Voices; Birth-Marks; The Man and the Elephant Part 19

The sacrifice made by those at home, coupled with most material aid from the French, enabled the Colonial armies finally to entrap and capture the army of Lord Cornwallis; which surrendered on the 19th day of October, 1781. The victory was decisive; it freed Virginia of all alien forces and virtually ended the Revolutionary war.

Early in 1782 the old British Ministry was replaced by an anti-war ministry headed by the Marquis of Rockingham; and orders were issued to all British forces in America to discontinue hostilities. September 3, 1783, Great Britain, by treaty, recognized the independence of the Thirteen Colonies.

For some unknown reason the forts of the Northwest Territory were not surrendered until 1795. This retention aggravated the desultory warfare between the settlers and the Indians in the Western Country. The settlers claimed that the Indians were encouraged in their acts of violence by the commanders of the forts.

The spring and summer after the battle of Yorktown were busy days on the plantation. Colonel Campbell, who had resigned his commission, supervised and helped with the work of clearing the briars and undergrowth and putting in the spring crops. He was aided by Richard Cameron and his son, John Calvin, who was now a husky lad of fifteen.

When extra help was needed they called on their neighbors; always having refused to purchase slaves, though just now, because of the breaking up of the great plantations they could be bought at bargain prices.

By the fall of 1782, the plantation was again in first cla.s.s condition and in balancing up, it was found had more than supported the family for the year.

In the winter of 1782, Richard Cameron and Ruth were married. It was a most happy match, approved by the neighborhood generally, though some of the women said: "If Ruth were the kind of a girl to consider her ease and comfort she would marry Carter Harrington," a rich young planter who had moved to the Valley from the Tidewater Country.

At the request of Donald McDonald, who had grown very feeble, the Jackson River Meeting House accepted his resignation and called Richard Cameron as their pastor. He was installed in January, 1783.

The school in 1782 had been reorganized by Jeremiah Tyler, who was its princ.i.p.al. There were more than a hundred children in attendance.

a.s.sisting him as instructors were his daughter Judith and Mrs. Harris, a widow, who the year before had taken the place of Mrs. McDonald. Mrs.

Harris was from Boston, where she had taught a girls' school for several years. The school now enjoyed the reputation of being the best west of Richmond; in fact, many contended it was the best in Virginia.

John Calvin was conceded champion in the spelling and quotation battles, which continued the neighborhood attraction and the regular Friday afternoon entertainment.

The Fairfax family, in 1782, moved from Greenaway Court to Jackson River, where Captain Fairfax bought an extensive boundary on the edge of the Valley between the Preston farm and the Campbell plantation. The three families were inseparable and visited at all hours without the slightest formality.

Captain Fairfax and his wife said that Dorothy had made them move to the Valley and tried to tease her by telling John he was the attraction. The two children treated the jest in the most matter-of-fact way, Dorothy saying: "He is almost as dear to me as you and father are," and John, that: "I am very glad that Dorothy lives so near, she is the best friend I ever had." Theirs was a close friendship of more than ten years, beginning almost in infancy with never a thought about the relations of the future.

They were much together, frequently visiting John Calvin Rock, where they would take their books and spend the whole afternoon. He would read aloud or write for her what she called prose poems; little practical essays on everyday things, yet possessed of a spirit of individual mysticism and beauty of thought. Considering them her greatest treasures they were carried home and locked up in a small cabinet of inlaid woods, which had belonged to her distinguished and aristocratic uncle, Lord Fairfax.

The two were as dissimilar in disposition and appearance as possible.

She was pet.i.te, inclined to be innocently giddy; quick with tears of sympathy and capable of making one forget his sorrows by her chirpy gladness; yet as John knew, a very sensible girl when confronted by something of importance.

He was tall for his age with big hands and feet; and apparently, though not in reality, clumsy. His light hair was always in wavy, riotous disorder. He loved the solitudes of the mountain and the great forest beyond, and spent much of his time climbing over the mountain and in long tramps through the forest. He never carried a gun, refusing to kill any wild thing, and wearing his girdle, had no fear of the Indians. He told Dorothy that when alone he could almost touch the wild deer or walk into the midst of a drove of turkeys; and if in his rambles he came upon timber wolves or bear, they pa.s.sed him without showing either concern or friendliness.

