Part 13

They had not been in their perilous position long when six well-armed Indians entered the cabin, placed their guns and other implements of warfare in one corner of the house, struck a light, and began to make the usual demonstrations of joy on such occasions. One of our heroes wished to know the number of the Indians--he was the middle man of the three, and was lying on his back--and, as hilarity and mirth "grew thick and fast" among the Indians, he attempted to turn over and get a peep at things below. His comrades caught him on each side to keep him from turning over, and, in the struggle, one of the poles broke, and with a tremendous crash the clap-boards and the three men fell in the midst of the Indians, who with a loud yell of terror fled from the house, leaving their guns, and never returned.

The three men who had thus made a miraculous escape from the savage foe, remained all night in quiet possession of the cabin, and in the morning returned to the station with their trophies. Whenever the three heroes met in after life they laughed over their strange deliverance, and what they called "The Battle of the Boards."

GEORGE D. PRENTICE

George Dennison Prentice, poet, editor, wit, and founder of the _Journal School of Female Poets_, was born at Preston, Connecticut, December 18, 1802. In the fall of 1820 Prentice entered the Sophomore class of Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, where one of his instructors was Horace Mann, and among his classmates was Samuel G. Howe. At college he was famous for his prodigious memory. Prentice was graduated from Brown in 1823, after which he taught school for some time. He next turned to the law, but this he also abandoned to enter upon his life work--journalism. In 1827 he became editor of a paper in New London, Connecticut, but in the following year he went to Hartford to take charge of the _New England Review_, which "was the Louisville _Journal_, born in Connecticut." In 1830 the Connecticut Whigs requested Prentice to journey to Kentucky and prepare a campaign life of Henry Clay. He finally decided to do this, naming John Greenleaf Whittier, the good Quaker poet, as his successor in the editorial chair of _The Review_, and setting out at once upon his long pilgrimage to Lexington. He dashed off his biography of the statesman in a few months, and it greatly pleased the Whigs of his State, but Prentice had decided to remain in Kentucky. He went to Louisville, and on November 24, 1830, the first issue of the _Louisville Journal_ appeared, and George D. Prentice had at last come into his very own. His pungent paragraphs made the "Yankee schoolmaster" feared by editors in the remotest corners of the country, but more especially by Shadrach Penn, editor of the _Louisville Advertiser_, the Democratic organ, as the _Journal_ was the Whig organ. After a constant warfare of more than ten years, poor Penn capitulated, and removed to Missouri. Prentice found another foe worthy of his steel in John H. Harney, editor of the Louisville _Daily Democrat_, but the battle of the wits between them was not as keen as it was between him and Penn. Prentice survived both editors and wrote exquisite eulogies upon them! He also had many personal encounters, which his biographer, Mr. John James Piatt, the Ohio poet, declines to dignify with the term of "duel." His pistol "brush" with Col Reuben T. Durrett, the Kentucky historical writer and collector, was, perhaps, his most serious affair. And the colonel lived to write a fine tribute to him, which was turning the tables upon him just a bit! Prentice's home in Louisville was the center of the city's literary life for many years. His wife was a charming and cultured woman, in every way fitted to assist him. A volume of his witty paragraphs, called by the publishers, _Prenticeana_ (New York, 1859), attracted attention in London and Paris, and in all parts of the United States. Next to Whig politics, the _Journal_ was the literary newspaper of the country. All Western and Southern poets were welcomed to its columns, particularly were female poets "featured," and upon them all Prentice poured out indiscriminate praise, which may or may not have been good for them or for the public. At any rate, he never failed to send a kindly letter to each new "discovery," in which their work already submitted was extravagantly valued, and in which they were urged to flood the office with more of the same kind. His praise of Amelia B. Welby, the sentimental singer of the long ago, seems indefensible to-day. As a poet himself Prentice was a master of blank verse forms. Mr. Piatt put him next to Bryant among American poets in the handling of this difficult measure. _The Closing Year_, written in 1835, is undoubtedly his finest poem; and _At My Mother's Grave_ is usually set beside it. Although his sons, wife, and most of his friends sympathized with the South in the war of Sections, Prentice was always an ardent advocate of the Union cause. He died near Louisville, on the banks of the Ohio river, January 22, 1870. Henry Watterson delivered an eulogy upon him, and snugly adjusted his mantle about his own shoulders.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The Poems of George D. Prentice_, edited by John J. Piatt (Cincinnati, 1878); _The Pioneer Press of Kentucky_, by W. H. Perrin (Louisville, 1888).

