David Crockett

CHAPTER II.

Youth­ful Ad­ven­tures.

David at Ger­ard­stown.–Trip to Bal­ti­more.–Anec­dotes.–He ships for Lon­don.–Dis­ap­point­ment.–De­fraud­ed of his Wages.–Es­capes.–New Ad­ven­tures.–Cross­ing the Riv­er.–Re­turns Home.–His Re­cep­tion.–A Farm La­bor­er.–Gen­eros­ity to his Fa­ther.–Love Ad­ven­ture.–The Wreck of his Hopes.–His School Ed­uca­tion.–Sec­ond Love Ad­ven­ture.–Bit­ter Dis­ap­point­ment.–Life in the Back­woods.–Third Love Ad­ven­ture.

The wag­oner whom David had ac­com­pa­nied to Ger­ard­stown was dis­ap­point­ed in his en­deav­ors to find a load to take back to Ten­nessee. He there­fore took a load to Alexan­dria, on the Po­tomac. David de­cid­ed to re­main at Ger­ard­stown un­til My­ers should re­turn. He there­fore en­gaged to work for a man by the name of John Gray, for twen­ty-​five cents a day. It was light farm-​work in which he was em­ployed, and he was so faith­ful in the per­for­mance of his du­ties that he pleased the farmer, who was an old man, very much.

My­ers con­tin­ued for the win­ter in team­ing back­ward and for­ward be­tween Ger­ard­stown and Bal­ti­more, while David found a com­fort­able home of easy in­dus­try with the farmer. He was very care­ful in the ex­pen­di­ture of his mon­ey, and in the spring found that he had saved enough from his small wages to pur­chase him a suit of coarse but sub­stan­tial clothes. He then, wish­ing to see a lit­tle more of the world, de­cid­ed to make a trip with the wag­oner to Bal­ti­more.

David had then sev­en dol­lars in his pock­et, the care­ful sav­ings of the labors of half a year. He de­posit­ed the trea­sure with the wag­oner for safe keep­ing. They start­ed on their jour­ney, with a wag­on heav­ily laden with bar­rels of flour. As they were ap­proach­ing a small set­tle­ment called El­li­cott’s Mills, David, a lit­tle ashamed to ap­proach the hous­es in the ragged and mud-​be­spat­tered clothes which he wore on the way, crept in­to the wag­on to put on his bet­ter gar­ments.

While there in the midst of the flour bar­rels piled up all around him, the hors­es took fright at some strange sight which they en­coun­tered, and in a ter­ri­ble scare rushed down a steep hill, turned a sharp cor­ner, broke the tongue of the wag­on and both of the axle-​trees, and whirled the heavy bar­rels about in ev­ery di­rec­tion. The es­cape of David from very se­ri­ous in­juries seemed al­most mirac­ulous. But our lit­tle bar­bar­ian leaped from the ru­ins un­scathed. It does not ap­pear that he had ev­er cher­ished any con­cep­tion what­ev­er of an over­rul­ing Prov­idence. Prob­ably, a re­li­gious thought had nev­er en­tered his mind. A colt run­ning by the side of the hors­es could not have been more in­sen­si­ble to ev­ery idea of death, and re­spon­si­bil­ity at God’s bar, than was David Crock­ett. And he can be hard­ly blamed for this. The sav­ages had some idea of the Great Spir­it and of a fu­ture world. David was as unin­struct­ed in those thoughts as are the wolves and the bears. Many years af­ter­ward, in writ­ing of this oc­cur­rence, he says, with char­ac­ter­is­tic flip­pan­cy, in­ter­lard­ed with coarse phras­es:

“This proved to me, if a fel­low is born to be hung he will nev­er be drowned; and fur­ther, that if he is born for a seat in Congress, even flour bar­rels can’t make a mash of him. I didn’t know how soon I should be knocked in­to a cocked hat, and get my walk­ing-​pa­pers for an­oth­er coun­try.”

The wag­on was quite de­mol­ished by the dis­as­ter. An­oth­er was ob­tained, the flour reload­ed, and they pro­ceed­ed to Bal­ti­more, drag­ging the wreck be­hind them, to be re­paired there. Here young Crock­ett was amazed at the as­pect of civ­iliza­tion which was opened be­fore him. He wan­dered along the wharves gaz­ing be­wil­dered up­on the ma­jes­tic ships, with their tow­er­ing masts, cordage, and sails, which he saw float­ing there He had nev­er con­ceived of such fab­rics be­fore. The man­sions, the church­es, the long lines of brick stores ex­cit­ed his amaze­ment. It seemed to him that he had been sud­den­ly in­tro­duced in­to a sort of fairy-​land. All thoughts of home now van­ished from his mind. The great world was ex­pand­ing be­fore him, and the cu­rios­ity of his in­tense­ly ac­tive mind was roused to ex­plore more of its won­ders.

