f Tennessee, and the tenth year of its age, _as_ a State.

The summer was over, the harvests ripe, the year growing ruddy. Down
in the cotton fields the balls had begun to burst, and the "hands,"
with their great baskets, to trudge all day down the long rows,
singing in that dreamy, dolefully musical way which belongs alone to
the tongue of the Southern slaves and to the Southern cotton fields.
Across the fields, and the rich, old clover bottoms that formed a part
of the Hermitage farm, the buzz of a cotton gin could be distinctly
heard, adding its own peculiar note to the music of Southern nature.

A cotton gin! it was a rare possession in those days, and General
Jackson's was known from Nashville to New Orleans. Indeed, the whole
of the previous year's crop had not yet been disposed of. The great
bales were heaped about, waiting for the flat-boats that would carry
them up the Cumberland, down the Ohio and the Mississippi, and land
them at the great New Orleans market. A slow trip for the bulky bales.
Could they have foreseen the time when the tedious river's journey
would be shortened to one day's run over a steel track, what must the
big bales have thought! And those gigantic heaps of cotton seed which
all the cows in the county could not have consumed, could they have
"peered into the future" and found themselves in the _lard cans_! The
old gin would have groaned aloud could it have known that it was
buzzing itself into history as surely as was the tall, spare, erect
man coming across the field in the late afternoon to see that the
day's work was well done.

What a heroic figure! and a face that even in youth bore the impress
of a man marked by destiny for daring deeds. Imperious in temper,
majestic in courage, and unyielding in will, he was one born to lay
hold of fate and _bend_ it to his desires. Yet, there was a timidity
in the eye which no _danger_ could make quail. And when down the lane
there came the clatter of horses' hoofs striking the hard, dry earth,
and with the horses a vision of long, dark skirts waving like black
banners in the breeze made by the hurrying steeds, the owner of the
cotton gin stepped within and beyond the vision of the lady visitors.

But they were not to be out-generaled even by a general; and straight
up to the gin the horses were headed.

"General Jackson," one of the ladies--there were but two--called to
the timid hero who had run away at her approach. Instantly he
appeared. H