Part 2

In Davy’s time there were no jam closets for him to rob, for the cupboard was always empty, except for the great loaves of bread that were baked from corn and rye. Everything being devoured as fast as it was cooked, none of the boy’s time was taken up with watching the pantry, and his time was his own. If there happened to be such neighborhood events as corn-huskin’s, ’lasses-b’ilin’s, log-rollin’s, bean-stringin’s, or butter-stirrin’s, which still prevail in the mountains, there was a respite for his victims. Upon one occasion, when his parents had gone to a corn-husking, Davy and one of his brothers, with another boy, rounded up all the hogs that were fattening on beech-nuts in the woods, penned them up, cut off their tails, and let them go. It was some weeks later when their villainy was detected. They were forced to confess that they were guilty, and that the tails had been roasted in hot ashes and eaten. Such mild pastimes as robbing birds’ nests were diversified by practical jokes on the travelling public, and many a beating fell to the lot of the Crockett boys. One of the tricks they played was to take the calves away from their bovine mothers after dark. This meant all-night bawling, and human wakefulness, until the cows were united with the lost offspring. If Elisha had lived in the Tennessee mountains, the bears would have been busy all the time.

When Davy was twelve, in 1798, he had become a strong and useful lad, with a fully developed conscience. The wishes of his parents were the only law he had known, and when at last the time came when his father said to him, as Saul to him of old, “David, go, and the Lord be with thee,” he went forth as a pilgrim. It is not certain with what words he was sent forth, but he seems to have made no appeal from the bargain that sent him four hundred miles over the mountains, on foot, in the keeping of a stranger. Perhaps he had come to know that his father found it hard to feed so many mouths. At any rate, he took up the long march with an old German, Jacob Siler, who was bound to Virginia with a herd of cattle, where he proposed to remain. How many have read with sympathy and keen appreciation Davy’s simple story of his departure “with a heavy heart,” perhaps never to return!

Siler treated the boy kindly, and paid him five or six dollars for his help. When he reached the end of his journey, he tried to persuade Davy to stay with him. At first Davy thought it his father’s wish that he should remain, so for some weeks he tried to be content; but the yearning to see his family again was strong within him. One day, as he was playing in the road, there came along three familiar faces, those of a man named Dunn and two sons, each with a good team. The sight of them was like a sight of home, for they were bound to Knoxville, and the way led past the lowly Crockett inn, and Davy was soon telling his plight to sympathetic listeners. As his disappearance in the daytime would soon be known and might result in his being brought back, they told him that if he could get to the place where they were to put up for the night, seven miles away, they would take him home. All the tiresome journey there, Davy had come on foot, and at the prospect of riding all the way back, heaven opened before him.

To his delight, he found that the “good old Dutchman and his family” had gone to a neighbor’s. Davy’s own story of what followed is this:

“I gathered my clothes and what little money I had, and put them all together under the head of my bed. I went to bed early that night, but I could not sleep. For though I was a wild boy, yet I dearly loved my father and mother, and I could not sleep for thinking of them. And then the fear that I should be discovered and called to a halt filled me with anxiety: and between my childish love of home, on the one hand, and the fears of which I have spoken, on the other, I felt mighty queer.”

It was three hours before daylight when Davy crawled out of his bed. He got away from the house without waking any one, and found it snowing hard, eight inches having already fallen. In the absence of moonlight, it was a difficult matter to reach the main highway, half a mile off; but once in that, he steered his way towards the place appointed, guided by the opening made through the woods. He was two hours trudging through snow up to his knees, and as his tracks were covered as fast as they were made, the Siler family must have wondered at his disappearance.

