AS though bell metal had been softly touched, a note of clear low

mirth came to the ear. Irresistible chuckles, one after another, in

purest glee followed. Gurgle upon gurgle of laughter was added to it.

And Obadiah Holman, who never in his life had heard anything quite

so musical or so funny, burst into sympathetic giggles before he was

really awake or knew what it was all about.

He was curled up on a bundle in an emigrant wagon. He raised his head

and peeped out of the round hole in the back of its canvas cover.

A hard day's ride had tired him. He had climbed into this wagon for

a short snooze and had taken instead a heavy sleep of several hours.

During that time his company of emigrants had been joined by another

wagon-train which they were expecting from a detour to the east, and

all had gone into camp together for the night.

The boy looked out on such a curious scene that he asked of himself,

"Where am I, Doby?" to be sure that he was not still in dreamland.

Against a purple sky, star-spangled, stood a solid bank of black-green

forest. In front of this woodsy background were the white tops of the

wagons. Silhouetted upon their canvases were the horses and the cows,

picketed for the night inside the protecting wall of the wagon-beds.

In the center, under the red glow of after-supper fires, a few belated

emigrants were finishing their tasks.

Among them Doby saw, what he had never seen before, what he had been

expecting to see with this coming wagon-train, and what he was hoping

for a glimpse of--black men!

Close to the tail-gate of the wagon, on a saddle which he was supposed

to be cleaning, sat a youth who was the color of a "tar baby." There

was a gourd in his hand. Out of his round throat came those sounds

which had so delighted the boy. And every time he laughed he waved

the gourd, threw back his kinky head, opened a tremendous mouth, and

showed a double set of teeth perfect enough for a dentist's sign. A

mocking-bird might have envied the trill in his laugh.

He rolled up his eyes until only the whites showed. Doby clutched the

canvas in alarm. What if they should not come down again?

"So that is a darky," he thought as he stared. "I can guess how he got

the name."

Many a boy has seen a darky, but few have ever watched one with a gourd

fiddle, the primitive African violin.

New England Doby did not approve of slavery. He had been taught that

it was a dreadful thing. So it gave him something of a surprise to see

what he had supposed would be a miserable, downtrodden captive having

such a very good time.

Tuning his fiddle and swinging his bow, the negro began to play and to

dance and to sing, drawing round him a dozen or so of other black boys

who joined the dance and the song, giving themselves up to such utter

enjoyment as Doby had never seen among any white people.

At first his Northern ears could not make out the words of the song.

When he had guessed at them, he listened with his attention so divided

between the syllables and the melody and the negroes' appearance and

actions, that their full meaning did not come to him until long

afterward.

Night wind in the trees, peeper frogs in the sedges, bare feet thumping

on the turf, and the sweet obligato of the gourd strings accompanied

the lyric tenor, who sang:

"Dar am a b'ar,

A big, la'ge b'ar,

He wave hes tail so high,

He wave hes tail,

Hes big, la'ge tail

At no'th star in de sky.

"Dar am a b'ar,

A sma', wee b'ar,

He wave hes tail so high,

He wave hes tail,

Hes sma', wee tail

At no'th star in de sky.

"All night he wave,

Big b'ar he wave,

And show de nig' what dar.

He wave hes tail,

Hes big, la'ge tail,

'Til nigger see dat star.

"All night he wave,

Sma' b'ar he wave,

And show de nig' what dar.

He wave hes tail,

Hes sma', wee tail,

'Til nigger see dat star."

Several melodious baritones took up the air and a superb bass joined

in. To this happy narcotic the boy gave himself up and went to sleep

again.

Doby's place in the train was with Simon Kenton's group of mounted

scouts. Many of them had belonged to Col. Richard Johnson's Kentucky

regiment of rangers. From Boonesboro, they had accompanied this wagon

party of Quaker emigrants northward on the road to Lexington.

The Quakers were a religious sect who did not believe in slavery. They

had left the Carolinas, where it was practised, and were going north

across the Ohio, where it was not allowed. They were opposed to war in

any form and continually preached the gospel of peace.

Through the dangerous State of Kentucky, which was ever the

battle-ground between the southern Creek and Cherokee, and the northern

Shawnee and Delaware Indians, the rangers traveled with the Quakers to

so intimidate the Indians that no fighting would be necessary.

The other wagon-train was from Virginia. It was made up of groups who

had the greatest pride in family honor, worldly estates, and ceremonial

government. They expected to found in the center of this fertile

Kentucky new farms, and homes, where lavish hospitality and dignified

elegance should imitate the easy life of the Old Dominion.

They were bringing their household goods, their slaves, and their

domestic animals with them. All were armed and ready to defend their

possessions and their views with vigor.

The Quakers, in serene self-denial, stood for the moral doctrine of

freedom in body and mind and spirit. They wore plain clothes and used

plain speech and practised plain living.

The common cause of keeping their scalps intact had linked these

different peoples together for protection on the trip, just as the

prospect of making a better living had driven them both northward

through Cumberland Gap.

Oh, Cumberland Gap! That "high-swung gateway of the mountains!" What

boy has not in fancy joined Daniel Boone when he held in his hand the

key to this wondrous portal? When that famous frontiersman opened the

gates and started on its course the most tremendous tide of emigration

this continent had ever seen, and when as scout he went before his

countrymen, he had more adventures than ever before fell to the lot

of any one pioneer as he blazed for them the trail through the Middle

West.

The spunky little settlements around the fort at Watauga, on the

eastern side of the mountains, continually fought the Indians to keep

them from extending their tribal lines north. By this bravery the

Gap was kept open for travel. Henderson's land company secured home

acres. Boone pointed out the acres and by the force of his splendid

personality kept the scattered settlers loyal to the United States and

to one another during the trying days of the Revolution.

Nothing could be better than the view from Cumberland Gap. Nothing much

worse than the path through it. Rough, miry, stony, over-flowed, washed

out, precipitous--all this and more! Every fault that a road could have

this one displayed. Yet because it was the only road nature had cut

through the mountains, Watauga guarded it and Boone's followers trod it

as never road was traveled before.

Between 1775 and 1790 seventy thousand people sweated in the jagged

up-hill climb to its sixteen hundred feet of height, paused for a

moment to look at the sides of the mountains towering another thousand

feet above the Gap, and then slid and scrambled down on the Kentucky

side. In 1816 they were still coming over this wilderness road.

Doby was tired of the twice-told tales of its hardships. He wanted to

make his rest-times as pleasant as possible, so on the second night he

left the wagging gray-beards and in sheer exuberance he tried to run

down a rabbit in the glade where they were encamped. All work and talk

broke off to see him do it.

The younger the rabbit the easier to catch. With every day's growth

of its hopping-muscles it waxes more enduring. Doby, having picked

an older rabbit than he thought, was hard pressed to tire the lively

creature out. He called for help. The older men instantly forbade the

younger ones to join the hunt. The boy who began it must finish it to

prove his right to the game.

He shouted to the darkies. They huddled in an excited bunch, but they

did not come.

Then as a matter of honor Doby was obliged to catch that rabbit. So of

course he did!

But he was over-tired, out of breath, and a little indignant as he said

to the lyric tenor, "Next time, come and help." And he tried the grand

manner of a Virginia slave-owner.

Such a bow and a scrape and a grin as he got!

"Yas, sir, nex' time, Mars'er Dob', yas, sir."

"Well, then, why didn't you come this time?"

"'Cause you is red-headed, Mars'er Dob'!" with a polite and

complimentary flourish.

In anger too great for words, Doby stalked away. If he had had one of

the Virginia whips he would have laid it on that darky then and there.

Red-headed! He had pummeled many a chum for that one word.

"I am _not_ red-headed. It is the firelight that makes my hair look

coppery. I don't so much mind being called tow-headed, because I _am_ a

little bit tow-headed," he conceded, "but red-headed, never!"

"Don't bother to dress the rabbit," said Simon Kenton to Doby.

"Why not?" asked the boy, putting back his stone knife as quickly as he

had pulled it out, for Kenton's slightest wish was law to him.

"The niggers'll steal it 'fore sun-up."

"Why?"

"Red-head for luck! That coon with a high voice needs a left hind foot,

or I miss my guess."

"Why?"

"Watch and see," was the puzzling answer.

So Doby slept on top of his rabbit to save it. But in the morning it

was gone.

He spied around.

About a freshly built knob of kinks on the tenor's head, the taint of

over-warm rabbit fur was climbing above all other odors, as the tuneful

one hummed, "Dar am a b'ar," with flagrant unconsciousness.

As an article of diet, Doby lost his interest in rabbit, but as a charm

it might prove exciting, so he decided to keep still and "watch and

see."

It is one of the results of slavery that the superstitions of the

"quarters" creep into the "big house" where the master lives.

Thus it happened that when they came to Ashland, one of those

splendid estates which slave labor made possible, in the neighborhood

of Lexington, the lucky boy, Doby, who looked red-headed but was

not, became one of the important persons invited with the Virginia

"gentlemen," the scout "officers," and the Quaker "preachers," by the

statesman, Henry Clay, to be his guest at dinner and to view his model

house and grounds.

