The Judge stared at me aghast.  It was the first time I had dared oppose him on this subject.

“What,” he sputtered, “what?  You are a Separatist,—­you whom I have received into the bosom of my family!” Seizing the cane at the middle, he brandished it in my face.

“Don’t misunderstand me, sir,” said I.  “You have given me books to read, and have taught me what may be the destiny of our nation on this continent.  But you must forgive a people whose lives have been spent in a fierce struggle for their homes, whose families have nearly all lost some member by massacre, who are separated by hundreds of miles of wilderness from you.”

He looked at me speechless, and turned and walked into the house.  I thought I had sinned past forgiveness, and I was beyond description uncomfortable, for he had been like a parent to me.  But the next morning, at half after seven, he walked into the little office and laid down some gold pieces on my table.  Gold was very scarce in those days.

“They are for your journey, David,” said he.  “My only comfort in your going back is that you may grow up to put some temperance into their wild heads.  I have a commission for you at Jonesboro, in what was once the unspeakable State of Franklin.  You can stop there on your way to Kentucky.”  He drew from his pocket a great bulky letter, addressed to “Thomas Wright, Esquire, Barrister-at-law in Jonesboro, North Carolina.”  For the good gentleman could not bring himself to write Franklin.

It was late in September of the year 1788 when I set out on my homeward way—­for Kentucky was home to me.  I was going back to Polly Ann and Tom, and visions of that home-coming rose before my eyes as I rode.  In a packet in my saddle-bags were some dozen letters which Mr. Wrenn, the schoolmaster at Harrodstown, had writ at Polly Ann’s bidding.  I have the letters yet.  For Mr. Wrenn was plainly an artist, and had set down on the paper the words just as they had flowed from her heart.  Ay, and there was news in the letters, though not surprising news among those pioneer families whom God blessed so abundantly.  Since David Ritchie McChesney (I mention the name with pride) had risen above the necessities of a bark cradle, two more had succeeded him, a brother and a sister.  I spurred my horse onward, and thought impatiently of the weary leagues between my family and me.

I have often pictured myself on that journey.  I was twenty-one years of age, though one would have called me older.  My looks were nothing to boast of, and I was grown up tall and weedy, so that I must have made quite a comical sight, with my long legs dangling on either side of the pony.  I wore a suit of gray homespun, and in my saddle-bags I carried four precious law books, the stock in trade which my generous patron had given me.  But as I mounted the slopes of the mountains my spirits rose too at the prospect of the life before me.  The woods were all aflame with color, with wine and amber and