duncan McDougal
Map of the period
SUSTAINED HONOR.
CHAPTER I.
THE YOUNG EMIGRANT.
[Illustration]
The first recollections of Fernando Stevens, the hero of this romance,
were of "moving." He was sitting on his mother's knee. How long he had
been sitting there he did not know, nor did he know how he came there;
but he knew that it was his mother and that they were in a great covered
wagon, and that he had a sister and brother, older than himself, in the
wagon. The wagon was filled with household effects, which he seemed to
know belonged to that mother on whose knee he sat and that father who
was sitting on the box driving the horses which pulled the wagon.
Fernando Stevens was never exactly certain as to his age at the time of
this experience; but he could not have been past three, and perhaps not
more than two years old, when he thus found himself with his father's
family and all their effects in a wagon going somewhere.
He knew not from whence they came, nor did he know whither they were
going. It was pleasant to sit on his mother's knee and with his great
blue eyes watch those monster horses jogging along dragging after them
the great world, which in his limited comprehension was all the world he
knew,--the covered wagon. Suddenly some bright, revolving object
attracted his attention, and he fixed his eyes on it. It was the wagon
tire, and he saw it crushing and killing the grass at the side of the
road, or rolling and flattening down the dust in long streaks.
Then they descended a hill. It was not a long hill, but seemed rather
steep. There was water at the bottom. He remembered seeing the bright,
sparkling wavelets and never forgot the impression they produced. There
was a boat at the bottom of the hill, and the wagon and horses were
driven into the boat. A man and boy began propelling the long sweeps or
oars. He watched the proceeding in infantile wonder and especially
remembered how the water dropped in sparkling crystals from the oar
blades. The boy had on a red cap or fez with a tassel. That boy, that
cap and that oar with the sparkling dripping water from the blade were
to him the brightest pictures and greatest wonders he had ever known.
He had not the least idea why the man and boy dipped those oars into the
water and pulled them out all dripping and pretty, unless it was to
amuse him. The oars were painted blue. He did not know where they were
going, or when this journey would end, or that it was a journey.
Thus Fernando Stevens began life. This was the first page in his
existence that he could recollect. In after years he knew he was
Fernando Stevens, that his father was Albert Stevens, a soldier in the
War of the Revolution, that his kind, sweet-faced mother was Estella
Stevens, and that the very first experience he could remember was that
of the family emigrating to the great Ohio valley.
Albert Stevens was married shortly after the close of the Revolutionary
War, and he tried hard to succeed in New England; but he had no trade
and no profession, and the best lands in the country were bought. Seven
years of his early life, with all his dawning manhood had been spent in
the army, and now with his family of three children he found himself
poor. Congress had made a treaty with the Indians by which the vast
territory of the Ohio valley was thrown open to white settlers, and he
resolved to emigrate to where land was cheap, purchase a home and grow
up with the country.
Resolved to emigrate, the father collected his little property and
provided himself with a wagon and four horses, some cows, a rifle, a
shot-gun and an axe. His trusty dog became the companion of his journey.
In his wagon he placed his bedding, his provisions and such cooking
utensils as were indispensable. Everything being ready, his wife and the
three children took their seats, Fernando, the youngest, on his mother's
knee; while the father of the family mounted the box. The horses were
started and the great vehicle began to move. As they passed through the
village which had been to them the scene of many happy hours, they took
a last look at the spots which were hallowed by association--the church
with its lowly spire, an emblem of that humility which befits a
Christian, and the burial-ground, where the weeping willow bent
mournfully over the head-stone which marked the graves of their parents.
The children, who were old enough to remember, never forgot their
playground, nor the white schoolhouse where the rudiments of an
education were instilled into their minds.
Their road was at first, comparatively smooth and their journey
pleasant. Their progress was interrupted by divers little incidents;
while the continual changes in the appearance of the country around
them, and the anticipation of what was to come, prevented those feelings
of despondency, which might otherwise have arisen on leaving a much
loved home. When the roads became bad or hilly, the family quit the
wagon and trudged along on foot, the mother carrying the baby Fernando
in her arms. At sunset, their day's journey finished, they halted in the
forest by the roadside to prepare their supper and pass the night. The
horses were unharnessed, watered and secured with their heads to the
trough until they had eaten their meagre allowance of corn and oats, and
then were hobbled out to grass. Over the camp fire the mother prepared
the frugal supper, which being over, the emigrants arranged themselves
for the night, while the faithful dog kept watch. Amid all the
privations and vicissitudes in their journey, they were cheered by the
consciousness that each day lessened the distance between them and the
land of promise, whose fertile soil was to recompense them for all their
trials and hardships.