Some of the Virginians had known Henry Clay when, as the barefooted

"mill boy" of the "Slashes"--a newly cleared region--he had ridden back

and forth in the Old Dominion with grist for his widowed mother, and

they now rejoiced in his self-made prosperity. Several of the scouts

had worked with him in political changes and they were proud of his

positions of trust. Many of the preachers of the "Society of Friends,"

as the Quakers called themselves, had discussed with the great leader

the evils and injustice of slavery; no one knew better than they how

hard Henry Clay worked to influence the laws which were intended to

help the blacks' condition and which tended toward final emancipation

for them.

In the evening, by torch-light on the lawn, darkies played the banjo

and danced and sang for the company.

Not one of them equaled the lyric tenor of the wagon-train, so Doby

wandered away from the lawn and in curiosity strolled out through the

quarters where the slaves lived. All the little whitewashed houses were

deserted, for the servants were allowed to look on at all festivities

and "minstrel shows." He was turning back when from one of the cabins

there came a tiny sound.

Again he heard that never-to-be-forgotten chime of distant silver

bells, that low gurgle of exquisite music. He would have known that

voice any place. How did the Virginia slave happen to be here and not

with the wagons? Why should that note of sadness creep into his sigh?

Why was he weeping?

His sobbing rose, so touched with grief, so poignant with despair,

that Doby's heart-strings tightened. He could hardly bear to hear it.

Then some motherly creature began to croon, "Da, chil' honey, poo'

chil' honey, don' you cry--"

The lyric tenor wailed in broken syllables: "My daddy--he whipped--he

die--my mammy--she whipped--she run away. I want my mammy--"

"Da, chil' honey, poo' chil' honey, don' you cry--"

"I want my mammy--I don' want ole Virginny--I don' want this yere--I

want my mammy--" The chant was torn with sorrow.

Then came the comforting, "Don' cry, honey," over and over again.

Poor Doby, listening in distressed sympathy, could not in the least

make out this black thief of the rabbit foot, whose lilting laughter

had turned to such bitter tears.

The boy who had heard both, stole away to hide in one of the wagons and

to cry himself to sleep over a trouble he could not understand.

He was ashamed to worry his father or Simon Kenton with further

questions about the slaves, who left them next day when the Virginians

stopped at their prospective settlement north of Lexington.

With the picturesque and merry blacks went much of the zest of life in

the wagon-train, and Doby was glad when the Ohio River came in sight

and the journey was at an end.

Busying himself with the luggage behind some hogsheads on the wharf

while the wagon-train was loading the ferryboat to cross the river,

Doby heard a strange Kentuckian hiss to another in a stage whisper,

"How many Quaker women in this company?"

He could not catch the mumbled reply, but the decision of the first

Kentuckian, "We will speak to each one of those women and find out,"

held such menace in its tone that it made the boy uncomfortable.

These women of the Society of Friends, whom Doby had never thought

of counting in all the time that he had been with them, had already

gone aboard the ferry. Through the long hard trip they had managed to

keep their calm appearance of perfect neatness and order in dress and

possessions.

Their full gray skirts almost touched the ground. Their clean white

kerchiefs were crossed surplice-wise on their gray waists. Snowy inner

caps showed at the edges of their gray scoop bonnets. Long gray shawls

were folded over their hands clasped primly in front of them.

They looked as much alike as doves in a cote.

It was an adventure for Doby to peer down into the tunnel of one of

these bonnets. He never could tell whether he would find a kindly

grandmother, an earnest matron, or a blushing maid, in the other end of

its cavernous depths.

Why, then, since they were all so much alike outwardly, should these

two rough men, who had sprung from the wharf, have reason to speak to

any one of them? What difference did it make how many there were of

them?

As he went aboard, they all looked as usual to him. Seated on the boxes

and bales, they had as much serene dignity as though the noisy boat had

been a bench in a silent "meeting-house."

It was plain, as the boat left shore, that the two Kentuckians meant to

carry out their plan. Doby, close on their heels, heard them ask the

same question of each in turn, "Are you going to Cincinnati?"

If she lifted her head as she gently answered, one man glanced sharply

into her bonnet. If she did not look up, the other man stooped and

stared into the bonnet. Between them they made sure of a view of every

concealed face.

Mr. Holman whispered to Doby, "Sheriff and deputy," and Doby was more

confused than ever. What were they hunting for?

He was so curious that he stood closer and closer to them, until one

turned upon him with a harsh scowl and bade him "git!"

Baffled, he retreated to the bow, and was about to seat himself on a

coil of rope on the up-stream side when he noticed another Quakeress

standing behind some tall piles of boxes. She was without a shawl. Her

bonnet strings were untied. Her arms were folded and her hands shoved

out of sight in her surplice.

She was shaking as with a chill; her whole figure, in spite of its

immaculate dress, had a hunched-up and miserable appearance.

Doby started toward her to offer help in case she was ill.

She was peeping round the corner of the pile of boxes and she drew back

suddenly as the two officers came toward the bow. Although they had not

yet seen her, they were sure to do so. But why should she be afraid of

them?

They stepped forward briskly. She started violently and fell headlong

into the river.

With a shriek for "Help!" Doby jumped to the rail. In the wild glance

that he gave to locate the Quakeress before he dived to her assistance

he saw the white soles of two bare feet, two long black legs in frog

stroke, a bonnet sinking, a kinky head atop black arms, which came out

freely from gray flowing sleeves.

With an expert movement, to make a turn and a neat dive, the figure

went under the ferryboat. It was the lyric tenor! Sucked under by the

current!

All this Doby noted in one flash, as, too late to check his own

impetuous jump to the rescue, he also went into the river.

He swam upward against the current. That much of common sense was

left in him, for all the surprise and horror of the darky's dreadful

disappearance under the boat where the doomed creature could not rise,

and where no one could rescue him.

There was a cry of, "Man overboard!"

Every person on the boat rushed to starboard. In Doby's ears there was

great confusion and roaring. On the boat was the same thing. But one

tidy Quakeress, without rumpling her surplice, made fast one end of the

rope coil to the rail and threw the other end to Doby.

April is not a good month for swimming even in the friendly Ohio. Shirt

and breeches of buckskin were very heavy; the chill of the water was

unnerving. The current was stronger than he thought, and the nearing

shore seemed much farther than it had looked from the deck of the

ferry. So he was not too proud of his swimming skill to allow himself

to be hauled on board. He was deeply grateful for the line.

There was too much help, Doby thought. His clothes were peeled off, he

was rubbed dry, and dressed anew, with some dozen or so men, women, and

children taking part in his toilet and the eyes of everybody on him and

his unlucky ducking.

With the chill and the shock, his teeth chattered so that he could not

tell them about the poor darky, try as he would.

So the two Kentucky officers went ashore, each grumbling to the other

about some "miscount." And Doby was hurried to his own flatboat home,

standing at the wharf, where a warm welcome and a cozy supper were

given to them and their guest, Simon Kenton, by Doby's waiting mother.

Then, and not till then, did Doby's father indulge in laughter long and

loud. But Kenton, with a merry twinkle, merely asked, "Tell us, son,

how much was on purpose and how much just happened so."

His father added, "You managed to get all the attention of the boat at

the time the runaway did not want it for himself."

Doby was still shuddering with horror at the fate of the black, and he

was ready to faint as he gasped, "The darky is drownded!"

"Don't think it," cried Mr. Holman. "He swam underwater with the

current, came up clear, took a big breath, dived toward the shore, and

swam away perfectly safe. I saw him climb into the bushes on shore. He

will roll in somebody's hay until his dress is dry; then travel north

to-night, watching for the Quakers to pick him up."

"The Society of Friends is working out a regular plan for helpin'

runaways that is liable to grow into a big thing one of these days,"

was Simon Kenton's prophecy.

When the first Quaker who felt a throb of pity for the wretched runaway

cowering for mercy at his feet, resolved to be a true Friend to the

unfortunate, by defying man's law of property and obeying God's law of

mercy, he surveyed in his mind the earliest routes for the underground

railway, as he considered to which Friend farther north he should send

this fugitive.

The underground railway was never built of wooden cross-ties nor of

steel rails. Its right of way was in the hearts of those who guarded

the secret paths and the hidden shelters through which the slaves

passed to the land of their hopes.

Past the perils of the auction-block, the lash, and the bloodhounds,

a vast emigration of blacks were smuggled through Cincinnati--the

Cumberland Gap of their race--and, guided by that celestial scout, the

north star, won their way to Canada and to freedom.

Doby was vastly relieved about his lyric tenor. Still, he asked, "How

will he know which way to go?"

Simon Kenton sang softly,

"He wave hes tail,

Hes sma', wee tail,

At no'th star in de sky."

