Chapter 6

From pioneer habit he awoke before dawn, and for a moment the softness where he lay puzzled him. There was no sound of anybody stirring and he thought he must have waked up in the middle of the night, but he could smell the dawn and he started to spring up. But there was nothing to be done, nothing that he could do. He felt hot and stuffy, though Harry had put up his windows, and he could not lie there wide awake. He could not go out in the heavy dew in the gay clothes and fragile shoes he had taken off, so he slid into his own buckskin clothes and moccasins and out the still open front door and down the path toward the river. Instinctively he had picked up his rifle, bullet-pouch, and powder-horn. Up the river to the right he could faintly see dark woods, and he made toward and plunged into them with his eyes on the ground for signs of game, but he saw tracks only of coon and skunk and fox, and he grunted his disgust and loped ahead for half an hour farther into the heart of the woods. An hour later he loped back on his own tracks. The cabins were awake now, and every pickaninny who saw him showed the whites of his eyes in terror and fled back into his house. He came noiselessly behind a negro woman at the kitchen-door and threw three squirrels on the steps before her. She turned, saw him, and gave a shriek, but recovered herself and picked them up. Her amazement grew as she looked them over, for there was no sign of a bullet-wound, and she went in to tell how the Injun boy must naturally just �charm �em right out o� de trees.�

At the front door Harry hailed him and Barbara came running out.

�I forgot to get you another suit of clothes last night,� he said, �and we were scared this morning. We thought you had left us, and Barbara there nearly cried.� Barbara blushed now and did not deny.

�Come to breakfast!� she cried.

�Did you find anything to shoot?� Harry asked.

�Nothin� but some squirrels,� said the lad.

Colonel Dale soon came in.

�You�ve got the servants mystified,� he said laughingly. �They think you�re a witch. How did you kill those squirrels?�

�I couldn�t see their heads�so I barked �em.�

�Barked?�

�I shot between the bark and the limb right under the squirrel, an� the shock kills �em. Uncle Dan�l Boone showed me how to do that.�

�Daniel Boone!� breathed Harry. �Do you know Daniel Boone?�

�Shucks, Dave can beat him shootin�.�

And then Hugh came in, pale of face and looking rather ashamed. He went straight to the Kentuckian.

�I was rude to you last night and I owe you an apology.�

He thrust out his hand and awkwardly the boy rose and took it.

�And you�ll forgive me, too, Barbara?�

�Of course I will,� she said happily, but holding up one finger of warning�should he ever do it again. The rest of the guests trooped in now, and some were going out on horseback, some for a sail, and some visiting up the river in a barge, and all were paired off, even Harry.

�I�m going to drive Cousin Erskine over the place with my ponies,� said Barbara, �and���

�I�m going back to bed,� interrupted Hugh, �or read a little Latin and Greek with Mr. Brockton.� There was impudence as well as humor in this, for the tutor had given up Hugh in despair long ago.

Barbara shook her head.

�You are going with us,� she said.

�I want Hugh to ride with me,� said Colonel Dale, �and give Firefly a little exercise. Nobody else can ride him.�

The Kentucky boy turned a challenging eye, as did every young man at the table, and Hugh felt very comfortable. While every one was getting ready, Harry brought out two foils and two masks on the porch a little later.

�We fight with those,� he said, pointing to the crossed rapiers on the wall, �but we practise with these. Hugh, there, is the champion fencer,� he said, �and he�ll show you.�

Harry helped the Kentucky boy to mask and they crossed foils�Hugh giving instructions all the time and nodding approval.

�You�ll learn�you�ll learn fast,� he said. And over his shoulder to Harry:

�Why, his wrist is as strong as mine now, and he�s got an eye like a weasel.�

With a twist he wrenched the foil from his antagonist�s hand and clattered it on the steps. The Kentuckian was bewildered and his face flushed. He ran for the weapon.

�You can�t do that again.�

�I don�t believe I can,� laughed Hugh.

�Will you learn me some more?� asked the boy eagerly.

