The Black Swans 



heritance. The Scotch were always a 

 stiff-necked generation. Neither the 

 English kings — nor their own some- 

 times — suited them; and the Estab- 

 lished Church they would not abide. 

 And as for my English forbears in the 

 valleys of the Potomac and Rappa- 

 hannock, they could not long endure 

 the yoke of colonial governors. Any- 

 how they followed Daniel Boone into 

 the western wild over the Blue Moun- 

 tains through dark forests; and had no 

 sooner got comfortably settled in the 

 Ohio Valley when something else went 

 wrong. The trackless prairies called, 

 and in a rough-hewn home of logs 

 beyond the Mississippi the peace and 

 freedom, dear alike to all created 

 things, was found. Maybe it is stand- 

 ing yet, that roof -tree under which a 

 boy once made mud pies and watched 

 wild pigeons in flocks of hundreds 

 gather for the night in the timber by 

 a little stream. Some day I may go 

 and see. That cabin was a cow barn 

 [118] 