Gradually, as they advanced west, the roads became more and more rough
and were only passable in many places by logs having been placed side by
side, forming what was termed corduroy roads. The axe and rifle of the
emigrant, or mover as he is still termed in the west, were brought
daily and almost hourly into use. With the former he cut saplings, or
small trees, to throw across the roads, which, in many places, were
almost impassable; while with his rifle he killed squirrels, wild
turkeys, or such game as the forest afforded, for their provisions were
in a few days exhausted. If, perchance, a buck crossed his path, and he
brought it down by a lucky shot, it was carefully dressed and hung up in
the forks of the trees; fires were built, and the meat cut into small
strips and smoked and dried for future subsistence.
As they advanced, the road through the woods became more difficult to
travel, the trees being merely felled and drawn aside, so as to permit a
wheeled carriage to pass; and the emigrant was often obliged to be
guided in his route only by the blaze of the surveyor on the trees, and
at every few rods to cut away the branches which obstructed his passage.
As the stroke of the axe reverberated through the woods, no answer came
back to assure him of the presence of friend or foe. At night in these
solitudes, they heard the wolves stealing through the gloom, sniffing
the scent of the intruders; and now and then, then bloodshot eyes of the
catamount glared through the foliage.
Days, weeks and months passed in this toilsome journey through the
wilderness, so indelibly impressing it on the memory of Fernando
Stevens, that he never, to his dying day, forgot that journey. At last
they arrived at the landmarks which, to Albert Stevens, indicated the
proximity of his possessions. A location for the cabin was selected near
a small stream of running water, on the south side of a slight
elevation.
No time was lost. The trees were immediately felled, and in a short time
Fernando, looking out from the covered wagon, perceived a clear space of
ground of but few rods in circumference. Stakes, forked at the top, were
driven into the ground, on which the father placed logs, and the chinks
between these were stopped with clay. An enclosure was thus hastily
thrown up to protect the family from the weather, and the wife and
children were removed to this improvised abode. The trunks of the trees
were rolled to the edge of the clearing, and surmounted by stakes driven
crosswise into the ground: the severed tops and branches of trees piled
on top of the logs, thus forming a brush fence. By degrees the
surrounding trees were "girdled" and killed. Those that would split were
cut down and made into rails, while others were left to rot or logged up
and burned.
A year showed a great improvement in the pioneer's home. Several acres
had been added to the clearing, and the place began to assume the
appearance of a farm. The temporary shanty had given place to a
comfortable log cabin; and although the chimney was built of small
sticks placed one on the other, and filled in between with clay,
occupying almost one whole end of the cabin, it showed that the inward
man was duly attended to; and the savory fumes of venison, of the
prairie hen and other good things went far to prove that even backwoods
life was not without its comforts. [Footnote: The author has often heard
his mother say that the most enjoyable period of her life was in a
pioneer home similar to the above.]
In a few months, the retired cabin, once so solitary, became the nucleus
of a little settlement. Other sections and quarter sections of land were
entered at the land office by new corners. New portions of ground were
cleared, cabins were erected; and in a short time the settlement could
turn out a dozen efficient hands for house raising or log rolling. A saw
mill soon after was erected at the falls of the creek; the log huts
received a poplar weather boarding, and, as the little settlement
increased, other improvements appeared; a mail line was established, and
before many years elapsed, a fine road was completed to the nearest
town, and a stage coach, which ran once, then twice a week, connected
the settlement with the populous country to the east of it.
This was the life the hero of this story began. It might be said to be
an unromantic life; yet such a life was known to many of our American
ancestors. It had its pleasures as well as its pains. It had its poetry
as well as its prose, and its joys as well as its sorrows. The vastness
of the forest and depths of the solitude by which he was surrounded,
made its impress on his mind. He grew up in ignorance of tyranny and
many of the evils of the great cities.
The cabin home and the narrow clearing about it formed his playground.
His first toy was a half-bushel measure, which he called his "bushee!"
This he rolled before him around the log cabin and the paths made in the
tall grass, frequently to the dread of his mother, who feared that he
might encounter some of the deadly serpents with which the forest
abounded. He remembered on one occasion, when his mother found him going
too far, she called:
"Come back, Fernando; mother is afraid you will step on a snake."
He looked about him with the confidence of childhood, and answered:
"No 'nakes here."
Just at that moment, the mother, to her horror, saw a deadly reptile
coiled in the very path along which the child was rolling his "bushee,"
and with true frontier woman's pluck, ran and snatched up the
bare-footed Fernando, when only within two feet of the deadly serpent,
carried him to the house, and with the stout staff assailed and killed
the rattlesnake.
