nto their wild
heads. I have a commission for you at Jonesboro, in what was once the
unspeakable State of Franklin. You can stop there on your way to
Kentucky." He drew from his pocket a great bulky letter, addressed to
"Thomas Wright, Esquire, Barrister-at-law in Jonesboro, North Carolina."
For the good gentleman could not bring himself to write Franklin.

It was late in September of the year 1788 when I set out on my homeward
way--for Kentucky was 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 l