One morn­ing he ven­tured on board one of the ships at a wharf, and was cu­ri­ous­ly and cau­tious­ly peer­ing about, when the cap­tain caught sight of him. It so hap­pened that he was in need of a sailor-​boy, and be­ing pleased with the ap­pear­ance of the lad, asked David if he would not like to en­ter in­to his ser­vice to take a voy­age to Lon­don. The boy had no more idea of where Lon­don was, or what it was, than of a place in the moon. But ea­ger­ly he re­spond­ed, “Yes,” for he cared lit­tle where he went or what be­came of him, he was so glad of an op­por­tu­ni­ty to see more of the won­ders of this un­known world.

The cap­tain made a few in­quiries re­spect­ing his friends, his home, and his past modes of life, and then en­gaged him for the cruise. David, in a state of high, joy­ous ex­cite­ment, hur­ried back to the wag­oner, to get his sev­en dol­lars of mon­ey and some clothes he had left with him. But My­ers put a very prompt ve­to up­on the lad’s pro­ce­dure, as­sum­ing that he was the boy’s mas­ter, he de­clared that he should not go to sea. He re­fused to let him have ei­ther his clothes or his mon­ey, as­sert­ing that it was his du­ty to take him back to his par­ents in Ten­nessee. David would glad­ly have fled from him, and em­barked with­out mon­ey and with­out clothes; but the wag­oner watched him so close­ly that es­cape was im­pos­si­ble.

David was great­ly down-​heart­ed at this dis­ap­point­ment, and watched ea­ger­ly for an op­por­tu­ni­ty to ob­tain de­liv­er­ance from his bondage. But My­ers was a burly team­ster who swung a very heavy wag­on-​whip, threat­en­ing the boy with a heavy pun­ish­ment if he should make any at­tempt to run away.

Af­ter a few days, My­ers load­ed his team for Ten­nessee, and with his re­luc­tant boy set out on his long jour­ney. David was ex­ceed­ing­ly rest­less. He now hat­ed the man who was so tyran­ical­ly dom­ineer­ing over him. He had no de­sire to re­turn to his home, and he dread­ed the hick­ory stick with which he feared his bru­tal fa­ther would as­sail him. One dark night, an hour or two be­fore the morn­ing, David care­ful­ly took his lit­tle bun­dle of clothes, and creep­ing noise­less­ly from the cab­in, rushed for­ward as rapid­ly as his nim­ble feet could car­ry him. He soon felt quite easy in ref­er­ence to his es­cape. He knew that the wag­oner slept sound­ly, and that two hours at least must elapse be­fore he would open his eyes. He then would not know with cer­tain­ty in what di­rec­tion the boy had fled. He could not safe­ly leave his hors­es and wag­on alone in the wilder­ness, to pur­sue him; and even should he un­har­ness one of the hors­es and gal­lop for­ward in search of the fugi­tive, David, by keep­ing a vig­ilant watch, would see him in the dis­tance and could eas­ily plunge in­to the thick­ets of the for­est, and thus elude pur­suit.

He had run along five or six miles, when just as the sun was ris­ing he over­took an­oth­er wag­on. He had al­ready be­gun to feel very lone­ly and dis­con­so­late. He had nat­ural­ly an af­fec­tion­ate heart and a strong mind; traits of char­ac­ter which gleamed through all the dark clouds that ob­scured his life. He was alone in the wilder­ness, with­out a pen­ny; and he knew not what to do, or which way to turn. The mo­ment he caught sight of the team­ster his heart yearned for sym­pa­thy. Tears moist­ened his eyes, and has­ten­ing to the stranger, the friend­less boy of but thir­teen years frankly told his whole sto­ry. The wag­oner was a rough, pro­fane, burly man, of gen­er­ous feel­ings. There was an air of sin­cer­ity in the boy, which con­vinced him of the en­tire truth of his state­ments. His in­dig­na­tion was aroused, and he gave ex­pres­sion to that in­dig­na­tion in un­mea­sured terms. Crack­ing his whip in his anger, he de­clared that My­ers was a scoundrel, thus to rob a friend­less boy, and that he would lash the mon­ey out of him.

This man, whose name al­so chanced to be My­ers, was of the tiger breed, fear­ing noth­ing, ev­er ready for a fight, and al­most in­vari­ably com­ing off con­queror. In his gen­er­ous rage he halt­ed his team, grasped his wag­on-​whip, and, ac­com­pa­nied by the trem­bling boy, turned back, breath­ing vengeance. David was much alarmed, and told his pro­tec­tor that he was afraid to meet the wag­oner, who had so of­ten threat­ened him with his whip. But his new friend said,” Have no fear. The man shall give you back your mon­ey, or I will thrash it out of him.”

They had pro­ceed­ed but about two miles when they met the ap­proach­ing team of Adam My­ers. Hen­ry My­ers, David’s new friend, lead­ing him by the hand, ad­vanced men­ac­ing­ly up­on the oth­er team­ster, and greet­ed him with the words:

“You ac­cursed scoundrel, what do you mean by rob­bing this friend­less boy of his mon­ey?” Adam My­ers con­fessed that he had re­ceived sev­en dol­lars of the boy’s mon­ey. He said, how­ev­er, that he had no mon­ey with him; that he had in­vest­ed all he had in ar­ti­cles in his wag­on, and that he in­tend­ed to re­pay the boy as soon as they got back to Ten­nessee. This set­tled the ques­tion, and David re­turned with Hen­ry My­ers to his wag­on, and ac­com­pa­nied him for sev­er­al days on his slow and toil­some jour­ney west­ward.

