s home to me. I was going back to Polly Ann and
Tom, and visions of that home-coming rose before my eyes as I rode. In
a packet in my saddle-bags were some dozen letters which Mr. Wrenn, the
schoolmaster at Harrodstown, had writ at Polly Ann's bidding. I have the
letters yet. For Mr. Wrenn was plainly an artist, and had set down on
the paper the words just as they had flowed from her heart. Ay, and
there was news in the letters, though not surprising news among those
pioneer families whom God blessed so abundantly. Since David Ritchie
McChesney (I mention the name with pride) had risen above the
necessities of a bark cradle, two more had succeeded him, a brother
and a sister. I spurred my horse onward, and thought impatiently of the
weary leagues between my family and me.

I have often pictured myself on that journey. I was twenty-one years
of age, though one would have called me older. My looks were nothing to
boast of, and I was grown up tall and weedy, so that I must have made
quite a comical sight, with my long legs dangling on either side of the
pony. I wore a suit of gray homespun, and in my saddle-bags I carried
four precious law books, the stock in trade which my generous patron had
given me. But as I mounted the slopes of the mountains my spirits rose
too at the prospect of the life before me. The woods were all aflame
with color, with wine and amber and gold, and the hills wore the misty
mantle of shadowy blue so dear to my youthful memory. As I left the rude
taverns of a morning and jogged along the heights, I watched the vapors
rise and troll away from the valleys far beneath, and saw great flocks
of ducks and swans and cackling geese darkening the air in their
southward flight. Strange that I fell in with no company, for the trail
leading into the Tennessee country was widened and broadened beyond
belief, and everywhere I came upon blackened fires and abandoned
lean-tos, and refuse bones gnawed by the wolves and bleached by the
weather. I slept in some of these lean-tos, with my fire going brightly,
indifferent to the howl of wolves in chase or the scream of a panther
pouncing on its prey. For I was born of the wilderness. It had no
terrors for me, nor did I ever feel alone. The great cliffs with their
clinging, gnarled trees, the vast mountains clothed in the motley colors
of the autumn, the sweet and smoky smell of the Indian summer,--all were
dear to me.

As I drew near to Jonesboro my thoughts began to