Then Doby smiled happily, "And he won't mind cold and hunger and

he can't be captured while he has such faith in the luck that a

boy--almost red-headed--gave him; and he wears in his kinks the left

hind foot of a stolen rabbit!"

VII

THE DROWSY VILLAGE

_Edward Eggleston's Favorite Spring at Vevay_

A STEAMBOAT'S paddles churned the Ohio backwater as she strove to make

a landing at Vevay, coming down.

Everybody on ships and on shore rushed for places to get a view of her.

Plainly her name showed on her sides, the _New Orleans_. A queer little

vessel was she. Robert Fulton, the inventor of the steam-engine, had

himself designed and built her. She was the second steam craft in the

whole wide world, and the first on Western waters.

Several others had been set afloat in the four years since she had made

her initial trip, but she was still certain to have a crowd of cheering

admirers whenever she chose to show off her great accomplishment of

going up-stream against the current.

For two months he had been a river-traveler, and, therefore, Obadiah

Holman knew that she could puff away as soon as she cared to do so,

no matter if the landlubbers did use hot arguments to prove that, "It

stands to reason that she cain't never go ag'in natur'."

The boy hung over the side of his father's flatboat and watched the

people who were watching the steamer. "I've seen a lot of towns,"

thought he, "but never any as quiet as this."

There was something in the changing sky above the misty blue

hills, something in the deep water which reflected the sky and the

hills, something in the long vistas and the fragrant air, that may

have reminded a little band of Swiss colonists of their native

mountain-land. They loved this place as soon as they saw it and settled

here.

Log cabins were built somewhat like the cottages which the herdsmen of

Switzerland set up among the Alps. Tiny chalets they were, and they

were perched on the prettiest heights above the river and the valley so

that the beauty-loving Swiss might have the finest views.

"Oh, sleepy little town! how enchanting you are!" The boy inhaled the

breeze. "It smells delicious." He scanned the acres of good bottom-land

between Indian and Plum creeks and took in the terraced hillsides.

Everywhere were stakes and trellises. "Ha! Grapes are in bloom. That's

what I smell. They are raising grapes."

He eagerly studied out the plan of the vineyards and the fields. It

interested him, this art which the Swiss had brought with them to the

banks of the Ohio. It would have been even more interesting could he

have foreseen that the grape culture begun by John Francis Dufour and

his brother John James Dufour in this valley was to spread up and down

the river and along the Great Lakes and become one of the sources of

the wealth of the Middle West.

His thirsty senses soon discovered a spring on the hillside. Reaching

down to the deck, he picked up a light-weight wooden bucket by its

woven-willow bail, resolving as soon as the boat docked to run up the

hill and get a drink from the spring. The taste of river water was

becoming tiresome to him.

"The landing looks like a hay-field," he laughed as the people bobbed

about. Every woman and child and nearly every man wore a straw hat, the

first ones he had ever seen. Skill in weaving straw was another art

introduced by the clever Swiss. In the May sunshine this entirely new

style of head-covering suggested comfort. "Take off your 'coonskin,

Doby," said the boy to himself. "Its season is over. The Swiss are

weaving the left-over straw-stacks into a millinery show."

He examined the faces under the hats. It was easy to pick out the Swiss

from among the New England emigrants and the roustabouts of the river.

They were more graceful and shorter of stature. Indeed, the Swiss

were so compact in physique that the master of the wagon-train who

freighted them from their port at Norfolk, Virginia, in 1801, across

the Alleghany Mountains to the flatboats at Pittsburg, complained that

six and one-quarter cents a hundredweight was not enough money for the

women and children who rode, since it took more than one person to make

a hundredweight and little people were as much trouble as big ones.

The Swiss used French words. And because the French were always

friendly to Indians, the squaws of the region seemed to feel sure of

the hospitality of this village. They hung about the Swiss like bees

about the grape blooms.

"Beggars, beggars, beggars!" sneered Doby. "They beg for themselves

and beg for the pappooses slung up behind them. They beg for their

families and beg for the dogs at their heels."

He scowled at our native red race as it filed along below him on the

wharf. "They can't be made to work and the Swiss will have to feed

'em or the braves will threaten war." Some idea of ultimate justice

stirred in Doby's mind, for he shook his head at a fat pappoose as he

reflected: "We have taken their hunting-ground without their leave.

They are making us pay for it without our leave."

Moving about with the crowd was one figure more uncouth than the

squaws. It was a ragged, blanketed, straw-hatted creature. Doby noticed

it. On its feet were mismatched gear, a torn moccasin for the right

foot, a broken leather boot for the left. No scarecrow could have worn

worse clothes.

As Doby leaned over the edge of the boat and stared, the shapeless

thing raised its head and returned the gaze. Then he saw that it was a

man, a white man, whose face was sodden with gin and lined with evil; a

degraded outcast deported from some Old World prison.

Numbers of such wretches were dumped on Eastern coasts. Few wandered

so far inland as Vevay. Doby recoiled from the threatening leer the

drunkard threw at him. Instinctively he laid his right hand on

the hilt of his stone knife, for he had the same sense of danger

approaching that the man has who claps his hand to his sword.

The steamboat was already loading with produce for the up-river trip.

Piles of new straw hats were tossed aboard. Skins of grape-juice,

protected by straw cratings, were stacked on deck. Firkins of marmalade

were handled carefully. Straw boxes of raisins were properly stowed. A

few bottles of delicate home-made wine were handed as compliments to

the officers of the boat.

Bottles always aroused the thirst of Indians. A bulky squaw threw

herself between an officer and the giver of the wine. She demanded

"firewater."

"Go along," cried the indignant officer. "This is not firewater. You

can't get drunk on this," and he retreated with his present.

The squaw imagined that one long orgy gurgled in that bottle. She

snatched it from him and rushed through the groups near by. As she ran

she slipped the bottle into the cloth wrappings which held the pappoose

on her back. Ducking down among her friends, she came up in another

place and stood with her hands folded, looking as innocent as any squaw

could.

No one could tell her from the others except the scarecrow whom Doby

was watching. With his eyes on Doby's face, he slipped a ready hand

about the pappoose and lifted the bottle out. The squaw, whose heart

and mind and nerves were all entwined about that one thing, felt it go.

She gave a grunt and lunged at the man.

Away he scampered. She pounded after him. There was the cry, "Stop

thief!" And the crowd, who had only a vague idea of what it was all

about, galloped through the town in his wake.

Still clinging to his bucket, Doby leaped the gap between his boat

and the shore and caught up with the others just as the people, now

grown angry, had made the man a prisoner. The squaw was also taken in

custody. The marshal held the bottle. A dignified gentleman, the only

unruffled person in town, was saying in a quiet voice, "Bring them into

my house."

Although this gentleman's house was only fourteen feet by twenty, it

had, since the beginning of the settlement, been used as a county

clerk's office, a post-office, and a court-house. Its owner, John

Francis Dufour, had been given most of the town's positions of trust.

The house filled with the principal actors in the play. The mob, who

could not see or hear what was happening, stood outside and yelled:

"Put 'em in jail! Give 'em the whipping-post!" The Indians stood in

sullen rage.

Doby had never seen a mob before. It made him think of Pontius Pilate,

and he was filled with worry.

The whipping-post was an old affair. The town was tired of it. It had

never done any business. But the jail was new. A court-house--a brick

one--and a jail--a log one--had been building through the year. The

court-house was not yet finished, but the jail was.

One offender had already been sentenced to the jail. No sooner had he

been put in at night than he began to whittle, and in the morning he

was gone. Now that they had another captive, civic pride demanded that

justice be satisfied in some way. His colonists looked to Dufour to do

this for them.

This man was famous for his sturdy common sense and that quality which

the early Hoosiers dubbed "gumption."

He immediately sent the harmful bottle of harmless wine back to the

unlucky officer, so that the boat might leave port at once. Part of the

mob followed the bottle. He turned the squaw over to three other squaws

with directions to take her home. Of course the whole tribe trailed

along to see this feat accomplished. Thus away went a second dangerous

group in quite another direction.

Then Judge Dufour said to the prisoner: "I will bind you over for

trial. In default of bail, you must be temporarily incarcerated."

Between two citizens sworn in for the purpose the prisoner shuffled

past Doby on his way to the jail. He was locked and double locked up.

He was a very satisfactory picture of a villain as he glowered through

the bars. This dramatic glimpse of a truly bad man satisfied the

remnant of the mob. The excitement died down.

But Doby himself was restless. He went to the spring and filled his

bucket. It was a good spring and most attractive to boys. For the two

famous Vevay brothers, Edward and George Cary Eggleston, who years

later wrote delightful stories of this part of Indiana and other

histories of their country, found as much fascination and beauty around

the hillside springs as Doby did.

Several times during the day he wandered back to the spring. At each

one he found himself taking a round-about way past the jail to get

another peep at the outlaw. He shuddered till his bucket rattled

when he recalled how this criminal had suddenly turned the friendly

villagers into a vindictive mob.

