Kenneth Clendenin, having completed his medical studies at
Philadelphia, graduated with honor, and afterward spent a year in
the hospitals there, was now about emigrating to Chillicothe, a town
recently laid out by General Nathaniel Massie, in what was then the
Northwestern Territory; now the state of Ohio.
None of his family were to accompany him, but he was to act as escort
to two ladies, who, with their children, were also going thither to
join their husbands. One of them had under her care a young orphan
girl, bound to the same place, where she was to make her home with a
married brother, Major Lamar.
The Clendenin household were early astir on the morning succeeding
the events related in the former chapter. Before the sun had
peeped above the mountain tops they were summoned to a savory and
substantial breakfast, prepared by old Vashti, who had been cook in
the family since Kenneth's earliest recollection.
He was the first to answer the call; coming in from a farewell tramp
about the premises, to find the faithful old creature in the act of
setting the last dish upon the table.
"I'se done my bes', honey," she said to him, with tears in her eyes.
"It mos' breaks dis ole heart to tink you won't eat no mo' dis
chile's cookin'."
"I don't know that, Aunt Vashti," he responded, smiling, "I'm not
going quite out of the world."
"'Pears mighty like it, honey," she said; then seeing his eyes
wandering uneasily about the room and the porch beyond, "You's
lookin' for ole marster?" she whispered, coming close to his side.
"He was off to de woods wid his gun 'fore daylight. 'Spect he didn't
want to say good-by."
"Probably," he answered, with a slight sigh; then turned with an
affectionate greeting to his mother and Marian, who entered the room
at that instant.
They sat down at once to their repast, without the husband and
father, no one remarking upon his absence, or asking any questions in
regard to it; the meal was, indeed, almost a silent one; the hearts
were too full for much speech.
Kenneth's saddle-bags and portmanteau were in readiness, packed by
the mother's loving hands, and Romeo stood pawing at the gate. Zeb's
horse, too, was there, tied to the fence near by, while its rider was
eating his breakfast in the kitchen.
The travelers had no time for loitering, for many miles of rough road
must be passed over that day.
The adieus were quickly spoken, and the windings of the road soon hid
master and servant from the view of the weeping, disconsolate Marian
and her sorrowful-faced mother.
Kenneth's heart, too, was heavy, spite of the cheerful air he had
assumed for the sake of the dear ones he was leaving behind; but
Zeb seemed in fine spirits. He was young and light-hearted, had no
relatives to leave, in fact loved "de doctah" better than any other
human creature.
And he was going to see the world, a prospect which thrilled him with
delight.
The sun was now shining brightly, birds sang cheerily in the
trees that bordered the roadside, the morning air was fresh and
exhilarating, and Zeb's spirits rose high as he cantered along at a
respectful distance behind his master.
A mile away from Glen Forest, as the Clendenin place was called, they
came out upon a cleared place where stood a little country church in
the midst of an enclosure, whose grass-covered mounds, with here and
there a stone slab, proclaimed it the settlers' last resting place.
Here Kenneth drew rein, and calling to Zeb bade him ride on to
the cross-roads and there await his coming; and if their fellow
travellers should arrive first, tell them he would join them in a few
moments.
"Yes, sah," returned the lad, whipping up his horse, while Kenneth
dismounted and made his way to a spot where four or five little
graves, and one somewhat longer, were ranged side by side.
Giving only a glance at the others, the young man turned to this last
and stood for some moments gazing down upon it with a look of grave,
sad tenderness upon his noble, manly face.
"Angus Clendenin, aged fourteen," he murmured in low, moved tones,
reading from the inscription on the headstone. "Ah, brother beloved,
why were we so soon parted by grim death? We whose hearts were knit
together as the hearts of David and Jonathan!"
But time pressed and he must away. Plucking a violet from the sod
that covered the sleeping dust, and placing it carefully between the
leaves of his note book, he remounted and pursued his journey.
As he reached the place of rendezvous, where Zeb was lazily sunning
himself, seated on a fallen tree, with his horse's bridle in his
hand, three large wagons came toiling along the intersecting roads;
beside the foremost a graceful girlish figure, tastefully attired
in riding hat and habit, and mounted upon a beautiful and spirited
pony, which she was managing with the utmost apparent ease and skill;
curbing its evident impatience to outstrip the slower and more
clumsily built animals attached to the vehicles.
At sight of Kenneth, however, she loosened her hold upon the
rein, and came cantering briskly up with a gay "Good-morning, Dr.
