Chapter 11: The Forest Spell

When the adventurers returned the rifle and ax were laid aside at Wareville, for the moment, because the supreme test was coming. The soil was now to respond to its trial, or to fail. This was the vital question to Wareville. The game, in the years to come, must disappear, the forest would be cut down, but the qualities of the earth would remain; if it produced well, it would form the basis of a nation, if not, it would be better to let all the work of the last year go and seek another home elsewhere.

But the settlers had little doubt. All their lives had been spent close to the soil, and they were not to be deceived, when they came over the mountains in search of a land richer than any that they had tilled before. They had seen its blackness, and, plowing down with the spade, they had tested its depth. They knew that for ages and ages leaf and bough, falling upon it, had decayed there and increased its fertility, and so they awaited the test with confidence.

The green young shoots of the wheat, sown before the winter, were the first to appear, and everyone in Wareville old enough to know the importance of such a manifestation went forth to examine them. Mr. Ware, Mr. Upton and Mr. Pennypacker held solemn conclave, and the final verdict was given by the schoolmaster, as became a man who might not be so strenuous in practice as the others, but who nevertheless was more nearly a master of theory.

“The stalks are at least a third heavier than those in Maryland or Virginia at the same age,” he said, “and we can fairly infer from it that the grain will show the same proportion of increase. I take a third as a most conservative estimate; it is really nearer a half. Wareville can, with reason, count upon twenty-five bushels of wheat to the acre, and it is likely to go higher.”

It was then no undue sense of elation that Wareville felt, and it was shared by Henry and Paul, and even young Lucy Upton.

“It will be a rich country some day when I’m an old, old woman,” she said to Henry.

“It’s a rich country now,” replied he proudly, “and it will be a long, long time before you are an old woman.”

They began now to plow the ground cleared the autumn before--”new ground” they called it--for the spring planting of maize. This, often termed “Indian corn” but more generally known by the simple name corn, was to be their chief crop, and the labor of preparation, in which Henry had his full share, was not light. Their plows were rude, made by themselves, and finished with a single iron point, and the ground, which had supported the forest so lately, was full of roots and stumps. So the passage of the plow back and forth was a trial to both the muscles and the spirit. Henry’s body became sore from head to foot, and by and by, as the spring advanced and the sun grew hotter, he looked longingly at the shade of the forest which yet lay so near, and thought of the deep, cool pools and the silver fish leaping up, until their scales shone like gold in the sunshine, and of the stags with mighty antlers coming down to drink. He was sorry for the moment that he was so large and strong and was so useful with plow and hoe. Then he might be more readily excused and could take his rifle and seek the depths of the forest, where everything grew by nature’s aid alone, and man need not work, unless the spirit moved him to do so.

They planted the space close around the fort in gardens and here after the ground was “broken up” or plowed, the women and the girls, all tall and strong, did the work.

The summer was splendid in its promise and prodigal in its favors. The rains fell just right, and all that the pioneers planted came up in abundance. The soil, so kind to the wheat, was not less so to the corn and the gardens. Henry surveyed with pride the field of maize cultivated by himself, in which the stalks were now almost a foot high, looking in the distance like a delicate green veil spread over the earth. His satisfaction was shared by all in Wareville because after this fulfillment of the earth’s promises, they looked forward to continued seasons of plenty.

When the heavy work of planting and cultivating was over and there was to be a season of waiting for the harvest, Henry went on the great expedition to the Mississippi.

In the party were Ross, Shif’less Sol, the schoolmaster, Henry and Paul. Wareville had no white neighbor near and all the settlements lay to the north or east. Beyond them, across the Ohio, was the formidable cloud of Indian tribes, the terror of which always overhung the settlers. West of them was a vast waste of forest spreading away far beyond the Mississippi, and, so it was supposed, inhabited only by wild animals. It was thought well to verify this supposition and therefore the exploring expedition set out.

Each member of the party carried a rifle, hunting knife and ammunition, and in addition they led three pack horses bearing more ammunition, their meal, jerked venison and buffalo meat. This little army expected to live upon the country, but it took the food as a precaution.

