CHAPTER III.

I had more faith in my mother's opinions than I had in the opinions of all the neighbors put together. I finished that term of school. and the next winter went another term, making altogether six months I attended Mr. Hoshour's school. I have been glad every day for more than half a century that I had that privilege and blessing, even if it was brought about through great tribulation.

How well I remember everything that came within my sight and hearing in that long ago time. The William Henry Harrison campaign, with the Tip and Tyler shouts and songs.

About the time of the presidential election I visited some relatives who lived about twenty-five miles from my home. The journey nearly all the way was along the national road. That road was lined with houses, many of them log cabins, nearly everyone displaying some emblem or devise, supposed to represent General Harrison's heroic battle at Tippecanoe, or some other scene of Indian warfare or pioneer life. What was most in vogue was a miniature log cabin, miniature hard cider barrel on which was hung a miniature gourd, and all placed where the traveling public could not fail to see, generally on top of the house. I don't think we were out of the sound of "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" the whole twenty-five miles.

When I arrived at my uncle's home I found visiting there the loveliest young Quaker lady, Mrs. Kenworthy, with the prettiest little baby in her arms; he had great blue eyes and red cheeks, and had on a long white dress. As soon as I disposed of my wraps I asked Mrs. Kenworthy if I might take the baby. She handed him to me and he was not one bit afraid. I carried him about the room and out in the kitchen, sat down and rocked him, held him up to the window and let him look out at the chickens-did all the things that girls at the age I was then, usually do in such cases.

I asked Mrs. Kenworthy how old he was, and, she said "six months." Then I asked her what his name was; she said, "his name is William." I have never seen the lovely, serene face of William's mother since that November day in 1840. She was long since laid to rest among her people in the unpretentious Quaker burying ground. But William, who began life among the shouts and songs and music of brass bands, firing of cannon and parade with flags and banners, log cabins, and everybody shouting themselves hoarse for "Tippecanoe and Tyler too," must in his infancy have imbibed the spirit of the times. When William grew to young manhood it was discovered that he was gifted with the power of oratory and could tell of heroic deeds in a manner to thrill and electrify his hearers. Near half a century after the time when his baby ears and eyes heard and gazed with wonder at the noise and parade made; by those who wanted "Old Tippecanoe" elected President of the United States, William Kenworthy was known from one end of the land to the other as the brilliant speaker and advocate of "Old Tippecanoe's" grandson for the same high honor.

William Kenworthy has been for many years a leading attorney of Oskaloosa, has been reading clerk in the "house of congress, and has occupied other prominent and responsible places. Mr. Kenworthy is a portly, handsome and distinguished-looking man, with some indescribable traits which we who are of Quaker stock and have been brought up among Quakers carry with us as long as we live, matter where we go.

I, like other school-girls, had a special girl friend whom I loved more than any other girl who was not related to me by ties of blood. We sat at the same desk at Hoshour's school. Our families were neighbors and old friends, and Mary Newby and I were closer friends than sisters usually are.

Not long after the great William Henry Harrison campaign there began to be much talk among our neighbors about Iowa Territory. Two of them, one my friend Mary's father, traveled all the way to Iowa and back again on horseback. His glowing account of Iowa's rich prairie soil and other good qualities put others in the notion of moving to that great country, where the land was already cleared, and where they would not have to cut down and burn hundreds of immense trees in order to have one little field. When I think now of the great stately poplars, walnut and sugar trees which I have seen sacrificed, it brings a pang of regret.

I sometimes wish that one hundred miles square of that great wilderness of immense beauties, streams and rocks, hills, valleys and great towering trees festooned with graceful vines had have been left a little more like God made them. Then this United States of America would have her "Black Forest" as charming and full of wonders as that of Germany and Switzerland. I would have the center of my imaginary "Black Forest," or National Park, in Bartholomew County, at a place which used to be called "The Haw Patch." What wonders it would contain! The "Knobs," with their great chestnut trees, spring gushings out of a hundred hillsides and rocky cliffs, gravelly brooks and tiny waterfalls, and vast caves full of nature's wonders-these and many other interesting things in the South, bordering on the Ohio river and extending many miles out from the same. Then there are the famous stone quarries about Bedford, the mineral springs near Knightstown, the red-buds, the spice bushes, the haw trees, the paw-paw bushes everywhere. Very few of the giants of the American "Black Forest" had been dishonored by a blow from a settler's ax when my ancestors moved from North Carolina and settled in the dense forests of Southern Indiana. Some Indians were there, but I don't remember of ever hearing of an Indian cutting down a big tree. Bears and deer and wolves and panthers and raccoons and o'possums roamed at will through this wilderness of gigantic trees and almost impenetrable undergrowth. There were no prairies in that "Black Forest."