After supper he tried to explain his nervousness by saying: "This

moonlight gives me fidgets. I guess I'll run up to the spring again and

get us all a fresh drink before we go to bed. I'm not a bit sleepy."

"It's rather late for boys to be out," objected his mother.

"It is," agreed his father. "But 'tis such a bright night that I'll sit

here and watch you climb. I do not feel sleepy myself."

The open hillside had seemed inviting as Doby viewed it from the boat.

As he mounted higher and higher the perspective changed. The sheltering

home boat sank in lonesome distance. The shadows of the trellises

twisted grotesquely at his feet as if to twine about them. Calls of

"whip-poor-will" came mournfully from afar. The May night was turning

chill. The solitary path had lost its accustomed look. He began to

shiver.

"This isn't as pleasant as I thought 'twould be. I'll get the water and

hurry home," he resolved as he knelt at the spring. In the damp loam

where the spring dribbled in front of him were the prints of the feet

of one who had been there before him. They were fresh and distinct.

Born and bred near the frontier and raised to read its signs, he

understood the prints at a glance. But he bent nearer in the moonlight

to be sure he was not mistaken.

One was of a broken boot sole. The other was a moccasin impression.

There was nothing else.

He did some thinking. "This is odd. A white man wouldn't hop up on one

foot to drink. Neither would an Indian. And no one man would wear a

moccasin on his right foot and a boot on his left." Oh, wouldn't he?

Doby's memory jumped. The scarecrow on the wharf, the prisoner in the

jail, had just such feet.

He retreated from the spot as though the culprit himself stood in

the tracks. He was not thirsty any more. He told himself in quaking

thoughts: "Even if I didn't notice the prints this afternoon, they must

have been there. They can't be fresh, 'though they _do_ look so. The

man has been in jail for hours."

Perhaps so; but the boy could not drive himself back to the spring. The

moonlight only served to make the shadows blacker. They threatened him.

He seemed paralyzed where he stood. Nothing was real but the dread that

filled him. Even the earth and sky were changing hideously.

From the town came the cry of, "Fire! fire! fire!"

Bells clanged. Women screamed. Dogs howled. Men yelled for "help! help!

help!"

A red glare filled the valley. Smoke hid the moon.

"The jail is on fire! The prisoner will burn!"

The whole village was violently astir. Yet Doby could not move. He was

frozen.

A series of malicious chuckles, a burst of derisive laughter, wild

shouts of defiance echoed along the hillside. And the escaped

prisoner--the fire-bug--glad to find some one to vent his fury upon,

came plunging toward the boy.

The red eyes, the jagged teeth, the outstretched claws, in movement,

broke the spell upon him. He leaped aside to save himself. There was no

time to draw his knife. He flipped the empty bucket wrong side up, over

the drunkard's head.

Surprised and blinded, the man clutched and tore at the bail under his

chin. He had trouble in freeing himself. In that moment of respite Doby

flew down-hill like blowing tumbleweed. He sprang into the flatboat and

flung up the barricade.

But there was no danger. The prisoner--a prisoner no longer--did not

follow. He fled into the wilderness never to return.

John Francis Dufour directed the men in putting out the fire. He

promised them another jail in case another bad man came to town. He

reassured the women. He cuddled the frightened children. For a second

time that day he quieted his village.

Doby, still wide awake, stuck close to the boat and to his father.

No more running around at night! He thought these matters over. If

one small bottle of mildest wine had set a thousand folks into a

turmoil twice within twelve hours, what might not a big jug of genuine

"firewater" have done?

"I have decided," he murmured, when at last he became as quiet and as

drowsy as the village of Vevay, "that I'll take my stand with the men

who say, 'Down with the demon, RUM!'"

VIII

GOIN' TO MEETIN'

_Circuit-riding over the "Buffalo Trace"_

ON the flat top of the stump by the log-cabin door was a trencher of

soft soap. By its side stood a big gourd dipper of spring water. A

wash-trough, made from a five-foot section of oak-tree trunk which had

been burnt and scraped through the center to hollow it out like a tub,

was closer to the door, almost on its threshold.

This home-made tub was steaming with ten gallons or so of hot water. A

hand-woven towel hung over its edge.

Obadiah Holman sat on the rail fence and viewed these articles with

disfavor. He did not like the look of things.

It was not his cabin nor his stump. His family were visitors here. They

had floated down the Ohio River from Pittsburg to the settlements where

the Big Falls stretched across the stream. The rainbow mist above the

tumbled beauty of the rapids marked the end of the water road.

Boats could go no farther. So all were being unloaded, and a strong

party of emigrants were making up a wagon-train to take the trail

across Indiana to the fort at Vincennes.

Settlers in and around the Big Falls were eager to open their cabins to

these travelers.

New Albany was built below the Falls on the rich alluvial bottom-land,

and, alas! also within reach of the river freshets.

"She reminds me," Doby had thought at first sight of her, "of a pretty

girl shaking in her shoes for fear the water will come up and wet her

feet. About every other year she gets a soaking. When the river goes

down she keeps on shaking with chills 'n' fever from the ague vapors

that the floods leave behind. It is the price she has to pay for the

big crops the bottom-land gives her."

If Doby ever came to be seized with the dreaded chills 'n' fever--the

great scourge of all new countries--the one malady the pioneers were

sure to catch from the miasma of newly opened ground, he would never

again speak lightly of it.

When two settlers met, the most important greeting was, "Ketched the

agur yit?" The dismal head-shaking which the one who had had it gave,

struck such apprehension into the heart of the one who had not had it,

that he really could not enjoy the perfect health of the moment for the

dread of that future hour when "the shakes would git 'im sure."

The circuit-riding preachers who ministered to the souls of these river

people carried ample saddle-bags. In those saddle-bags was an endless

collection of "yarbs" and powders and bottles, which the preachers

carried to comfort the bodies of their hearers.

The pioneer doctor of divinity was "called" to preach, not by the

financial head of his congregation, but by the voice of the Lord. He

would not accept worldly money for spiritual service. But for the herbs

he gathered and brewed and the bitter concoctions he made, he expected

to be paid. On the sale of them he lived.

Some emigrants avoided the river. In the beautiful hills above the

falls, higher still than Jeffersonville, were tiny hamlets of Old World

folk, Irish, Swiss, German, and French, still wearing their native

peasant costumes.

All these places gave shelter and staple foods to the emigrants. In

return they accepted salt, tobacco, sugar, steel tools, and the small

luxuries of the river like packets of mail and newspapers and almanacs.

Doby liked the people. "But whenever we come to a town, then ma begins

to wash me," he sighed. "I don't see why. My hands are hardly dirty

at all. Brooks are good enough tubs for me. I do not need so much

soap. That towel is ma's. I know that towel whatever town I see it in.

'Tis so scratchy that it skins the curlicues in my ears." He eyed the

instruments of torture askance.

He had to draw on his stock of courage to prepare himself for the

ordeal by thinking, "I do want to go to meeting and I can't go unless

I'm washed according to ma's ideas."

So when the call came, "Dob-ee! Dob-ee! Time for a scrub!" he went

meekly to the operation.

Red and shining, his hair slicked down stylishly with bear's grease,

his best homespun suit on, Doby mounted a borrowed horse to sit behind

his mother, and formed one of a company who fared away to the grove

where the meeting was held.

His shoes were tied round his waist by a thong. They were ready to

put on when he came in sight of the meeting-place. Cobbled shoes of

leather were the most expensive luxury a pioneer boy could own. Neither

Doby nor any other backwoods fellow would think of wearing them if he

could possibly go barefoot or use his moccasins.

He and his mother were following a little procession of neighbors over

the very best thoroughfare in all that region, the "Buffalo Trace."

In the spring when the buffalo came up from the South to graze through

the summer on Northern plains, the great herds crossed the Ohio River

below the Big Falls. There were thousands and thousands of buffalo. It

took days and days for the long parade of them to pass the settlements.

Their countless hoofs beat out a path wide enough for the largest

wagons and hard enough to make a perfect road.

Riding the "Buffalo Trace" was the best of going.

"Although it is a new country and a strange horse, I feel safe on the

road to-day," said his mother, "for there is plenty of company. The

preacher rides around such a big circle of settlements that he cannot

get to any one place very often."

"When he does come," Doby observed, "it is the big event. Everybody

goes to hear him. But _I_ don't think there are many folks near us

just now. Some have dropped out of sight around the bend and there

isn't any one ahead of us."

For a moment the mother was uneasy. The "Trace" between the grim lines

of dark forests seemed suddenly a dreary lane. The distant murmur of

the Big Falls always trembling in the air was very like a growling

beast. She gave the nag a hasty whack and jounced along at livelier

gait.

"Now I can see horses ahead of us," began Doby in a loud tone.

"But"--and his voice sank to a whisper--"the men are not on them. How

odd their motions are! What _are_ they doing?"

The mother stopped their horse as suddenly as she had started it. She

backed into some elders and, peeping through the blossoms, she studied

the scene so far before them. She decided: "Those four men are up to

mischief. I know it--I am perfectly sure of it by the way they act.