He remembered seeing the wild deer bound past the cabin door, and one
day his father killed one. The big dog called "Bob," on account of the
shortness of his caudal appendage, on another occasion leaped on a wild
buck as he was passing the house, and seized the animal, holding it
until it was slain. Wild turkeys were common; he saw them in great
flocks in the woods, and did not suppose they could ever become extinct.
Fernando never forgot his first pair of shoes. He had grown to be quite
a lad, and his bare feet had trod the paths in the forest, and over the
prairies in summer and late in autumn, until they had become hardened.
In winter his mother had made him moccasins out of deer skins; but he
was at last informed that he was going to have a pair of shoes, such as
he had seen some children from the eastern States wear. His joy at this
intelligence knew no bounds. He dreamed of those shoes at night, and
they formed the theme of his conversation by day. His sister, who was
the oldest of the children, had been the happy possessor of three pairs
of shoes, and she often discussed knowingly the good qualities of pedal
coverings and of their advantages in travelling through brambles or over
stones. Often as he contemplated his scratched, chapped and bruised
feet, the child had asked himself if it were possible that he should
ever be able to afford such a luxury as a real pair of shoes.
Money was scarce, luxuries scarcer. The frontier people lived hard,
worked hard, slept sound, and enjoyed excellent health.
Though little Fernando had never owned a real pair of shoes in his life,
so far as he could remember, he possessed a strong mind and body, and no
prince was his superior. He had, as yet, never been to school a day, but
from the great book of nature he had imbibed sublimity and loftiness of
thought, which only painters and poets feel.
Though he was shoeless, he was inspired with lofty ideas of freedom such
as many reared in cities never dream about. The father had to make a
long journey to some far-away place for the shoes. The day before
starting all the children were made to put their feet on the floor,
while the parents measured them with strings, and tied knots to indicate
the size of shoes to be purchased. At last the measures were obtained,
and the father put them in the pocket of his buckskin hunting jacket.
Then he harnessed the horses to the wagon and, with, his trusty rifle
for his only companion, drove away. Bob, the faithful watch-dog, was
very anxious to accompany him, and whined and howled for two or three
days; but he was kept at home to defend the family. A faithful protector
was Bob, and woe to the intruder who dared to annoy the household while
he was around. Fernando waited patiently and long for the return of his
father. Every night before retiring to his trundle-bed, he would ask his
mother if "father would come next day."
At last the joyous shout of the older children announced the approach of
the wagon. They ran down the road to meet it. The horses jogged along
with the wagon, which rolled and jolted over the ground to the house.
The wagon was unloaded. There were bags of meal and flour, coffee and
tea, and then came the calico and cotton goods, jugs of molasses and a
barrel of sugar. The shoes were in a box and finally brought out.
A great disappointment was in store for Fernando. His shoes were too
small. The father had lost the string and purchased the shoes "by
guess." Fernando tried hard to squeeze his foot into the little green
coverings; but they were so small and there was danger of bursting them.
Father had to go back to the land office in a day or two and would
exchange them. He rode off on the white mare, "old Betts," and on his
return had a pair of shoes large enough for Fernando.
They were awkward at first and cramped, pinched and galled his feet. His
mother made him a suit of clothes of "blue drilling" and next Sabbath
the whole family got into the wagon and drove off eight miles to Bear
Creek to "meeting."
The people of the west were as thorough a combination and mixture of all
nations, characters, languages, conditions and opinions as can well be
imagined. Scarcely a nation in Europe, or a State in the union, that did
not furnish emigrants for the great west. The greater mass from Europe
were of the humble classes, who came from hunger, poverty and
oppression. They found themselves here with the joy of shipwrecked
mariners cast on the untenanted woods, and instantly became cheered with
the hope of being able to build up a family and a fortune from
new elements.
The Puritan and the planter, the German, the Briton, the Frenchman, the
Irishman and the Swede, each with his peculiar prejudices and local
attachments, and all the complicated and interwoven tissue of
sentiments, feelings and thoughts, that country, kindred and home,
indelibly combined with the web of youthful existence, settled down
beside each other. The merchant, mechanic and farmer found themselves
placed by necessity in the same society. Men must cleave to their kind
and must be dependent upon each other. Pride and jealousy give way to
the natural yearnings of the human heart for society. They began to rub
off mutual prejudices. One took a step and then the other. They met half
way and embraced; and the society thus newly organized and constituted
was more liberal, enlarged, unprejudiced, and of course more
affectionate and pleasant than a society of people of like birth and
character, who would bring all their early prejudices as a common stock,
to be transmitted as an inheritance to posterity.