THE CLOSING YEAR

[From _The Poems of George D. Prentice, edited with a Biographical Sketch_, by John J. Piatt (Cincinnati, 1878, 4th Edition)]

'Tis midnight's holy hour--and silence now Is brooding, like a gentle spirit, o'er The still and pulseless world. Hark! on the winds The bell's deep notes are swelling. 'Tis the knell Of the departed Year.

No funeral train Is sweeping past; yet on the stream and wood, With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest, Like a pale, spotless shroud; the air is stirred, As by a mourner's sigh; and on yon cloud, That floats so still and placidly through heaven, The spirits of the seasons seem to stand-- Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn's solemn form, And Winter with his aged locks--and breathe In mournful cadences, that come abroad Like the far wind-harp's wild and touching wail, A melancholy dirge o'er the dead Year, Gone from the earth forever.

'Tis a time For memory and for tears. Within the deep, Still chambers of the heart, a specter dim, Whose tones are like the wizard voice of Time, Heard from the tomb of ages, points its cold And solemn finger to the beautiful And holy visions that have passed away And left no shadow of their loveliness On the dead waste of life. That specter lifts The coffin-lid of hope, and joy, and love, And, bending mournfully above the pale Sweet forms that slumber there, scatters dead flowers O'er what has passed to nothingness.

The Year Has gone, and, with it, many a glorious throng Of happy dreams. Its mark is on each brow, Its shadow in each heart. In its swift course, It waved its scepter o'er the beautiful, And they are not. It laid its pallid hand Upon the strong man, and the haughty form Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim. It trod the hall of revelry, where thronged The bright and joyous, and the tearful wail Of stricken ones is heard, where erst the song And reckless shout resounded. It passed o'er The battle-plain, where sword and spear and shield Flashed in the light of midday--and the strength Of serried hosts is shivered, and the grass, Green from the soil of carnage, waves above The crushed and mouldering skeleton. It came And faded like a wreath of mist at eve; Yet, ere it melted in the viewless air, It heralded its millions to their home In the dim land of dreams.

Remorseless Time!-- Fierce spirit of the glass and scythe!--what power Can stay him in his silent course, or melt His iron heart to pity? On, still on He presses, and forever. The proud bird, The condor of the Andes, that can soar Through heaven's unfathomable depths, or brave The fury of the northern hurricane And bathe his plumage in the thunder's home, Furls his broad wings at nightfall, and sinks down To rest upon his mountain-crag--but Time Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness, And night's deep darkness has no chain to bind His rushing pinion. Revolutions sweep O'er earth, like troubled visions o'er the breast Of dreaming sorrow; cities rise and sink, Like bubbles on the water; fiery isles Spring, blazing, from the ocean, and go back To their mysterious caverns; mountains rear To heaven their bald and blackened cliffs, and bow Their tall heads to the plain; new empires rise, Gathering the strength of hoary centuries, And rush down like the Alpine avalanche, Startling the nations; and the very stars, Yon bright and burning blazonry of God, Glitter awhile in their eternal depths, And, like the Pleiad, loveliest of their train, Shoot from their glorious spheres, and pass away, To darkle in the trackless void: yet Time, Time the tomb-builder, holds his fierce career, Dark, stern, all-pitiless, and pauses not Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path, To sit and muse, like other conquerors, Upon the fearful ruin he has wrought.

ON REVISITING BROWN UNIVERSITY

[From the same]

It is the noon of night. On this calm spot, Where passed my boyhood's years, I sit me down To wander through the dim world of the Past.

