member of the
Legislature, should acquire, were the meaning of the words government
and judiciary. By adroit questioning and fixed thought, he ere long
stored up those intellectual treasures. Though with but little capacity
to obtain knowledge from books, he became an earnest student of the
ideas of his fellow-legislators as elicited in conversation or debate.
Quite a heavy disaster, just at this time, came upon Crockett. We must
again quote his own words, for it is our wish, in this volume, to give
the reader a correct idea of the man. Whatever Crockett says, ever
comes fresh from his heart. He writes:

"About this time I met with a very severe misfortune, which I may be
pardoned for naming, as it made a great change in my circumstances, and
kept me back very much in the world. I had built an extensive
grist-mill and powder-mill, all connected together, and also a large
distillery. They had cost me upward of three thousand dollars; more
than I was worth in the world. The first news that I heard, after I got
to the Legislature, was that my mills were all swept to smash by a
large freshet that came soon after I left home.

"I had, of course, to stop my distillery, as my grinding was broken up.
And indeed I may say that the misfortune just made a complete mash of
me. I had some likely negroes, and a good stock of almost everything
about me, and, best of all, I had an honest wife. She didn't advise me,
as is too fashionable, to smuggle up this, and that, and t'other, to go
on at home. But she told me, says she, 'Just pay up as long as you have
a bit's worth in the world; and then everybody will be satisfied, and
we will scuffle for more.'

"This was just such talk as I wanted to hear, for a man's wife can hold
him devilish uneasy if she begins to scold and fret, and perplex him,
at a time when he has a full load for a railroad car on his mind
already. And so, you see, I determined not to break full-handed, but
thought it better to keep a good conscience with an empty purse, than
to get a bad opinion of myself with a full one. I therefore gave up all
I had, and took a bran-fire new start."

Crockett's legislative career was by no means brilliant, but
characteristic. He was the fun-maker of the house, and, like Falstaff,
could boast that he was not only witty himself, but the cause of wit in
others. His stories were irresistibly comic; but they almost always
contained expressions of profanity or coarseness which renders