Depending only on God and nature, the simple backwoodsman came to regard
God as his only master and, like the Swiss patriot, would bow his knee
to none other. Men were left free to adopt such religious views and
tenets as they chose, and the generous laws protected every man alike in
his religious opinions. Ministers of the gospel and priests, being
presumed to be devoted to humanity, charity and general benevolence,
were precluded by many State constitutions from any participation in the
legislative authority, and their compensation depended wholly upon the
voluntary aid of those among whom they labored in charity and love. In
the wide district where the Stevens lived, the country was too sparsely
settled to support a stationed minister, and "preaching" was a luxury.
Unsustained by the rigid precepts of law in any privileges, perquisites,
fixed revenue, prescribed by reverence or authority, except such as was
voluntarily acknowledged, the clergy found that success depended upon
the due cultivation of popular talents. Zeal for the great cause mixed,
perhaps, with a spice of earthly ambition, the innate sense of emulation
and laudable pride, a desire of distinction among their cotemporaries
and brethren, prompted them to seek popularity, and to study all the
arts and means of winning the popular favor.
Travelling from month to month through dark forests, with such ample
time for deep thought, as they ambled slowly along the lonesome horse
path or unfrequented roads, they naturally acquired a pensive and
romantic turn of thought and expression, which is often favorable to
eloquence. Hence their preaching was of the highly popular cast, such as
immortalized Peter Cartwright. The first aim was to excite the
ministers; hence, too, excitement, or, in religious parlance,
"awakenings," or "revivals" became common. Living remote from each
other, and spending much of their time in domestic solitude in vast
forests or wide spreading prairies, the "appointment" for preaching was
looked upon as a gala-day, or a pleasing change, which brought together
the auditors from remote points, and gratified a feeling of curiosity,
which prompted the pioneers to associate and interchange cordial
congratulations.
As yet no meeting house had been erected in all the region where the
Stevens lived. The meeting on Bear Creek was at the home of Mr. Moore,
who was the happy possessor of a "double log cabin." One cabin or room
was cleared of furniture, and sawn boards, placed on sticks of wood on
end, furnished the seats. These were occupied and the "entry" between
the cabins was filled by children. The preacher, who was also chorister,
took his position near the door so as to accommodate those without as
well as those within. He opened his saddle-bags and, pushing back his
soiled linen, took out his bible and hymn-book and, proceeding to "line
a hymn," "started it" himself, the congregation all joining.
Fernando Stevens had heard from his sister about these wonderful
meetings; but he had never dreamed that a score of voices could raise
such an uproar, and he ceased admiring his new shoes, while he fixed his
eyes in terror on the capacious mouth of a pious old man, who, in his
fervent zeal, was singing with all his might. As he sounded forth each
resonant note, louder than the preceding, his mouth opened wider and
wider, until Fernando took alarm and climbed upon his father's knee.
At this critical moment, there came on the air a cracking sound, and one
of the boards which served the purpose of a pew broke in the centre and
came down with a crash, precipitating nearly half a score of buxom,
screaming girls into a promiscuous heap upon the floor. This was too
much for Fernando. He could not but attribute the disaster to the
wide-mouthed singer, and he screamed so lustily in his fright, that his
father took him from the house to calm his fears.
Fernando's first experience at "meeting" was not very encouraging; but
he did not despair. Soon after their return home he heard the family
begin to speak of the "camp-meeting," and learned that one was to be
held at the head waters of Bear Creek, not far from the home of Mr.
Moore, and that the family was going.
On the appointed day they took their places in the wagon and started for
the camp ground. Notice of the camp-meeting had been circulated for
several weeks or months, and all were eager to attend. The country for
fifty miles around was excited with the cheerful anticipation of the
approaching festival of religious feeling and social friendship. When
the Stevenses arrived on the grounds, wagons and carts, coaches and old
family chaises, people on horseback and on foot, in multitudes, with
provision wagons, tents, mattresses, household implements and cooking
utensils, were seen hurrying from every direction toward the central
point. The camp was in the midst of a grove of beautiful, lofty,
umbrageous trees, natural to the western country, clothed in their
deepest verdure, and near a sparkling stream, which supplied the host
with fresh water. White tents started up in the grove, and soon a sylvan
village sprang up as if by magic. The tents and booths were pitched in a
semi-circle, or in a four-sided parallelogram, inclosing an area of two
acres or more, for the arrangement of seats and aisles around a rude
pulpit and altar for the thronging multitude, all eager to hear the
heavenly messenger.
