HEROES OF THE LONE STAR STATE.

923

the front room the middle of the floor was covered with a piece of cai'pet. One day the doctor called to some men, passing, to come in and take a drink. The whisky sat on a table in the center of the room. The men came in and, of course, had never seen a carpet before. They walked cautiously around on the bare part of the floor without daring to put their feet upon the carpet.

Soon afterward, they were heard inquiring of Crockett's friends how he lived. On learning that he lived in a log cabin of one room, without any glass for the window, and with earth alone for the floor, they declared that he was the fellow for them. " Why," said one of them, " when Butler called us into his house to take a drink, he spread down one of his best bed quilts for us to walk on. He's too proud for us." Crockett was elected to the legislature, and served two years.

The bear hunter soon found himself a famous man. Without changing his mode of life, he' announced himself as a candidate for Congress, and though unable to read, and barely able to sign his name, was elected by nearly three thousand majority. On his way to Washington City, he reached Raleigh, North Carols p on a cold, wet evening. Entering the tavern and elbowing his way through the crowd toward the fire, some fellow gave him a shove, and said with an oath, " Who are you ?" Crockett roared out, " I am that same David Crockett, fresh from the hack woods, half horse, half alligator, a little touched with the snapping turtle. I can wade the Mississippi, leap the Ohio, ride upon a streak of lightning, and slip without a scratch down a honey locust. I can whip my weight in wild cats, and if any gentleman pleases for a ten-dollar bill he can throw in a panther. I can hug a bear too close for comfort, and eat any man opposed to General Jackson." They made room for Crockett around the fire!

When the bear hunter got to Washington, he was invited to dine with President Adams, at a state dinner. The newspapers of the time gave what purported to be Crockett's own