The Past! the silent Past! pale Memory kneels Beside her shadowy urn, and with a deep And voiceless sorrow weeps above the grave Of beautiful affections. Her lone harp Lies broken at her feet, and as the wind Goes o'er its moldering chords, a dirge-like sound Rises upon the air, and all again Is an unbreathing silence.

Oh, the Past! Its spirit as a mournful presence lives In every ray that gilds those ancient spires, And like a low and melancholy wind Comes o'er yon distant wood, and faintly breathes Upon my fevered spirit. Here I roved Ere I had fancied aught of life beyond The poet's twilight imaging. Those years Come o'er me like the breath of fading flowers, And tones I loved fall on my heart as dew Upon the withered rose-leaf. They were years When the rich sunlight blossomed in the air, And fancy, like a blessed rainbow, spanned The waves of Time, and joyous thoughts went off Upon its beautiful unpillared arch To revel there in cloud, and sun, and sky.

Within yon silent domes, how many hearts Are beating high with glorious dreams. 'Tis well; The rosy sunlight of the morn should not Be darkened by the portents of the storm That may not burst till eve. Those youthful ones Whose thoughts are woven of the hues of heaven, May see their visions fading tint by tint, Till naught is left upon the darkened air Save the gray winter cloud; the brilliant star That glitters now upon their happy lives May redden to a scorching flame and burn Their every hope to dust; yet why should thoughts Of coming sorrows cloud their hearts' bright depths With an untimely shade? Dream on--dream on, Ye thoughtless ones--dream on while yet ye may! When life is but a shadow, tear, and sigh, Ye will turn back to linger round these hours Like stricken pilgrims, and their music sweet Will be a dear though melancholy tone In Memory's ear, sounding forever more.

PRENTICE PARAGRAPHS

[From _Prenticeana_ (New York, 1859)]

James Ray and John Parr have started a locofoco paper in Maine, called the _Democrat_. Parr, in all that pertains to decency, is below zero; and Ray is below Parr.

The editor of the ---- speaks of his "lying curled up in bed these cold mornings." This verifies what we said of him some time ago--"he lies like a dog."

A young widow has established a pistol gallery in New Orleans. Her qualifications as a teacher of the art of duelling are of course undoubted; she has killed her man.

Wild rye and wild wheat grow in some regions spontaneously. We believe that wild oats are always sown.

"What would you do, madam, if you were a gentleman?" "Sir, what would you do if you were one?"

Whatever Midas touched was turned into gold; in these days, touch a man with gold and he'll turn into anything.

ROBERT M. BIRD

Robert Montgomery Bird, creator of _Nick of the Woods_, was born at Newcastle, Delaware, in 1803. He early abandoned the practice of medicine in Philadelphia in order to devote his entire attention to literature. His first works were three tragedies, entitled _The Gladiator_, _Oraloosa_, and _The Broker of Bogota_, the first of which was very popular on the stage. In 1834 Dr. Bird published his first novel, _Calavar_, a romance of Mexico that was highly praised by William H. Prescott. In the following year _The Infidel_, sequel to _Calavar_, appeared. _The Hawks_ _of Hawk Hollow_, and _Sheppard Lee_ followed fast upon the heels of _The Infidel_. Then came _Nick of the Woods, or the Jibbenainosay_ (Philadelphia, 1837, 2 vols.), the author's masterpiece. The background of this fine old romance was set against the Kentucky of 1782. Dr. Bird's Kentucky pioneers and Indians are drawn to the life, the silly sentimentalism of Cooper and Chateaubriand concerning the Indian character was avoided and indirectly proved untrue. _Nick of the Woods_ was dramatized and produced upon the stage with great success. A collection of Dr. Bird's periodical papers was made, in 1838, and published under the title of _Peter Pilgrim, or a Rambler's Recollections_. This work included the first adequate description of Mammoth Cave, in Edmonson county, Kentucky. The author was one of the cave's earliest explorers, and his account of it heralded its wonders to the world in a manner that had never been done before. Just how long Dr. Bird remained in Kentucky is not known, as no comprehensive biography of him has been issued, but he must have been in this State for several years prior to the publication of _Nick of the Woods_, and _Peter Pilgrim_. His last novel was _Robin Day_ (1839). After the publication of this tale, Dr. Bird became a Delaware farmer. In 1847 he returned to Philadelphia and became joint editor of the _North American Gazette_. He died at Philadelphia, January 22, 1854, of brain fever. Morton McMichael, with whom he was associated in conducting the _Gazette_, wrote an eloquent tribute to his memory. Dr. Bird's poem, _The Beech Tree_, is remembered today by many readers. But it is as the creator of _Nick of the Woods_, a new edition of which appeared in 1905, that his fame is firmly fixed.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The Prose Writers of America_, by R. W. Griswold (Philadelphia, 1847); Appletons' _Cyclopaedia of American Biography_ (New York, 1888, v. i).

