CHAPTER XI


The autumn was coming on. The cholera had abated. The air was cool and
fresh. The country was taking fire from the colors of the changing year.
And I was feeling more rugged than I had ever felt in my life.

As I have said, a college had already been founded in Jacksonville.
Indeed, some years before my coming the one brick building on the campus
had been constructed; and before that the log hut, also on the campus,
in which the young president and his pretty wife had spent their first
winter here in 1829. Reverdy told me that he had helped to hew and place
the logs. I had become acquainted with Mr. Sturtevant, the president;
for he was eager to hear of England, and Oxford and Eton. I was
fascinated with this experiment of a college in the wilderness. He
loaned me many books; and I often spent an evening at his house.

In September I decided to go out to the farm and live with the Engles.
I had many plans for the spring which could be better attended to on the
ground; and then I was getting ready to build me a house. Reverdy knew
where to find the logs, how to prepare them. He knew where to get men to
help him, and I was glad to leave these things to him. Mr. Brooks had
already commenced proceedings to settle the title to the land, dividing
it between Zoe and me. This was off my mind. I had men building fences,
plowing. I was buying horses, cattle, hogs. In all these things Reverdy
was an incalculable help. I could not have succeeded without him. He
knew horses and he helped me to honest dealers.

One day I was walking over my land. I came to a beautiful grove of trees
by the brook. And there in the midst of it was a log hut. I pushed the