Voices; Birth-Marks; The Man and the Elephant Part 21

On the Sunday before they left Dorothy and John rode horseback to c.u.mberland Gap; where, tying their horses in a dense copse of pawpaw bushes, fearing they might otherwise be stolen, they climbed to the Pinnacle overlooking the valleys on either side of the range.

The path to the Pinnacle was as old as man in America. The outcropping layers of stone, which made a rough natural stairway, in places was worn deep by the Indians and those who before them had trod its windings and on the highest point built their signal fires. Now white settlers coming through the Gap, mounted to the summit by the same trail and looked over the Valley and the lesser mountains to the northward into the land of promise; and then back the way they had come towards their old home.

"Dorothy, when you visit a place like this do you take in the view as you climb? I do not like to raise my eyes from the path until I reach the top; therefore I see first the footworn stones, which have the polish of a floor worn smooth by countless feet, though this path's surface is worn by the feet of uncounted generations.

"When I first come upon a peak, which like this over-towers its fellows, in thought I always entreat: Speak, gray mountain head! You know the past, which to me is speechless! Do not thy members reach inward to the spirit of the mountain, which like a great beast of burden has lain asleep for a million years, yet has a heart of life? Tell of those who have gone before; of the sun wors.h.i.+ppers, who from your apex, making of an attribute a G.o.d, have glorified the day, G.o.d's first creation; of the Indians, creatures of the forest shade, as silent as its shadows; who, coming into the bright light of your summit, from this wider vista, have felt more completely the power and dignity of G.o.d and lacking a better name have called him the Great Spirit; of the white man, the servant of ten talents, who, having bitten deeper into the fruit of the tree of knowledge and knowing the true G.o.d, must be lifted in spirit above the earth and things earthly as from this altar he looks out and sees that which though of the earth is not earthly, and things above which though of the heavens are not heavenly. When I go into the high places of the mountains I feel I am led of the Spirit that I may be near the Lord and receive from Him my commandments. Such places are either shrines of wors.h.i.+p, or sanctuaries where G.o.d abides.

"I look out and at first view see the earth below, the tree and mountain tops, the clouds, the azure under-pinions of the everlasting wings; then, if my thoughts are clear as crystal, the veil may be rent, and I may see His face through a haze of glory.

"Dorothy, when you come as today, I feel that you too are led of the Spirit and that our spirits in unison offer praise to G.o.d. I am glad that mind and spirit are in communion and I recall that G.o.d hath said that man shall not travel the way alone and hath made for each his helpmate. If you are not to be, G.o.d hath not yet shown her face to me in life or dream; nor has fancy painted any other or fairer vision than thy sweet face."

"John, I do not see all this. Below I see the green and gray and brown of earth, except off in the valley the silver thread-like rivulet. When I lift my eyes towards the sun I see only the clouds and the sky. That is all; though my face is fanned and my hair tousled by the south wind that whispers to me. Do you hear what the south wind says? You have never tousled it, John, except when as little children we played together; never so much as caught a b.u.t.ton of your coat in a stray strand and only the wind has played sweetheart and kissed my face. Oh!

You need not move over. But when you were at William and Mary's and I climbed to John Calvin Rock-I like the name-you are not tempest-tossed like other men, but sail a stormless sea or ride too deep for tossing-and looked out upon the valley, I always saw the same, allowing for change of season and sky. But when I closed my eyes, I looked through the peep hole of the old part.i.tion and saw a little boy in homespun of oak-bark brown-and when I said ''ittle boy peek through,' he would not peek, but sat on the church bench as a thing of bronze, doubtless greatly shocked at my frivolity. Then the same little fellow took me to the mountain top and showed me the valley and the kingdom of men below; and talked of things I did not understand, as he continues to do. Again it was the same little boy who was the knight of my first adventure, and without a show of fear wiped away my tears. Then we came to live in the Valley and he was my nearest neighbor and, though my own age, taught me more than the master. I have long since given up hope of escape from him. Why has it always been the same little boy?-because it is going to be the same man, John. Oh, John! John!" And her eyes were filled with tears and John wiped them away.

