her, mother and children,--complete the furnishings of
the apartment, which is parlor, sitting-room, dining-room, and bedroom
all in one.

My little queen was evidently proud of her throne-room, and noted with
satisfaction my interest in the Family Record. When I had paid her
for butter and eggs, at retail rates, she threw in an extra egg, and,
despite my protests, would have Charley take the pail out to the cow,
"for an extra squirt or two, for good measure!"

I was bidding them all good-bye, and the queen was pressing me to come
again in the morning "fer more stuff, ef ye 'lowed yew wanted any,"
when the mother of the little brood appeared from over the fields,
where she had been to carry water to her lord. A fair, intelligent,
rather fine-looking woman, but barefooted like the rest; from her neck
behind, dangled a red sunbonnet, and a sunny-haired child of five was
in her arms--"sort o' weak in her lungs, poor thing!" she sadly said,
as I snapped my fingers at the smiling tot. I tarried a moment with
the good mother, as, sitting upon the porch, she serenely smiled upon
her children, whose eyes were now lit with responsive love; and I
wondered if there were not some romance hidden here, whereby a dash of
gentler blood had through this sweet-tempered woman been infused into
the coarse clay of the bottom.

[Footnote A: Notably, Ashe's _Travels_; but Palmer, while saying that
"they are the only obstruction to the navigation of the Ohio, except
the rapids at Louisville," declares them to be of slight difficulty,
and, referring to Ashe's account, says, "Like great part of his book,
it is all romance."]

[Footnote B: The last buffalo on record, in the Upper Ohio region, was
killed in the Great Kanawha Valley, a dozen miles from Charleston,
W. Va., in 1815. Five years later, in the same vicinity, was killed
probably the last elk seen east of the Ohio.]

CHAPTER XI.

Battle of Point Pleasant--The story of
Gallipolis--Rosebud--Huntington--The genesis of a
house-boater.

Near Glenwood, W. Va., Thursday, May 17th.--By eight o'clock this
morning we were in Point Pleasant, W. Va., at the mouth of the Great
Kanawha River (263 miles). Celoron was here, the eighteenth of August,
1749, and on the east bank of the river, the site of the present
village, buried at the foot of an elm one of his leaden plates
asserting the claim of France to the Ohio basin. Ninety-seven years
later, a boy unearthed this inter