Davy found the Dunns up and feeding their teams, and was kindly received. As he warmed himself by the fire, he forgot his struggle with the storm in his thankfulness for their goodness and help. As soon as breakfast was over, the wagoners set out, and the boy found himself counting the seemingly endless miles of the homeward journey. When they reached the Roanoke valley, his desire to get home was too great for him to endure the slow progress of the loaded wagons. He could travel twice as fast afoot, so at the house of John Cole, on the Roanoke, he thanked his kind friends for what they had done for him, and started out alone on what must have been a tramp of three hundred miles.

He was near the first crossing of the river in a few hours, and dreaded it, as he would have to wade or swim to the other side, in water that was very cold. Then he heard the clatter of horses’ feet behind him, and a cheery hail from a man who was returning from where he had sold some stock. He had an extra horse, saddled and bridled, and as he had also a soft spot in his heart for boys, in a moment Davy was mounted, as proud as a king. In this way he travelled until within fifteen miles of home, when he went his way on foot, full of gratitude towards the stranger for his goodness towards a “poor little straggling boy.”

III.

DAVY TAKES TO THE WOODS

Davy is welcomed home――A school-house in the mountains――He makes an enemy――Wildcat style of fighting――Davy takes to the woods――John Crockett cuts a stout hickory switch――Davy is off for Virginia again――He goes to Baltimore――The clippers and the privateer――Prevented from sailing for London――He leaves his self-appointed guardian and starts for home――He crosses New River through slush ice――The trail in spring――A strange boy at the family table――“It’s Davy come home!”

Davy reached his father’s inn the same night, and his welcome may be imagined. It was late in the fall, and he lived at home until the red flames of the sumac and the poison oak were again fiery spots and streaks upon the hills. Then John Crockett took it into his head to send the boy to a school near-by. A rude log cabin, with benches hewn from logs and a floor of earth, offered its single room to those who came. A great slab of wood, three feet wide, and standing on hickory stakes, reached across the room, and was used as a table for the scholars. “Readin’, spellin’ an’ cipherin’” were the principal studies. Writing, of course, was taught, but the quill pens and poor ink they had to use were as hard to get as was paper, and the blackboard seldom made a penman of an awkward lad.

On the fourth day Davy spent in school he had an altercation with a boy larger and older than he. When the children were dismissed, Davy hid in the bushes and waited for his enemy. As the boy was passing the ambush, Davy “set on him like a wildcat, scratched his face to a flitter-jig, and made him cry for quarter in good earnest.”

Young Crockett was now in a bad fix, for he knew there was a flogging in store for him. The next day, and for several days, he left home in the morning, ostensibly for school, but spent the time in the woods, until the children went home. His brothers attended the same school, but he had persuaded them to say nothing of his “playing hooky.” When the schoolmaster wrote to John Crockett, telling him of Davy’s absence, the whole story came out.

“I was in an awful hobble,” Davy wrote of this, “for my father was in a condition to make the fur fly. He called on me to tell why I had not been to school. I told him that I was afraid to go, for I knew I should be cooked up to a cracklin’ in no time. My father told me, in a very angry manner, that he would whip me an eternal sight worse if I didn’t start at once to school.”

While Davy was begging not to be sent back, the elder Crockett was cutting a stout hickory switch, and from past experience the boy knew what this meant. At his father’s first move towards him, he broke into a run. The chase lasted a mile, when the boy dodged aside into the bushes, and his father then gave up the hunt. Davy had been careful to lead off in a course away from the school-house, having a keen idea of his fate if both the teacher and his father should get him at the same time.

Fearing to return, Davy kept on for several miles and put up for the night at the house of a man who was about to start for Virginia with a drove of cattle. The boy at once hired out to go with him, and before starting one of the older Crockett boys joined them. Thus was Davy again a pilgrim, with a journey of nearly four hundred miles before him. The trail they followed was probably about the same as the route of the Norfolk & Western Railroad of the present time, through Abingdon, Wytheville, and Blue Ridge Springs, to Lynchburg, passing south of Hanging Rock, to which place Davy had travelled the previous year. From Lynchburg the drove went on to Charlottesville and Orange Court House, up the headwaters of the Rapidan, again through the Blue Ridge Mountains, to Front Royal, on the Shenandoah River, where the stock was sold.

