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
"I wish you would stay and be married here. My woman has too much
tongue. You oughtn't mind her."
Having thus, for a moment, arrested their departure, he stepped back to
the door, where his discomfited wife stood, and entreated her to
consent to their being married there. After much persuasion, common
sense triumphed over uncommon stubbornness. She consented. David and
his expectant bride were both on horseback, all ready to go. The woman
rather sullenly came forward and said:
"I am sorry for the words I have spoken. This girl is the only child I
have ever had to marry. I cannot bear to see her go off in this way. If
you'll come into the house and be married here, I will do the best I
can for you."
The good-natured David consented. They alighted from their horses, and
the bridal party entered the log hut. The room was not large, and the
uninvited guests thronged it and crowded around the door. The justice
of peace was sent for, and the nuptial knot was tied.
The wedding ceremonies on such occasions were sufficiently curious to
be worthy of record. They certainly were in very wide contrast with the
pomp and splendor of nuptials in the palatial mansions of the present
day. A large party usually met at some appointed place, some mounted
and others on foot, to escort the bridegroom to the house of the bride.
The horses were decorated with all sorts of caparisons, with ropes for
bridles, with blankets or furs for saddles. The men were dressed in
deerskin moccasins, leather breeches, leggins, coarse hunting-shirts of
all conceivable styles of material, and all homemade.
The women wore gowns of very coarse homespun and home-woven cloth,
composed of linen and wool, and called linsey-woolsey, very coarse
shoes, and sometimes with buckskin gloves of their own manufacture. If
any one chanced to have a ring or pretty buckle, it was a relic of
former times.
There were no carriages, for there were no roads. The narrow trail they
traversed in single file was generally a mere horse-path, often so
contracted in width that two horses could not pass along abreast. As
they marched along in straggling line, with shouts and jokes, and with
the interchange of many gallant acts of rustic love-making between the
coquettish maidens and the awkward swains, they encountered frequent
obstacles on the way. It was a part of the frolic for the young men to
throw obstructions in their path, and thus to create surprises. There
were brooks to be forded. Sometimes large trees were mischievously
felled across the trail. Grape-vines were tied across from tree to
tree, to trip up the passers-by or to sweep off their caps. It was a
great joke for half a dozen young men to play Indian. They would lie in
ambuscade, and suddenly, as the procession was passing, would raise the
war-whoop, discharge their guns, and raise shouts of laughter in view
of the real or feigned consternation thus excited.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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