immortality which reaches out beyond the grave. Theirs was
apparently purely an animal existence, like that of the Indian,
almost like that of the wild animals they pursued in the chase.

At length, John Crockett, with his wife and three or four children,
unintimidated by the awful fate of his father's family, wandered
from North Carolina, through the long and dreary defiles of the
mountains, to the sunny valleys and the transparent skies of East
Tennessee. It was about the year 1783. Here he came to a rivulet of
crystal water, winding through majestic forests and plains of
luxuriant verdure. Upon a green mound, with this stream flowing near
his door, John Crockett built his rude and floorless hut. Punching
holes in the soil with a stick, he dropped in kernels of corn, and
obtained a far richer harvest than it would be supposed such culture
could produce. As we have mentioned, the building of this hut and
the planting of this crop made poor John Crockett the proprietor of
four hundred acres of land of almost inexhaustible fertility.

In this lonely cabin, far away in the wilderness, David Crockett was
born, on the 17th of August, 1786. He had then four brothers.
Subsequently four other children were added to the family.

His childhood's home was more humble than the majority of the
readers of this volume can imagine. It was destitute of everything
which, in a higher state of civilization, is deemed essential to
comfort. The wigwam of the Indian afforded as much protection from
the weather, and was as well furnished, as the cabin of logs and
bark which sheltered his father's family. It would seem, from David
Crockett's autobiography, that in his childhood he went mainly
without any clothing, like the pappooses of an Indian squaw. These