They started early of a late but bright summer morning, and Henry found all his old love of the wilderness returning. Now it would be gratified to the full, as they should be gone perhaps two months and would pass through regions wholly unknown. Moreover he had worked hard for a long time and he felt that his holiday was fully earned; hence there was no flaw in his hopes.

It required but a few minutes to pass through the cleared ground, the new fields, and reach the forest and as they looked back they saw what a slight impression they had yet made on the wilderness. Wareville was but a bit of human life, nothing more than an islet of civilization in a sea of forest.

Five minutes more of walking among the trees, and then both Wareville and the newly opened country around it were shut out. They saw only the spire of smoke that had been a beacon once to Henry and Paul, rising high up, until it trailed off to the west with the wind, where it lay like a whiplash across the sky. This, too, was soon lost as they traveled deeper into the forest, and then they were alone in the wilderness, but without fear.

“When we were able to live here without arms or ammunition it’s not likely that we’ll suffer, now is it?” said Paul to Henry.

“Suffer!” exclaimed Henry. “It’s a journey that I couldn’t be hired to miss.”

“It ought to be enjoyable,” said Mr. Pennypacker; “that is, if our relatives don’t find it necessary to send into the Northwest, and try to buy back our scalps from the Indian tribes.”

But the schoolmaster was not serious. He had little fear of Indians in the western part of Kentucky, where they seldom ranged, but he thought it wise to put a slight restraint upon the exuberance of youth.

They camped that night about fifteen miles from Wareville under the shadow of a great, overhanging rock, where they cooked some squirrels that the shiftless one shot, in a tall tree. The schoolmaster upon this occasion constituted himself cook.

“There is a popular belief,” he said when he asserted his place, “that a man of books is of no practical use in the world. I hereby intend to give a living demonstration to the contrary.”

Ross built the fire, and while the schoolmaster set himself to his task, Henry and Paul took their fish hooks and lines and went down to the creek that flowed near. It was so easy to catch perch and other fish that there was no sport in it, and as soon as they had enough for supper and breakfast they went back to the fire where the tempting odors that arose indicated the truth of the schoolmaster’s assertion. The squirrels were done to a turn, and no doubt of his ability remained.

Supper over, they made themselves beds of boughs under the shadow of the rock, while the horses were tethered near. They sank into dreamless sleep, and it was the schoolmaster who awakened Paul and Henry the next morning.

They entered that day a forest of extraordinary grandeur, almost clear of undergrowth and with illimitable rows of mighty oak and beech trees. As they passed through, it was like walking under the lofty roof of an immense cathedral. The large masses of foliage met overhead and shut out the sun, making the space beneath dim and shadowy, and sometimes it seemed to the explorers that an echo of their own footsteps came back to them.

Henry noted the trees, particularly the beeches which here grow to finer proportions than anywhere else in the world, and said he was glad that he did not have to cut them down and clear the ground, for the use of the plow.

After they passed out of this great forest they entered the widest stretch of open country they had yet seen in Kentucky, though here and there they came upon patches of bushes.

“I think this must have been burned off by successive forest fires,” said Ross, “Maybe hunting parties of Indians put the torch to it in order to drive the game.”

Certainly these prairies now contained an abundance of animal life. The grass was fresh, green and thick everywhere, and from a hill the explorers saw buffalo, elk, and common deer grazing or browsing on the bushes.

As the game was so abundant Paul, the least skillful of the party in such matters, was sent forth that evening to kill a deer and this he triumphantly accomplished to his own great satisfaction. They again slept in peace, now under the low-hanging boughs of an oak, and continued the next day to the west. Thus they went on for days.

It was an easy journey, except when they came to rivers, some of which were too deep for fording, but Ross had made provision for them. Perched upon one of the horses was a skin canoe, that is, one made of stout buffalo hide to be held in shape by a slight framework of wood on the inside, such as they could make at any time. Two or three trips in this would carry themselves and all their equipment over the stream while the horses swam behind.

They soon found it necessary to put their improvised canoe to use as they came to a great river flowing in a deep channel. Wild ducks flew about its banks or swam on the dark-blue current that flowed quietly to the north. This was the Cumberland, though nameless then to the travelers, and its crossing was a delicate operation as any incautious movement might tip over the skin canoe, and, while they were all good swimmers, the loss of their precious ammunition could not be taken as anything but a terrible misfortune.

