and I used ter
believe him. He allowed there 'ud be bloody battles before it happened,
but he held that the country had grown up and couldn't be kept much
longer in short clothes. He had a power of larning about things that
happened to folks long ago called Creeks and Rewmans that pinted that
way, he said. But he held that when we had fought our way quit of
England, we was in for a bigger and bloodier fight among ourselves. I
mind his very words. 'Dan'l,' he says, 'this is the biggest and best
slice of the world which we Americans has struck, and for fifty years
or more, maybe, we'll be that busy finding out what we've got that we'll
have no time to quarrel. But there's going to come a day, if Ameriky s
to be a great nation, when she'll have to sit down and think and make up
her mind about one or two things. It won't be easy, for she won't have
the eddication or patience to think deep, and there'll be plenty selfish
and short-sighted folk that won't think at all. I reckon she'll have
to set her house in order with a hickory stick. But if she wins through
that all right, she'll be a country for our children to be proud of and
happy in.'"

"Children? Has he any belongings?" Squire Boone

Daniel looked puzzled. "I've heerd it said he had a wife, though he
never telled nie of her."

"I've seed her," Neely put in. "She was one of Jake Early's daughters up
to Walsing Springs. She didn't live no more than a couple of years after
they was wed. She left a gal behind her, a mighty finelooking gal.
They tell me she's married on young Abe Hanks, I did hear that Abe was
thinking of coming west, but them as told me allowed that Abe hadn't
got the right kinder wife for the Border. Polly Hanker they called her,
along of her being Polly Hanks, and likewise wantin' more than other
folks had to get along with. See?"

This piece of news woke Daniel Boone to attention. "Tell me about Jim's
gal," he demanded.

"Pretty as a peach," said Neely "Small, not higher nor Abe's shoulder,
and as light on her feet as a deer. She had a softish laughing look in
her eyes that made the lads wild for her. But she wasn't for them and I
reckon she wasn't for Abe neither. She was nicely eddicated, though she
had jest had field-schooling like the rest, for her dad used to read
books and tell her about 'em. One time he took her to Richmond for
the better part of a winter, where she larned dancing and music. The
neighbours allowed that turned her head. Ye