It is not our intention to follow our travelers through
the various stages of their long, tiresome journey, but we
will with them hasten on to the close of a mild spring afternoon,
when the whole company, wearied and spiritless,
drew up in front of a large, newly built log house, in the
rear of which were three smaller ones. These last were
for the accommodation of the negroes, who were soon
scattering in every direction, in order to ascertain, as soon
as possible, all the conveniences and inconveniences of
their new home. It took Aunt Dillah but a short time to
make up her mind that “Kentuck was an ugly-looking,
out-of-the-way place, the whole on't; that she wished to
gracious she's back in old Virginny;” and lastly, that
“she never should have come, no how, if marster hadn't
of 'sisted and 'sisted, till 'twasn't in natur to 'fuse.”

This assertion Aunt Dillah repeated so frequently, that
she at length came to believe it herself. The old creature
had no idea that she was not the main prop of her master's
household, and we ourselves are inclined to think

[figure description] Page 283.[end figure description]

that Mrs. Wilder, unaided by Dillah's strong arm, ready
tact, and encouraging words, could not well have borne
the hardships and privations attending that home in the
wilderness. Weary and heart-sick, she stepped from the
little wagon, while an expression of sadness passed over
her face as her eye wandered over the surrounding country,
where tract after tract of thick woodland stretched
on and still onward, to the verge of the most distant
horizon.

Dillah, better than any one else, understood how to
cheer her mistress, and within an hour after their arrival,
a crackling fire was blazing in the fire-place, while the old
round iron tea-kettle, or rather its contents, were hissing
and moaning, and telling, as plainly as tea-kettle could tell,
of coming good cheer. At length the venison steaks and
Dillah's short-cake, smoking hot, were placed upon the
old square table, and the group which shared that first
supper at Glen's Creek, were, with the exception of Charlie,
comparatively contented. He, poor child, missed the
scenes of his early home, and more than all, he missed his
playmate, Ella.

Long after the hour of midnight went by, he stood by
his little low window near the head of his bed, gazing up
at the hosts of shining stars, and wondering if they were
looking upon his dear old home, even as they looked down
upon him, homesick and lonely, afar in the wilderness of
Kentucky.

p598-289

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