Clendenin."
The face that met his gaze was so fair and winsome, so bright with
youthful animation, that the grave young doctor could not forbear a
smile as he returned her greeting with courtly grace.
Nellie Lamar's beauty was of a very delicate type--a sylph-like form,
delicately moulded features, a sweet, innocent expression, complexion
of lilies and roses, a profusion of pale golden hair, beautifully
arched and pencilled brows, large melting blue eyes, "deeply, darkly,
beautifully blue," and fringed with heavy silken lashes, many shades
darker than the hair.
She was but fifteen, just out of school and quite as guileless and
innocent as she looked.
A charming blush mantled her cheek as she caught the admiring glance
of Kenneth's eye.
"So, so, Fairy, be quiet, will you?" she said, tightening her rein
with one hand, while bending low over her pony's neck she softly
patted and stroked it with the other. "If those clumsy, slow-moving
creatures would but travel faster!" she exclaimed with pretty
petulance, lifting her head again and sending an impatient glance
in the direction of the approaching wagons. "Neither Fairy nor I can
well brook having to keep pace with them."
"They are somewhat more heavily laden than she," he said smilingly,
with some difficulty restraining the impetuosity of his own steed,
as he spoke; "she should have charity for them. But I fear Romeo is
disposed to join her in leaving them behind. We will lead the van,
however, Miss Lamar, and sometimes indulge these restless spirits in
a run of a few miles ahead; if it is but to return again."
"Ah, that will be delightful!" she cried with almost childish
vehemence. "I have fairly dreaded the thought of travelling at this
snail's pace all the way to Chillicothe."
The wagons had now come up, and from the foremost peered out two
chubby, rosy boy faces.
"O Doctor Clendenin! won't you take me up behind you?" shouted the
owner of one, the other chiming in, "Me, too, doctor, me too!"
"Hush, Tom! hush, Billy! you should not ask such a thing. Doctor,
don't mind them," quickly interposed the mother, showing her cheery,
matronly face alongside of theirs.
"Good morning, Mrs. Nash," Kenneth said, moving to the side of the
wagon. "We have an auspicious day for starting upon our long journey."
"Yes, indeed, doctor; and how thankful I am that we're all well and
so comfortably accommodated."
"You don't seem to care at all for the old home scenes and friends
we're leaving behind, Sarah," whined a woman's voice from the second
vehicle; "but for my part I shall never, never forget them, and I
think it's dreadfully hard I should have to go away from them all
into that howling wilderness, as one may say," and the voice was lost
in a burst of sobs.
"But we're going to our husbands, Nancy, and they ought to be more to
us than all the world beside," returned Mrs. Nash, cheerfully. "Dear
me, I'm just as glad as can be to think that in a few weeks my Robert
and I will be together again for good and all."
It was characteristic of the two, who were sisters-in-law, the one
always looking at the bright side of life, the other at the dark; the
one counting up her mercies, the other her trials.
"It'll be a rough, hard journey, and some of us will be sure to get
sick," sighed Mrs. Barbour. "Flora's always been a delicate child,
and I'll never take her there alive."
"She's looking well," remarked Kenneth, glancing in at the bright
eyes and pink cheeks of a little girl, sitting contentedly by Mrs.
Barbour's side.
"And we'll have the doctor handy all the way, you know," suggested
Mrs. Nash. "Tom, Tom, be quiet," for the boy was still clamoring for
a ride on Romeo.
"So you shall," Kenneth said, lifting him to the coveted place, "and,
Billy, you shall have your turn another time."
The third wagon carried no passenger; its load consisting of baggage,
household stuff, a tent and provision for the way, for there were few
houses of entertainment on the route and it would often be necessary
to camp out for the night.
The roads were new and rough; in many places in very bad condition.
Sometimes there was a mere bridle path, and bushes and branches must
be cut away, or fallen trees removed, to allow the wagons to pass.
At noon of this first day they halted on the banks of a bright little
stream, dined upon such fare as they had brought with them, and
rested for an hour or two; allowing their horses to graze and the
children to disport themselves in racing about through the underbrush
in search of wild flowers, in which Miss Nell presently joined them.
Kenneth, leaving the two women sitting together on a log, strolled
away in another direction, toward Zeb and the drivers who were
keeping guard over the horses and wagons.
"Dear me!" sighed Mrs. Barbour, "what a journey we have before us!
how we're ever to stand it I don't know; I am tired already."
"Already!" echoed her sister; "why I don't intend to be really tired
for a week."
