Page:Historic towns of the southern states (1900).djvu/576

 city, and, returning home, carelessly left his gun on a sofa in the darkened library. Isabella shortly afterward went into the room to lie down, and, not seeing the loaded weapon, struck the trigger in such a way with her foot that the contents was discharged, mortally wounding her.

Edward Eggleston's inimitable Hoosier Tales portray the next period in the history of the Ohio Valley (1840-60), immortalizing those pedagogues of the Ichabod Crane type who came swarming from New England when the tide of emigration first set westward. Mr. Eggleston spent his childhood on the river between Cincinnati and Louisville, and his pictures of primitive social life in Kentucky and southern Indiana are in the style of Irving's sketch already mentioned. Zachary Taylor went to school, not far from the Falls fort, to one of these Yankee teachers, a native of Connecticut by the name of Ayers, who was a sagacious fellow, able to watch the Indians and urchins simultaneously. The South and West owe these wandering educators a debt of gratitude that can hardly be overestimated.

It was from the Falls city that Aaron Burr planned to make his treasonable descent upon