David Crockett: His Life and AdventuresAbbott, John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot)
History
David Crockett: His Life and Adventures
Abbott, John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot)
Crockett, Davy, 1786-1836
The next morning, Crockett took a young man with him and went out into
the woods to bring in the game he had shot. They brought in two of the
bucks, which afforded them all the supply of venison they needed, and
left the others hanging upon the trees. The boatmen then pushed their
way up the river. The progress was slow, and eleven toilsome days
passed before they reached their destination. Crockett had now
discharged his debt, and prepared to return to his cabin. There was a
light skiff attached to the large flat-bottomed boat in which they had
ascended the river. This skiff Crockett took, and, accompanied by a
young man by the name of Flavius Harris, who had decided to go back
with him, speedily paddled their way down the stream to his cabin.
There were now four occupants of this lonely, dreary hut, which was
surrounded by forests and fallen trees and briers and brambles. They
all went to work vigorously in clearing some land for a corn field,
that they might lay in a store for the coming winter. The spring was
far advanced, and the season for planting nearly gone. They had brought
some seed with them on their pack-horse, and they soon had the pleasure
of seeing the tender sprouts pushing up vigorously through the
luxuriant virgin soil. It was not necessary to fence their field.
Crockett writes:
"There was no stock nor anything else to disturb our corn except the
wild varmints; and the old serpent himself, with a fence to help him,
couldn't keep them out."
Here Crockett and his three companions remained through the summer and
into the autumn, until they could gather in their harvest of corn.
During that time they lived, as they deemed, sumptuously, upon game. To
kill a grizzly bear was ever considered an achievement of which any
hunter might boast. During the summer, Crockett killed ten of these
ferocious monsters. Their flesh was regarded as a great delicacy. And
their shaggy skins were invaluable in the cabin for beds and bedding.
He also shot deer in great abundance. The smaller game he took, of fat
turkeys, partridges, pigeons, etc., he did not deem worth enumerating.
It was a very lazy, lounging, indolent life. Crockett could any morning
go into the woods and shoot a deer. He would bring all the desirable
parts of it home upon his shoulders, or he would take his pack-horse
out with him for that purpose. At their glowing fire, outside of the
cabin if the weather were pleasant, inside if it rained, they would
cook the tender steaks. They had meal for corn bread; and it will also
be remembered that they had sugar, and ten gallons of whiskey.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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