'He was a shore man. He stood
a hundred-foot without a knot or limb; could wrastle or run or jump,
an' was good to cut a 4-bit piece at one hundred yards, offhand,
with his old 8-squar' rifle. He never shoots squirrels, my father
don't; he barks 'em. An' for to see the skin cracked, or so much as
a drop of blood on one of 'em, when he picks it up, would have
mortified the old gent to death.'
"'Kaintucky to a hair,' assented the Colonel, who listens to Enright
plenty rapt that a-way. 'An' things is so Arcadian! If a gent has a
hour off an 'feels friendly an' like minglin' with his kind, all he
does is sa'nter over an' ring the town bell. Nacherally, the
commoonity lets go its grip an' comes troopin' up all spraddled out.
It don't know if it's a fire, it don't know if it's a fight, it
don't know if it's a birth, it don't know if it's a hoss race, it
don't know if it's a drink; an' it don't care. The commoonity keeps
itse'f framed up perpetyooal to enjoy any one of the five, an'
tharfore at the said summons comes troopin', as I say. "'My
grandfather is the first Sterett who invades Kaintucky, an' my
notion is that he conies curvin' in with Harrod, Kenton, Boone an'
Simon Girty.
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