David Crockett_ The Lion of the West - Michael Wallis [38]
“They all thought I was sick,” wrote Crockett, “and so I was. And it was the worst kind of sickness—a sickness of the heart, and all the tender parts, produced by disappointed love.”2
As had been the case with other trials and tribulations Crockett had already faced, the passage of time seemed to be the best healing balm. Also, time simply was far too precious to waste on self-pity. “With men of the backwoods, heartache was a luxury,”3 was how James Shackford summed up Crockett’s situation. “The backwoodsman had to arrive at journey’s end restored and prepared for the next stage. The whole of a twenty-year sorrow had to be crammed into a fistful of heart’s-ease gathered along the way of a day’s journeying through the forest.”
Crockett threw himself back into his labors for Canaday and, whenever there was some spare time in the evenings or on the Sabbath, nothing was more restorative than a mind-clearing jaunt in the woods with his rifle in hand. Hunting always proved to be Crockett’s salvation, sanctuary, and escape. Still, like a young god in Ovid’s classic work, he believed that the only way to complete his metamorphosis into manhood was to find a wife.
While out on one of his hunts, Crockett stopped in a forest clearing at the cabin of a woman he described as a “Dutch widow.”4 The woman had a single daughter, but Crockett had no interest in her as a spouse, for although she was smart enough and certainly a skilled conversationalist, she was “as ugly as a stone fence.” Seeing she had little chance of snaring David, the girl told him that “there was as good fish in the sea that had never been caught out of it.” Crockett doubted her, but whether she was right or not, “I was certain that she was not one of them. For she was so homely that it almost give me a pain in the eyes to look at her.”5
In spite of the rejection, the girl invited Crockett to her family’s upcoming reaping, where she promised to introduce him to “one of the prettiest little girls” in attendance.6 David had misgivings, but he enjoyed reapings, the community harvest gatherings that mainly were social events and included plenty of food, drink, dancing, competitions, and opportunities for bragging and storytelling—all pursuits that he savored.
The reaping was fast approaching when David told Canaday that he would give him two days of work if he allowed the bound boy to go along to the festivities. The old Quaker refused and “reproved me pretty considerable roughly for my proposition.” Canaday further advised Crockett to stay away since there would be “a great deal of bad company there” and it might hurt the young man’s good name.7 But Crockett had made a promise to the Dutch girl, so he shouldered his rifle and went to the summer harvest celebration.
Frontier frolics, reapings, corn huskings, and quilting parties meant hard work for those in attendance, but everyone, especially young men like Crockett, looked forward to the good times that followed. Likewise, the house and barn raisings also brought people together. After the work was completed, brush and branches were gathered to feed a fire that blazed all night long. The flames attracted settlers from miles around to come listen to lively fiddles, sip some whiskey, and dance up a storm.8
By the day of the reaping, Crockett had concluded that “the little varment,” as he now called Margaret Elder, had treated him so badly that it was time to put her totally out of his mind and find himself a wife.9 True to her word, the Dutch girl introduced Crockett to the mother of the girl she had told him of earlier. This “old Irish woman,” as Crockett first identified her in his autobiography, was Jean Kennedy Finley, the wife of William Finley, widely known as Billy. Although family records are scarce, it is believed both of the Finleys were born around 1765 in Lincoln County, North Carolina, and wed in 1786, the year of Crockett’s birth. The couple had eight known children