1.1. CHAPTER I
THE BLUE WALL
I WAS born under the Blue Ridge, and under that side
which is blue in the evening light, in a wild land of game
and forest and rushing waters. There, on the borders of
a creek that runs into the Yadkin River, in a cabin that
was chinked with red mud, I came into the world a subject
of King George the Third, in that part of his realm
known as the province of North Carolina.
The cabin reeked of corn-pone and bacon, and the odor
of pelts. It had two shakedowns, on one of which I slept
under a bearskin. A rough stone chimney was reared outside,
and the fireplace was as long as my father was tall.
There was a crane in it, and a bake kettle; and over it
great buckhorns held my father's rifle when it was not
in use. On other horns hung jerked bear's meat and
venison hams, and gourds for drinking cups, and bags of
seed, and my father's best hunting shirt; also, in a
neglected corner, several articles of woman's attire from
pegs. These once belonged to my mother. Among them
was a gown of silk, of a fine, faded pattern, over which I
was wont to speculate. The women at the Cross-Roads,
twelve miles away, were dressed in coarse butternut wool
and huge sunbonnets. But when I questioned my father
on these matters he would give me no answers.
My father was—how shall I say what he was? To
this day I can only surmise many things of him. He was
a Scotchman born, and I know now that he had a slight
Scotch accent. At the time of which I write, my early
childhood, he was a frontiersman and hunter. I can see
him now, with his hunting shirt and leggings and moccasins;
his powder horn, engraved with wondrous scenes;
his bullet pouch and tomahawk and hunting knife. He
was a tall, lean man with a strange, sad face. And he
talked little save when he drank too many “horns,” as
they were called in that country. These lapses of my
father's were a perpetual source of wonder to me,—and,
I must say, of delight. They occurred only when a passing
traveller who hit his fancy chanced that way, or,
what was almost as rare, a neighbor. Many a winter
night I have lain awake under the skins, listening to a
flow of language that held me spellbound, though I understood
scarce a word of it.
“Virtuous and vicious every man must be,
Few in the extreme, but all in a degree.”
The chance neighbor or traveller was no less struck with
wonder. And many the time have I heard the query, at
the Cross-Roads and elsewhere, “Whar Alec Trimble got
his larnin'?”
The truth is, my father was an object of suspicion to
the frontiersmen. Even as a child I knew this, and
resented it. He had brought me up in solitude, and I was
old for my age, learned in some things far beyond my
years, and ignorant of others I should have known. I
loved the man passionately. In the long winter evenings,
when the howl of wolves and “painters” rose as the wind
lulled, he taught me to read from the Bible and the “Pilgrim's
Progress.” I can see his long, slim fingers on the
page. They seemed but ill fitted for the life he led.
The love of rhythmic language was somehow born into
me, and many's the time I have held watch in the cabin day
and night while my father was away on his hunts, spelling
out the verses that have since become part of my life.
As I grew older I went with him into the mountains,
often on his back; and spent the nights in open camp
with my little moccasins drying at the blaze. So I learned
to skin a bear, and fleece off the fat for oil with my
hunting knife; and cure a deerskin and follow a trail. At
seven I even shot the long rifle, with a rest. I learned
to endure cold and hunger and fatigue and to walk in
silence over the mountains, my father never saying a
word for days at a spell. And often, when he opened
his mouth, it would be to recite a verse of Pope's in a
way that moved me strangely. For a poem is not a poem
unless it be well spoken.
In the hot days of summer, over against the dark
forest the bright green of our little patch of Indian corn
rippled in the wind. And towards night I would often
sit watching the deep blue of the mountain wall and
dream of the mysteries of the land that lay beyond.
And by chance, one evening as I sat thus, my father reading
in the twilight, a man stood before us. So silently
had he come up the path leading from the brook that we
had not heard him. Presently my father looked up from
his book, but did not rise. As for me, I had been staring
for some time in astonishment, for he was a better-looking
man than I had ever seen. He wore a deerskin hunting
shirt dyed black, but, in place of a coonskin cap with the
tail hanging down, a hat. His long rifle rested on the
ground, and he held a roan horse by the bridle.
“Howdy, neighbor?” said he.
I recall a fear that my father would not fancy him. In
such cases he would give a stranger food, and leave him
to himself. My father's whims were past understanding.
But he got up.
“Good evening,” said he.
The visitor looked a little surprised, as I had seen many
do, at my father's accent.
“Neighbor,” said he, “kin you keep me over night?”
“Come in,” said my father.
We sat down to our supper of corn and beans and
venison, of all of which our guest ate sparingly. He, too, was
a silent man, and scarcely a word was spoken during the
meal. Several times he looked at me with such a kindly
expression in his blue eyes, a trace of a smile around his
broad mouth, that I wished he might stay with us always.