Davy and a brother of the man with whom he had started out, with a single horse for the two, now took the homeward trail. They were together three days, travelling with so little rest that the boy finally told the man to go ahead, and that he would come when he got ready. He bought some provisions with four dollars that the man had given him for the four hundred miles’ journey, and plodded stolidly along until he met a wagoner who lived in Tennessee, and who intended to return after his trip was finished. He was bound for Winchester, not very far away, and as he was a jolly sort of fellow, Davy gladly accepted his offer to take him along. Two days later they met Davy’s brother and the rest of the former party, but Davy refused to go with them. He says that he could not help shedding tears, as he watched his brother disappear, but the thought of the schoolmaster, and of his angry father with the big hickory switch, was too potent.

At Gerardstown, Virginia, Davy worked for twenty-five cents a day for a man named John Gray. Adam Myers, the wagoner, was engaged all winter in hauling loads to and from Baltimore. When spring came, Davy had money to buy decent clothes, and something like seven dollars besides. He took it into his head that he would go with Myers to Baltimore, to see what kind of place it was, and how people lived there. This came near being Davy’s last trip, for on reaching Ellicott’s Mills he had perched himself on top of the barrels of flour that made the load, when the horses ran away at the sight of a road gang with wheelbarrows. The frightened animals turned short about, snapped the pole and then both axle-trees, and nearly buried the boy in the falling barrels. Escaping with nothing more serious than bruises, the two went on with a hired wagon, and soon arrived in Baltimore.

At this place Davy Crockett nearly became a sailor. The harbor was full of shipping, gay with flags and the glories of fresh paint, loading and discharging the riches of all nations. There were never such ships as the Baltimore clippers. Their memory lives in the hearts of every true sailor――

The _Flying Cloud_ and the _Cockatoo_, The _Southern Cross_, the _Caribou_, The _Polar Bear_ and the _Northern Chief_, The _Yankee Blade_ and the _Maple Leaf_.

The names of the vessels in the good old clipper times were those that set a boy’s heart to thumping, and the sight of a great full-rigged ship sweeping out to sea was enough to make sailors of farmers’ sons. It was the spring of 1800, and in the port there was a vessel flying the English flag, and then called the _Polly_. As much of Davy’s time as possible was spent on the wharves, and finally he took courage and went on board a vessel about to clear for London. She was a Yankee ship, for in those days every vessel that flew the Stars and Stripes, from Eastport to Savannah, was a Yankee. Seeing the boy gazing about the decks and aloft, one of her men began talking with him. The _Polly_ being at a wharf near-by, it was not long before Davy heard the history of the old privateer, which had sailed from Baltimore in 1778, and before her return in November had fought with and captured three British armed merchantmen: the _Reindeer_, four hundred tons and fourteen guns, with a cargo worth one hundred and fifty thousand dollars; the _Uhla_, of same tonnage and ten guns, and a hundred thousand dollar cargo; and the _Jane_, of the tonnage and armament of the _Reindeer_, and with a cargo also worth one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. One-third of all this treasure was the share of the Government. Before the _Polly_ was unlawfully seized in a neutral port and handed over to the English, she had captured nearly thirty prizes, in many cases fighting desperate battles for the mastery.

The master of the ship either took a fancy to Davy or thought that he might prove useful, for before the boy’s second day in Baltimore had passed, he had arranged to go to London as cabin-boy. But when he returned for what spare clothes he had on shore, and told Myers of his intent, the latter refused to give him either his money or clothing, and swore that he should not go. He kept watch over him, prevented his going to the ship, and started back with him as soon as ready, giving him no chance to escape. As he had become very harsh with Davy, threatening him with his whip, the boy left him one morning before daylight. Davy had not a cent in his pockets, but he resolved to go ahead and trust to Providence. This trait was the prominent feature of David Crockett’s nature: he made up his mind, and went ahead; it was hard to turn him, and he went at everything “hammer and tongs.”

