Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/336

 this distant point, in the wilds of the forest, twelve hundred miles from home, there were few of the survivors present.

On the way home, we had to wait for an hour at Johnsonville for the arrival of the train. Johnsonville had a little country store, a blacksmith shop, a house or two and that was all. After looking at the hulks of the steamboats, still lying in the river, where they had been burned during the war to save them from capture, there was absolutely nothing to do. I said to a lounger:

“Is there anything to be seen in this region?”

“Over there on the bank of the river we find Indian things."

It proved to be what I had never seen before, a place of manufacture, and in the course of that hour I was able to find the whole process exemplified, including the original washed cobble, the chips stricken off, the fragments left, the core and the completed implements, together with some pieces of red paint with which the Indians made themselves handsomer. On the way home we crossed the mountains into North Carolina, viewing the magnificent scenery from a perch on the front of the engine. At Asheville we saw Biltmore, the summer home of the Vanderbilts, and ate a “possum," which was likewise a new experience added to life.

On November 18th, Quay spent the night with me at the Executive Mansion and he remained over the next day, receiving people there while I was up at the department at work. He had visited me before at Moore Hall and at Pennypacker's Mills, and the effort to fathom the underlying impulses of a man so remarkable, was an interesting study. He had no presence, he had no voice, he was never imperative, and yet he molded men to his will. Durham had wanted to have T. Larry Eyre retained as superintendent of public grounds and buildings, and, after another appointment had been made, he sent a telegram to Quay which was regarded as offensive. Quay showed it to me and said: 320