Ethel Hillyer Harris.

Written for the Xavier Chapter of the D.A.R., Rome, Ga.

—Morris.

Prologue.

All day long there had been a vague unrest in the old colonial home, all day the leaves had quivered on the banks of the Mataponi River; the waves were restless, the dog in his kennel howled fitfully; the birds and the chickens sought their roosts quiveringly, whimsically, and when night had let her sable curtain down, a lurid glare shot athwart the sky, in a strange curved comet-like shape. It was the Indian summer, October in her glory of golden-rods, sumachs, and the asters in the wood. But, hist! hark! what breaks upon the autumn stillness and the quiet of the colonial household on the Mataponi, — — ?

It was the cannon at the siege of Yorktown, forty miles away. The French fleet were making blazing half circles on the sky seen from their fortifications even thus far below.

Through the long night the boom! boom! boom! continued, the simple, loyal folks knowing nothing of the result.

At last, wearied and spent, with a prayer to the All Father to save America, they sought their welcome couches. Among them was Kitty, the idolized daughter of the family.

Soft! step easy! as we push aside the chintz curtains of her four-poster and gaze upon the child, to exclaim: How innocent is youth! Her seventeen years lie upon her pink cheeks, and shimmering curly tresses as lightly as a humming bird in the heart of roses. Her lithesome form makes a deep indenture in the thick featherbed, the gay patchwork quilt half reveals, and half conceals the grace of rounded arm and neck and breast, a sigh escapes her coral lips, one hand is thrust beneath the pillow, she dreams!

On the chair her quilted podusouy and long stays are carelessly thrown. Her Louis Seize slippers with red heels are on the floor, and the old clock on the stair is ticking, ticking, ticking.

Kitty is dreaming. Of what? The greatest moment in our national history. Dream on sweet maid, closer, closer point the hands; it nears three o'clock Oct. 19, 1781. A wild cry, and the whole household is awake.

Swift running to and fro,

Smiles, tears, shouts, "glory," "glory," "God be praised."

Such the sounds that faintly reach the dreaming senses of our Kitty. And then her father with a kiss and hug pulls her out of bed with "Awake lass! awake! awake! Cornwallis has surrendered."

In her night gown from her latticed window Kitty saw the courier galloping through the little hamlet; pausing at her father's gate to give the message of our conquest over the British, and then galloping on towards the North, for he was on the direct route from Yorktown to Philadelphia where Congress was in session.

By the time Kitty had pompadoured her hair, and donned her paviered print gown, all the parish bells were ringing for joy. From Georgia to Maine bells were sounding; peals of liberty and peace filled the air with prayers and praise and service to God took up the glad hour and over and over the refrain was sung "Cornwallis is taken! Cornwallis is taken."

Ah, dear Kitty, and quaint little tableau of the long ago, five generations coming and going, in whose veins beats your loyal blood still listen and tremble and glow with pride at your legend of the siege of Yorktown, and better still, sweetest of all the long agone ancestors more than five nations, indeed every nation honors and makes low obeisance to the stars and the stripes. "Old glory! long may she wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave."

CHAPTER FIRST.

In 1784 or 85, Mr. Carlton, who had his home on the Mataponi River, moved with his family to Georgia.

After Cornwallis had delivered his sword to Washington, a little group of emigrants might have been seen at Yorktown; among them the families of Edmund Byne and Robert Carlton.

Out in the blue harbour the nifty little brig "Nancy" lay, all sails spread ready to embark to Savannah, Ga.

These two above named gentlemen, took passage with their families, servants and household goods, and they were said to be persons of sincere, and devoted piety, full of hope and courage. They expected to reach Savannah in three days.

However, contrary winds set in, and the brig daring not hug the treacherous coasts of the Carolinas sped far out to sea amid a terrific storm. She drifted for weeks at the mercy of the waves, until the passengers almost despaired of seeing land. If in our prologue, we saw a pretty, and partly imaginary picture of Katherine Carlton, known as Kitty, for she it is now eighteen years of age, we see her again and in true historical facts receive her account of long ago, of the peril. Thus reads her account: "One time it seemed as if the end had come. 'Twas night. The passengers were lying in their berths enduring as well as they could the dangers of the hour, when suddenly the ship careened, seemingly falling on its side. It was then the voice of one of those pious men was heard amidst the howling winds 'Lord help us up,' and straightway the ship was set upright and the danger was passed."

The little party after landing on our beautiful south Georgia coast, sweet with golden jasmines, and long moss on the beautiful braided live oak, proceeded up the country, in true emigrant fashion, in wagons.

Imagination, that merry, fantastic jade, will not let my pen be steady. A thousand pictures obtrude. Kitty, her head so curly, eyes so dark and soft, thrust from out the wagon's canvassed top, or again her snowy fingers playing in the cool waters of a running brook, when the team stops to feed and drink. Then Mr. Carlton, brave, resolute and the camp fire, the smell of broiled bacon, the dog on trail of a rabbit, the straw for seats, and weird firelight, and above all, the eternal stars of heaven.