Fernando beheld all in a maze of wonder, and half believed this was that
Heaven of which his mother had told him so much. He half expected to see
the skies open and the son of God descend in all his glory. Toward
night, the hour of solemn service approached, and the vast sylvan bower
of the deep umbrageous forest was illuminated by numerous lamps
suspended around the line of tents which encircled the public area and
beside the rustic altars distributed over the same, which sent forth a
glare of light from the fagot fires upon the worshipping throng, and the
majestic forest with an imposing effect, which elevated the soul to fit
converse with its creator, God.
The scenery of the most brilliant theatre of the world was only a
painting for children compared with this. Meantime, the multitude, with
the highest excitement of social feeling, added to the general
enthusiasm of expectation, was passing from tent to tent interchanging
apostolic greetings and embraces, while they talked of the approaching
solemnities. A few minutes sufficed to finish the evening's repast, when
the moon (for they had taken thought to appoint the meeting at the time
of the full moon) began to show its disc above the dark summits of the
distant mountains, while a few stars were seen glimmering in the west.
Then the service began. The whole constituted a temple worthy of the
grandeur of God. An old man in a dress of the quaintest simplicity
ascended a platform, wiped the dust from his spectacles, and, in a voice
of suppressed emotion "lined the hymn," of which that vast multitude
could recite the words, to be sung with an air in which every voice
could join. Every heart capable of feeling thrilled with emotion as that
song swelled forth, "Like the sound of many waters, echoing among the
hills and mountains." The service proceeded. The hoary-haired orator
talked of God, of eternity, of a judgment to come and all that is
impressive beyond. He spoke of his experiences and toils, his travels,
his persecutions and triumphs, and how many he had seen in hope, in
peace and triumph gathered to their fathers. When he spoke of the short
space that remained for him, his only regret was that he could no longer
proclaim, in the silence of death, the unsearchable riches and mercies
of his crucified Redeemer.
No wonder, as the speaker paused to dash the gathering moisture from his
own eye, his audience was dissolved in tears, or uttered exclamations of
penitence. Many who prided themselves on an estimation of a higher
intellect and a nobler insensibility than the crowd caught the
infection, and wept, while the others, "who came to mock remained
to pray."
In due time a schoolhouse was erected on the banks of the creek a mile
away from the house of Albert Stevens. Fernando was sent with the older
children. Mrs. Creswell the teacher had no end of trouble with the
little fellow, whose ideas of liberty were inconsistent with discipline,
and who insisted on reclining on the floor instead of sitting on a
bench. He became hungry and despite the fact that his preceptress had
forbidden "talking out loud" declared that he wanted something to eat.
"Wait a bit," answered the teacher. "We will have recess by and by."
"Is recess something to eat?" he asked.
This question produced a titter, and the insubordinate youngster was
again told he must not talk. After awhile he became accustomed to school
and liked it. He grew older and learned his letters. It was a tedious
task, the most difficult of which was to distinguish "N" from "U," but
he finally mastered them, and his education, he supposed, was complete.
After two or three years, he learned to read. His father on one of his
journeys to town brought to their forest home some excellent books, with
bright, beautiful pictures. He was now nine years old, and could read
with some difficulty. One of his books was a story about a man being
wrecked on an island, and having saved a black man named Friday from
death by savages. Fernando never tired of this wonderful book, and, in
his eagerness for the adventures of Robinson Crusoe, learned to read
well without knowing it.
From reading one book, he came to read others, and lofty, ambitious
thoughts took possession of his soul. His mind, uncontaminated or
dwarfed by the sins of civilization, early began to reach out for high
and noble ideas.
His father had been a captain in the continental army, and had travelled
all over the Atlantic States during the war for independence. He told
his children many stories of those dark days and sought early to instil
in their young minds a love for their country, urging them ever to
sustain its honor and its flag.
Fernando Stevens, even early in childhood, became a patriot. He could be
nothing more nor less than a patriot and lover of freedom with such
training, and growing up in such an atmosphere. With the bitter wrongs
of George III. rankling in his heart, he came to despise all forms of
monarchy, and to hate "redcoats." The cruelties of Cornwallis, Tarleton,
Rawdon, Tryon and Butler were still in the minds of the people, and the
boy, as he gazed on his father's sword hanging on the cabin wall, often
declared he would some day take it and avenge the wrongs done in
years gone by.
Years passed on, and Fernando, in his quiet home in the West, grew to be
a strong, healthy lad, with a constantly expanding mind.