The im­pa­tient boy, as once be­fore, soon got weary of the loi­ter­ing pace of the heav­ily laden team, and con­clud­ed to leave his friend and press for­ward more rapid­ly alone. It chanced, one evening, that sev­er­al wag­ons met, and the team­sters en­camped for the night to­geth­er. Hen­ry My­ers told them the sto­ry of the friend­less boy, and that he was now about to set out alone for the long jour­ney, most of it through an en­tire wilder­ness, and through a land of strangers wher­ev­er there might chance to be a few scat­tered cab­ins. They took up a col­lec­tion for David, and pre­sent­ed him with three dol­lars.

The lit­tle fel­low pressed along, about one hun­dred and twen­ty-​five miles, down the val­ley be­tween the Al­leghany and the Blue ridges, un­til he reached Mont­gomery Court House. The re­gion then, near­ly three quar­ters of a cen­tu­ry ago, pre­sent­ed on­ly here and there a spot where the light of civ­iliza­tion had en­tered. Oc­ca­sion­al­ly the log cab­in of some poor em­igrant was found in the vast ex­panse. David, too proud to beg, when he had any mon­ey with which to pay, found his purse emp­ty when he had ac­com­plished this small por­tion of his jour­ney.

In this emer­gence, he hired out to work for a man a month for five dol­lars, which was at the rate of about one shilling a day. Faith­ful­ly he ful­filled his con­tract, and then, rather dread­ing to re­turn home, en­tered in­to an en­gage­ment with a hat­ter, Eli­jah Grif­fith, to work in his shop for four years. Here he worked dili­gent­ly eigh­teen months with­out re­ceiv­ing any pay. His em­ploy­er then failed, broke up, and left the coun­try. Again this poor boy, thus the sport of for­tune, found him­self with­out a pen­ny, with but few clothes, and those much worn.

But it was not his na­ture to lay any­thing very deeply to heart. He laughed at mis­for­tune, and pressed on singing and whistling through all storms. He had a stout pair of hands, good na­ture, and adap­ta­tion to any kind of work. There was no dan­ger of his starv­ing; and ex­po­sures, which many would deem hard­ships, were no hard­ships for him. Undis­mayed he ran here and there, catch­ing at such em­ploy­ment as he could find, un­til he had sup­plied him­self with some com­fort­able cloth­ing, and had a few dol­lars of ready mon­ey in his purse. Again he set out alone and on foot for his far-​dis­tant home. He had been ab­sent over two years, and was new fif­teen years of age.

He trudged along, day af­ter day, through rain and sun­shine, un­til he reached a broad stream called New Riv­er. It was win­try weath­er. The stream was swollen by re­cent rains, and a gale then blow­ing was plough­ing the sur­face in­to an­gry waves. Teams ford­ed the stream many miles above. There was a log hut here, and the own­er had a frail ca­noe in which he could pad­dle an oc­ca­sion­al trav­eller across the riv­er. But noth­ing would in­duce him to risk his life in an at­tempt to cross in such a storm.

The im­petu­ous boy, in his ig­no­rance of the ef­fect of wind up­on waves, re­solved to at­tempt to cross, at ev­ery haz­ard, and notwith­stand­ing all re­mon­strances. He ob­tained a leaky ca­noe, which was half strand­ed up­on the shore, and pushed out on his per­ilous voy­age. He tied his lit­tle bun­dle of clothes to the bows of the boat, that they might not be washed or blown away, and soon found him­self ex­posed to the full force of the wind, and tossed by bil­lows such as he had nev­er dreamed of be­fore. He was great­ly fright­ened, and would have giv­en all he had in the world, to have been safe­ly back again up­on the shore. But he was sure to be swamped if he should at­tempt to turn the boat broad­side to the waves in such a gale. The on­ly pos­si­ble sal­va­tion for him was to cut the ap­proach­ing bil­lows with the bows of the boat. Thus he might pos­si­bly ride over them, though at the im­mi­nent per­il, ev­ery mo­ment, of ship­ping a sea which would en­gulf him and his frail boat in a wa­tery grave.

In this way he reached the shore, two miles above the prop­er land­ing-​place. The ca­noe was then half full of wa­ter. He was drenched with spray, which was frozen in­to al­most a coat of mail up­on his gar­ments. Shiv­er­ing with cold, he had to walk three miles through the for­est be­fore he found a cab­in at whose fire he could warm and dry him­self. With­out any un­nec­es­sary de­lay he pushed on un­til he crossed the ex­treme west­ern fron­tier line of Vir­ginia, and en­tered Sul­li­van Coun­ty, Ten­nessee.

