David Crockett_ The Lion of the West - Michael Wallis [32]
At last everyone was called to supper. David joined the family and other guests at the long table. In only an instant the new tavern guest was identified. David’s sister Betsy had been staring at him ever since his arrival. Suddenly she sprang to her feet and ran to his side. The ecstatic girl seized David around the neck and exclaimed, “Here is my lost brother!”22 Almost thirty-four years later, when working with Thomas Chilton on the Narrative, Crockett had trouble describing his exact feelings at that moment.
“The joy of my sisters and my mother, and indeed of all the family, was such that it humbled me, and made me sorry that I hadn’t submitted to a hundred whippings, sooner than cause so much affliction as they had suffered on my account.” Crockett also noted, probably with a sly grin, that due to his increased age and enhanced size at the time of his homecoming, “together with the joy of my father, occasioned by my unexpected return,” there would not be any more dreaded whippings. He was right.
NINE
RISE ABOVE
LIKE A PRODIGAL SON finally forgiven, Crockett entertained his family with many tales of the high and low adventure he had experienced during his long sojourn. He spoke of the people he encountered and places he saw. He told about being broke and being flush, nights spent sleeping in barn lofts, runaway horses, great sailing ships that beckoned, and of times bitter and times sweet. He talked of the kindness of strangers and the cruelty of those he thought were friends. As the stories unfolded, everyone clearly saw that at almost sixteen years of age, the young man had grown in stature and muscle, and strengthened his resolve and character. Crockett had proven his manhood, an unwritten but understood obligation for frontier males.
David was barely thirteen years old when he left his home in east Tennessee. Two and a half years on his own had exposed the young man to different people and places. Important life lessons had inevitably been learned. “He left his home a novice in the ways of the world but returned a person who understood considerably more about himself—what he wanted and what he valued,” writes Joseph Swann. “He was beginning to rise above his circumstances against great odds.”1
The same could not be said for David’s father. Each time John Crockett attempted to rise above his lot in life, the odds overwhelmed him. Debt remained the Crockett family’s cornerstone and hounded its patriarch like a cur dog pack pursuing a bear. The Crockett Tavern offered only meager accommodations, suitable for wagoners and wanderers but a cut below the more comfortable inns and roadhouses of the day. No doubt Elizabeth and her girls prepared tasty meals, kept the place neat and clean, and made sure the bed ticking stuffed with dried leaves was free of lice and other vermin. Still, the charges for food, drink, and lodging were low in east Tennessee due to a legal ruling in 1800 that froze most fees that taverns were allowed to charge. With the price of meals set at no more than ten cents, a night’s lodging six cents, fodder and good pasture for wagon teams six cents, and half-pints of brandy, whiskey, and rum also just six cents, it was difficult to turn a profit.2 Glad as he was to be back in the fold, David had to have known what was apparent to others—that while he may have changed, his family’s fortunes had not.
In the spring of 1802, not long after David returned home, his father came to him seeking help. Prone to drink, John told his teenaged son that once more he found himself in a financial bind that even an ocean of hard cider could not wash away. During David’s absence, his father continued to buy on credit and had run up more debts, including