Part 12 (1/2)

There are some articles, however, like salt and iron, which the settlers cannot always get in the backwoods. These they must obtain by barter. So each family collects all the furs it can, and once a year, after the harvest is gathered, loads them on pack-horses, which are driven across the mountains to some large trading town on the seacoast. There the skins are traded for the needed iron or salt.

Often many neighbors plan to go together on such a journey. Sometimes they drive before them their steers and hogs to find a market in the east.

A bushel of salt costs in these early days a good cow and calf. Now, that is a great deal to pay; and furthermore, as each small and poorly fed pack-animal can carry but two bushels, salt is a highly prized article.

Since it is so expensive and hard to get, it has to be used sparingly by the mountaineers. Therefore the housewife, instead of salting or pickling her meat, preserves or ”jerks” it by drying it in the sun or smoking it over the fire.

The Tennessee settler, like Boone's followers in Kentucky, dresses very much like the Indians, for that is the easiest and most fitting way in which to clothe himself for the forest life he leads. And very fine do many stalwart figures appear in the fur cap and moccasins, the loose trousers, or simply leggings of buckskin, and the fringed hunting-s.h.i.+rt reaching nearly to the knees. It is held in by a broad belt having a tomahawk in one side and a knife in the other.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Kentucky Pioneer's Cabin.]

While this free outdoor life develops strong and vigorous bodies, there is not much schooling in these backwoods settlements. Most boys and girls learn very little except reading and writing and very simple ciphering, or arithmetic. If there are any schoolhouses at all, they are log huts, dimly lighted and furnished very scantily and rudely.

The schoolmaster, as a rule, does not know much of books, and is quite untrained as a teacher. His discipline, though severe, is very poor. And he is paid in a way that may seem strange to you. He receives very little in cash, and for the rest of his wages he ”boards around” with the families of the children he teaches, making his stay longer or shorter according to the number of children in school.

In many ways, as you see, the life of the pioneer child, while it was active and full of interest, was very different from yours. He learned, like his elders, to imitate bird calls, to set traps, to shoot a rifle, and at twelve the little lad became a foot soldier. He knew from just which loophole he was to shoot if the Indians attacked the fort, and he took pride in becoming a good marksman. He was carefully trained, too, to follow an Indian trail and to conceal his own when on the war-path--for such knowledge would be very useful to him as a hunter and fighter in the forests.

ROBERTSON A BRAVE LEADER

Such was the life of these early woodsmen and their families, and to this life Robertson and those who went out with him soon became accustomed. On their arrival at the Watauga River the newcomers mingled readily with the Virginians already on the ground.

Robertson soon became one of the leading men. His cabin of logs stood on an island in the river, and is said to have been the largest in the settlement. It had a log veranda in front, several rooms, a loft, and best of all, a huge fireplace made of sticks and stones laid in clay, in which a pile of blazing logs roared on cold days, making it a centre of good cheer as well as of heat. To us it would have been a most inviting spot for a summer holiday.

Robertson was very prosperous and successful at Watauga; but in 1799, after ten years of leaders.h.i.+p at this settlement, a restless craving for change and adventure stole over him, and he went forth once more into the wilderness to seek a new home still deeper in the forest.

The place he chose was the beautiful country lying along the great bend of the c.u.mberland River, where Nashville now stands. Many bold settlers were ready and even eager to join Robertson in the new venture, for he was a born leader.

A small party went ahead early in the spring to plant corn, so that the settlers might have food when they arrived in the autumn. Robertson and eight other men, who made up the party, left the Watauga by the Wilderness Road through c.u.mberland Gap, crossing the c.u.mberland River. Then, following the trail of wild animals in a southwesterly direction, they came to a suitable place.

Here they put up cabins and planted corn, and then, leaving three men to keep the buffaloes from eating the corn when it came up, the other six returned to Watauga.

In the autumn two parties started out for the new settlement. One of these, made up mostly of women and children, went by water in flatboats, dugouts, and canoes, a route supposed to be easier though much the longer of the two. Whether it was easier, we shall see. The other party, including Robertson himself, went by land, hoping thus to reach the place of settlement in time to make ready for those coming by water.

Robertson and his men arrived about Christmas. Then began a tedious four months of waiting for the others. It was springtime again, April 24, when they at last arrived. Their roundabout route had taken them down the Tennessee River, then up the Ohio, and lastly up the c.u.mberland. The Indians in ambush on the river banks had attacked them many times during their long and toilsome journey, and the boats were so slow and clumsy that it was impossible for them to escape the flights of arrows.

But when they arrived, past troubles were soon forgotten, and with good heart, now that all were together, the settlers took up the work of making homes.

However, difficulties with the Indians were not over. The first company of settlers that arrived had been left quite unmolested. But now, as spring opened, bands of Indian hunters and warriors began to make life wretched for them all. There is no doubt that the red men did not like to have the settlers kill the game, or scare it off by clearing up the land; but the princ.i.p.al motive for the attacks was the desire for scalps and plunder, just as it was in a.s.sailing other Indian tribes.

The Indians became a constant terror. They killed the settlers while working in the clearings, hunting game, or getting salt at the licks. They loved to lure on the unwary by imitating the gobbling of a turkey or the call of some wild beast, and then pounce upon their human prey.

As the corn crop, so carefully planned, had been destroyed by heavy freshets in the autumn, the settlers had to scour the woods for food, living on nuts and game. By the time winter had set in, they had used up so much of their powder and bullets that Robertson resolved to go to Kentucky for more.

ROBERTSON SAVES THE SETTLEMENT

He went safely, though quite alone, and returned on the evening of January 15 (1780) with a good supply of ammunition. You may be sure he had a hearty welcome in the fort, where all were gathered. There was much to talk about, and they sat up till late into the night. All went to bed, tired and sleepy, without any fear. For at that season of the year the red men seldom molested them; and no sentinels were left on guard.

Soon all were in deep slumber except Robertson, whose sense of lurking danger would not let him sleep. He kept feeling that enemies might be near. And he was right. For just outside the fort, prowling in the thick underbrush and hidden by the great trees, there lay in ambush a band of painted warriors, hungry for plunder, eager for scalps.