“‘That is all very fine,’ I returned, satirically. ‘But will the Lord provide while we are trying the case? Shall we find miraculous sustenance? We live by moving on, sir. One or two nights in a place; sometimes, a little longer! No, no; ’tis necessary to forget, if not to forgive. You’ll have to fortify your issue without us.’
“‘Well, well,’ he said, good-naturedly, ‘if it’s against your interests, I have no wish to press the matter.’ Whereupon we shook hands heartily and parted. I looked around for Constance, but she had left the hall with Saint-Prosper. Have I been wise in asking him to join the chariot? I sometimes half regret we are beholden to him––”
From the Shadengo Valley Barnes’ company proceeded by easy stages to Ohio, where the roads were more difficult than any the chariot had yet encountered. On every hand, as they crossed the country, sounded the refrains of that memorable song-campaign which gave to the state the fixed sobriquet of “Buckeye.” Drawing near the capital, where the convention was to be held, a log cabin, on an enormous wagon, passed the chariot. A dozen horses fancifully adorned were harnessed to this novel vehicle; flowers over-ran the cabin-home, hewn from the buckeye logs of the forest near Marysville. In every window appeared the faces of merry lads and lasses, and, as they journeyed on, their chorus echoed over field and through forest. The wood-cutter leaned on his ax to listen; the plowman waved his coonskin cap, his wife, a red handkerchief from the doorway of their log cabin.
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“Oh, tell me where the Buckeye cabin was made? ’Twas built among the boys who wield the plow and spade, Where the log-cabin stands in the bonnie Buckeye shade.” |
From lip to lip the song had been carried, until the entire country was singing it, and the log-cabin had become a part of the armorial bearings of good citizenship, especially applicable to the crests of presidents. Well might the people ask:
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“Oh, what has caused this great commotion All the country through?” |
which the ready chorus answered:
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“It is a ball a-rolling on For Tippecanoe and Tyler, too!” |