�I surely will.�

A little later Barbara and her cousin were trotting smartly along a sandy road through the fields with the colonel and Hugh loping in front of them. Firefly was a black mettlesome gelding. He had reared and plunged when Hugh mounted, and even now he was champing his bit and leaping playfully at times, but the lad sat him with an unconcern of his capers that held the Kentucky boy�s eyes.

�Gosh,� he said, �but Hugh can ride! I wonder if he could stay on him bareback.�

�I suppose so,� Barbara said; �Hugh can do anything.�

The summer fields of corn and grain waved away on each side under the wind, innumerable negroes were at work and song on either side, great barns and whitewashed cabins dotted the rich landscape which beyond the plantation broke against woods of sombre pines. For an hour they drove, the boy�s bewildered eye missing few details and understanding few, so foreign to him were all the changes wrought by the hand, and he could hardly have believed that this country was once as wild as his own�that this was to be impoverished and his own become even a richer land. Many questions the little girl asked�and some of his answers made her shudder.

�Papa said last night that several of our kinsfolk spoke of going to your country in a party, and Harry and Hugh are crazy to go with them. Papa said people would be swarming over the Cumberland Mountains before long.�

�I wish you�d come along.�

Barbara laughed.

�I wouldn�t like to lose my hair.�

�I�ll watch out for that,� said the boy with such confident gravity that Barbara turned to look at him.

�I believe you would,� she murmured. And presently:

�What did the Indians call you?�

�White Arrow.�

�White Arrow. That�s lovely. Why?�

�I could outrun all the other boys.�

�Then you�ll have to run to-morrow when we go to the fair at Williamsburg.�

�The fair?�

Barbara explained.

For an hour or more they had driven and there was no end to the fields of tobacco and grain.

�Are we still on your land?�

Barbara laughed. �Yes, we can�t drive around the plantation and get back for dinner. I think we�d better turn now.�

�Plan-ta-tion,� said the lad. �What�s that?�

Barbara waved her whip.

�Why, all this�the land�the farm.�

�Oh!�

�It�s called Red Oaks�from those big trees back of the house.�

�Oh. I know oaks�all of �em.�

She wheeled the ponies and with fresh zest they scampered for home. She even let them run for a while, laughing and chatting meanwhile, though the light wagon swayed from side to side perilously as the boy thought, and when, in his ignorance of the discourtesy involved, he was on the point of reaching for the reins, she spoke to them and pulled them gently into a swift trot. Everybody had gathered for the noonday dinner when they swung around the great trees and up to the back porch. The clamor of the great bell gave its summons and the guests began straggling in by couples from the garden. Just as they were starting in the Kentucky boy gave a cry and darted down the path. A towering figure in coonskin cap and hunter�s garb was halted at the sun-dial and looking toward them.

�Now, I wonder who that is,� said Colonel Dale. �Jupiter, but that boy can run!�

They saw the tall stranger stare wonderingly at the boy and throw back his head and laugh. Then the two came on together. The boy was still flushed but the hunter�s face was grave.

�This is Dave,� said the boy simply.

�Dave Yandell,� added the stranger, smiling and taking off his cap. �I�ve been at Williamsburg to register some lands and I thought I�d come and see how this young man is getting along.�

Colonel Dale went quickly to meet him with outstretched hand.

�I�m glad you did,� he said heartily. �Erskine has already told us about you. You are just in time for dinner.�

�That�s mighty kind,� said Dave. And the ladies, after he was presented, still looked at him with much curiosity and great interest. Truly, strange visitors were coming to Red Oaks these days.

That night the subject of Hugh and Harry going back home with the two Kentuckians was broached to Colonel Dale, and to the wondering delight of the two boys both fathers seemed to consider it favorably. Mr. Brockton was going to England for a visit, the summer was coming on, and both fathers thought it would be a great benefit to their sons. Even Mrs. Dale, on whom the hunter had made a most agreeable impression, smiled and said she would already be willing to trust her son with their new guest anywhere.

�I shall take good care of him, madam,� said Dave with a bow.

Colonel Dale, too, was greatly taken with the stranger, and he asked many questions of the new land beyond the mountains. There was dancing again that night, and the hunter, towering a head above them all, looked on with smiling interest. He even took part in a square dance with Miss Jane Willoughby, handling his great bulk with astonishing grace and lightness of foot. Then the elder gentlemen went into the drawing-room to their port and pipes, and the boy Erskine slipped after them and listened enthralled to the talk of the coming war.

