Our platters being fully laden, Sissy and I repaired to one of the many small, circular tables disposed around the periphery of the hall and seated ourselves directly across from one another. Before turning my full attention to my dinner, I took a moment to make a careful survey of the room. Our hostess had left her throne and was moving about the hallway, bestowing bright, effusive greetings upon her friends and acquaintances. Some of the masqueraders were still engaged in a lively dance; others were gathered in laughing, chattering groups of three or four; still others were—like Sissy and myself—seated at tables, partaking of the bounteous meal; while a sizable group was now gathered around Crockett, who was holding forth while devouring great, swollen mouthfuls of food. The entire scene was one of mirth—vivacity—and singularly elevated spirits.

“Ooh, Eddie,” sighed Virgina, as she masticated a forkful of mutton. “Isn’t this the grandest, most splendid party you have ever attended?”

“It is, to be sure,” I replied with a smile. “Though the most splendid sight of all is the one upon which I am even now gazing.”

Smiling brightly at this tribute, Sissy continued to look about the ballroom, her eyes aglint with excitement. In the meantime, I bent my ears to Crockett’s recitation. Being seated only several yards away from the ever-expanding audience surrounding the frontiersman, I could clearly hear his words above the lilting sounds of the music

“If you haven’t heard tell of one Mike Fink,” boomed the frontiersman’s deep-pitched voice, “I’ll learn you something about him, for he was a helliferocious fellow and an almighty fine shot. Mike was a boatman on the Mississippi, but he had him a little cabin at the head of the Cumberland and a horrid handsome wife that loved him the wickedest you ever see. Well, one day I fell in with him in the woods, and he says to me: ‘I’ve got the handsomest wife, and the fastest horse, and the sharpest shootin’-iron in all Kentuck—and if any man dare doubt it, I’ll be in his hair quicker than it would take a hurricane to tear through a cornfield.’

“This put my dander up, and I says: ‘I’ve nothin’ against your wife, Mike, for it can’t be denied that she’s a monstrous handsome woman. And I ain’t got no horses. But I’m damned if you speak the truth about your rifle, and I’ll prove it. Do you see that-there tomcat hunkered on top of that fence post, about a hundred and fifty yards off? If he ever hears again, I’ll be shot if it shan’t be without ears.’