ld in six days, he
forgot to make Reelfoot Lake, and when he finally did remember it, after
goodness knows how many thousand years, he was so put out he didn't
think about it bein' Sunday, and he jest ripped up the earth and made
that lake as quick as he could. I've heard father name the day o' the
month it happened, but like as not, if I tried to tell it jest so, I'd
git it wrong. However, I ricollect it was back yonder in 1811, before
the time o' railroads, and it must 'a' been about the middle o'
December, for I ricollect hearin' father say that him and Uncle Tandy
Stevens spent that Christmas on their flatboat in the middle o' the
Mississippi River. They made the trip to New Orleens pretty near every
year, floatin' down the Mississippi and sellin' their tobacco or
hoop-poles or whatever they had to sell, and then they'd sell the
flatboat and foot it back to Kentucky.

"Maybe you think, child, I'm drawin' the long bow, tellin' about people
walkin' from New Orleens to Kentucky, but that's the way it was in the
old times before they had railroads everywhere. And it wasn't such a
slow way of travelin', either. Father used to brag how he made the
journey in jest thirteen days and a half. I reckon betwixt the dangers
by land and the dangers by water a journey like that wasn't any light
matter, but I've heard father say many a time that if the river wasn't
too high or too low, and if the weather favored him, he'd rather go down
to New Orleens in a flatboat than to go on the finest steamboat that
ever was built. You know that Bible text that says, 'Behold, I make all
things new.' Father said that text would come into his mind every time
he went on one o' these trips. They'd float down the Little Barren River
and come to the Ohio, and down that to the Mississippi, and father said
when they'd make the turn and feel the current o' the big river under
'em sweepin' 'em south, away from home and into a strange country, it
was jest like a man professin' religion and goin' forward to a new and
better life. And the slaves they'd take along to help manage the boat,
they'd begin to sing 'Swing low, sweet chariot, bound for to carry me
home,' and Uncle Tandy, he'd jest throw up his hat and holler every
time.

"Well, the time I'm tellin' you about, father and Uncle Tandy had a big
load o' tobacco and a big drove o' turkeys to take down to New Orleens.
Father said that every time he built a flatboat and loaded it up he
thought about No