That night John met Captain Fairfax as he was returning from looking after his horses, which had been grain-fed preparatory to continuing their journey in the morning; and without preliminary, as was his way, asked for his daughter.

The Captain, taken by surprise, as bluntly declined. Then ashamed of his bluntness, explained: "You know Dorothy is of gentle birth as are you on your father's side. Your mother's people for generations have been preachers or teachers, they are of an old family though not of the n.o.bility, and she is as good a woman as ever lived. My objection is not to your family; and I know you would make Dorothy a good husband; but you have been educated for and expect to be a Presbyterian minister. As such you will not make a living sufficient to support Dorothy. Your father and I are no longer rich men, having given all except our lands to the cause of the Colonists. I am a Presbyterian, but I want Dorothy to marry a lawyer, or a planter-not a minister. I doubt if a minister in this new country should marry; he is almost a creature of charity. If you will go to Lexington or Danville and practice law or to the 'cane country' and with your father's and my help buy a thousand acres and improve it, in two or three years I will give my consent. If not, in my opinion, you should remain unmarried. It is the church or Dorothy for your bride. Son, it is up to you."

John did not answer but walked out into the night.

When Captain Fairfax went into the partly finished house and told his wife what had occurred, she burst into tears and upbraided him for showing an unchristian spirit, saying: "No good will result from your decision. John is just the husband I would have chosen for Dorothy. I had hoped that they would marry."

She left the room, looking for Dorothy and sent her to find John.

Though the moon was full and one could see quite distinctly it was sometime before she found him in the shadow of a great elm near the creek. She came up as though it were accidental.

"Why in the shadow and so pensive when we were so happy today? Let us walk in the moonlight or sit on that great rock at the head of the riffle and watch the moonbeams play with the running water."

John, before answering, took her by the hand and led her to a seat on the great boulder. Then he said: "Your father refuses. He looks at the matter from a different view point and his may be the correct one.

Whether he or I am right rests with you; not upon your decision but your nature. If we do not marry it may mean a happier life for you, though for me a necessary sacrifice. I offer very little more than my love and fidelity; offsetting this, as he puts it, is a life of privation, hards.h.i.+p and sacrifice-if service can be so called. What he expects for you to have is what you have been brought up to expect-and I can never give."

"John, I love life and joy and gayety but I also love helping others. I love serving G.o.d; but as a king should be served, with praise and thankfulness. I think a song of thanksgiving is as divine wors.h.i.+p as tears of penitence, though each in order. If you will wait, and you and I are but twenty, in time he will come around to mother's and my way of thinking. We run the Captain, though he is often victor in the preliminary skirmish. Mother said she had always expected me to be your wife and I have never thought of any one else for a husband."

An hour later they came to the house chatting happily; Dorothy having convinced John that her happiness was dependent upon their marriage; and that before the end of another year Captain Fairfax would give his consent.

John and Richard rode with the Fairfaxes and the Clarks to the ford of the c.u.mberland and after farewells and many promises of extended visits, left them to continue their journey over the Wilderness Trail to Logan Station; and they returned home.

Two years pa.s.sed before John saw Dorothy again, though he wrote her many letters sending them by travelers from Virginia to the settlements. He received fewer than he sent, as the travel was mainly to and not from the settlements.

Colonel Campbell, his son, their one servant and Richard Cameron were kept busy through the fall and winter completing their buildings, foraging for grain and roughness for their cattle, more than thirty head, and making necessary clearings for the spring crops. There was not a great deal of clearing, as they used the meadow of nearly a hundred acres across the creek, from which the Indians by their repeated fires had years before burned off the timber to make pasture land for buffalo.