They are sneaking away from something."

"They haven't seen us, but they are ready to make tracks. See 'em go!"

cried Doby, as the men sprang to saddle and fled at a gallop along the

"Trace" to the meeting-grounds.

The mother considered a moment. "Such young rowdies like to play pranks

on the preacher. They must have been doing something of that kind when

we first saw them at the forest edge of bushes. Perhaps they have

hidden his Bible. That is one of the things such jokers do. We will

follow their tracks into the undergrowth and get his Book back for him."

Doby did not fancy entering that unknown forest where more miscreants

might be lurking. But as his mother expected him to hold the flintlock

ready for any danger they might meet, there was nothing for him to do

but to swallow his doubts and to turn the horse in when they came to

the trampled spot.

More boldly than he felt, he peered about as they followed the line of

disturbed branches into the heart of the forest.

After a few rods, "O-o-oh!" murmured his mother, "o-o-oh!" with pity

and indignation in her tone.

Here was a jest! The best of all frontier tricks! The funniest thing a

practical joker could imagine!

In front of them, tied to a tree, was not the preacher's Bible, but the

preacher himself, bound and gagged and left alone.

The hour for his sermon was close at hand, yet here he was, silent

and helpless, a mile from the meeting. Young huskies of the border

considered it a fair game to bait the circuit-riders and to make it as

difficult as possible for them to reach their hearers. If one baffled

them and arrived at the appointed place on his circuit, they tried to

keep him from preaching by all sorts of traps.

Why not? they argued. He was a grown man. Let him take his chances in

work and play, just as they did themselves.

Doby leaped from the horse, whipped out his knife, and cut the thongs.

The preacher, as he found himself released, rolled his eyes in a frenzy

of excitement and exclaimed: "Behold! I prayed for help, and, lo! an

angel of the Lord with his shining sword hath freed me from the bondage

of sinners."

The boy blushed awkwardly at the idea of acting the part of an angel.

But privately he thought it not too much praise for his cherished

knife. "No big, long sword could have done as good a job of snipping

loose as this sharp stone knife did," he bragged to himself.

To the mother's words of sympathy and further offers of help the

preacher gave no heed. He cared nothing for his bodily hurts, nothing

for his humiliation, nothing for himself. "I am a shepherd in the

service of my Master. I must go to feed my lambs."

[Illustration: DOBY WHIPPED OUT HIS KNIFE AND CUT THE THONGS]

With immense nervous energy, even while they stood staring, he

retrieved his horse, which had been stampeded farther into the wood.

Then he fixed his rummaged saddle-bags, mounted, and galloped off,

singing a hymn so loudly and triumphantly that it echoed in their ears

like a battle-call.

"His name is Lorenzo Dow. He is not afraid of man or devil," said the

mother, half in praise, half in criticism of this great Methodist

preacher. "His manner is strange beyond belief; yet he sways all hearts

toward righteousness."

"He is a lively one. They must have sneaked up on him, four to one, to

get him," Doby guessed.

Mother and son hurried after him and came to the top of the next hill

in time to see him, at a mad run and yelling lustily, charge down upon

his late captors as they crossed the valley.

The huskies were taken all aback. There was something of witchcraft in

the way their prisoner appeared before them. Their minds were too slow

to form a plan to stop him. He whirled past them like a storm, went

over the next hill, and straightway was in the grove.

Doby and his mother were among the many to see the spare figure of the

circuit-riding preacher mount a stump in the grove and in ringing tones

proclaim the Church militant.

It was that perfect thing which comes in the easy times after

corn-planting, a May day of sunshine and balmy airs.

Boards for seats had been carried from a barn close by and people sat

under the new leaves within scent of the wild honeysuckle. Later in the

dry summer season these outdoor meetings would become camp-meetings of

a sort which lasted for a week at a time. Whole families would bring

enough household gear and food and shelter to enable them to live on

the spot for that length of time.

Church and prayer meetings would be going day and night under pressure

of religious revival. To-day was to be a foretaste of the form of

worship the summer-time was sure to bring.

Madcap young pioneers had ridden miles for the sake of a little

excitement. They meant to make the preacher furnish them with a

wrestling-match as well as a sermon.

Older citizens tried to prevent what seemed to them a sacrilegious

brawl. They were outnumbered by the mischief-makers.

Women hid in the barn and peeped through the cracks. "No place for

females 'til the tussle is over," quoth the men.

Doby hastily put on his almost forgotten shoes. If there was a fight he

wanted to see it. Nobody knew better than he did what a poor place for

bare toes a crowd of booted men can be.

The rowdy leader pulled off his 'coonskin cap and grinned at the

Methodist. "I learned one lesson from ye in the woods and on the road

to-day; in wits ye are smarter than I be. In muscle I kin down ye.

Right here on the buffaler waller I kin force ye to a fall."

Lorenzo Dow threw off his shad-bellied coat and his stock, girded up

his breeches, stepped into the smooth, hard ring of earth made by

wallowing buffaloes, and stood grimly ready for the attack.

Perhaps he was glad to fight. If he won, the news would fly as

though the bees had carried it. His cause would then win honor from

a successful bout and men would flock to the standard of a Church

unafraid. If he lost, he became a sufferer with the martyrs. And for

whom do more friends rise up than for the persecuted?

So he welcomed action. He would do anything and bear anything which

brought him and his message before the stripling who so much needed

the life of the Spirit. He seemed a gallant figure struggling against

huge odds.

But he was not so much to be pitied as Doby thought. For he was only

forty--not nearly so old as his adventurous life on two continents

had made him look. And from constant hard riding over bad roads every

muscle in him had taken on the spring of oak.

To wrestle in prayer for his people, to wrestle in set-to for his

Church, both were part of his day's work. He went at both with all his

might.

Amid wild cheers and wilder cries from the folks about

them the wrestler and the preacher clinched. They

strained--slipped--pulled--stamped--puffed--tore--in a cruel embrace.

Once the preacher's shoulders touched the dusty mat of the wallow. How

the huskies yelled! How the hidden women wailed!

Another struggle followed, more terrific and of longer duration. Doby

clapped for the preacher and shrieked and jumped about and enjoyed

himself disgracefully. Then before the gaping crowd the sweating,

desperate preacher tried a new grapple which he had learned in

England. Under the strain of this unexpected hold the confident youth

could not use all of his brawn to save himself. He went down--once

--twice--three times. There he was; so pinned that he could not rise.

"'Nough?" shouted the onlookers.

"'Nough," groaned the rowdy.

Then the victor, all tousled, stood again upon the stump, his hand on

the shoulder of the vanquished. In the silence which followed their

discovery of his prowess he began a funny story. At its quips the

audience burst into gales of laughter. He told another funny one, and

then another, with uproarious results.

Doby listened to every word, yet he could not tell how it happened

that presently the voice of Dow, rich and magnetic, held them all

entranced. He went from merriment to pathos. The men drew nearer. The

women stole out from the barn and joined his audience. Soon under his

kind and searching words the throng grew still. These simple folks were

touched to the heart. The preacher, now sure of their attention, rose

to inspired heights of oratory. He called and held them at his will.

He denounced their sins. They wept over their misdoings. They gave way

to hysterical wailings. They cowered on the ground in their remorse and

shook with the excitement in spasms called "jerks."

He promised forgiveness to those who truly repented. Over his pictures

of a better life they shouted aloud with joy. He gathered them into his

Father's fold like hungry lambs and fed them with His Word.

This was Doby's first plunge into the great wave of religious frenzy

which was sweeping over the whole country, leaving some extravagances,

but much lasting good behind it.

As the borrowed horse plodded on the homeward "Trace" and the Big Falls

resounded like a blessing in their ears, Doby, whose face now shone

with something brighter than soft soap and water, said to his mother in

a tone of high resolve: "I'm a-goin' to mind that preacher. I'm a-goin'

to keep the soul inside of me just as clean as clean can be!"

IX

UNDER THE ELM

_The Building of a Mid-Western State_

A MAN sat on a horse. A boy hung on behind the man. And the horse

jounced along the trail toward the stone State House at Corydon.

Corydon was near the center of population in Indiana, and for that

reason had been made the capital.

Two months before this, in April, 1816, James Madison, President of the

United States, had signed an Enabling Act which allowed the people of

Indiana Territory to vote for delegates to represent them in writing

out a State constitution and in arranging a form of State government.

The delegates had been selected at a popular election. And now, every

morning in this fine June weather, they were meeting at the very new

State House--that proud stone house--in constitutional convention for

the yet newer State, at the sound of the newest possible bell.

Obadiah Holman settled himself on the sharp bones of the old nag's back

and said to his father: "Don't you suppose, pa, that it would be a

good plan for us to settle in this new State? We are helping with the

constitution all we can, and it makes me feel just as though I wanted

to be a Hoosier!"

The emigrant-train which was bearing the Holmans' fortunes had left the

"river beautiful" far behind and was following a trail "blazed" through

a land even more charming than the water path had been.

