"Careful old head!--Governor Henry Clay Hawkins!--that's what you'll be,
Clay, one of these days. Wise old head! weighty old head! Go on, now,
and play--all of you. It's a prime lot, Nancy; as the Obedstown folk say
about their hogs."

A smaller steamboat received the Hawkinses and their fortunes, and bore
them a hundred and thirty miles still higher up the Mississippi, and
landed them at a little tumble-down village on the Missouri shore in the
twilight of a mellow October day.

The next morning they harnessed up their team and for two days they
wended slowly into the interior through almost roadless and uninhabited
forest solitudes. And when for the last time they pitched their tents,
metaphorically speaking, it was at the goal of their hopes, their new
home.

By the muddy roadside stood a new log cabin, one story high--the store;
clustered in the neighborhood were ten or twelve more cabins, some new,
some old.

In the sad light of the departing day the place looked homeless enough.
Two or three coatless young men sat in front of the store on a dry-goods
box, and whittled it with their knives, kicked it with their vast boots,
and shot tobacco-juice at various marks. Several ragged negroes leaned
comfortably against the posts of the awning and contemplated the arrival
of the wayfarers with lazy curiosity. All these people presently managed
to drag themselves to the vicinity of the Hawkins' wagon, and there they
took up permanent positions, hands in pockets and resting on one leg; and
thus anchored they proceeded to look and enjoy. Vagrant dogs came
wagging around and making inquiries of Hawkins's dog, which were not