As the historian contemplates the spectacle of this penniless thirteen-year-old youngster bravely facing towards his home, four or five hundred miles away, it is but natural to wonder what would have become of him if he had sailed for London. He might have become a famous sailor, a reckless privateer, or a merchant with ships in every sea. Up to this time Davy had had no schooling, except the four days at the place to which he had been afraid to return. Many a boy of the present time is graduated from a high school at fourteen, but Davy Crockett did not know a single letter of the alphabet. As it was, however, the Fates had no idea of sending him to sea, and while the great ship was beating her way along the Atlantic coast, he was resolutely facing west.

It was more than a year and a half before Davy was destined to see his home again. Working for two or three employers, after reaching Montgomery Court House, he saved up a little money and finally made another start for Tennessee. For eighteen months he had worked for a hatter who failed before paying his wages, and it was a poor and half-clothed stripling that was now returning, with a better record, but in no better luck, than the Prodigal Son. At the crossing of the New River, only forty miles on the old trail he was now retracing, he found high water and stormy weather. No one would row him across, and in his impatience he disregarded all warnings, hired a canoe, and put out into the stream. He finally reached the other side, the boat half full of water, and his clothing soaking wet and freezing upon his back. After going up the river for three miles, he found a warm shelter and food.

As Davy finally went down the old road into the Tennessee valleys, the woods were full of wakening life. The tender green of the beech and maple shimmered on every slope. Beside his path the arbutus showed its pink-white petals, and the azaleas and June-berries, full of bloom, were eagerly sought by droning bees. The spring wind sang in every pine, and the breath of the hemlock and the balsam was like a rare perfume to the homesick boy.

In Sullivan County he encountered the brother who had in vain begged him to return home. Perhaps Davy still dreaded the sight of the old school-house, for it was some weeks before he left this brother’s cabin and sought his father’s. He had travelled all day, and as he drew near to the wayside inn he saw the teamsters caring for their horses and covering the wagons for the night. He noticed that the poles of some of the wagons pointed eastward, while the others showed that the loads were on the westward journey. The latter were the ones that looked good to Davy, who had had enough of wandering in the East.

His heart seemed in his throat as he saw his sisters and brothers going in and out, and he feared at any moment to see his father with the seasoned hickory, or perhaps old Kitchen, the schoolmaster, looming over him like an inexorable fate. He hung about unseen until the jangle of a horse-shoe and a poker called all hands to supper. When they were plying knife and fork, he slipped in and took a seat quietly at the long table. A great pewter platter was heaped with chunks of boiled meat; another was filled with corn on the ear, and still another with potatoes with their jackets on. Bowls of gravy, and bread, broken into pieces as the loaves went round, completed the bill of fare. White bread was hardly known in the mountains, corn and rye, or “rye and Indian,” seeming to answer every demand of the wayfarer. In those times some taverns had _menus_ to suit the purse and fastidiousness of the traveller. For “Corn-bread and common doin’s” the charge was fifteen cents, but for “White bread and chicken fixin’s” the bill was two bits, or twenty-five cents.

Davy tackled the platters as they went the rounds, but in spite of his hunger, he was conscious that there were sharp eyes awake to the fact that a strange boy was at the table. His eldest sister had ceased eating in the intentness of her gaze. He was so much larger than when he had left home, that she was full of doubt, but at last, as her eyes met Davy’s squarely, and his face became red with blushing, she sprang from her seat at the table, and screaming, “It’s Davy! It’s Davy, Mother! It’s Davy come back!” she threw her arms about his neck, clinging to him with tears of joy running down her face. This was his restoration to those who loved him, and whose reception of the wanderer so touched his boyish heart that he humbled himself before them, no longer fearing that they had forgotten him during the long and weary time he had spent away from them.