More than half of this, after being cleared of briars and bush growth, they expected to cultivate in corn. John and the servants were a.s.signed to this work while Colonel Campbell and Richard attended to the cattle and other duties. Their work was somewhat r.e.t.a.r.ded by immigrants, who, coming through the gap, stopped overnight, sometimes longer, at Campbell's Station, as the place from the first was called. Several traders made a proposition to Colonel Campbell to open a tavern; which he declined, although it was an excellent place for one.

Their life was a rude and busy one. The days were given to great physical labor, particularly during that first winter. Under it and the plain wholesome diet of meat, corn bread, milk and dried fruits, John thrived and grew muscular and broad of shoulder.

The windows of their house were without gla.s.s and there were many crevices between the logs, but the great fireplaces were heaped with seasoned logs, which burned through the night and which as they burned out were replaced by John; though an oak or hickory one occasionally taxed even his strength.

From the ingoing settlers they procured small quant.i.ties of flour, grain and tea, voluntarily exchanged or offered for their entertainment; as Colonel Campbell always refused to charge a guest.

Late in the fall two other families settled in the Valley and increased their colony by eight persons. One of these was a girl nearly John's age; who when she saw him cast her vote in favor of the valley location.

The first of December two young men with a pack horse, delayed by a severe snow storm, were employed by the Colonel to help with the work of clearing and plowing the meadow and remained until the following April.

One of them carried off as his bride the girl, who first only had eyes for John; but when he did not respond to her advances, named him the "Moon Calf," saying: "His mind is in the moon or some other planet."

By the first of June the Campbells had more than forty acres planted to corn and Richard about fifteen acres. Twenty acres of the meadow had been fenced for a hay field and the balance with some open woodland had been made into a pasture. The summer was a fine one for their crops, rain and sun as needed; and when the corn was shocked in the fall the station had much the appearance of an old plantation.

After a year in Yellow Creek valley, Richard Cameron sold his place and moved to the blue gra.s.s. There he bought a large boundary of land, became a successful planter, having given up the ministry. In his old age he was sent to congress from his district. He died a rich man.

CHAPTER XII.-Raise Us Up, Oh Lord.

The work of tending the corn fell to John and a single servant. As it was done with a bull-tongue plow and with hoes it was no easy job; but it was well done, as its green thriftiness and fresh, healthy night odor bore witness. After it was laid by the workers pa.s.sed into the meadow, and with their blades in the slow, olden way, mowed the twenty acres of gra.s.sland. Under a sultry mid-summer sun they moved forward, step and stroke in unison, sometimes humming in concert. At the end of each cross section, they rested and whetted their blades and the noise was in key with the rasping song of the harvest fly.

After the hay was stacked in four great ricks near the barn, they worked a week getting in the winter wood; and then ten days in repairing the fences, which in places a deer or straying buffalo had tossed aside with his horns and in splitting walnut and chestnut rails to extend the woodland pasture, which had to be enlarged as the flocks grew. If the cattle and sheep ran at large they strayed into the mountains and were eaten by timber wolves and bears. By the time this was done it was the first of October; the corn was ripe; the heavy ears had dropped over to protect the hardening grain from the fall rains; and the ripening blades rustled in the wind, which bore a message of coming frost. For three weeks John was busy pulling fodder and shocking and husking the corn, which work lacerated and hardened his hands.

He was working on the last row of shocks, when Michael Stoner, a one-time companion scout with Kenton, but now trader, traveling to Virginia to return in the spring with a pack train of goods, handed him a letter from Dorothy. Scarcely waiting for John to thank him, much less answer questions as to friends in the cane-brake country, he hastened on to join his companions, yet in sight, near the foot of the Gap.

The evening of the day they finished shucking and housing the corn, the fall rains set in. They were ready for winter; and John should have been enjoying the sleepy quietude that follows hard physical labor; but never before had his parents seen him so restless and disquieted. The poise of the sober, dreamy John was disturbed.

