As the borrowed horse plodded on the homeward "Trace" and the Big Falls resounded like a blessing in their ears, Doby, whose face now shone with something brighter than soft soap and water, said to his mother in a tone of high resolve: "I'm a-goin' to mind that preacher. I'm a-goin' to keep the soul inside of me just as clean as clean can be!"
IX
UNDER THE ELM
The Building of a Mid-Western State
A MAN sat on a horse. A boy hung on behind the man. And the horse jounced along the trail toward the stone State House at Corydon.
Corydon was near the center of population in Indiana, and for that reason had been made the capital.
Two months before this, in April, 1816, James Madison, President of the United States, had signed an Enabling Act which allowed the people of Indiana Territory to vote for delegates to represent them in writing out a State constitution and in arranging a form of State government.
The delegates had been selected at a popular election. And now, every morning in this fine June weather, they were meeting at the very new State House—that proud stone house—in constitutional convention for the yet newer State, at the sound of the newest possible bell.
Obadiah Holman settled himself on the sharp bones of the old nag's back and said to his father: "Don't you suppose, pa, that it would be a good plan for us to settle in this new State? We are helping with the constitution all we can, and it makes me feel just as though I wanted to be a Hoosier!"