Page:The Conquest.djvu/104

 fireplace.

Rigid economy and untiring industry had been the rule at the old Clark home in Caroline, and not less was it here. There were no pianos, but until midnight the hum of the wheel made music.

Enchanted the young people listened to tale and song and hum of wheel, while down the great chimney top calmly smiled the pensive stars.

Little thought they of bare walls, low rafters, or small windows. After the boys hauled in the logs on a hand-sled, and built up a great flame, the whole world seemed illuminated. The pewter basins shone like mirrors, and while their fingers flew in the light of the fire, stories were told of Kaskaskia, Vincennes, St. Louis. But the Donna? Clark never spoke of her. It was a hidden grief that made him ever lonely. When he saw the lovelight all around him and sometimes left the room, the mother wondered why sudden silence came upon the group.

At Mulberry Hill Lucy was married to Major Croghan, who, on a farm five miles out, built Locust Grove, an English mansion of the olden style, in its day the handsomest in Louisville. And Fanny? She was the belle of Kentucky. In powdered wig and ruffles many a grave Virginian tripped with her the minuet and contra dances of the Revolution.

More and more young William became enamoured of the Indian dress, and went about gaily singing the songs of Robin Hood and hacking the meat with his hunting knife.

Out over the game-trails of Kentucky, like the beaten streets of Fredericksburg, the only city he ever knew, young William went with the Boones, Kenton, and his own famous brother, George Rogers Clark, in peltry cap and buckskin hunting-shirt girded with a leathern belt.

Led by them, with what eagerness he shot his first buffalo, deep in the woods of Kentucky. Not much longer could bears, deer, and buffalo retreat to the cane. With the coming of the Clarks an emigration set in that was to last for a hundred years.

Even amusements partook of sportive adventure. Now it was the hunter's horn summoning the neighbou