He was uniformly courteous to every one; yet his only intimates were his own family, including the servants of the household, Dorothy, the school master and his daughter, the Clarks and a few silent Indian friends, who whenever they pa.s.sed through the settlement called at the Pinnacle and talked with him.

When one of the tribe into which he had been adopted visited him he always sent remembrances to Tec.u.mseh and the Prophet, the woman who had nursed him in his strange illness and the medicine man whose tattooing probably had caused it; and to John Mason, who for eight years had been a missionary with the Ohio tribes, he wrote long letters and sent a book or two at every opportunity. Strange that this man so land hungry; so possessed with the dominant Anglo-Saxon pa.s.sion of land ownership, as to have sold himself for five years in order that he might pay his pa.s.sage to America, expecting there to become a freeholder and a gentleman farmer; at the expiration of his servitude had chosen to become a missionary to the Indians and never, even to his intimates, mentioned the dream of his earlier days.

The Indians marked the boundary of the Campbell plantation and the mountain trail pa.s.sing it with the Mingo sign of ownership and the sign name and office of John Calvin, to protect it from Indian depredation.

Their friendliness while partly due to Mason's unselfish service and because they were kind and respectfully received and entertained at the plantation, in the main was a tribute to John Calvin, to whom they paid reverence as a chief and as a member of the Mingo priesthood. He was called in the Indian tongue, Chief Cross-Bearer, because of the tattooed marks on his chest, which as he grew seemed to grow not only in size but the more vividly manifest.

The Indians, deep students of nature and attributing to the Great Spirit a closer fellowship with men than did the white men and possessing therefore a more intimate or innate insight into the spiritual phases of life, saw and appreciated that John Calvin felt yet deeper these spiritual phases and was gifted with an inexplicable capacity, rarely given man, for grasping the teachings and purposes of the Great Spirit; though his scarcely definable gift was as yet unsuspected by him.

Even they did not know that when he came into a room where some one was ill and raving in delirium, the ravings ceased; and that when he placed his hands, which were cool and dry and pleasant to the touch, upon a person suffering with pain or fever the pain or fever departed for the time and the patient usually slept. This had first been noticed by his mother and Dorothy, though neither mentioned it.

Once when the schoolmaster was ill the boy came in and sat with him and when he spoke of the pain which felt like a great spike being driven through his head, the boy in sympathy placed his hand upon his forehead and stroked it several times. The touch was pleasant and soothing and in a moment or two the pain was gone. The master said: "Boy, you are a great nurse," and in a few moments was asleep.

As he slept he dreamed that an holy one of G.o.d went forth about the earth, comforting the afflicted, ministering unto the needy and unfortunate, lifting the weary, telling of G.o.d's love and in such a way that it seemed but a part of his everyday life, not as a duty, not in service, but as he slept and ate and performed such other functions as were necessary to his being.

His path finally led to the palace of the King, and the King came out and greeted him, saying: "Come, blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was an hungered and you gave me meat; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you took me in; naked and you clothed me; sick and you visited me." And this holy one asked: "When did I all this?" And the King answered: "Inasmuch as you did it unto one of the least of my sheep, you did it for me, their shepherd."

It was thus rumor of the boy's attributed power started and spread throughout the settlement. A few wise in their own conceit, explained it by saying: "He is so good, so free of sin, so pure of heart that his very presence is a tonic." And the boy, when he learned what was said, hastened to his rock and prayed long and fervent prayers that he might be kept from sin and fitted in some way to render service.

When some of the other boys asked: "How do you keep so good?" he would answer: "Would that I were better and my life cleaner. If I am better than some boys, mine is not the credit, because I am not tempted as they are. It may be that the men of my mother's people have been so long in the service of G.o.d and my father and his father are such good men, that it is almost natural for me not to wish to do mean things."

In the summer of 1783, John Calvin completed the course in the Tyler school. At his request, which was seconded by his mother, Colonel Campbell arranged for their son to attend William and Mary's.

The boy's mother was very much concerned about his a.s.sociations in Williamsburg. She objected to the college dormitory, insisting that her husband write his most trustworthy friend to find if possible the right sort of family with whom their son might board.

