Early in the spring, they broke up their little settlement, and retired back to the more populous part of the country. Captain Joplin returned to the paternal mansion in the Piny Woods, to exhibit the beginning of the third generation, in the person of young Buckeye Joplin. After lingering awhile in his old haunts, and recounting the perils he had cheerfully met and overcome, he looked out again upon the land of promise, the western expanse, for another channel of enterprise.
The second expedition of our hero was undertaken by water. Having packed his family across to the Tennessee river, and exchanged his 'nag' for a canoe, or 'dug-out,' he embarked in his long and devious voyage to the Mississippi. Joplin occupied the stern as steersman, but his spouse was provided with a paddle, which she plied alternately with her knitting, as they glided onward to an unknown land. The voyage was barren of incident, and only varied by fishing and hunting for the subsistence of the family. They entered the Mississippi, and descended this river to the mouth of White river; and as this was backed up by the spring freshets, the voyagers turned their course up the stream, and crossed the connecting cut, or bayou, to the Arkansas river. They continued their voyage, until they found a landing-place of an inviting aspect, near Little Rock. Here the emigrants landed and pitched their half-face camp. After a year or two of hardship and privation, incident to the settlement of a new country, the Joplin family, somewhat increased in numbers, began to enjoy the fruits of industry. The improved condition of the captain's pecuniary affairs afforded him the means of indulging in his ardent propensity for attendance on all the gatherings, which he had never dismissed from his mind while his necessities restrained him. In the absence of her husband, the pains-taking woman kept the shuttle flying, or sung an accompaniment to the instrumental music of the spinning-wheel. From these gatherings Joplin sometimes returned with marks of personal rencounters; and time, and the soothing care of the even-tempered woman, were requisite to soften the exasperated backwoodsman, and to obliterate the signs of the feud on the distorted visage of her husband. On these occasions, the ferocity of his disposition predominated on the first day after the gathering; on the second, he was moody and thoughtful; and the third brought on repentance, and promises of reformation.
The great races at length came on; and Captain Joplin's colt, sired by Chain-Lightning, out of the celebrated full-blooded dam Earthquake, had been entered for the jockey purse, and the owner was 'obliged to be present.' This he promised should be his last race, and his last fight on any race-course. The good woman ventured, as she handed him his holy-day jeans, to urge his return home at an earlier hour than usual. Very fair promises were made; but, about the hour of midnight, the 'whole team of bear-dogs' opened a boisterous greeting as the roistering captain approached his cabin. The cold bacon, and cabbage, and buttermilk, were set out by the flickering light of a Corinthian tallow peach-wicked candle, and the meal was despatched in silence. When the gentleman from Buncombe had picked his teeth with his pocket-knife, he whispered an appalling secret in the ear of his wife. She drew a long sigh of resignation, wiped her eyes with a corner of her apron, and began packing his saddle-bags, while Joseph Joplin cleaned his 'rifle-gun,' which he called 'Patsy,' after his wife. He had finished trimming the bullets he had cast, when, all things being ready, he rose to depart.
'Joseph Joplin,' said his wife, 'I always allowed it would come to this; but the Lord's will be done!'
In reply, the captain briefly remarked:
'If he don't die of the stab I give him, Mike Target will pass me word, when the boys go out into the bee-woods. I leave you every thing but the colt and my bear-dog, Gall-buster; and, so as I never comes back, tell the boys 'tis my wish that they never gives the lie, nor takes it.'
The period of Joplin's absence was more than three years; during which space of time his patient spouse kept up the monotonous music of her wheel, and the regular vibrations of the shuttle. Her hearth was kept warm and clean, and her children were amply clad in cleanly attire, and well fed. Every Sunday was set apart for extra washing of faces, combing of tow-heads, reading a chapter or two, and chanting a hymn. She had rented her field, so as to secure her bread-stuffs; and her little stock of cattle had increased, while they supplied milk and butter for the subsistence of her children. Each tedious year had she spun, wove, and made up for her absent husband a new suit of jeans, which she hung in the cabin beside her own holiday apparel, that she carefully abstained from wearing, until she could attire herself and husband in their best, on some joyous day of meeting. His Sunday hat hung on the hook where the breech of his rifle had rested. Every day of rest she made it a point to brush the dust from the smooth beaver, and drop a tear into the crown. From the day of his departure, no account had ever been received of him. The sheriff, with a rude posse, had searched the premises on the day after the affray, and the neighboring country had been scoured in vain. The racer had outstripped all pursuers, and the fugitive was secure in the unexplored regions at the foot of the Ozark mountains.
The wounded sportsman who had defrauded our hero, contrary to the most flattering hope, had been effectually cured of the wound that Joplin, in his intoxicated rage, had inflicted. The wife, rejoicing in this piece of good fortune, had resorted to every device within the compass of female ingenuity to convey intelligence to the unknown region, the abode of her husband; but she had almost despaired of ever seeing him again, when an old bee-hunter disembarked from his pirogue opposite her cabin, on the Arkansas river, to dry his blankets after a hard storm. Of this old adventurer Mrs. Joplin learned that he had met a trapper on the head waters of White river, who called himself Griffin, and the description of his person induced the fond wife to think it might be Captain Joplin himself. On his way out to the bee-woods the following season, the old hunter carried with him a letter to the following effect:
'Deer Capting Joe Jopling; arter my best respects, hoping these lines may find you: he arn't dead no more nor you and mee; you mout come home, I reckon; the childrin all right smartly groin; you would never know the baby.
'Patsy Jopling, at the Piny Bend.'
Long and anxiously did the poor affectionate wife wait the return of the father of her little brood, and often in the train of her flattering imagination start as some stranger entered her cabin, with the exclamation, 'I thought it was Capting Jopling!' In her leisure moments, too, she was in the habit of fixing her ardent and steady gaze on the point of rocks behind which she had seen him depart. In all the torture of delay, not a reproachful exclamation was ever uttered by the sufferer. A sigh hastily drawn, and a rudely-constructed prayer, evinced the emotion she deeply felt. The fond woman could perceive, as her children increased in growth, strong resemblances of their father developed in every lineament. But the likeness in 'the baby' was absolutely wonderful. 'If,' said she, 'little Joe was grown, and daddy war here present, they would never know themselves apart.'