NICK OF THE WOODS

[From _Nick of the Woods_ (New York, 1853, revised edition)]

"What's the matter, Tom Bruce?" said the father, eyeing him with surprise.

"Matter enough," responded the young giant, with a grin of mingled awe and delight; "the Jibbenainosay is up again!"

"Whar?" cried the senior, eagerly,--"not in our limits?"

"No, by Jehosaphat!" replied Tom; "but nigh enough to be neighborly,--on the north bank of Kentuck, whar he has left his mark right in the middle of the road, as fresh as though it war but the work of the morning!"

"And a clear mark, Tom?--no mistake in it?"

"Right to an iota!" said the young man;--"a reggelar cross on the breast, and a good tomahawk dig right through the skull; and a long-legg'd fellow, too, that looked as though he might have fou't old Sattan himself!"

"It's the Jibbenainosay, sure enough; and so good luck to him!" cried the commander: "thar's a harricane coming!"

"Who is the Jibbenainosay?" demanded Forrester.

"Who?" cried Tom Bruce: "Why, Nick,--Nick of the Woods."

"And who, if you please, is Nick of the Woods?"

"Thar," replied the junior, with another grin, "thar, stranger, you're too hard for me. Some think one thing, and some another; but thar's many reckon he's the devil."

"And his mark, that you were talking of in such mysterious terms,--what is that?"

"Why, a dead Injun, to be sure, with Nick's mark on him,--a knife-cut, or a brace of 'em, over the ribs in the shape of a cross. That's the way the Jibbenainosay marks all the meat of his killing. It has been a whole year now since we h'ard of him."

"Captain," said the elder Bruce, "you don't seem to understand the affa'r altogether; but if you were to ask Tom about the Jibbenainosay till doomsday, he could tell you no more than he has told already. You must know, thar's a creatur' of some sort or other that ranges the woods round about our station h'yar, keeping a sort of guard over us like, and killing all the brute Injuns that ar' onlucky enough to come in his way, besides scalping them and marking them with his mark. The Injuns call him _Jibbenainosay_, or a word of that natur', which them that know more about the Injun gabble that I do, say means the _Spirit-that-walks_; and if we can believe any such lying devils as Injuns (which I am loath to do, for the truth ar'nt in 'em), he is neither man nor beast, but a great ghost or devil that knife cannot harm nor bullet touch; and they have always had an idea that our fort h'yar in partickelar, and the country round about, war under his protection--many thanks to him, whether he be a devil or not; for that war the reason the savages so soon left off a worrying of us."

"Is it possible," said Roland, "that any one can believe such an absurd story?"

"Why not?" said Bruce, stoutly. "Thar's the Injuns themselves, Shawnees, Hurons, Delawares, and all,--but partickelarly the Shawnees, for he beats all creation a-killing of Shawnees,--that believe in him, and hold him in such eternal dread, that thar's scarce a brute of 'em has come within ten miles of the station h'yar this three y'ar: because as how, he haunts about our woods h'yar in partickelar, and kills 'em wheresomever he catches 'em,--especially the Shawnees, as I said afore, against which the creatur' has a most butchering spite; and there's them among the other tribes that call him _Shawneewannaween_, or the Howl of the Shawnees, because of his keeping them ever a howling. And thar's his marks, captain,--what do you make of _that_? When you find an Injun lying scalped and tomahawked, it stands to reason thar war something to kill him."