An able-​bod­ied young man like David Crock­ett, strong, ath­let­ic, will­ing to work, and know­ing how to turn his hand to any­thing, could, in the hum­blest cab­in, find em­ploy­ment which would pro­vide him with board and lodg­ing. He was in no dan­ger of starv­ing. There was, at that time, but one main path of trav­el from the East in­to the re­gions of the bound­less West.

As David was press­ing along this path he came to a lit­tle ham­let of log huts, where he found the broth­er whom he had left when he start­ed from home eigh­teen months be­fore with the drove of cat­tle. He re­mained with him for two or three weeks, prob­ably pay­ing his ex­pens­es by farm la­bor and hunt­ing. Again he set out for home. The evening twi­light was dark­en­ing in­to night when he caught sight of his fa­ther’s hum­ble cab­in. Sev­er­al wag­ons were stand­ing around, show­ing that there must be con­sid­er­able com­pa­ny in the house.

With not a lit­tle em­bar­rass­ment, he ven­tured in. It was rather dark. His moth­er and sis­ters were prepar­ing sup­per at the im­mense fire­side. Quite a group of team­sters were scat­tered around the room, smok­ing their pipes, and telling their mar­vel­lous sto­ries. David, dur­ing his ab­sence of two years, had grown, and changed con­sid­er­ably in per­son­al ap­pear­ance. None of the fam­ily rec­og­nized him. They gen­er­al­ly sup­posed, as he had been ab­sent so long, that he was dead.

David in­quired if he could re­main all night. Be­ing an­swered in the af­fir­ma­tive, he took a seat in a cor­ner and re­mained per­fect­ly silent, gaz­ing up­on the fa­mil­iar scene, and watch­ing the move­ments of his fa­ther, moth­er, and sis­ters. At length sup­per was ready, and all took seats at the ta­ble. As David came more in­to the light, one of his sis­ters, ob­serv­ing him, was struck with his re­sem­blance to her lost broth­er. Fix­ing her eyes up­on him, she, in a mo­ment, rushed for­ward and threw her arms around his neck, ex­claim­ing, “Here is my broth­er David.”

Quite a scene en­sued. The re­turn­ing prodi­gal was re­ceived with as much af­fec­tion as could be ex­pect­ed in a fam­ily with such un­cul­ti­vat­ed hearts and such un­re­fined habits as were found in the cab­in of John Crock­ett. Even the stern old man for­got his hick­ory switch, and David, much to his re­lief, found that he should es­cape the long-​dread­ed whip­ping. Many years af­ter this, when David Crock­ett, to his own sur­prise, and that of the whole na­tion, found him­self el­evat­ed to the po­si­tion of one of our na­tion­al leg­is­la­tors, he wrote:

“But it will be a source of as­ton­ish­ment to many, who re­flect that I am now a mem­ber of the Amer­ican Congress, the most en­light­ened body of men in the world, that, at so ad­vanced an age, the age of fif­teen, I did not know the first let­ter in the book.”

By the laws and cus­toms of our land, David was bound to obey his fa­ther and work for him un­til he was twen­ty-​one years of age. Un­til that time, what­ev­er wages he might earn be­longed to his fa­ther. It is of­ten an act of great gen­eros­ity for a hard-​work­ing farmer to re­lease a stout lad of eigh­teen or nine­teen from this obli­ga­tion, and “to give him,” as it is phrased, “his time.”

John Crock­ett owed a neigh­bor, Abra­ham Wil­son, thir­ty-​six dol­lars. He told David that if he would work for Mr. Wil­son un­til his wages paid that sum, he would then re­lease him from all his obli­ga­tions to his fa­ther, and his son might go free. It was a shrewd bar­gain for the old man, for he had al­ready learned that David was abun­dant­ly ca­pa­ble of tak­ing care of him­self, and that he would come and go when and where he pleased.

The boy, weary of his wan­der­ings, con­sent­ed to the ar­range­ment, and en­gaged to work for Mr. Wil­son for six months, in pay­ment for which, the note was to be de­liv­ered up to his fa­ther. It was char­ac­ter­is­tic of David that what­ev­er he un­der­took he en­gaged in with all his might. He was a rude, coarse boy. It was scarce­ly pos­si­ble, with his past train­ing, that he should be oth­er­wise. But he was very faith­ful in ful­fill­ing his obli­ga­tions. Though his sense of right and wrong was very ob­tuse, he was still dis­posed to do the right so far as his un­cul­ti­vat­ed con­science re­vealed it to him.

For six months, David worked for Mr. Wil­son with the ut­most fi­deli­ty and zeal. He then re­ceived the note, pre­sent­ed it to his fa­ther, and, be­fore he was six­teen years of age, stood up proud­ly his own man. His fa­ther had no longer the right to whip him. His fa­ther had no longer the right to call up­on him for any ser­vice with­out pay­ing him for it. And on the oth­er hand, he could no longer look to his fa­ther for food or cloth­ing. This thought gave him no trou­ble. He had al­ready tak­en care of him­self for two years, and he felt no more so­lic­itude in re­gard to the fu­ture than did the buf­fa­lo’s calf or the wolf’s whelp.

