It was in the year of our Lord 1806; the season, September; in the State of Tennessee, and the tenth year of its age, as a State.
The summer was over, the harvests ripe, the year growing ruddy. Down in the cotton fields the balls had begun to burst, and the “hands,” with their great baskets, to trudge all day down the long rows, singing in that dreamy, dolefully musical way which belongs alone to the tongue of the Southern slaves and to the Southern cotton fields. Across the fields, and the rich, old clover bottoms that formed a part of the Hermitage farm, the buzz of a cotton gin could be distinctly heard, adding its own peculiar note to the music of Southern nature.
A cotton gin! it was a rare possession in those days, and General Jackson’s was known from Nashville to New Orleans. Indeed, the whole of the previous year’s crop had not yet been disposed of. The great bales were heaped about, waiting for the flat-boats that would carry them up the Cumberland, down the Ohio and the Mississippi, and land them at the great New Orleans market. A slow trip for the bulky bales. Could they have foreseen the time when the tedious river’s journey would be shortened to one day’s run over a steel track, what must the big bales have thought! And those gigantic heaps of cotton seed which all the cows in the county could not have consumed, could they have “peered into the future” and found themselves in the lard cans! The old gin would have groaned aloud could it have known that it was buzzing itself into history as surely as was the tall, spare, erect man coming across the field in the late afternoon to see that the day’s work was well done.
What a heroic figure! and a face that even in youth bore the impress of a man marked by destiny for daring deeds. Imperious in temper, majestic in courage, and unyielding in will, he was one born to lay hold of fate and bend it to his desires. Yet, there was a timidity in the eye which no danger could make quail. And when down the lane there came the clatter of horses’ hoofs striking the hard, dry earth, and with the horses a vision of long, dark skirts waving like black banners in the breeze made by the hurrying steeds, the owner of the cotton gin stepped within and beyond the vision of the lady visitors.
But they were not to be out-generaled even by a general; and straight up to the gin the horses were headed.
“General Jackson,” one of the ladies—there were but two—called to the timid hero who had run away at her approach. Instantly he appeared. He wore a large, white beaver hat, the broad brim half-shading the clear-cut, strongly outlined features. When he lifted it, even Beauty could not fail to notice the high and noble forehead, the quick, eager eye, and the delicate flush that swept across the patrician features. “General Jackson, I have come in the name of charity. No, no, you need not take out your wallet. We are not asking money.”
A smile played across the strong, thin lips. “How?” said he, “doesn’t charity always mean ‘money’? I was of the impression the terms were synonymous.”
“Then for once own yourself in the wrong,” laughed Beauty. “We have come to ask the privilege of a charity ball at the Hermitage.”
“A what?”