A big canvas-covered wagon had taken the place of the flatboat. Two

oxen tugged the wagon. A horse and a cow ambled behind it. Buckets and

tools swung rattling under the bed, clothing dangled at the sides. On

the tailgate was spread, three times a day, the jolly good meals that

pioneer mothers knew how to cook.

The wagons of the train, all very much alike, kept close together, one

behind the other, through the shadowy, sweet-smelling forest. The men

walked beside the animals, viewing the land with the inquiring eyes

of prospective settlers in this happy Hoosier State where even the

Indians and wild beasts were less dangerous than elsewhere.

The train had stopped short at Corydon and gone into camp by the

wayside, because the men who formed it wanted to stay through the

convention and see what happened. As builders of the new West, they

wanted to take lessons from these sturdy Hoosiers who were so seriously

bent on making Indiana a good State.

"You see, Doby," explained Mr. Holman, "the reason they discuss

questions day after day is because they want to find the very best

legal provisions that will give the new State civil and religious

liberty, protect the rights of every class, help free education, forbid

slavery, take care of the poor, keep down rum, and punish lawbreakers."

At the word "lawbreakers" Doby thought of his own troubles in

connection with Corydon and the convention, and he began to snuffle

audibly.

"Don't cry," said his father, kindly; "this business of an arrest and a

trial is not your fault."

The son dried his eyes by rubbing them across the ringed tail which

dangled in front of him from the 'coonskin cap on his father's head, as

the horse tried to trot.

Doby did not own a handkerchief. Few pioneer boys did. When he wanted

a rag to clean a gun, or to scrub a rabbit-trap, or to bind a wounded

knee, or to do any of the things a boy needs a handkerchief for, he had

to tear a piece from his homespun shirt or use some other substitute.

At this moment the 'coon's tail was the handy thing.

"I'm not cry--cry--cry--ing," he choked. "I'm just thinking how

sor--sor--sor--ry I am because it is my knife that makes the

trial--be--cause--cause the cobbler's son is such a bad boy that he had

to be arrested."

Now the cobbler was a hunched-back dwarf who went from one settler's

homestead to another, making shoes for each family. He was a useful

guest in the cabins. Everybody liked him. He was as honest as honest

could be. But the cobbler's son--a hulking fellow--"took after" his

"ma's folks" and was "light-fingered."

The homely treasures of the wagon-train had tempted him. While

following his father around he had looted it of small trinkets.

For his father's sake, Corydon had already forgiven him much petty

thieving among his townspeople; but when he robbed the town's guests

under the assembled eyes of the greatest lawyers in the whole region

it seemed like a defiance of the new State, and of the convention and

of the constitution as well.

So it was resolved to make an example of this unruly citizen; to

arrest, try, and punish him by a due process of law during a recess of

the convention.

And Doby, because his knife was the most important thing stolen, was

the chief witness against him.

To change the unhappy current of the boy's thoughts, his father said:

"It will be hot in the State House to-day. I hope they will move the

session out of doors under that big elm close by. They have talked of

doing that as a matter of comfort," and Mr. Holman fanned himself with

his fur cap.

"To-day they are doing it," Doby declared as they came in sight of the

giant elm with its spread of some hundred and fifty feet of grateful

shade.

There the delegates were sitting on chairs, boxes, boards, and stumps,

and going on most comfortably with the work in hand. And there Doby,

pressed into service for the refreshment of the convention, bore a

bucket of spring water and a gourd, from one distinguished politician

to another, serving the ones who wanted a drink, and looking into

their strong faces, listening to their debates, and watching for the

important decisions.

These delegates had come together from all parts of the new State. And

since there were no turnpikes nor plank roads nor canals any place in

the State, some were splattered with the mire of swampy valleys, some

were dusty from the windy hilltops, some were in worn hunting garb, and

some had on their farming clothes of homespun. Others had been able to

pick their way over better trails and by a process of seeming magic

were able to bloom out all "dressed up" for the occasion.

Such lucky ones wore blue-cloth coats with brass buttons and long

tails, buff "small clothes" which were something like a boy's "short

pants," fine white ruffled linen shirts with "stocks," hand-knitted

silk stockings, low shoes, huge beaver hats, and although it was

beginning to go out of fashion, those who had "fine heads of hair"

wore a queue much beribboned. Also they carried immense canes. They

flourished gold watches almost as large and nearly as noisy as

alarm-clocks.

Each expected to be addressed as "squire." And every one of them was

so called; and with the greatest respect, too, since nearly every one

of them had earned this title. But then, the plainly clothed delegates

were also called "squire," and for the same reason--they had earned it;

and the Hoosiers were quick to give honestly deserved honors.

Yet the men in "smart" attire were exactly like the ones in every-day

garments in this one thing--they were bent on doing their work on the

constitution the way it ought to be done. It was a sacred trust to them.

For this constitution of the State had to lay down the principles which

all future laws were to follow. It outlined the different departments

and decided upon the duties of each one. In a system of representative

government there must be a legislative department composed of men

elected to make the laws, an executive department having control of

troops and police officers whose business it is to enforce the laws,

and a judicial department made up of courts which are meant to secure

justice for all persons under the laws.

Then there must be State officers. Doby counted them on his fingers to

be sure that he remembered them, for he was in a hurry to grow up and

vote. And after he had watched these delegates take such pains with the

constitution, he made up his mind that he should always vote for the

best man and keep an eye on him to see that he carried out his oath of

office.

On his right hand were, after the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor:

Thumb--Secretary of State, who puts the big seal on papers;

forefinger--Auditor of State, who keeps the accounts; middle

finger--Treasurer of State, who takes care of the money; ring

finger--Attorney-General, who is lawyer for the Commonwealth; little

finger--Geologist, who knows where the good farm-lands are.

On his left hand were: Superintendent of State Schools; Librarian

of State Books; clerk of Supreme Court, who keeps records; clerk of

decisions, who publishes them; and a statistician whose official name

Doby could not pronounce, but whom he regarded as the wisest man of

all since his head was full of figures on every possible subject and

he could tell any number, from millions down to one-seventeenth of

one-nineteenth per cent. of any articles that could be counted.

Besides these, there were enough boards and committees and various

minor offices to have numbered all his toes.

Late in the afternoon the convention adjourned. Court sat. The case of

the cobbler's son was called. A stump was spread with the tools of

the law. There was a big family Bible for taking the oath, a gourd of

home-made poke-berry ink, goose-quills for pens, and a rare sheet or

two of paper.

At one side was a magpie nest of small, shining articles--silver spoons

and thimbles, gold beads and pewter cups, some pipes and a snuffer.

Brave among them was a knife in a "Long Hunter's" sheath--Doby's knife.

How the boy did gloat over that knife!

But he had to let it lie and go to take his place on a log with the

other witnesses.

"'Tis far and away the best thing there," thought he as the clerk of

the court picked up the leather sheath, took out the curious stone

knife, examined it with interest, tried its edge, and then began to

sharpen a goose-quill pen-point with it. "I'll keep an eye on it," the

nervous owner decided.

A bailiff drummed on the log with a stone until Doby had to shake his

ears as though he had been in swimming. This stone gavel called the

court to order. A curious crowd of country people, of townspeople, and

of delegates gathered under the elm.

Jonathan Jennings, president of the constitutional convention,

afterward first Governor of Indiana, and a member of Congress, acting

as local or associate judge, sat upon the bench, which in this case was

a sturdy, literal bench, it having been borrowed from under the tubs in

a neighbor's wash-house.

William Hendricks, afterward third Governor of Indiana and later

Senator from Indiana, who was secretary of the convention, became clerk

of this local court, by appointment, _pro tem_.

Both of these empire-builders gave to the case of Doby's old knife the

same formal attention that the cause of justice should always command

even in the smallest courts.

Jonathan Jennings was young, not much over thirty, and as rosy and

blond as Doby himself. His manner was grave and kind as he said: "The

court is ready to try the case of the State of Indiana versus Jerry

Cobbler. Is the State ready?"

Answer: "It is."

"Is the defendant ready?"

Answer: "He is."

"Then let the case proceed."

The genial clerk, Hendricks, for many years probably the most popular

man in Indiana, began, "If it please your Honor, I shall read the

information." And then went on to do so, rolling off big words in a

sonorous voice, declaring that "'the aforesaid Jerry Cobbler, in the

State of Indiana, on the twenty-fifth day of June, 1816, at the town of

Corydon, did then and there take and carry away a certain stone knife,

said stone knife being then and there the personal goods of one Obadiah

Holman, with the felonious intent then and there to deprive the said

Obadiah Holman thereof, against the peace and dignity of the State of

Indiana.'"

"Guilty or not guilty?"

"Not guilty."

Thereupon the witnesses were sworn to testify to the truth, the whole

truth, and nothing but the truth.

All eyes turned on Doby. He was seized by bashfulness and by the

bailiff. Between the two he went through his examination with small

credit to himself. He was glad to get back to his seat. He listened to

the other witnesses, then to the counsel for the defense, and then to

the prosecutor again. It was hard for him to follow the arraignment and

the defendant's plea.

