Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
O’er Lake Erie’s dark, deep waters,—acrossOhio’s broad, rich lands, and still onward,among the graceful forest trees, gushingsprings, and fertile plains of Kentucky,rests in quiet beauty, the shady hillside,bright green valley, and dancing waterbrook,known as Glen’s Creek. No stately spire orglittering dome point out the spot to thepassing traveller, but under the shadow ofthe lofty trees stands a large brick edifice,which has been consecrated to the worship ofGod. There, each Sabbath, together congregatethe old and young, the lofty and thelowly, bond and free, and the incense whichfrom that altar ascends to heaven is not theless pure because in that secluded spot thetones of the Sabbath bell never yet wereheard. Not far from the old brick churchare numerous time-stained grave-stones,speaking to the living of the pale dead ones,who side by side lie sleeping, unmindful ofthe wintry storm or summer’s fervid heat.
A little farther down the hill, and nearthe apple tree, whose apples never get ripe,stands a low white building,—the schoolhouse of Glen’s Creek. There, for severalyears, “Yankee schoolmasters,” one afteranother, have tried by turns the effect ofmoral suasion, hickory sticks and leathernstraps on the girls and boys who there assemble,some intent upon mastering themysteries of the Latin Reader, and othersthinking wistfully of the miniature mill-damand fish-pond in the brook at the foot of thehill, or of the play-house under the mapletree, where the earthens are each day washedin the little “tin bucket” which servesthe treble purpose of dinner-pail, wash-bowl,and drinking-cup.
But not with Glen’s Creek as it now is hasour story aught to do, although few havebeen the changes since, in the times longgone, the Indian warrior sought shelter fromthe sultry August sun ’neath the bows ofthe shady buckeye or towering honey locust,which so thickly stud the hillside of Glen’sCreek. Then, as now, the first spring violetblossomed there, and the earliest crocusgrew near the stream whose waters sang asmournfully to the dusky maiden of the forest,as they since have to the fair daughter of thepale-face.
The incidents about to be narrated are believedto have taken place near the commencementof the nineteenth century, whenthe country of Kentucky, from Lexington toLouisville, was one entire forest, and when,instead of the planter’s handsome dwelling,now so common, there was only the rude loghut surrounded, perhaps, by a few acres ofhalf-cleared land. Brave, indeed, must havebeen the heart of the har