d gentleman died there were eight
sons and two daughters among whom his estate was to be divided, and some
of them had to choose between moving west and facing the terrors of
battle with nature in the wilderness, and remaining in North Carolina to
become "poor white trash." Tom Bays, Sr., had married Margarita,
daughter of a pompous North Carolinian, Judge Anselm Fisher. Whether he
was a real judge, or simply a "Kentucky judge," I cannot say; but he was
a man of good standing, and his daughter was not the woman to endure the
loss of caste at home. If compelled to step down from the social
position into which she had been born, the step must be taken among
strangers, that part at least of her humiliation might be avoided.

With a heart full of sorrow and determination, Madam Bays, who even then
had begun to manifest rare genius for leadership, loaded two "schooners"
with her household goods, her husband, her son, and her daughter, and
started northwest with the laudable purpose of losing herself in the
wilderness. They carried with them their inheritance, a small bag of gold,
and with it they purchased from the government a quarter-section--one
hundred and sixty acres--of land, at five shillings per acre. The land
on Blue was as rich and fertile as any the world could furnish; but for
miles upon miles it was covered with black forests, almost impenetrable to
man, and was infested by wild beasts and Indians. Here madam and her
husband began their long battle with the hardest of foes--nature; and
that battle, the terrors of which no one can know who has not fought it,
doubtless did much to harden the small portion of human tenderness with
which God had originally endowed her. They built their log-cabin on the
east bank of Blue River, one mile north of the town of the same name.
The river was spoken of simply as Blue.

Artistic beauty is not usually considered an attribute of log-cabins;
but I can testify to the beauty of many that stood upon the banks of
Blue,--among them the house of Bays. The main building consisted of two
ground-floor rooms, each with a front door and a half-story room above.
A clapboard-covered porch extended across the entire front of the house,
which faced westward toward Blue. Back of the main building was a
one-story kitchen, and adjoining each ground-floor room was a huge
chimney, built of small logs four to six inches in diameter. These
chimneys, thickly plastered on the inside with clay, were bu