journey, an animal who naturally walks fast is of much more value
than one which has attained high speed upon the race-course. Thus
pleasantly mounted, David and his kind protector rode along together
until they came within about fifteen miles of John Crockett's
tavern, where their roads diverged. Here David dismounted, and
bidding adieu to his benefactor, almost ran the remaining distance,
reaching home that evening.

"The name of this kind gentleman," he writes, "I have forgotten; for
it deserves a high place in my little book. A remembrance of his
kindness to a little straggling boy has, however, a resting-place in
my heart, and there it will remain as long as I live."

It was the spring of the year when David reached his father's cabin.
He spent a part of the summer there. The picture which David gives
of his home is revolting in the extreme. John Crockett, the
tavern-keeper, had become intemperate, and he was profane and
brutal. But his son, never having seen any home much better, does
not seem to have been aware that there were any different abodes
upon earth. Of David's mother we know nothing. She was probably a
mere household drudge, crushed by an unfeeling husband, without
sufficient sensibilities to have been aware of her degraded
condition.

Several other cabins had risen in the vicinity of John Crockett's. A
man came along, by the name of Kitchen, who undertook to open a
school to teach the boys to read. David went to school four days,
but found it very difficult to master his letters. He was a wiry
little fellow, very athletic, and his nerves seemed made of steel.
When roused by anger, he was as fierce and reckless as a catamount.