Wil­son was a bad man, dis­si­pat­ed and un­prin­ci­pled. But he had found David to be so valu­able a la­bor­er that he of­fered him high wages if he would re­main and work for him. It shows a la­tent, un­der­ly­ing prin­ci­ple of good­ness in David, that he should have re­fused the of­fer. He writes:

“The rea­son was, it was a place where a heap of bad com­pa­ny met to drink and gam­ble; and I want­ed to get away from them, for I know’d very well, if I staid there, I should get a bad name, as no­body could be re­spectable that would live there.”

About this time a Quak­er, some­what ad­vanced in years, a good, hon­est man, by the name of John Kennedy, em­igrat­ed from North Car­oli­na, and se­lect­ing his four hun­dred acres of land about fif­teen miles from John Crock­ett’s, reared a log hut and com­menced a clear­ing. In some trans­ac­tion with Crock­ett he took his neigh­bor’s note for forty dol­lars. He chanced to see David, a stout lad of pre­pos­sess­ing ap­pear­ance, and pro­posed that he should work for him for two shillings a day tak­ing him one week up­on tri­al. At the close of the week the Quak­er ex­pressed him­self as high­ly sat­is­fied with his work, and of­fered to pay him with his fa­ther’s note of forty dol­lars for six months’ la­bor on his farm.

David knew full well how ready his fa­ther was to give his note, and how slow he was to pay it. He was ful­ly aware that the note was not worth, to him, the pa­per up­on which it was writ­ten. But he re­flect­ed that the note was an obli­ga­tion up­on his fa­ther, that he was very poor, and his lot in life was hard. It cer­tain­ly in­di­cat­ed much in­nate no­bil­ity of na­ture that this boy, un­der these cir­cum­stances, should have ac­cept­ed the of­fer of the Quak­er. But David did this. For six months he la­bored as­sid­uous­ly, with­out the slight­est hope of re­ward, ex­cept­ing that he would thus re­lieve his fa­ther, whom he had no great cause ei­ther to re­spect or love, from the em­bar­rass­ment of the debt.

For a whole half-​year David toiled up­on the farm of the Quak­er, nev­er once dur­ing that time vis­it­ing his home. At the end of the term he re­ceived his pay for those long months of la­bor, in a lit­tle piece of rum­pled pa­per, up­on which his fa­ther had prob­ably made his mark. It was Sat­ur­day evening. The next morn­ing he bor­rowed a horse of his em­ploy­er and set out for a vis­it home. He was kind­ly wel­comed. His fa­ther knew noth­ing of the agree­ment which his son had made with Mr. Kennedy. As the fam­ily were talk­ing to­geth­er around the cab­in fire, David drew the note from his pock­et and pre­sent­ed it to his fa­ther. The old man seemed much trou­bled. He sup­posed Mr. Kennedy had sent it for col­lec­tion. As usu­al, he be­gan to make ex­cus­es. He said that he was very sor­ry that he could not pay it, that he had met with many mis­for­tunes, that he had no mon­ey, and that he did not know what to do.

David then told his fa­ther that he did not hand him the bill for col­lec­tion, but that it was a present from him–that he had paid it in full. It is easy for old and bro­ken-​down men to weep. John Crock­ett seemed much af­fect­ed by this gen­eros­ity of his son, and David says “he shed a heap of tears.” He, how­ev­er, avowed his in­abil­ity to pay any­thing what­ev­er, up­on the note.

David had now worked a year with­out get­ting any mon­ey for him­self. His clothes were worn out, and al­to­geth­er he was in a very di­lap­idat­ed con­di­tion. He went back to the Quak­er’s, and again en­gaged in his ser­vice, de­sir­ing to earn some mon­ey to pur­chase clothes. Two months thus passed away. Ev­ery ar­dent, im­petu­ous boy must have a love ad­ven­ture. David had his. A very pret­ty young Quak­er­ess, of about David’s age, came from North Car­oli­na to vis­it Mr. Kennedy, who was her un­cle. David fell des­per­ate­ly in love with her. We can­not bet­ter de­scribe this ad­ven­ture than in the un­pol­ished dic­tion of this il­lit­er­ate boy. If one would un­der­stand this ex­traor­di­nary char­ac­ter, it is nec­es­sary thus to catch such glimpses as we can of his in­ner life. Let this ne­ces­si­ty atone for the un­pleas­ant rude­ness of speech. Be it re­mem­bered that this rem­inis­cence was writ­ten af­ter David Crock­ett was a mem­ber of Congress.

“I soon found my­self head over heels in love with this girl. I thought that if all the hills about there were pure chink, and all be­longed to me, I would give them if I could just talk to her as I want­ed to. But I was afraid to be­gin; for when I would think of say­ing any­thing to her, my heart would be­gin to flut­ter like a duck in a pud­dle. And if I tried to out­do it and speak, it would get right smack up in my throat, and choke me like a cold pota­to. It bore on my mind in this way, till at last I con­clud­ed I must die if I didn’t broach the sub­ject. So I de­ter­mined to be­gin and hang on a-​try­ing to speak, till my heart would get out of my throat one way or t’oth­er.

