career. She knew the
peculiar character of some of her neighbors--how lightly _meum_ and
_tuum_ sat upon their fears or consciences--but she kept no guard except
her own good gray eyes and dauntless heart over that accumulating pile
of little sixpences, for there was but one spirit as bold as she in all
this region of the world--"

"And that, I reckon," observed Jimmy Phoebus, "was ole Patty Cannon
herself."

Mr. Jacob Cannon slightly bowed his head, and spoke aloud from an inner
communion:

"Forgive me, mother, that I make the comparison! Thy frugal oil, that
burned with pure and lonely widow's flame at Cannon's Ferry window, the
traveller hailed with comfort in his heart, and blessed the enterprise.
But to compound the equation another unknown quantity of female force
arose beside my mother's lamp. A certain young Cannon, distantly of our
stock, must needs go see the world, and he returned with a fair demon of
a bride, and settled, too, at Cannon's Ferry. He lived to see the
wondrous serpent he had warmed in his arms, and died, they say, of the
sting. But she lived on, and, shrinking back into the woods to a little
farm my mother's sons rented to her, she lighted there a
Jack-o'-the-lantern many a traveller has pursued who never returned to
tell. With Ebenezer Johnson's progeny and her own siren sisters, who
followed Madame Cannon to the Nanticoke, the nucleus of a settlement
began, and has existed for twenty years, that only the Almighty's
_venire facias_ can explore."[2]

"That's my arrand, Jacob Cannon," quietly remarked Jimmy Phoebus. "I'm
a pore man from Prencess Anne. If you took me for a nigger-dealer you
did me as pore a compliment as when I asked if you was Patty Cannon's
kin. But I have got just one gal to love and just one life to lose, an'
if God takes me thar, I'm a-goin' to Johnson's Cross-roads."

Mr. Jacob Cannon turned and examined his companion with some twinkling
care, but showed no personal concern.

"Every man must be his own security, my dark-skinned friend, till he can
find a bailsman. That place I never take--neither the debtor's nor the
security. The firm of Isaac and Jacob Cannon allows no trespass, and
further concern themselves not. But we are at the Nanticoke."

"I'm obliged to you for the lift, Mr. Jacob Cannon," said Jimmy,
springing down, "and hope you may never find it inconvenient to have let
such a pack of wolves use your neighborhood to trespass on human natur."

CH