The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1879-07-18
TWO OLD KENTUCKY LOVERS.
BY w. W.

Perhaps no section of the Union, in
all the striking vicissitudes of settle
ment and growth to later, more quiet
and permanent condition of society, has
presented more remarkable incidents.
whether we regard the comic or tragic
aspects of the case, than Kentucky; the
title-the Dark and Bloody Ground"
to portion of it being fitting syn
onym, perhaps, of the one condition,
aud the reckless gayety of the old set
tiers, their merry-makings and dances
night after night on the puncheon floor
at times illustrating the other.
Indeed, and Notwithstanding the dan
gers and hardships of the pioneers life,
in those days, yet the means of living,
from the abundance of game and other
requisites, were so easily had that life,
under the circumstances, had attrac-
tons hardly to be found, in many cases,
iii other pursuits by their better pro-
vided but more severely worked and
care-worn descendants. A small patch
Of corn; another, perhaps, of wheat,
easily cultivated, supplied breadstuffs
for each household; the naples supplied
sugar and molasses, while so numerous
were the bears in those days that shear
hams" were the chief reliance in place
OF the bacon so essential now, and much
less easily procured in these later times.
Even Che supply of fruit was not very
limited, the delicious pawpaw, or Gus
tard apple, in its season covering the
ground in places and filling the river
bottoms with its delicious fragrance,
while persimmons, berries, chestnuts,
pecans, and other nuts filled large
space in the fall supplies of Injuries sup
plemented not infrequently with hon
ey, or bags OF dried peaches and apples
brought through on pack horses from
North Carolina and Virginia
All this, l repeat, made life easy, and
comparatively free from that gnawing
anxiety of other and older communities
as to the means of living; saved them
shat anxious care which comes of too
great solicitude for mere sordid accu-
mutation, the desire to pile up huge
estates, as in older countries; and if they
had frequent alarms from the Indians,
and occasionally a panther or bear fight
in which the settler came off second best,
even all this gave a zest to living in
such country, and in that day held
the place of modern expeditions to Ari-
zona or the Black Hills.
When it is noted, additionally, that
buffalo, deer, wild turkeys aud "barrin
heus-the modern prairie chicken
made the country fairly alive with their
presence, and that the genial climate
and fertile valleys and plains made it
almost perfect as desirable home, the
observer of to-day in that State, favored
es IL really is, sees easily enough why.
notwithstanding the roughness of early
times, the sum of human happiness
might be considered pretty evenly bal.
anced Us between the past and the
present.
And if we regard that condition of
society which makes the timid and
pesceably-inclined uncomfortable, the
prevalence of lynch law" or the alb
sence largely of law ut all, except that
improvised by the settlers as applicable
TO the occasion the account, even then,
seems to stand very much in favor of
those far. away times. Then, the appli-
cation of any severe and summary meas
ure or code was thought needful in very
few instances, beyond the placing of
captured horse-thieves on the back of
che stolen animal, to cause the latter to
walk out from under the sturdy limb
where the rogue was to be left dangling;
the horse thus made, in one view of it,
the avenger of the wrong; this, and
similar attempts TO enforce justice being
certainly a contrast to the wholesale
feuds and fights which of late years have
TOO often stained the annals of the State.