n' a
bluish look when it heads out thet beats any flower thet blows fur
purty. I hain't no Solomon, nor yit among the prophets; but, mark my
word, in twenty year from now, this'll be the gairden spot o' creation.
A clock-tinkah frum Connecticut, whut wuz heah last spring, got sortah
riled at us, an' said we Kaintucks wuz ez full o' brag ez ef we wuz
fust cousins to the king of England; but, Lawd! hain't we got reason to
brag? Hain't ourn a reasonabler conceit then thet uv them ole
'ristercrats 'roun' Lexin'ton an' Bourbonton, allus talkin' o' ther
pedergrees, an' ez proud ez though they wuz ascended frum the Sultan o'
Asia Minor or the Holy Virgus hisse'f?"

"Indeed, you have reason to be proud," agreed Dudley, warmly; "in only
a few years you have made a howling wilderness to blossom as the rose."

"You may well say this wuz a howlin' wilderness. Why, suh, jes' twenty
year ago, in the spring o' 1780, when Dan'l Boone come to Kaintuck frum
Car'liny, 'bout fifty uv us frum thet State come with him, through
Cumberlan' Gap by the ole Wilderness road, an' we fit Injuns an'
painters an' copperhaids all 'long the way."

"Did you settle at Boonesborough first?"

"Some did; but me an' Cynthy Ann (we wuz jes' married then) an' the
Houstons an' Luckys an' Finleys an' Trabues pushed on up to whar
Bourbonton is now. We built a fort near a big spring, an' called it an'
the crick near by aftah ole Matt Houston. Thar wuzn't anothah house in
this region, 'cep' at Bryant Station; and look at us now! Lexin'ton,
nearly two thousand population--the biggest town in the State--an'
Bourbonton a-treadin' right 'long on her heels--ovah four hundurd
people now, an' a-growin' lak a ironweed. But in them ole days the only
road wuz a big buffalo trail whut hez sence been widened an' wucked up
inter 'Smith's wagon road,' runnin' 'long nigh Fort Houston; an' we
settlers would kill buffalo an' sich like, an' tan the hides. Then
'long in 1784 some uv us concluded, ez the Injun varmints hed 'bout all
been kilt or skeered away, that we'd open up farms. Boone come 'long
agin, an' we axed him whar to settle--you know, he'd roamed all ovah
these parts, an' knowed all the best places. He told us to come out to
this redge whut sep'rates the waters o' Hinkson an' Stoner Cricks; an'
he named it Cane Redge, fur, ez he said, the biggest cane an' the
biggest sugar-trees in Kaintuck growed on it. So we come; an' a
rough-an'-tumble life it wuz at fust." He cross