"I'd like to know what intentions have to do with it," returned the
first speaker, rather angrily.
"A good deal, I assure you," asserted Mrs. Nash, with decision. "Make
up your mind to be miserable and you can't fail to be so; resolve to
enjoy yourself, and you're almost equally sure to do that."
"Humph!" grunted her companion, turning away with a scornful toss of
the head.
"What's wrong?" asked Miss Lamar, coming toward them with her hands
full of delicate spring blossoms.
"Wrong! where?" returned Mrs. Barbour, sharply, thinking the query
aimed at her.
"Yonder," Nell answered, gazing anxiously in the direction of the
group about the wagons; "they all seem to be busying themselves about
that wheel."
"There, I knew it!" cried Mrs. Barbour, "something's broken, and
we'll be kept here all night; and we'll be having such accidents all
the way. Nobody ever was so unfortunate as I am."
"Why you more than the rest of us?" asked her sister, dryly. "If one
is delayed, we all are."
"It was only a broken linchpin, already replaced by another,"
announced Kenneth a few moments later; "and now, if you please,
ladies, we will go on our way again."
At dusk the party arrived at a lonely log cabin in the woods, where
they found shelter for the night.
Fare and accommodations were none of the best--the one consisting
of fat pork, hominy, and coarse corn bread, the other of hastily
improvised beds, upon the floor of the lower room for the women and
children; upon that of the loft overhead for the men.
Mrs. Barbour, according to her wont, passed the time previous to
retiring in fretting and complaining; talking of herself as the most
ill-used and unfortunate of the human race, though no one else in the
company was in any respect faring better than she, and all were not
only bearing their discomforts with patience and resignation, but
cheerfully and with an emotion of thankfulness that they had a roof
over their heads; as a heavy rain storm had come on shortly after
their arrival, and continued till near morning.
But that was another of the complainer's grievances; "The roads would
be flooded, the streams so swollen that it would be impossible to
cross with the wagons."
Nell, hearing these doleful prognostications, turned an anxious
enquiring look upon Kenneth.
"Do not be alarmed," he said, leaning toward her, and speaking
in an undertone of quiet assurance: "the rain is much needed and
therefore a cause for thankfulness; and if streams cannot be forded
immediately, we can encamp beside them and wait for the abating of
the waters."
"But our provisions may give out," she suggested.
"Then we will look for game in the woods, and fish in the streams. No
fear, little lady, that we shall not be fed."
Nell liked the title, and felt it restful to lean upon one who showed
so much quiet confidence in--was it his own powers and resources or
something higher?
The journey was a tedious and trying one, occupying several weeks;
and Kenneth's office as leader of the party was no sinecure.
There were many vexatious delays, some occasioned by the wretched
state of the roads, others incident to the moving of the cumbrous and
heavily laden wagons; which latter might have been avoided had he
travelled alone, or in company with none but equestrians.
But Kenneth was of too noble and unselfish a nature to grudge the
cost of kindness to others.
And on him fell all the care and responsibility of directing,
controlling, and providing ways and means; settling disputes among
the drivers, and attending to the safety and comfort of the women and
children.
These various duties were performed with the utmost fidelity, energy,
and tact, and all annoyances borne with unvarying patience and
cheerfulness; even Mrs. Barbour's peevish complainings and martyrlike
airs failing to move him out of his quiet self-possession, or goad
him into treating her with anything but the greatest courtesy and
kindness.
He showed the same to all in the little company, and to those with
whom they sought temporary lodgings here and there along the route;
more especially to any who were sick, exercising his skill as a
physician for their relief, and that without charge, though sometimes
it cost him the loss of a much needed night's rest.
Mrs. Barbour was too completely wrapped up in herself and her own
grievances, real or imaginary, to take note of these things beyond
a passing feeling of wonder that Dr. Clendenin should bestow so
much attention upon people who were not likely ever to make him any
return; but ere the journey's end they had won for him a very high
place in the respect and esteem of the other adults of the party, and
in the hearts of the children.
Nell, who was often sorely tried by these same vexations and delays,
formed an unbounded admiration for Kenneth's powers of forbearance
and self-control.
She gave expression to it in talking with Mrs. Nash, as they found
themselves alone for a few moments on the evening previous to their
arrival at their destination.
"Yes," was the reply, "I am astonished at his patience; particularly
with Nancy. She exasperates me beyond everything--she is such a
martyr. Yes, always, in all places, and under all circumstances,
she's a martyr."