Traveling on to the west they came to another and still mightier river, called by the Indians, so Ross said, the Tennessee, which means in their language the Great Spoon, so named because the river bent in curves like a spoon. This river looked even wilder and more picturesque than the Cumberland, and Henry, as he gazed up its stream, wondered if the white man would ever know all the strange regions through which it flowed. Vast swarms of wild fowl, as at the Cumberland, floated upon its waters or flew near and showed but little alarm as they passed. When they wished food it was merely to go a little distance and take it as one walks to a cupboard for a certain dish.

Now, the aspect of the country began to change. The hills sank. The streams ceased to sparkle and dash helter-skelter over the stones; instead they flowed with a deep sluggish current and always to the west. In some the water was so nearly still that they might be called lagoons. Marshes spread out for great distances, and they were thronged with millions of wild fowl. The air grew heavier, hotter and damper.

“We must be approaching the Mississippi,” said Henry, who was quick to draw an inference from these new conditions.

“It can’t be very far,” replied Ross, “because we are in low country now, and when we get into the lowest the Mississippi will be there.”

All were eager for a sight of the great river. Its name was full of magic for those who came first into the wilderness of Kentucky. It seemed to them the limits of the inhabitable world. Beyond stretched vague and shadowy regions, into which hunters and trappers might penetrate, but where no one yet dreamed of building a home. So it was with some awe that they would stand upon the shores of this boundary, this mighty stream that divided the real from the unreal.

But traveling was now slow. There were so many deep creeks and lagoons to cross, and so many marshes to pass around that they could not make many miles in a day. They camped for a while on the highest hill that they could find and fished and hunted. While here they built themselves a thatch shelter, acting on Ross’s advice, and they were very glad that they did so, as a tremendous rain fell a few days after it was finished, deluging the country and swelling all the creeks and lagoons. So they concluded to stay until the earth returned to comparative dryness again in the sunshine, and meanwhile their horses, which did not stand the journey as well as their masters, could recuperate.

Two days after they resumed the journey, they stood on the low banks of the Mississippi and looked at its vast yellow current flowing in a mile-wide channel, and bearing upon its muddy bosom, bushes and trees, torn from slopes thousands of miles away. It was not beautiful, it was not even picturesque, but its size, its loneliness and its desolation gave it a somber grandeur, which all the travelers felt. It was the same river that had received De Soto’s body many generations before, and it was still a mystery.

“We know where it goes to, for the sea receives them all,” said Mr. Pennypacker, “but no man knows whence it comes.”

“And it would take a good long trip to find out,” said Sol.

“A trip that we haven’t time to take,” returned the schoolmaster.

Henry felt a desire to make that journey, to follow the great stream, month after month, until he traced it to the last fountain and uncovered its secret. The power that grips the explorer, that draws him on through danger, known and unknown, held him as he gazed.

They followed the banks of the stream at a slow pace to the north, sweltering in the heat which seemed to come to a focus here at the confluence of great waters, until at last they reached a wide extent of low country overgrown with bushes and cut with a broad yellow band coming down from the northeast.

“The Ohio!” said Ross.

And so it was; it was here that the stream called by the Indians “The Beautiful River”--though not deserving the name at this place--lost itself in the Mississippi and at the junction it seemed full as mighty a river as the great Father of Waters himself.

They did not stay long at the meeting of the two rivers, fearing the miasma of the marshy soil, but retreated to the hills where they went into camp again. Yet Ross, and Henry, and Sol crossed both the Ohio and the Mississippi in the frail canoe for the sake of saying that they had been on the farther shores. The three, leaving Paul and the schoolmaster to guard the camp, even penetrated to a considerable distance in the prairie country beyond the Ohio. Here Henry saw for the first time a buffalo herd of size. Buffaloes were common enough in Kentucky, but the country being mostly wooded they roamed there in small bands. North of the Ohio he now beheld these huge shaggy animals in thousands and he narrowly escaped being trampled to death by a herd which, frightened by a pack of wolves, rushed down upon him like a storm. It was Ross who saved him by shooting the leading bull, thus compelling them to divide when they came to his body, by which action they left a clear space where he and Henry stood. After that Henry, as became one of fast-ripening experience and judgment, grew more cautious.