But once, when my father said something about Indians,
the eyes grew hard as flint. It was then I remarked,
with a boy's wonder, that despite his dark hair he had
yellow eyebrows.
After supper the two men sat on the log step, while I
set about the task of skinning the deer my father had
shot that day. Presently I felt a heavy hand on my
shoulder.
“What's your name, lad?” he said.
I told him Davy.
“Davy, I'll larn ye a trick worth a little time,” said he,
whipping out a knife. In a trice the red carcass hung
between the forked stakes, while I stood with my mouth
open. He turned to me and laughed gently.
“Some day you'll cross the mountains and skin twenty
of an evening,” he said. “Ye'll make a woodsman sure.
You've got the eye, and the hand.”
This little piece of praise from him made me hot all over.
“Game rare?” said he to my father.
“None sae good, now,” said my father.
“I reckon not. My cabin's on Beaver Creek some forty
mile above, and game's going there, too.”
“Settlements,” said my father. But presently, after a
few whiffs of his pipe, he added, “I hear fine things of
this land across the mountains, that the Indians call the
Dark and Bluidy Ground.”
“And well named,” said the stranger.
“But a brave country,” said my father, “and all
tramped down with game. I hear that Daniel Boone
and others have gone into it and come back with marvellous{sic}
tales. They tell me Boone was there alone three
months. He's saething of a man. D'ye ken him?”
The ruddy face of the stranger grew ruddier still.
“My name's Boone,” he said.
“What!” cried my father, “it wouldn't be Daniel?”
“You've guessed it, I reckon.”
My father rose without a word, went into the cabin,
and immediately reappeared with a flask and a couple of
gourds, one of which he handed to our visitor.
“Tell me aboot it,” said he.
That was the fairy tale of my childhood. Far into the
night I lay on the dewy grass listening to Mr. Boone's
talk. It did not at first flow in a steady stream, for he
was not a garrulous man, but my father's questions presently
fired his enthusiasm. I recall but little of it, being
so small a lad, but I crept closer and closer until I could
touch this superior being who had been beyond the Wall.
Marco Polo was no greater wonder to the Venetians than
Boone to me.
He spoke of leaving wife and children, and setting out
for the Unknown with other woodsmen. He told how,
crossing over our blue western wall into a valley beyond,
they found a “Warrior's Path” through a gap across
another range, and so down into the fairest of promised
lands. And as he talked he lost himself in the tale of it,
and the very quality of his voice changed. He told of a
land of wooded hill and pleasant vale, of clear water running
over limestone down to the great river beyond, the
Ohio—a land of glades, the fields of which were pied with
flowers of wondrous beauty, where roamed the buffalo in
countless thousands, where elk and deer abounded, and
turkeys and feathered game, and bear in the tall brakes of
cane. And, simply, he told how, when the others had left
him, he stayed for three months roaming the hills alone
with Nature herself.
“But did you no' meet the Indians?” asked my father.
“I seed one fishing on a log once,” said our visitor,
laughing, “but he fell into the water. I reckon he was
drowned.”
My father nodded comprehendingly,—even admiringly.
“And again!” said he.
“Wal,” said Mr. Boone, “we fell in with a war party
of Shawnees going back to their lands north of the great
river. The critters took away all we had. It was hard,”
he added reflectively; “I had staked my fortune on the
venter, and we'd got enough skins to make us rich. But,
neighbor, there is land enough for you and me, as black
and rich as Canaan.”
“ `The Lord is my shepherd,' ” said my father, lapsing
into verse. “ `The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not
want. He leadeth me into green pastures, and beside
still waters.' ”
For a time they were silent, each wrapped in his own
thought, while the crickets chirped and the frogs sang.
From the distant forest came the mournful hoot of an owl.
“And you are going back?” asked my father, presently.
“Aye, that I am. There are many families on the Yadkin
below going, too. And you, neighbor, you might
come with us. Davy is the boy that would thrive in that
country.”
My father did not answer. It was late indeed when
we lay down to rest, and the night I spent between waking
and dreaming of the wonderland beyond the mountains,
hoping against hope that my father would go. The
sun was just flooding the slopes when our guest arose to
leave, and my father bade him God-speed with a heartiness
that was rare to him. But, to my bitter regret, neither
spoke of my father's going. Being a man of understanding,
Mr. Boone knew it were little use to press. He
patted me on the head.
“You're a wise lad, Davy,” said he. “I hope we shall
meet again.”
He mounted his roan and rode away down the slope,
waving his hand to us. And it was with a heavy heart
that I went to feed our white mare, whinnying for food in
the lean-to.