He wrote Judge George Nicholas, a lawyer of prominence and an intimate friend, asking that he act for him in line with his wife's wishes. Mr.

Campbell received a letter from Mrs. Nicholas, wherein she expressed her sympathy with and an under standing of Mrs. Campbell's anxiety and offered to take him into their family and look after him as her own son.

With no further understanding, as it was now time to leave, Colonel Campbell took his son to Williamsburg. The night of their arrival they were guests of Judge Nicholas. When the Colonel returned home, his report of arrangements and particularly that her son was happily domiciled with the Nicholas family, lessened the worry of his mother.

During the four years he was in college, their house was his home. Much of the finished manner and scholarly way of expression for which he became conspicuous, was acquired by a.s.sociation with this accomplished family.

When he came home in the summer of 1787 he was so tall that his mother, though she stood on tiptoe, was unable to kiss him, until he lifted her up in his arms. For the first time as he and his father stood looking, the one into the face of the other as they had a way of doing, he did not look up but down. Colonel Campbell, who stood slightly over six feet in his moccasins, said: "Well boy, you seem to have the best of me; you have grown out of my cla.s.s and are broad of shoulders and narrow of loin, as a young man should be; but you are pale. It will do you good to spend a few weeks in the wilderness. You might find it helpful to visit your Indian friends. Mason is here and expects to return next week. How would you like the trip?

"I am just home; it is too soon to think about leaving. Where is Dorothy? Does she know I am here? She always met me before."

"Yes," and the father smiled, leaving his wife to answer the question.

"You would hardly expect Dorothy to call upon you; you are six feet two, and one would think large enough to find your way to her." Which remark caused him to blush and change the subject.

Richard Cameron and his wife were still a part of the family; and they had two children, a little boy two years old, Archibald, and the baby, Mary.

Mason, who had been a missionary with the Indians so long that their tongue seemed the more familiar speech, when he greeted John, unconsciously lapsed into the Mingo dialect. His life had given a new expression to his face; not a sad, but a winsome and wistful one. If one looked closely into his eyes, he felt a sense of peace and reverence.

They talked about their Indian friends and he told John that always when he came to the Settlement they sent word that they wished to see their chief, "The Cross-Bearer;" and John half promised to return with him.

In the late afternoon he climbed to the Pinnacle and watched the shadow of the mountain extend itself until it covered the whole valley and the clouds like great white ships sail with the wind on an inverted azure ocean; then, as the sun sank, the shadow of the mountain reached upward and transformed the white and fleecy clouds to deeper tints, then to dark banks of fog, and the azure into a gray twilight sky.

All about were evidences of Dorothy's daily visits to the rock. In a niche he found a book and the place mark was his last letter. About were scattered almost an arm load of half wilted flowers. She had been there that very morning and he wondered why she had not come in the afternoon.

He was still thinking of her when the plantation bell gave three tolls, his call, and he hurried home. The family were around the table waiting for him. When he had taken the old place at the right of his mother, where he had sat since his high-chair days, his father as head of the family asked the blessing and then helped all bountifully.

"Mother, have you seen Dorothy today? Is she well?"

"Yes, she is well; you better go down after supper and see Captain Fairfax; she will likely be at home."

Dorothy lost little time in washing the supper dishes and tidying up a bit. Then she placed the porch chairs to her satisfaction, blushing as she did so. For five minutes she waited in restless antic.i.p.ation wondering what made John late; finally she feared he might not come. The dog gave a bark of warning. A second or two later she heard a step upon the road; and a tall man stood for a moment upon the stile. As he drew near her heart gave little jumps of joy at the sound of each footstep.

She stood in the shadow until John reached the step; then they called, "Dorothy"-"John"-and each held out both hands in greeting.

Captain Fairfax and his wife came out, as was the custom in those days, instead of retiring to the back porch or going upstairs as now; and all sat and talked; John of his college days and the news of Williamsburg and the coast, and they of the news of the Valley and the frontier.

Conversation drifted to their childhood and the time of their captivity; which led John to speak of his intended visit to the Mingo country. "I shall go back with Mason and remain for several weeks. Father says I look pale and need the outdoor life. I would be glad to have you go, Captain."

"If it can be arranged I am sure I would enjoy the trip. It is more than five years since I was on the Ohio."