"I can see the tracks of a badger better than I can the steps of the

law. What's the use of all this talk?" he thought. "Everybody knows

that Jerry stole the stuff even if he did say 'Not guilty.' They ought

to take it from him, hand it to the owners, give him a lickin' and get

back home to supper."

The written law of a State requires that a trial by judge shall go

through a certain legal form; the unwritten law of the people of a

State demands that a trial shall be dramatic and entertaining. Only

thus can the people's power and the force of their justice be shown to

them as upon a stage. So this trial had followed the usual course.

The clerk had read the information. The prosecutor had made his

accusation. Counsel for defense stood with the prisoner. Witnesses had

testified against and for him. Upon the evidence, the judge decided the

case in accordance with the law in the matter.

The verdict was against the cobbler's son. He was the thief beyond

doubt and he was pronounced "Guilty!"

Then came the sentence.

"You must pay a fine of twelve and one-half cents," decided the judge.

"'Ain't got 'n' money," answered the prisoner.

"Perhaps your friends can pay it for you," suggested his attorney.

"'Ain't got 'n' friends," said the prisoner, with perfect truth.

"The cobbler has friends," murmured the crowd.

Alas! Most of the cobbler's friends were as poor as himself. Those who

were well-to-do did not like to part with real money for so undeserving

a cause. In those days when most debts were paid by produce and

business was done by barter, twelve and a half cents was no small sum.

No one offered to pay the fine.

Then Judge Jennings said, "According to the law, if you cannot pay the

fine, you must go to jail."

Whereupon the guilty one drawled, "'Ain't got 'n' jail." This also was

true.

The one building in town which had a few times been officially dubbed a

jail, was now, in the stress of the emergency of a crowded convention

time, turned into a temporary boardinghouse. In other words, the jail

was full of statesmen!

There was no room in it for Jerry.

The crowd stirred. Some showed pride in this state of affairs; some

were plainly disgusted; others amused. Doby didn't know what to think.

Then said the judge to Jerry, "I may release you on your own

cognizance."

"'Ain't got 'n' cone-ans," objected the stupid Jerry.

The judge explained: "That means the sentence is suspended. You may be

a free man as long as you do not steal any more."

Then the judge gave to his audience a short lecture on honest

citizenship and loyalty to the new State. It was so simple that Doby

understood its every word, and so earnest that it brought the ready

tears to his eyes as he stood close beside the judge, looking up at him.

The court adjourned. Day was closing. Victims of the robberies hastened

to prove their properties. They must get back to the wagons by

milking-time.

The trial was over. Every one was satisfied--except Doby.

"Don't cry," said his father, impatiently this time, to the boy behind

him on the homeward-bound horse.

"I want my knife!" wailed Doby.

His father pulled up short. "We have taken up hours of valuable time!

We have stopped the making of a State to get it for you! What more do

you want?"

"I--want--my--knife!"

"Hav'n't you got your knife?"

"No!"

"Who has it?" demanded his father.

"_He_ has," stuttered Doby. "_He_ has. He will come past this

cross-trail in a few minutes. He said he was going home this way. Can't

we wait and ask him for it?"

"Who?" cried his father. "Ask whom?"

"Him," gulped Doby. "Him. I don't want anybody to arrest him. I love

him."

Bewildered, Mr. Holman stared. "What do you mean?"

Doby swallowed hard. He began again: "The clerk picked up my knife

and sharpened a goose-quill into a pen-point. Then he gave the knife

to the judge. The judge cut a pen for himself. Then he put the knife

in his pocket while he was talking to the clerk. My knife is--in--the

judge's--pocket--this--minute!"

Mr. Holman protested: "But, Doby, you went to the judge and asked him

for it. I saw you do that."

"Yes, I told him to please give me what he had in his pocket. And he

put his hand in his pocket to get it for me as he was telling me not to

feel so sorry about the trial. He said I must not cry about it. Then

he pulled his handkerchief instead of my knife from his pocket, and he

wiped my eyes and he gave me the handkerchief, and he patted me on the

head and went away--" Here poor Doby broke down completely and used

the Jennings linen freely.

Mr. Holman was greatly amused to find that the absent-minded judge had

given the boy the handkerchief which was needed in place of the knife

which was wanted.

How heartily the people's idol--the adored Jonathan Jennings--the great

man of the convention--would laugh at his own mistake! How quickly he

would "trade back" the knife for the handkerchief, and how happily

Doby's tears over the loss of his property would be changed to smiles

over its recovery!

The chuckling father and the weeping son reined up beside the trail.

Mr. Holman said to Doby: "I can see the judge coming now. We will

stop him. You must speak to him yourself. It will please his sense of

justice to have you demand reparation because you feel sure of his

kindness. When he gives you the knife he will give you his affection

with it. He will be your friend for life."

X

THE SPELLING-MATCH

_The Carving of a Great Name_

"I WONDER who that other boy is," and Obadiah Holman stared at a slim

little fellow, dark and serious-looking, who was having hard work to

keep step with his long-legged father.

A group of men and boys were trudging through the big woods in Spencer

County, Indiana.

Several movers from Kentucky had fallen in with the wagon-train of

emigrants to which the Holman boy's father belonged, and together the

men of both companies were looking over a section of land.

"Out of breath, Doby?" asked Mr. Holman.

Doby _was_ out of breath, so he nodded.

His father suggested: "You boys had better sit down on a log and wait

'til we go to the crown of the hill and back. It is more than a mile

and the walking is rough."

Most of the home-seekers were pleased with this place. It offered them

the finest of soil. The hardwood trees were splendid. The springs were

pure. Every tumbling brook suggested water-power to turn their mills.

There were few dangerous beasts and no unfriendly Indians.

Wild fruits and berries and nuts, something delicious to eat for almost

every month in the year, were growing on the hillsides. Game was

plentiful. The climate was mild. The soil was fertile and very deep.

The father of the little boy said: "The titles to the lands in this

State are made out by honest officials. That is a very important

matter."

All the men wagged their heads over the misfortunes of settlers who

were careless about securing the proper officers to record their farms.

Hundreds of early homes were lost through legal mistakes.

"If a settler once takes up his land and pays for it, Indiana protects

his right to the homestead he has earned," Mr. Holman agreed. But he

made this strong objection to the site. "I'm not over-fond of chopping

down whole forests of stout oaks, nor of burning them. I'd rather get a

section where Nature has done some of the clearing."

The father of the little boy, who was also dark and serious-looking,

considered the spot an ideal one. He said: "I do not mind the work of

felling trees. My wife loves the woods. She would be safe and happy

here. I want to get her away from the Indian war-paths and the panther

region. I could build a half-face cabin here and bring my family this

fall. We could be comfortable all winter in a snug camp. By spring I'd

have a clearing made."

"Land can be bought for about two dollars and a half an acre; one third

down, one third next year, and the last third the next," Mr. Holman

told him.

He answered, "Another fine thing about this State is the provision

for school land in every township." He smiled. "I like that plan.

Schools bring the better class of folks. They make a neighborhood

intelligent. Until a schoolhouse can be built in this township, lessons

are being taught in one of the cabins, I've heard. We are invited to a

spelling-match there to-night. Everybody is," and he looked whimsically

at his small son and smiled.

The little boy returned the smile with a sudden lightening of his

serious childish face, and watched his father with happy eyes as the

tall figure strode away with the other men.

Then the two boys on the log edged nearer and nearer to each other.

Doby was thinking of the stranger: "He is tall, but I don't believe he

is more than eight years old. I'd just as soon play with a nice small

chap if there are no big fellows around." So he grinned cheerfully at

his companion.

Shyly the little boy moved closer yet.

"It will be easy to like him," Doby decided. "He is so friendly."

Doby could not think of anything to say. He pulled out his stone knife

and fell to carving his initials on the beech log.

The little boy gazed at Doby's queer knife. (Boys always noticed

that knife. It was the owner's letter of introduction to all chance

acquaintances.) Then he opened his own shabby pocket-knife and neatly

cut the date--1816--below the bold O H.

Then Doby promptly cut all the figures 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0 below the

date.

The little boy valiantly accepted the challenge and started to make the

whole alphabet in capitals. This was a big task, but he slashed away

at it and finally the letters stood in proper order. He had not missed

one. He glowed with interest in his work.

"Just like he had a lighted candle inside of him," thought Doby, full

of admiration for the youthful student. "I'll have to take the dare."

So he followed, rather laboriously, with the curlicued small letters.

This took a long time. They, too, were correct. Upon this, both boys

broke into satisfied laughter and began to talk.

"Do you know how to spell?" asked Doby.

"Every word in my book," answered the little boy, "beginning at the

front or beginning at the back, I can spell 'em all." Then he added,

honestly: "I can't always remember the order the big words come in.

Page twelve is the hard page. My mother drills me on that page every

day."

