When he came home in the summer of 1787 he was so tall that his mother, though she stood on tiptoe, was unable to kiss him, until he lifted her up in his arms. For the first time as he and his father stood looking, the one into the face of the other as they had a way of doing, he did not look up but down. Colonel Campbell, who stood slightly over six feet in his moccasins, said: “Well boy, you seem to have the best of me; you have grown out of my class and are broad of shoulders and narrow of loin, as a young man should be; but you are pale. It will do you good to spend a few weeks in the wilderness. You might find it helpful to visit your Indian friends. Mason is here and expects to return next week. How would you like the trip?
“I am just home; it is too soon to think about leaving. Where is Dorothy? Does she know I am here? She always met me before.”
“Yes,” and the father smiled, leaving his wife to answer the question.
[pg 165] “You would hardly expect Dorothy to call upon you; you are six feet two, and one would think large enough to find your way to her.” Which remark caused him to blush and change the subject.
Richard Cameron and his wife were still a part of the family; and they had two children, a little boy two years old, Archibald, and the baby, Mary.
Mason, who had been a missionary with the Indians so long that their tongue seemed the more familiar speech, when he greeted John, unconsciously lapsed into the Mingo dialect. His life had given a new expression to his face; not a sad, but a winsome and wistful one. If one looked closely into his eyes, he felt a sense of peace and reverence.
They talked about their Indian friends and he told John that always when he came to the Settlement they sent word that they wished to see their chief, “The Cross-Bearer;” and John half promised to return with him.
In the late afternoon he climbed to the Pinnacle and watched the shadow of the mountain extend itself until it covered the whole valley and the clouds like great white ships sail with the wind on an inverted azure ocean; then, as the sun sank, the shadow of the mountain reached upward and transformed the white and fleecy clouds to deeper tints, then to dark banks of fog, and the azure into a gray twilight sky.
All about were evidences of Dorothy’s daily visits to the rock. In a niche he found a book and the place mark was his last letter. About were scattered almost an arm load of half wilted flowers. She had been there that very morning and he wondered why she had not come in the afternoon.
He was still thinking of her when the plantation bell gave three tolls, his call, and he hurried home. The family [pg 166] were around the table waiting for him. When he had taken the old place at the right of his mother, where he had sat since his high-chair days, his father as head of the family asked the blessing and then helped all bountifully.