“And so one day at it I went, and af­ter sev­er­al tri­als I could say a lit­tle. I told her how I loved her; that she was the dar­ling ob­ject of my soul and body, and I must have her, or else I should pine down to noth­ing, and just die away with con­sump­tion.

“I found my talk was not dis­agree­able to her. But she was an hon­est girl, and didn’t want to de­ceive no­body. She told me she was en­gaged to her cousin, a son of the old Quak­er. This news was worse to me than war, pesti­lence, or famine. But still I know’d I could not help my­self. I saw quick enough my cake was dough; and I tried to cool off as fast as pos­si­ble. But I had hard­ly safe­ty pipes enough, as my love was so hot as mighty nigh to burst my boil­ers. But I didn’t press my claims any more, see­ing there was no chance to do any­thing.”

David’s grief was very sin­cere, and con­tin­ued as long as is usu­al­ly the case with dis­ap­point­ed lovers.

David soon be­gan to cher­ish some slight idea of the de­fi­cien­cy in his ed­uca­tion. He had nev­er been to school but four days; and in that time he had learned ab­so­lute­ly noth­ing. A young man, a Quak­er, had opened a school about a mile and a half from Mr. Kennedy’s. David made an ar­range­ment with his em­ploy­er by which he was to go to school four days in the week, and work the oth­er two days for his board. He con­tin­ued in this way for six months. But it was very ev­ident that David was not born for a schol­ar. At the end of that time he could read a lit­tle in the first primer. With dif­fi­cul­ty he could make cer­tain hi­ero­glyph­ics which looked like his name. He could al­so per­form sim­ple sums in ad­di­tion, sub­trac­tion, and mul­ti­pli­ca­tion. The mys­ter­ies of di­vi­sion he nev­er sur­mount­ed.

This was the ex­tent of his ed­uca­tion. He left school, and in the la­bo­ri­ous life up­on which he en­tered, nev­er af­ter im­proved any op­por­tu­ni­ty for men­tal cul­ture. The dis­ap­point­ment which David had en­coun­tered in his love af­fair, on­ly made him more ea­ger to seek a new ob­ject up­on which he might fix his af­fec­tions. Not far from Mr. Kennedy’s there was the cab­in of a set­tler, where there were two or three girls. David had oc­ca­sion­al­ly met them. Boy as he was, for he was not yet eigh­teen, he sud­den­ly and im­petu­ous­ly set out to see if he could not pick, from them, one for a wife.

With­out de­lay he made his choice, and made his of­fer, and was as prompt­ly ac­cept­ed as a lover. Though they were both very young, and nei­ther of them had a dol­lar, still as those con­sid­er­ations would not have in­flu­enced David in the slight­est de­gree, we know not why they where not im­me­di­ate­ly mar­ried. Sev­er­al months of very des­per­ate and sat­is­fac­to­ry courtship passed away, when the time came for the nup­tials of the lit­tle Quak­er girl, which cer­emo­ny was to take place at the cab­in of her un­cle David and his “girl” were in­vit­ed to the wed­ding. The scene on­ly in­flamed the de­sires of David to has­ten his mar­riage-​day. He was very im­por­tu­nate in press­ing his claims. She seemed quite re­luc­tant to fix the day, but at last con­sent­ed; and says David, “I thought if that day come, I should be the hap­pi­est man in the cre­at­ed world, or in the moon, or any­where else.”

In the mean time David had be­come very fond of his ri­fle, and had raised enough mon­ey to buy him one. He was still liv­ing with the Quak­er. Game was abun­dant, and the young hunter of­ten brought in valu­able sup­plies of an­imal food. There were fre­quent shoot­ing-​match­es in that re­gion. David, proud of his skill, was fond of at­tend­ing them. But his Quak­er em­ploy­er con­sid­ered them a species of gam­bling, which drew to­geth­er all the idlers and va­grants of the re­gion, and he could not ap­prove of them.

There was an­oth­er boy liv­ing at that time with the Quak­er. They prac­tised all sorts of de­cep­tions to steal away to the shoot­ing-​match­es un­der pre­tence that they were en­gaged in oth­er things. This boy was quite in love with a sis­ter of David’s in­tend­ed wife. The staid mem­ber of the So­ci­ety of Friends did not ap­prove of the rude court­ing frol­ics of those times, which fre­quent­ly oc­cu­pied near­ly the whole night.