Dorothy's letter had done it. He had carried it for several days and read it many times. Ashamed to let his mother see him do so again, he walked to the creek and would have climbed out upon the great boulder where they sat the night before she left but the swift, swollen stream intervened. Then he read the letter again; and stamping his foot with vexation, tore it into fragments and cast them forth upon the yellow stream.

She wrote: "* * * Father leaves Danville for Boston the first of November, taking me with him. I am to remain and attend a finis.h.i.+ng school for young ladies, making my home for the winter with Aunt Mildred and Uncle John. Father will remain but a few days.

"He has become quite intimate with General Wilkinson, who makes our home his headquarters whenever he comes to Danville. He seems to like me; though he is not the sort of man I would ever fancy. He came to Kentucky in 1784; has a large store in Lexington and a small plantation on the Town Fork of Elkhorn Creek; is more than thirty years old, is short and fat, though elegant and fastidious in appearance, with a bland and courteous manner, an easy address and his general manner uphold his t.i.tle, which was conferred upon him for distinguished service at Saratoga.

"Recently he has obtained a permit from Governor Miro, of Louisiana, to transport tobacco by river to New Orleans, where it is bought at a good price by the Spanish Government. Father is acting as one of his purchasing agents and can talk of nothing else except the General and the prospect of wealth that is presented to us because of this business connection.

"I do not like the spirit that pervades his talks with father. He does not seem to have any love for Virginia and little regard or patriotism for the Union. He is one of the leaders of what is spoken of as the Court Party; and he, father, Judge Sebastian and Colonel Harry Innes, with several other men I do not know, meet at our house. One is a Spaniard, Don Pedro Wouver d'Arges; and they treat him with great deference.

"From what I gather, they advocate immediate severance of Kentucky from Virginia as an independent state; and declare that unless the federal government will protect them from the Indians of the Northwest territory and procure an open market by river to New Orleans for their tobacco and other surplus produce, Kentucky, having nothing to gain by remaining in the union of states had better become a province of Spanish Louisiana; as only in that way can we enjoy free navigation of the Mississippi and trade privileges with New Orleans, our only market. They say the original thirteen states oppose free navigation, as it diverts trade from the Atlantic; and when we say trade between us and the Atlantic is impossible, they talk of building ca.n.a.ls connecting the Potomac and the Ohio.

"General Wilkinson has told father that should Kentucky become a Spanish province, he will use his influence to procure his appointment as commander of the military forces or as governor.

"It is at his suggestion that I am being sent to Boston. He has persuaded father that such an aristocrat as poor, little, insignificant Dorothy, must be educated in accord with her prospective station. When he left, I mentioned to father that I expected to marry you, at which he flew into a pa.s.sion and said: 'Not while I am alive shall you marry a mountain preacher; if he wants you let him first come down here and live like a man.' I left the room. He and mother quarreled for some time because she took out part. He seems a different man since we left Jackson River. There he was deacon of the church; now he never goes to church.

"If you wish to see your Dorothy as much as she longs for a sight of her John, you must come to Danville before the first of November. * * *"

John stood for a long time looking down the trail that led northward to Danville and the cane-brake country; then he saddled his horse and took the trail in the opposite direction to the Gap. Having tied his horse at the foot of the path leading to the Pinnacle, he climbed to the apex of the peak, as at the old home he climbed John Calvin Rock when mentally disturbed.

It was a stormy day; heavy, black, threatening clouds rode the northwest wind. Only at rare intervals did the sun break through; yet from his aerie, always, somewhere to the north or south, a sunbeam found a rift and bathed in golden glory the red and brown foliage of a portion of the great forest; which from where he sat, seemed to cover the earth, save the little clearing round their station. Today as always from the Pinnacle, the earth's upturned face, marked by rift and shadow, presented a new, though a kindly and varied expression.

In such alt.i.tudes and surroundings, John had always been able to unravel the mesh that bound his mind, recover his poise and deliver his spirit; though today the struggle was long and fierce.