The Crossing | Page 4

go.
The sun was just flooding the slopes when our guest arose to leave, and

my father bade him God-speed with a heartiness that was rare to him.
But, to my bitter regret, neither spoke of my father's going. Being a
man of understanding, Mr. Boone knew it were little use to press. He
patted me on the head.
"You're a wise lad, Davy," said he. "I hope we shall meet again."
He mounted his roan and rode away down the slope, waving his hand
to us. And it was with a heavy heart that I went to feed our white mare,
whinnying for food in the lean-to.

CHAPTER II
WARS AND RUMORS OF WARS
And so our life went on the same, but yet not the same. For I had the
Land of Promise to dream of, and as I went about my tasks I conjured
up in my mind pictures of its beauty. You will forgive a backwoods
boy,--self-centred, for lack of wider interest, and with a little
imagination. Bear hunting with my father, and an occasional trip on the
white mare twelve miles to the Cross-Roads for salt and other
necessaries, were the only diversions to break the routine of my days.
But at the Cross-Roads, too, they were talking of Kaintuckee. For so
the Land was called, the Dark and Bloody Ground.
The next year came a war on the Frontier, waged by Lord Dunmore,
Governor of Virginia. Of this likewise I heard at the Cross-Roads,
though few from our part seemed to have gone to it. And I heard there,
for rumors spread over mountains, that men blazing in the new land
were in danger, and that my hero, Boone, was gone out to save them.
But in the autumn came tidings of a great battle far to the north, and of
the Indians suing for peace.
The next year came more tidings of a sort I did not understand. I
remember once bringing back from the Cross-Roads a crumpled
newspaper, which my father read again and again, and then folded up

and put in his pocket. He said nothing to me of these things. But the
next time I went to the Cross-Roads, the woman asked me:--
"Is your Pa for the Congress?"
"What's that?" said I.
"I reckon he ain't," said the woman, tartly. I recall her dimly, a slattern
creature in a loose gown and bare feet, wife of the storekeeper and
wagoner, with a swarm of urchins about her. They were all very natural
to me thus. And I remember a battle with one of these urchins in the
briers, an affair which did not add to the love of their family for ours.
There was no money in that country, and the store took our pelts in
exchange for what we needed from civilization. Once a month would I
load these pelts on the white mare, and make the journey by the path
down the creek. At times I met other settlers there, some of them not
long from Ireland, with the brogue still in their mouths. And again, I
saw the wagoner with his great canvas-covered wagon standing at the
door, ready to start for the town sixty miles away. 'Twas he brought the
news of this latest war.
One day I was surprised to see the wagoner riding up the path to our
cabin, crying out for my father, for he was a violent man. And a violent
scene followed. They remained for a long time within the house, and
when they came out the wagoner's face was red with rage. My father,
too, was angry, but no more talkative than usual.
"Ye say ye'll not help the Congress?" shouted the wagoner.
"I'll not," said my father.
"Ye'll live to rue this day, Alec Trimble," cried the man. "Ye may think
ye're too fine for the likes of us, but there's them in the settlement that
knows about ye."
With that he flung himself on his horse, and rode away. But the next
time I went to the Cross-Roads the woman drove me away with curses,
and called me an aristocrat. Wearily I tramped back the dozen miles up

the creek, beside the mare, carrying my pelts with me; stumbling on the
stones, and scratched by the dry briers. For it was autumn, the woods
all red and yellow against the green of the pines. I sat down beside the
old beaver dam to gather courage to tell my father. But he only smiled
bitterly when he heard it. Nor would he tell me what the word
ARISTOCRAT meant.
That winter we spent without bacon, and our salt gave out at Christmas.
It was at this season, if I remember rightly, that we had another visitor.
He arrived about nightfall