It seems that he kept his horse, and that he was active in horse-racing, cock-fighting, card-playing circles; but it is not probable that he relied upon his winnings to pay his way.
How, then, did he do it?
Perhaps his work as school-teacher should be assigned to this period of his life, and it is possible that some remnant of his legacy may have tided him over.
Illustrative of the rougher side of his character is the practical joke which he played upon the eminent respectabilities of Salisbury by sending cards of invitation to the Christmas ball to two notorious strumpets of the town. The unclean birds came to the ball, as per Andrew Jackson’s cards, and the uproar in the fowl-house was considerable. But Andy was a great favorite with the ladies—as “wild” young men have ever been—and he succeeded in getting rid of the disturbers and at the same time holding the admiration of the eminently respectable.
Another anecdote of the period represents him engaged with boon companions in a carousal, which lasted throughout the night and wound up with a general smashing of all the furniture in the room.
A flood of light is poured upon his standing with the “unco’ good and rigidly righteous” at this time by the exclamation of the old lady of Salisbury, who, on being told, forty years later, that Andrew Jackson was a candidate for President, cried out:
“What! Jackson up for President? Jackson? Andrew Jackson? The Jackson that used to live in Salisbury? Why, when he was here, he was such a rake that my husband would not bring him into the house! It is true, he might have taken him out to the stable to weigh horses for a race, and might drink a glass of whisky with him there. Well, if Andrew Jackson can be President, anybody can.”
From the office of Judge Spruce McCay Jackson went to that of Colonel John Stokes, where he continued his studies until he thought himself ready for admission to the Bar. In the spring of 1787 he applied for and received his license to practice law.
For a year after his admission to the Bar he appears to have lived at a village in Martinsville, N. C., where two friends of his kept a store. Tradition says that he helped them in running the business, and that he accepted a local position as constable or deputy-sheriff. At any rate, he realized soon that he was gaining no foothold in North Carolina, and he made up his mind to try his fortune in the new country beyond the mountains, where Robertson and Donelson and Sevier were planting the beginning of another state on the Cumberland.
Before we follow Jackson into Tennessee, let us pause “to take his picture.”