Colonel Dale had been in Hanover ten years before, when one Patrick Henry voiced the first intimation of independence in Virginia; Henry, a country storekeeper�bankrupt; farmer�bankrupt; storekeeper again, and bankrupt again; an idler, hunter, fisher, and story-teller�even a �barkeeper,� as Mr. Jefferson once dubbed him, because Henry had once helped his father-in-law to keep tavern. That far back Colonel Dale had heard Henry denounce the clergy, stigmatize the king as a tyrant who had forfeited all claim to obedience, and had seen the orator caught up on the shoulders of the crowd and amidst shouts of applause borne around the court-house green. He had seen the same Henry ride into Richmond two years later on a lean horse: with papers in his saddle-pockets, his expression grim, his tall figure stooping, a peculiar twinkle in his small blue eyes, his brown wig without powder, his coat peach-blossom in color, his knee-breeches of leather, and his stockings of yarn. The speaker of the Burgesses was on a dais under a red canopy supported by gilded rods, and the clerk sat beneath with a mace on the table before him, but Henry cried for liberty or death, and the shouts of treason failed then and there to save Virginia for the king. The lad�s brain whirled. What did all this mean? Who was this king and what had he done? He had known but the one from whom he had run away. And this talk of taxes and Stamp Acts; and where was that strange land, New England, whose people had made tea of the salt water in Boston harbor? Until a few days before he had never known what tea was, and he didn�t like it. When he got Dave alone he would learn and learn and learn�everything. And then the young people came quietly in and sat down quietly, and Colonel Dale, divining what they wanted, got Dave started on stories of the wild wilderness that was his home�the first chapter in the Iliad of Kentucky�the land of dark forests and cane thickets that separated Catawbas, Creeks, and Cherokees on the south from Delawares, Wyandottes, and Shawnees on the north, who fought one another, and all of whom the whites must fight. How Boone came and stayed two years in the wilderness alone, and when found by his brother was lying on his back in the woods lustily singing hymns. How hunters and surveyors followed; how the first fort was built, and the first women stood on the banks of the Kentucky River. He told of the perils and hardships of the first journeys thither�fights with wild beasts and wild men, chases, hand-to-hand combats, escapes, and massacres�and only the breathing of his listeners could be heard, save the sound of his own voice. And he came finally to the story of the attack on the fort, the raising of a small hand above the cane, palm outward, and the swift dash of a slender brown body into the fort, and then, seeing the boy�s face turn scarlet, he did not tell how that same lad had slipped back into the woods even while the fight was going on, and slipped back with the bloody scalp of his enemy, but ended with the timely coming of the Virginians, led by the lad�s father, who got his death-wound at the very gate. The tense breathing of his listeners culminated now in one general deep breath.

Colonel Dale rose and turned to General Willoughby.

�And that�s where he wants to take our boys.�

�Oh, it�s much safer now,� said the hunter. �We have had no trouble for some time, and there�s no danger inside the fort.�

�I can imagine you keeping those boys inside the fort when there�s so much going on outside. Still�� Colonel Dale stopped and the two boys took heart again. The ladies rose to go to bed, and Mrs. Dale was shaking her head very doubtfully, but she smiled up at the tall hunter when she bade him good night.

�I shall not take back what I said.�

�Thank you, madam,� said Dave, and he bent his lips to her absurdly little white hand.

Colonel Dale escorted the boy and Dave to their room. Mr. Yandell must go with them to the fair at Williamsburg next morning, and Mr. Yandell would go gladly. They would spend the night there and go to the Governor�s Ball. The next day there was a county fair, and perhaps Mr. Henry would speak again. Then Mr. Yandell must come back with them to Red Oaks and pay them a visit�no, the colonel would accept no excuse whatever.

The boy plied Dave with questions about the people in the wilderness and passed to sleep. Dave lay awake a long time thinking that war was sure to come. They were Americans now, said Colonel Dale�not Virginians, just as nearly a century later the same people were to say:

�We are not Americans now�we are Virginians.