第113章 I MEET A HERO(1)

When left to myself, I was wont to slide into the commonplace; and where my own dull life intrudes to clog the action I cut it down here and pare it away there until I am merely explanatory, and not too much in evidence.Irode out the Wilderness Trail, fell in with other travellers, was welcomed by certain old familiar faces at Harrodstown, and pressed on.I have a vivid recollection of a beloved, vigorous figure swooping out of a cabin door and scattering a brood of children right and left.``Polly Ann!''

I said, and she halted, trembling.

``Tom,'' she cried, ``Tom, it's Davy come back, ``and Tom himself flew out of the door, ramrod in one hand and rifle in the other.Never shall I forget them as they stood there, he grinning with sheer joy as of yore, and she, with her hair flying and her blue gown snapping in the wind, in a tremor between tears and laughter.Ileaped to the ground, and she hugged me in her arms as though I had been a child, calling my name again and again, and little Tom pulling at the skirts of my coat.Icaught the youngster by the collar.

``Polly Ann,'' said I, ``he's grown to what I was when you picked me up, a foundling.''

``And now it's little Davy no more,'' she answered, swept me a courtesy, and added, with a little quiver in her voice, ``ye are a gentleman now.''

``My heart is still where it was,'' said I.

``Ay, ay,'' said Tom, ``I'm sure o' that, Davy.''

I was with them a fortnight in the familiar cabin, and then I took up my journey northward, heavy at leaving again, but promising to see them from time to time.For Tom was often at the Falls when he went a-scouting into the Illinois country.It was, as of old, Polly Ann who ran the mill and was the real bread-winner of the family.

Louisville was even then bursting with importance, and as I rode into it, one bright November day, I remembered the wilderness I had seen here not ten years gone when I had marched hither with Captain Harrod's company to join Clark on the island.It was even then a thriving little town of log and clapboard houses and schools and churches, and wise men were saying of it--what Colonel Clark had long ago predicted--that it would become the first city of commercial importance in the district of Kentucky.

I do not mean to give you an account of my struggles that winter to obtain a foothold in the law.The time was a heyday for young barristers, and troubles in those early days grew as plentifully in Kentucky as corn.In short, I got a practice, for Colonel Clark was here to help me, and, thanks to the men who had gone to Kaskaskia and Vincennes, I had a fairly large acquaintance in Kentucky.I hired rooms behind Mr.Crede's store, which was famed for the glass windows which had been fetched all the way from Philadelphia.Mr.Crede was the embodiment of the enterprising spirit of the place, and often of an evening he called me in to see the new fashionable things his barges had brought down the Ohio.The next day certain young sparks would drop into my room to waylay the belles as they came to pick a costume to be worn at Mr.Nickle's dancing school, or at the ball at Fort Finney.

The winter slipped away, and one cool evening in May there came a negro to my room with a note from Colonel Clark, bidding me sup with him at the tavern and meet a celebrity.

I put on my best blue clothes that I had brought with me from Richmond, and repaired expectantly to the tavern about eight of the clock, pushed through the curious crowd outside, and entered the big room where the company was fast assembling.Against the red blaze in the great chimney-place I spied the figure of Colonel Clark, more portly than of yore, and beside him stood a gentleman who could be no other than General Wilkinson.

He was a man to fill the eye, handsome of face, symmetrical of figure, easy of manner, and he wore a suit of bottle-green that became him admirably.In short, so fascinated and absorbed was I in watching him as he greeted this man and the other that I started as though something had pricked me when I heard my name called by Colonel Clark.

``Come here, Davy,'' he cried across the room, and Icame and stood abashed before the hero.``General, allow me to present to you the drummer boy of Kaskaskia and Vincennes, Mr.David Ritchie.''

``I hear that you drummed them to victory through a very hell of torture, Mr.Ritchie,'' said the General.

``It is an honor to grasp the hand of one who did such service at such a tender age.''

General Wilkinson availed himself of that honor, and encompassed me with a smile so benignant, so winning in its candor, that I could only mutter my acknowledgment, and Colonel Clark must needs apologize, laughing, for my youth and timidity.

``Mr.Ritchie is not good at speeches, General,'' said he, ``but I make no doubt he will drink a bumper to your health before we sit down.Gentlemen,'' he cried, filling his glass from a bottle on the table, ``a toast to General Wilkinson, emancipator and saviour of Kentucky!''

The company responded with a shout, tossed off the toast, and sat down at the long table.Chance placed me between a young dandy from Lexington--one of several the General had brought in his train--and Mr.Wharton, a prominent planter of the neighborhood with whom Ihad a speaking acquaintance.This was a backwoods feast, though served in something better than the old backwoods style, and we had venison and bear's meat and prairie fowl as well as pork and beef, and breads that came stinging hot from the Dutch ovens.Toasts to this and that were flung back and forth, and jests and gibes, and the butt of many of these was that poor Federal government which (as one gentleman avowed) was like a bantam hen trying to cover a nestful of turkey's eggs, and clucking with importance all the time.This picture brought on gusts of laughter.

``And what say you of the Jay?'' cried one; ``what will he hatch?''

Hisses greeted the name, for Mr.Jay wished to enter into a treaty with Spain, agreeing to close the river for five and twenty years.Colonel Clark stood up, and rapped on the table.