The two boys slept in a gar­ret, in what was called the gable end of the house. There was a small win­dow in their rough apart­ment. One Sun­day, when the Quak­er and his wife were ab­sent at­tend­ing a meet­ing, the boys cut a long pole, and leaned it up against the side of the house, as high as the win­dow, but so that it would not at­tract any at­ten­tion. They were as nim­ble as cata­mounts, and could run up and down the pole with­out the slight­est dif­fi­cul­ty. They would go to bed at the usu­al ear­ly hour. As soon as all were qui­et, they would creep from the house, dressed in their best ap­par­el, and tak­ing the two farm-​hors­es, would mount their backs and ride, as fast as pos­si­ble, ten miles through the for­est road to where the girls lived. They were gen­er­al­ly ex­pect­ed. Af­ter spend­ing all the hours of the mid­dle of the night in the var­ied frol­ics of coun­try courtship, they would again mount their hors­es and gal­lop home, be­ing es­pe­cial­ly care­ful to creep in at their win­dow be­fore the dawn of day The course of true love seemed for once to be run­ning smooth­ly. Sat­ur­day came, and the next week, on Thurs­day, David was to be mar­ried.

It so hap­pened that there was to be a shoot­ing match on Sat­ur­day, at one of the cab­ins not far from the home of his in­tend­ed bride. David made some ex­cuse as to the ne­ces­si­ty of go­ing home to pre­pare for his wed­ding, and in the morn­ing set out ear­ly, and di­rect­ed his steps straight to the shoot­ing-​match. Here he was very suc­cess­ful in his shots, and won about five dol­lars. In great ela­tion of spir­its, and ful­ly con­vinced that he was one of the great­est and hap­pi­est men in the world, he pressed on to­ward the home of his in­tend­ed bride.

He had walked but a cou­ple of miles, when he reached the cab­in of the girl’s un­cle. Con­sid­er­ing the mem­bers of the fam­ily al­ready as his rel­atives, he stepped in, very pa­tron­iz­ing­ly, to greet them. He doubt­ed not that they were very proud of the ap­proach­ing al­liance of their niece with so dis­tin­guished a man as him­self–a man who had ac­tu­al­ly five dol­lars, in sil­ver, in his pock­et. En­ter­ing the cab­in, he found a sis­ter of his be­trothed there. In­stead of greet­ing him with the cor­dial­ity he ex­pect­ed, she seemed great­ly em­bar­rassed. David had pen­etra­tion enough to see that some­thing was wrong. The re­cep­tion she gave him was not such as he thought a broth­er-​in-​law ought to re­ceive. He made more par­tic­ular in­quiries. The re­sult we will give in David’s lan­guage.

“She then burst in­to tears, and told me that her sis­ter was go­ing to de­ceive me; and that she was to be mar­ried to an­oth­er man the next day. This was as sud­den to me as a clap of thun­der of a bright sun­shiny day. It was the cap­stone of all the af­flic­tions I had ev­er met with; and it seemed to me that it was more than any hu­man crea­ture could en­dure. It struck me per­fect­ly speech­less for some time, and made me feel so weak that I thought I should sink down. I how­ev­er re­cov­ered from the shock af­ter a lit­tle, and rose and start­ed with­out any cer­emo­ny, or even bid­ding any­body good-​bye. The young wom­an fol­lowed me out to the gate, and en­treat­ed me to go on to her fa­ther’s, and said she would go with me.

“She said the young man who was go­ing to mar­ry her sis­ter had got his li­cense and asked for her. But she as­sured me that her fa­ther and moth­er both pre­ferred me to him; and that she had no doubt that if I would go on I could break off the match. But I found that I could go no far­ther. My heart was bruised, and my spir­its were bro­ken down. So I bid her farewell, and turned my lone­some and mis­er­able steps back again home­ward, con­clud­ing that I was on­ly born for hard­ship, mis­ery, and dis­ap­point­ment. I now be­gan to think that in mak­ing me it was en­tire­ly for­got­ten to make my mate; that I was born odd, and should al­ways re­main so, and that no­body would have me.

“But all these re­flec­tions did not sat­is­fy my mind, for I had no peace, day nor night, for sev­er­al weeks. My ap­petite failed me, and I grew dai­ly worse and worse. They all thought I was sick; and so I was. And it was the worst kind of sick­ness, a sick­ness of the heart, and all the ten­der parts, pro­duced by dis­ap­point­ed love.”

For some time David con­tin­ued in a state of great de­jec­tion, a lovelorn swain of sev­en­teen years. Thus dis­con­so­late, he loved to roam the for­est alone, with his ri­fle as his on­ly com­pan­ion, brood­ing over his sor­rows. The gloom of the for­est was con­ge­nial to him, and the ex­cite­ment of pur­su­ing the game af­ford­ed some slight re­lief to his ag­itat­ed spir­it. One day, when he had wan­dered far from home, he came up­on the cab­in of a Dutch­man with whom he had formed some pre­vi­ous ac­quain­tance. He had a daugh­ter, who was ex­ceed­ing­ly plain in her per­son­al ap­pear­ance, but who had a very ac­tive mind, and was a bright, talkative girl.