"Ay, truly," said Forrester; "but I think you have human beings enough to give the credit to, without referring it to a supernatural one."

"Strannger," said Big Tom Bruce the younger, with a sagacious nod, "when you kill an Injun yourself, I reckon,--meaning no offense--you will be willing to take all the honor that can come of it, without leaving it to be scrambled after by others. Thar's no man 'arns a scalp in Kentucky, without taking great pains to show it to his neighbors."

"And besides, captain," said the father, very gravely, "thar are men among us who have seen the creatur'!"

"_That_," said Roland, who perceived his new friends were not well pleased with his incredulity, "is an argument I can resist no longer."

JOHN A. McCLUNG

John Alexander McClung, Kentucky's romantic historian and novelist, was born near the ancient town of Washington, Kentucky, September 25, 1804. He was educated at the Buck Pond Academy of his uncle, Dr. Louis Marshall, near Versailles, Kentucky. Having united with the Presbyterian church when he was sixteen years old, McClung entered Princeton Theological Seminary, in 1822, to fit himself for the ministry. He accepted his first pastorate in 1828, but, as his religious views were undergoing a profound change, he withdrew from the church and devoted himself to literature. His first work was a novel, called _Camden_ (Philadelphia, 1830). This was a story of the South during the Revolutionary War. His _Sketches of Western Adventure_ (Maysville, Kentucky, 1832), though almost as fictitious as _Camden_, came to be regarded as history, and it is upon this work that McClung's reputation rests. In a general way the _Sketches_ are "of the most interesting incidents connected with the settlement of the West from 1755 to 1794." Many of them are most certainly figments of the author's imagination, yet they have come to be regarded as literal truth and history. His story of the women at Bryant's Station, who carried water for the defense of the fort while it was besieged by ambushed Indians under Simon Girty, in 1782, is his _piece de resistance_. John Filson, Alexander Fitzroy, Gilbert Imlay, Harry Toulmin, William Littell, Rafinesque, Marshall, and Butler, the Kentucky historians that published their works prior to McClung's, are silent concerning the tripping of the women to the spring for water while the Indians lay upon the banks of Elkhorn with rifles cocked and ready. All Indians have been scalp-hunters, regardless of whatever else they have been, and a woman's scalp dangling from their sticks afforded them as much pleasure as a man's. When the Collinses, both father and son, reached this romance they merely reproduced it "as interesting," allowing it to pass without further comment of any kind. McClung blended romance and history as charmingly as did Judge James Hall, of Cincinnati, whom Mann Butler took to task. The climax of this tale came in the erection of a memorial wall encircling a spring which sprang out of the ground some years prior to the Civil War! McClung began the practice of law in 1835, but in 1849 he returned to the ministry. He subsequently held pastorates at Cincinnati and Indianapolis, but finally settled at Maysville, Kentucky. He declined the presidency of Hanover College, Indiana, in 1856. On August 16, 1859, McClung was drowned in the Niagara river, his body being carried over the falls, but it was later recovered and returned to Kentucky for interment.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _History of Kentucky_, by Z. F. Smith (Louisville, Kentucky, 1892); _Kentucky in the Nation's History_, by R. M. McElroy (New York, 1909).

THE WOMEN OF BRYANT'S STATION

[From _Sketches of Western Adventure_ (Cincinnati, 1838)]

All ran hastily to the picketing, and beheld a small party of Indians, exposed to open view, firing, yelling, and making the most furious gestures. The appearance was so singular, and so different from their usual manner of fighting, that some of the more wary and experienced of the garrison instantly pronounced it a decoy party, and restrained the young men from sallying out and attacking them, as some of them were strongly disposed to do. The opposite side of the fort was instantly manned, and several breaches in the picketing rapidly repaired. Their greatest distress arose from the prospect of suffering for water. The more experienced of the garrison felt satisfied that a powerful party was in ambuscade near the spring, but at the same time they supposed that the Indians would not unmask themselves, until the firing upon the opposite side of the fort was returned with such warmth, as to induce the belief that the feint had succeeded.

## Acting upon this impression, and yielding to the urgent necessity of