"And who else, Polly Ann?" I faltered, my heart racked with the parting.
"You found me a homeless waif, and you gave me a home and a father and
mother."

"Davy, ye'll not forget us when ye're great, I know ye'll not. Tis not
in ye."

She stood back and smiled at me through her tears. The light of heaven
was in that smile, and I have dreamed of it even since age has crept upon
me. Truly, God sets his own mark on the pure in heart, on the unselfish.

I glanced for the last time around the rude cabin, every timber of which
was dedicated to our sacrifices and our love: the fireplace with its
rough stones, on the pegs the quaint butternut garments which Polly Ann
had stitched, the baby in his bark cradle, the rough bedstead and the
little trundle pushed under it,--and the very homely odor of the place is
dear to me yet. Despite the rigors and the dangers of my life here,
should I ever again find such happiness and peace in the world? The
children clung to my knees; and with a "God bless ye, Davy, and come back
to us," Tom squeezed my hand until I winced with pain. I leaped on the
mare, and with blinded eyes rode down the familiar trail, past the mill,
to Harrodsburg.

There Mr. Neville Colfax was waiting to take me across the mountains.

There is a story in every man's life, like the kernel in the shell of a
hickory nut. I am ill acquainted with the arts of a biographer, but I
seek to give in these pages little of the shell and the whole of the
kernel of mine. 'Twould be unwise and tiresome to recount the journey