She had heard of David’s mis­ad­ven­ture, and rather un­feel­ing­ly ral­lied him up­on his loss. She how­ev­er en­deav­ored to com­fort him by the as­sur­ance that there were as good fish in the sea as had ev­er been caught out of it. David did not be­lieve in this doc­trine at all, as ap­plied to his own case, He thought his loss ut­ter­ly ir­re­triev­able. And in his still high ap­pre­ci­ation of him­self, notwith­stand­ing his deep mor­ti­fi­ca­tion, he thought that the live­ly Dutch girl was en­deav­or­ing to catch him for her lover. In this, how­ev­er, he soon found him­self mis­tak­en.

She told him that there was to be a reap­ing frol­ic in their neigh­bor­hood in a few days, and that if he would at­tend it, she would show him one of the pret­ti­est girls up­on whom he ev­er fixed his eyes. Dif­fi­cult as he found it to shut out from his mind his lost love, up­on whom his thoughts were dwelling by day and by night, he very wise­ly de­cid­ed that his best rem­edy would be found in what Dr. Chalmers calls “the ex­pul­sive pow­er of a new af­fec­tion;” that is, that he would try and fall in love with some oth­er girl as soon as pos­si­ble. His own lan­guage, in de­scrib­ing his feel­ings at that time, is cer­tain­ly very dif­fer­ent from that which the philoso­pher or the mod­ern nov­el­ist would have used, but it is quite char­ac­ter­is­tic of the man. The Dutch maid­en as­sured him that the girl who had de­ceived him was not to be com­pared in beau­ty with the one she would show to him. He writes:

“I didn’t be­lieve a word of all this, for I had thought that such a piece of flesh and blood as she had nev­er been man­ufac­tured, and nev­er would again. I agreed with her that the lit­tle varmint had treat­ed me so bad that I ought to for­get her, and yet I couldn’t do it. I con­clud­ed that the best way to ac­com­plish it was to cut out again, and see if I could find any oth­er that would an­swer me; and so I told the Dutch girl that I would be at the reap­ing, and would bring as many as I could with me.”

David seems at this time to have aban­doned all con­stant in­dus­try, and to be loaf­ing about with his ri­fle, thus sup­port­ing him­self with the game he took. He tra­versed the still but slight­ly bro­ken for­est in all di­rec­tions, car­ry­ing to many scat­tered farm-​hous­es in­tel­li­gence of the ap­proach­ing reap­ing frol­ic. He in­formed the good Quak­er with whom he had worked of his in­ten­tion to be there. Mr. Kennedy en­deav­ored to dis­suade him. He said that there would be much bad com­pa­ny there; that there would be drink­ing and carous­ing, and that David had been so good a boy that he should be very sor­ry to have him get a bad name.

The cu­rios­ity of the im­petu­ous young man was, how­ev­er, by this time, too much aroused for any per­sua­sions to hold him back. Shoul­der­ing his ri­fle, he has­tened to the reap­ing at the ap­point­ed day. Up­on his ar­rival at the place he found a large com­pa­ny al­ready as­sem­bled. He looked around for the pret­ty girl, but she was nowhere to be seen. She chanced to be in a shed frol­ick­ing with some oth­ers of the young peo­ple.

But as David, with his ri­fle on his shoul­der, saun­tered around, an aged Irish wom­an, full of nerve and vol­ubil­ity, caught sight of him. She was the moth­er of the girl, and had been told of the ob­ject of David’s vis­it. He must have ap­peared very boy­ish, for he had not yet en­tered his eigh­teenth year, and though very wiry and ath­let­ic, he was of slen­der frame, and rather small in stature.

The Irish wom­an has­tened to David; lav­ished up­on him com­pli­ments re­spect­ing his rosy cheeks, and as­sured him that she had ex­act­ly such a sweet heart for him as he need­ed. She did not al­low, David to have any doubt that she would glad­ly wel­come him as the hus­band of her daugh­ter.

Pret­ty soon the young, fresh, bloom­ing, mirth­ful girl came along; and David fell in love with her at first sight. Not much for­mal­ity of in­tro­duc­tion was nec­es­sary: each was look­ing for the oth­er. Both of the pre­vi­ous loves of the young man were for­got­ten in an in­stant. He de­vot­ed him­self with the ut­most as­siduity, to the lit­tle Irish girl. He was soon danc­ing with her. Af­ter a very vig­or­ous “dou­ble shuf­fle,” as they were seat­ed side by side on a bench in­tense­ly talk­ing, for David Crock­ett was nev­er at a loss for words, the moth­er came up, and, in her won­der­ful­ly frank mode of match-​mak­ing, jo­cose­ly ad­dressed him as her son-​in-​law.

Even David’s im­per­turbable self-​pos­ses­sion was dis­turbed by this as­sail­ment. Still he was much pleased to find both moth­er and daugh­ter so fa­vor­ably dis­posed to­ward him. The rus­tic frol­ick­ing con­tin­ued near­ly all night. In the morn­ing, David, in a very hap­py frame of mind, re­turned to the Quak­er’s, and in an­tic­ipa­tion of soon set­ting up farm­ing for him­self, en­gaged to work for him for six months for a low-​priced horse.