THE evening of the ball had come at last.Not far from John's school on the square stood another log cabin, from which another and much more splendid light streamed out across the wilderness: this being the printing room and book-bindery of the great Mr.John Bradford.His portrait, scrutinized now from the distance and at the disadvantage of a hundred years, hands him down to posterity as a bald-headed man with a seedy growth of hair sprouting laterally from his temples, so that his ears look like little flat-boats half hidden in little canebrakes; with mutton-chop whiskers growing far up on the overhanging ledges of his cheek-bones and suggesting rather a daring variety of lichen; with a long arched nose, running on its own hook in a southwesterly direction; one eye a little higher than the other; a protruding upper lip, as though he had behind it a set of the false teeth of the time, which were fixed into the jaws by springs and hinges, all but compelling a man to keep his mouth shut by main force; and a very short neck with an overflowing jowl which weighed too heavily on his high shirt collar.
Despite his maligning portrait a foremost personage of his day, of indispensable substance, of invaluable port: Revolutionary soldier, Indian warrior; editor and proprietor of the Kentucky Gazette, the first newspaper in the wilderness; binder of its first books--some of his volumes still surviving on musty, forgotten shelves; senatorial elector; almanac-maker, taking his ideas from the greater Mr.Franklin of Philadelphia, as Mr.
Franklin may have derived his from the still greater Mr.Jonathan Swift of London; appointed as chairman of the board of trustees to meet the first governor of the State when he had ridden into the town three years before and in behalf of the people of the new commonwealth which had been carried at last triumphantly into the Union, to bid his excellency welcome in an address conceived in the most sonorous English of the period; and afterwards for many years author of the now famous "Notes," which will perhaps make his name immortal among American historians.
On this evening of the ball at the home of General James Wilkinson, the great Mr.Bradford was out of town, and that most unluckily; for the occasion--in addition to all the pleasure that it would furnish to the ladies--was designed as a means of calling together the leaders of the movement to separate Kentucky from the Union; and the idea may have been, that the great Mr.Bradford, having written one fine speech to celebrate her entrance, could as easily turn out a finer one to celebrate her withdrawal.
It must not be inferred that his absence had any political significance.He had merely gone a few days previous to the little settlement at Georgetown--named for the great George--to lay in a supply of paper for his Weekly, and had been detained there by heavy local rains, not risking so dry an article of merchandise either by pack-horse or open wagon under the dripping trees.Paper was very scarce in the wilderness and no man could afford to let a single piece get wet.
In setting out on his journey, he had instructed his sole assistant--a young man by the name of Charles O'Bannon--as to his duties in the meantime: he was to cut some new capital letters out of a block of dog-wood in the office, and also some small letters where the type fell short; to collect if possible some unpaid subscriptions--this being one of the advantages that an editor always takes of his own absence--in particular to call upon certain merchants for arrears in advertisements; and he was to receive any lost articles that might be sent in to be advertised, or return such as should be called for by their owners: with other details appertaining to the establishment.
O'Bannon had performed his duties as he had been told--reserving for himself, as always, the right of a personal construction.He had addressed a written appeal to the nonpaying subscribers, declaring that the Gazette had now become a Try-Weekly, since Mr.Bradford had to try hard every week to get it out by the end; he had collected from several delinquent advertisers;whittled out three new capital letters, and also the face of Mr.Bradford and one of his legs; taken charge with especial interest of the department of Lost and Found and was now ready for other duties.
On this evening of the ball he was sitting in the office.
In one corner of the room stood a worn handpress with two dog-skin inking-balls.Between the logs of the wall near another corner a horizontal iron bar had been driven, and from the end of this bar hung a saucer-shaped iron lamp filled with bear-oil.Out of this oil stuck the end of a cotton rag for a wick; which, being set on fire, filled the room with a strong smell and a feeble, murky, flickering light.Under the lamp stood a plain oak slab on two pairs of crosslegs; and on the slab were papers and letters, a black ink-horn, some leaves of native tobacco, and a large gray-horn drinking-cup--empty.Under the table was a lately emptied bottle.O'Bannon sat in a rough chair before this drinking-cup, smoking a long tomahawk-pipe.
His head was tilted backward, his eyes followed the flight of smoke upward.
That he expected to be at the party might have been inferred from his dress:
a blue broadcloth coat with yellow gilt buttons; a swan's-down waistcoat with broad stripes of red and white; a pair of dove-coloured corded-velvet pantaloons with three large yellow buttons on the hips; and a neckcloth of fine white cam- bric.His figure was thickset, strong, cumbrous; his hair black, curly, shining.His eyes, bold, vivacious, and now inflamed, were of that rarely beautiful blue which is seen only in members of the Irish race.
His complexion was a blending of the lily and the rose.His lips were thick and red under his short fuzzy moustache.His hands also were thick and soft, always warm, and not very clean--on account of the dog-skin inking-balls.