Davy was now a strong and healthy youngster almost fifteen years old, with much worldly wisdom, but unable to read or write.

IV.

THE INDIANS’ VISIT

Davy pays his father’s debts――The old man’s tears――Gets a suit of clothes――Calf love――Barks up the wrong tree――Finds another girl――Sweet plugs and snuff as evidences of affection――He is gaily deceived, and wants to die――Pretty Polly Finlay――Davy marries at last――Other events of the times――Moves to Lincoln County in 1809――Another move――Red Eagle and the Creeks――Three hungry braves――Tecumseh and Big Warrior――The Earthquakes of 1811.

The next year of Davy’s life was one of hard work and no pay. He had been at home but a short time when his father told him that if he would work for six months for a man named Abraham Wilson, Wilson would in return give up a note of John Crockett’s for thirty-six dollars. As a reward, Davy could thereafter work for himself, without waiting to become of age. The boy fulfilled the compact without missing a day, in a place where some of the roughest of the settlers made a practice of meeting to drink and gamble. At last the note was his, and the joy of his father at its surrender was Davy’s recompense.

It was always a satisfaction to Davy Crockett to know that his father was a man who honestly tried to pay his debts. The son appears to have had the same spirit. When he asked to be given work at the home of “an honest old Quaker, John Kennedy,” he found that the man held another note of his father for forty dollars. Davy was offered the note for another six months’ work, and with a keen desire to do his duty, and to ease his father’s burdens as much as he could, he disregarded his newly acquired right to work for his own account, and started in. At the end of the time he received the note, borrowed a horse, and went home for a visit.

“Some time after I got there,” Davy afterwards said, “I pulled out the note and handed it to my father, who supposed Mr. Kennedy had sent it for collection. The old man looked mighty sorry, and said to me that he had not the money to pay it, and didn’t know what he should do. I then told him I had paid it for him, and it was then his own; that it was not presented for collection, but as a present from me. At this he shed a heap of tears; and as soon as he got a little over it, he said he was sorry he could not give me anything, but he was not able, he was too poor.”

For two months, after going back to the Quaker’s, Davy worked to get something decent to wear. The last good clothing he owned had been left with Adam Myers, together with his seven dollars of hard-earned cash, when he had quit that troublesome person, a few days out from Baltimore. This was nearly three years ago, so it is easy to imagine the boy’s shabby appearance. About the time when Davy was able to spruce up and aspire to polite society of the kind about him, he fell in love with the Quaker’s niece, who had come on a visit from North Carolina, and who was much older than he. All the symptoms of what the mountaineers called “calf love” were forthcoming. He couldn’t keep out of the girl’s sight, yet nearly choked when he tried to talk to her. When he had reached the proper state of desperation, he acted with his usual headlong energy, and told the young lady that he would die without her. He says that the girl listened kindly enough, but told him that she was to marry a son of the Quaker.

Davy concluded that his troubles were mostly due to his lack of learning. He was now in his seventeenth year, with a record of four days at school. He soon arranged with the old Quaker’s son, who kept a school a mile or so away, to work for him two days in the week, for board and tuition, and go to school the other four days. This plan was followed for six months.

“In this time,” says Davy, in his later account of his boyhood, “I learned to read a little in my primer, to write my own name, and to cipher some in the first three rules of figures. And this was all the schooling I ever had in my life.”

Davy had now grown to be a stout young fellow, and as he had learned to use a rifle with great accuracy he became a successful hunter. This was to a great extent a warrant for his plans for securing a wife, and he laid siege to the heart of a pretty young girl whom he had known since his early days. His courting was done without the knowledge of the Quaker, with whom he was now living. In the evening, when all were asleep, Davy would let himself out of the up-stairs window, by means of a sapling, and ride ten miles to the girl’s home, always returning before daylight. She at last agreed to marry him, and the day was set.