Now they _were_ friends! Doby knew in a flash how the little boy lived

and how he thought. He exclaimed, "That is the way _my_ mother does!"

And the two boys, one from New England, one from Kentucky, because

their mothers were alike, could look into each other's heart with

perfect understanding.

Doby said: "The last page in my speller is the hard one. Every day ma

teaches me those words and every night I forget 'em."

The little boy pursed his mouth and shook his head as one who had also

gone through this troublesome forgetting. "I can read Æsop's fables,"

he said.

"I have a New England primer," began Doby, painstakingly quoting from

its title-page:

"The

New England Primer

Improved

For the more easy attaining the true

Reading of English

To which is added,

The Assembly of Divines,

and Mr. Cotton's

Catechism

Boston: Printed and Sold by

S. Adams, in Queen-street. 1762.

Have you got one?"

The little boy shook his head.

"You ought to have," was Doby's dogmatic decision, "because for ever

so many years it has been _the_ most important lesson-book for schools

and families. A million boys have studied it and another million grown

folks have bought it, and there have been another million besides

those."

The little boy was much impressed by these large numbers which Doby

knew were true.

"It says:

"Thy life to mend

This Book attend;

and

An idle Fool

Is whipt at school;

and

My Book and Heart

Shall never part.

"If I had a fresh-cut pine slab, I could show you how some of it is

printed. A slab is a nice slate to scratch verses on--"

The little boy interrupted with this discovery of his own: "Our big

wooden shovel is thick. I write on it with a burnt stick. When it is

all covered with words, I whittle the writing off in thin shavings.

Then I write on the clean wood again."

"That's a bright idea," praised Doby. "I'll try it some time." He

carved on the beech:

Zaccheus he

did climb the Tree,

his Lord to see.

The little boy examined it, doubtfully. "Is that poetry?" he asked.

"Yes, indeed," affirmed Doby, pointing out the rhymes. "And that bunch

of wavy lines at the bottom are the sycamore-tree that he climbed--in

the Bible story, you know."

The little boy _did_ know the Bible story. He showed plainly that he

was a friend and acquaintance of the famous Zaccheus. But his eyes

traveled from Doby's copy of the primer's illustration to a living

sycamore down by the brook and the doubt in them deepened.

Doby hastened to explain: "That's what they call art. I have noticed

that poetry and art are sometimes different from the way we might

expect them to be. We can't always understand them."

Oh, boys of long ago!

Oh, queer old rhymes and drawings!

If Doby could have rolled over giggling on the log and tried to sing

Riley's song of the "Raggedy Man and 'Lisabuth Ann," or if the little

Kentuckian could have stuck up his hair in pretended fright, made his

eyes round and scary, and begun to recite,

An' gobble'uns'll git you

Ef you

Don't

Watch

Out--

how easily they might have understood such poetry and what fun they

might have had!

Or if they could have seen the art of Adams, or Stark, or Steele, or

Bundy, whose canvases hold sycamores with mottled bark glistening in

the sunshine, broad leaves rustling in the breeze, white roots wading

in the creek, the very buttons a-dance with joy, they would have

wanted, as every boy does nowadays, to straightway try to climb them!

"Spelling--well--spelling has to be exactly right or it won't do at

all," announced Doby, returning to a safe subject.

At this the little boy brightened. He could understand spelling.

As the men returned and the group began to separate, the little boy

said to Doby, "I hav'n't any candle to bring to help light the cabin

for the spelling-match to-night."

"Come anyway," urged Doby. "Ma and pa and I are going. We hav'n't any

candles to take. Plenty of other people will bring them."

But strangely enough, not one of those who gathered at the friendly

settler's cabin after chore-time had remembered to bring the promised

candles.

The settler's wife was the schoolma'am. Besides teaching lessons to

other people's boys and girls, and mothering her own eight children,

and helping her husband, she was a gardener, a florist, a beekeeper,

and a chicken-fancier. She was a spinner, a weaver, a seamstress, a

milliner, a tanner, a laundress, a dairy-maid, a cook, and a general

"handy man."

In attending to the demands of these various trades she had temporarily

left out candle-making. She had trusted to her neighbors to help, and

they had failed her.

The first ordinance for the rule of the Northwest Territory had said

that, "religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to a good

government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of

education shall forever be encouraged."

The laws of the new State of Indiana said the same thing. When a county

was surveyed by the government's orders, it was divided into townships,

each containing six square miles, or "sections," numbered from one up

to thirty-six. Lot 16 in each township was reserved for school purposes.

Until the near-by settlers could build a schoolhouse on this land, the

children of that neighborhood had to be taught in their own homes, or

the homes of some one of them. If money couldn't be raised to pay a

teacher, the pioneer youngsters had to memorize their letters, had to

learn to spell and to read the story of Noah and his ark, from fathers,

mothers, and circuit-riding preachers.

The hearth of the settler's cabin became the altar where parents

struggled to keep alive the flame of desire for better things, until

the schoolhouse could be built. To them the little log temple on Lot 16

meant the hope of progress.

Such women as this teacher-mother were not to be dismayed by a small

failure like the absence of candles to light her way.

How could she "give out" words with nothing but moonlight to show her

the printed page?

Doby was watching her. He was fond of sociability, and any party,

'specially a spelling-party, is better if it can be seen.

Was there any way in which a boy could help her?

He grasped his new friend, the little boy from Kentucky. He whispered

excitedly to him. The little boy, timid at first, soon entered into

Doby's plan. Together they sidled up to her and secretly got her ear.

She was interested and pleased. She praised their scheme. "Bright as a

button," she considered it.

In the settler's dooryard, with the full July moon shining down upon

them, the guests formed two opposing lines of a dozen or so of people

on each "side," and made ready for the spelling-match.

'Twas "light as day" they all declared; an idle hour for a bit of fun

after a hard day's work.

In the deep shadow of the door-jamb, where no one could see him, stood

the little boy from Kentucky. When it was time to begin he shut his

eyes and, forgetting everything else, he looked into the book of his

trained memory.

Beginning at top of the left-hand column on page one, he pronounced

aloud, in a firm childish treble, all the words, one after another, in

that column.

The two lines, or "sides," of guests, as they had been "chosen up" by

their leaders, "took turns," one person at a time, in spelling the

words as the little boy gave them out.

The schoolma'am acted as judge. She decided, "C'rect," if the speller

got his word right. "Next," she called, if the wrong letters were used.

Beginning at the second column, the little boy pronounced its words in

the same way; then he took the third column; then the fourth. The ones

who missed the words he gave were "spelled down" and had to take their

seats. Slowly the stools and stumps in the yard filled with faulty

scholars.

The little boy's thoughts turned the leaf with as much certainty as

though he held a printed book in his hand. He began again on page two

at the upper left-hand column and went down it; began on column two and

finished that; began on column three--how easy it was!

How often and often and often had he and his mother gone over and over

these same old words, laughing because he could spell them with the

book upside down or with the book shut!

Wouldn't she be happy when he told her how useful a thing her teachings

had proved to be! Her love and her pride inspired him to do his best.

And wasn't he glad that his father was sitting on the door-step, ready

to encourage him if he got scared!

He kept on pronouncing. Page three went blithely for him and so did

page four. Then came five--six--seven; word after word column after

column.

The boy stood to it bravely, but the spellers were giving out. Three

went down on "phthis-icky" and four on "Ticdouloureux."

Those who remained sharpened their wits and went at the words as though

they were splitting rails.

Page after page they conquered. But "asafoetida" was too much for

them. Even the schoolma'am wanted two _f's_ in it. She found it hard to

give one of them up at the command of a little boy. But he was positive

on the subject of one _f_ and the crowd stood with him through perfect

faith in his ultimatum. She took her seat. At this the match was over.

Every one was spelled down.

The sole survivor was the little boy from Kentucky, who stole away with

Doby. He did not stay for the praise the spellers wanted to give him.

Doby thought, "I s'pose he will be all puffed up about himself."

But it was a humble little boy who confessed to Doby: "When I got to

page twelve, I couldn't remember--just could _not_ remember what comes

after 'potentialities' and 'incomprehensibility' except 'asafoetida.'

If they had spelled that word--that 'asafoetida'--I could not have

told them the next word. _I did not know what it was._"

Doby was appalled, as well he might be, by this narrow escape. What

if they had failed? That their plan had ended fortunately moved him

to say, earnestly: "I like you. I am going to give you my New England

primer to remember me by. It's got pictures in it. I don't need it

any more. I'll put my name on the back cover, then you can always see

who gave it to you. The schoolma'am loaned me this lead on purpose so

we can do good printing." And he set down primly the letters, OBADIAH

HOLMAN.

"Now," he continued, passing over the lead, "you can have your name in

the front to show that it is your book."

Smiling happily at the giver and the gift, the little boy from

Kentucky, who was soon to become a Hoosier, carefully wrote his name.

Doby, straining his eyes in the moonlight, looked over his shoulder and

read the words, ABRAHAM LINCOLN.