SPELLING AND GRAMMAR—HIS PROLOGUE.
(From A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett, of the State of Tennessee. Written by Himself. 1834.)
Alamo, San Antonio, Texas.
I don’t know of anything in my book to be criticised on by honourable men. Is it on my spelling?—that’s not my trade. Is it on my grammar?—I hadn’t time to learn it, and make no pretensions to it. Is it on the order and arrangement of my book?—I never wrote one before, and never read very many; and, of course, know mighty little about that. Will it be on the authorship of the book?—this I claim, and I’ll hang on to it, like a wax plaster. The whole book is my own, and every sentiment and sentence in it. I would not be such a fool, or knave either, as to deny that I have had it hastily run over by a friend or so, and that some little alterations have been made in the spelling and grammar; and I am not so sure that it is not the worse of even that, for I despise this way of spelling contrary to nature. And as for grammar, it’s pretty much a thing of nothing at last, after all the fuss that’s made about it. In some places, I wouldn’t suffer either the spelling, or grammar, or anything else to be touch’d; and therefore it will be found in my own way.
But if anybody complains that I have had it looked over, I can only say to him, her, or them—as the case may be—that while critics were learning grammar, and learning to spell, I, and “Doctor Jackson, L. L. D.” were fighting in the wars; and if our books, and messages, and proclamations, and cabinet writings, and so forth, and so on, should need a little looking over, and a little correcting of the spelling and grammar to make them fit for use, it’s just nobody’s business. Big men have more important matters to attend to than crossing their t’s and dotting their i’s—, and such like small things.
ON A BEAR HUNT.
(From the Life of David Crockett. Written by Himself. 1834.)
It was mighty dark, and was difficult to see my way or anything else. When I got up the hill, I found I had passed the dogs, and so I turned and went to them. I found, when I got there, they had treed the bear in a large forked poplar, and it was setting in the fork. I could see the lump, but not plain enough to shoot with any certainty, as there was no moonlight; and so I set in to hunting for some dry brush to make me a light; but I could find none.