[Original]

THE BRIDE’S RESCUE.

[Original]

ANY years ago when the great valley of the Mississippi was rarely trodden by the white men, there lived upon the southern frontier of Kentucky, then nearly a wilderness, an old hunter, named Johnson. He was one of the pioneers of the region in which he had built his log cabin, and had long procured a comfortable subsistence for a wife and child by the aid of a good rifle and his snares. Mrs. Johnson had become accustomed to the privations of her situation; and her daughter, Sarah, having arrived at the age of young womanhood, contributed to relieve the monotony of a life in the wilderness. The cares of the family were slight. Their simple food and clothing were easily procured, and their wishes for the conveniences of civilized life had ceased, when it was found that they could not be gratified. In short, we may say, the Johnson family lived happily in their wilderness home.

Sarah Johnson was about eighteen years of age, when she was first brought to our notice. She was not handsome, but she was tolerably “good looking,” and possessed a stock of good sense, which is somewhat rarer than beauty. Old Johnson said she was a “likely girl,” and her mother thought she deserved a good husband. This desert seemed to be about to receive its reward. Two or three miles from Johnson’s cabin, lived another hunter, named John Blake. Like Johnson, Blake had long followed hunting for a subsistence, had married, and had one child. The wife was dead; but the child had grown to manhood, and Samuel Blake was now regarded as quite equal to his father in hunting.

As Johnson and Blake had been very intimate friends for a long time, their children were frequently thrown into each other’s company; and a strong attachment had sprung up between them. The fathers looked favorably upon this perpetuation of their intimacy, and it soon became a settled matter that Samuel Blake and Sarah Johnson should be man and wife.