The Life and Times of Col. Daniel Boone, Hunter, Soldier, and Pioneer. Ellis Edward Sylvester
than just such a life as that followed by Daniel Boone – wandering for hours through the wilderness, on the look-out for game, building the cheery camp-fire deep in some glen or gorge, quaffing the clear icy water from some stream, or lying flat on the back and looking up through the tree-tops at the patches of blue sky, across which the snowy ships of vapor are continually sailing.
But any parent who would allow a child to follow the bewitching pleasures of such a life, would commit a sinful neglect of duty, and would take the surest means of bringing regret, sorrow, and trouble to the boy himself, when he should come to manhood.
The parents of young Boone, though they were poor, and had the charge of a large family, did their utmost to give their children the rudiments of a common school education, with the poor advantages that were at their command.
It is said that about the first thing Daniel's teacher did, after summoning his boys and girls together in the morning, was to send them out again for a recess – one of the most popular proceedings a teacher can take, though it cannot be considered a very great help in their studies.
While the pupils were enjoying themselves to their fullest bent, the master took a stroll into the woods, from which he was always sure to return much more crabbed than when he went, and with his breath smelling very strongly of something stronger than water.
At times he became so mellowed, that he was indulgence itself, and at other times he beat the boys unmercifully. The patrons of the school seemed to think their duty ended with the sending of their children to the school-house, without inquiring what took place after they got there.
One day Daniel asked the teacher for permission to go out-doors, and receiving it, he passed into the clear air just at the moment that a brown squirrel was running along the branch of a fallen tree.
Instantly the athletic lad darted in pursuit, and, when the nimble little animal whisked out of sight among a dense clump of vine and bushes, the boy shoved his hand in, in the hope of catching it. Instead of doing so, he touched something cold and smooth, and bringing it forth, found it was a whiskey bottle with a goodly quantity of the fiery fluid within.
"That's what the teacher comes out here for," thought Daniel, as his eyes sparkled, "and that's why he is so cross when he comes back."
He restored the bottle to its place, and returned to the school-room, saying nothing to any one until after dismissal, when he told his discovery to some of the larger boys, who, like all school-children, were ever ripe for mischief.
When such a group fall into a discussion, it may be set down as among the certainties that something serious to some one is sure to be the result.
The next morning the boys put a good charge of tartar emetic in the whiskey bottle, and shaking it up, restored it to its former place of concealment. Then, full of eager expectation, they hurried into school, where they were more studious than ever – a suspicious sign which ought to have attracted the notice of the teacher, though it seems not to have done so.
The Irish instructor took his walk as usual, and when he came back and resumed labor, it may be imagined that the boys were on the tip-toe of expectation.
They had not long to wait. The teacher grew pale, and gave signs of some revolution going on internally. But he did not yield to the feeling. As might have been expected, however, it increased his fretfulness, and whether he suspected the truth or not, he punished the boys most cruelly, as though seeking to work off his illness by exercising himself with the rod upon the backs of the lads, whose only consolation was in observing that the medicine taken unconsciously by the irate teacher was accomplishing its mission.
Matters became worse and worse, and the whippings of the teacher were so indiscriminate and brutal, that a rebellion was excited. The crisis was reached when he assailed Daniel, who struggled desperately, encouraged by the uproar and shouts of the others, until he finally got the upper hand of the master, and gave him an unquestionable trouncing.
After such a proceeding it was not to be expected that any sort of discipline could be maintained, and the rest of the pupils rushed out-doors and scattered to their homes.
The news of the outbreak quickly spread through the neighborhood, and Daniel was taken to task by his father for his insubordination, though the parent now saw that the teacher possessed not the first qualification for his position. And the instructor himself must have felt somewhat the same way, for he made no objections when he was notified of his dismissal, and the school education of Daniel Boone ended.
It was a misfortune to him, as it is to any one, to be deprived of the privilege of storing his mind with the knowledge that is to be acquired from books, and yet, in another sense, it was an advantage to the sturdy boy, who gained the better opportunity for training himself for the great work which lay before him.
In the woods of Exeter he hunted more than ever, educating the eye, ear, and all the senses to that wonderful quickness which seems incredible when simply told of a person. He became a dead shot with his rifle, and laid the foundations of rugged health, strength and endurance, which were to prove so invaluable to him in after years, when he should cross the Ohio, and venture into the perilous depths of the Dark and Bloody Ground.
Boone grew into a natural athlete, with all his faculties educated to the highest point of excellence. He assisted his father as best he could, but he was a Nimrod by nature, instinct and education, and while yet a boy, he became known for miles around the settlement as a most skilled, daring, and successful hunter.
When he had reached young manhood, his father removed to North Carolina, settling near Holman's Ford, on the Yadkin river, some eight miles from Wilkesboro'. Here, as usual, the boy assisted his parents, who were gifted with a large family, as was generally the case with the pioneers, so that there was rarely anything like affluence attained by those who helped to build up our country.
While the Boones lived on the banks of the Yadkin, Daniel formed the acquaintance of Rebecca Bryan, whom he married, according to the best authority attainable, in the year 1755, when he was about twenty years of age.
There is a legend which has been told many a time to the effect that Boone, while hunting, mistook the bright eyes of a young lady for those of a deer, and that he came within a hair's-breadth of sending a ball between them with his unerring rifle, before he discovered his mistake. But the legend, like that of Jessie Brown at Lucknow and many others in which we delight, has no foundation in fact, and so far as known there was no special romance connected with the marriage of Boone to the excellent lady who became his partner for life.
The children born of this marriage were James, Israel, Jesse, Daniel, Nathan, Susan, Jemima, Lavinia, and Rebecca.
CHAPTER II
The early part of Daniel Boone's married life was uneventful, and the years glided by without bringing any incident, event or experience to him worthy the pen of the historian. He toiled faithfully to support his growing family, and spent a goodly portion of his time in the woods, with his rifle and dog, sometimes camping on the bank of the lonely Yadkin, or floating down its smooth waters in the stillness of the delightful afternoon, or through the solemn quiet of the night, when nothing but the stars were to be seen twinkling overhead.
But Daniel Boone was living in stirring times, and there were signs in the political heavens of tremendous changes approaching. There was war between England and France; there was strife along the frontier, where the Indian fought fiercely against the advancing army of civilization, and the spirit of resistance to the tyranny of the mother country was growing rapidly among the sturdy colonists. North Carolina began, through her representatives in legislature, those measures of opposition to the authority of Great Britain, which forecast the active part the Old Pine Tree State was to take in the revolutionary struggle for liberty and independence.
During the few years that followed there was constant quarreling between the royal governor and the legislators, and it assumed such proportions that the State was kept in continual ferment. This