But we must hasten, though the chronicle, which is reliable, states that it took five weeks to reach their destination in Burke County.

As they approached the Northern border of Wilkes County, the trees grew taller, and the red oak, the white oak, burch, and maple, the crimson honeysuckle, and wild violets and muscadine vines took the place of yellow jasmine, and moss and whispering pines.

It was indeed a forest primeval, a virgin soil, and a new land. So on the last day of their tiresome journey, early one morning, they came to a creek. There was no bridge, and it was plain that the stream had to be forded.

The wagons were moving slowly along. Katherine and her sister walking in front. A discussion arose: "What about the girls? Here! come Kitty!" or "Stop, Kitty! don't take off your slippers; you can't wade." About that time up rode a gallant revolutionary soldier named Captain John Freeman, who boldly said "I'll take Kitty" and in a trice he had the fair young lady behind him on his own horse, and the limpid waters of our clear Georgia stream were laying its flanks as he proceeded across the stream.

CHAPTER SECOND.

—Edward Everett Hale.

While our heroine is riding along in the dewy morn of the day, and at the same time enjoying the beauties of nature and no doubt with her lithe young body leaning against the Captain, causing his heart to beat a double quick, we will go on with our narrative.

Captain John Freeman was a native Georgian, a Revolutionary soldier, he was present at the siege of Charlestown and Savannah, a participant in the battles of Cowpens, King's Mountain and Guilford Court House, at the battle of Kettle Creek, and also at the capture of Augusta in Georgia.

In most of his adventures in the Revolutionary war, Captain Freeman had with him a colored boy named Ambrose, who lived to a very great age and was well known to the younger generation as "Uncle Ambrose." He had his own cabin in Athens, Georgia. Incidents in regard to him were handed by tradition. He had on his left arm the scar of a sabre cut, made by British dragoons when General Tarleton's men were attacking and endeavoring to get away with the American trooper's horses that had been left at the camp, and which it was in part, the duty of the boy Ambrose to keep. The British dragoons had possession of the horses for awhile and Ambrose a prisoner also, but by a rapid retaliation the horses and servants were recovered. Old Ambrose used to tell about having been present at the siege of Savannah, when Count Pulaski, one of the American Generals, was killed. He said that he was back in the edge of the pine, or timber when the American army charged on the British fort and breastworks. He described Pulaski as mounted on a spirited horse, with a great white plume in his hat, and how gallantly he led the Americans in their advance. He saw Pulaski when he fell from the horse, and was present at the point to which he was brought back, mortally wounded.

CHAPTER THIRD.

Anonymous.

As might be guessed, in a few short months after crossing the creek together on horse-back, Captain John Freeman led Kathrine Carlton to the altar.

In regard to her after-life, she was a wonder for those times, a great reader and a fine housekeeper, a fine raconteur; yet with all, the soul of hospitality. She had a healthy, strong mind; was imperious in her bearing, a devoted member of the church, a power in her family, and section.

Captain Freeman was a wealthy man, and took her at times in a carriage to the Mountains of North Carolina on a pleasure trip.

She bore him one child, Rebecca, of a temperamental nature, and of deep piety like her mother. This child was the author of many lovely poems.

Captain Freeman did not live to be very old. After his death Mrs. Freeman met losses which she bravely bore, Rebecca married Shaler Hillyer and from this union sprang all the Georgia Hillyers. And to this day "Grandma Freeman" is almost a sainted word in the family, so strong was her character and so deep her love for others. She lived to be eighty-nine years old. In her bedroom was an old time tall clock that Captain Freeman had brought over from England when he brought his blue china dishes. As she drew her last breath, a beloved niece looked at the clock but it had stopped. That clock is still owned by one of her descendants, and it is not a legend but a fact, that when anything important happens, in the family, if it is running, it stops, if it is not running, it strikes.

But to return to the Bynes: to show that we are journeying on to meet those who are journeying on to meet us.

Mr. Bynes' daughter Annie, she who came in the brig "Nancy" with Mr. Carlton, married a Mr. Harris, their daughter married Mr. Hansell, and his granddaughter, the beautiful golden haired Leila, a noted belle and beauty, of Atlanta, Georgia, married a Mr. Llewelynn P. Hillyer, of Macon, Georgia, the great grandson of Kitty Carlton.

If the writer may be pardoned for saying so, she is the granddaughter of Junius Hillyer, the grandson of Kitty Carlton; and she also pleads guilty to the soft impeachment of having married Hamilton Harris, a relative of the Byne family, too.

Two shall be born the whole wide apart and time and tide will finally bring them together. Affinity, congeniality, fate! What?

Hurrah for the brave little sailing vessel, the nifty, white winged brig, "The Nancy."

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