his after his return from
Washington, when his last term in the Presidential office had expired.

When about to emigrate to Tennessee, the family were residing in the
neighborhood of Greensboro, North Carolina.

"I had," said he, "contemplated this step for some months, and had made
my arrangements to do so, and at length had obtained my mother's
consent to it. All my worldly goods were a few dollars in my purse,
some clothes in my saddle-bags, a pretty good horse, saddle, and
bridle. The country to which I was going was comparatively a
wilderness, and the trip a long one, beset by many difficulties,
especially from the Indians. I felt, and so did my mother, that we were
parting forever. I knew she would not recall her promise; there was too
much spunk in her for that, and this caused me to linger a day or two
longer than I had intended.

"But the time came for the painful parting. My mother was a little,
dumpy, red-headed Irish woman. 'Well, mother, I am ready to leave, and
I must say farewell.' She took my hand, and pressing it, said,
'Farewell,' and her emotion choked her.

"Kissing at meetings and partings in that day was not so common as now.
I turned from her and walked rapidly to my horse.

"As I was mounting him, she came out of the cabin wiping her eyes with
her apron, and came to the getting-over place at the fence. 'Andy,'
said she, (she always called me Andy,) 'you are going to a new country,
and among a rough people; you will have to depend on yourself and cut
your own way through the world. I have nothing to give you but a
mother's advice. Never tell a lie, nor take what is not your own, nor
sue anybody for slander or assault and battery. _Always settle them
cases yourself!_' I promised, and I have tried to keep that promise. I
rode off some two hundred yards, to a turn in the path, and looked
back--she was still standing at the fence and wiping her eyes. I never
saw her after that." Those who knew him best will testify to his
fidelity to this last promise made his mother.

The strong common sense and unbending will of Jackson soon made him
conspicuous in his new home, and very soon he was in active practice as
a lawyer. His prominence was such, that during the last year of the
last term of General Washington's Administration, a vacancy occurring
in the United States Senate from Tennessee, General Jackson was
appointed to fill it. He was occupying this seat when General
Washington retired from the P