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Hannah of Kentucky - James Otis |
"And, as we are anxious to concur in every respect with our brethren of the United Colonies, for our just rights and privileges, as far as our infant settlement and remote situation will admit of, we humbly expect and implore to be taken under the protection of the honorable Convention of the Colony of Virginia, of which we can-not help thinking ourselves still a part, and request your kind interposition in our behalf, that we may not suffer under the rigorous demands and impositions of the gentlemen styling themselves Proprietors, who, the better to eject their oppressive designs, have given them the color of a law, enacted by a score of men, artfully picked from the few adventurers who went to see the country last summer, overawed by the presence of Mr. Henderson."
I distinctly remember that part of it because Jemima used to laugh over the idea of calling ourselves an “infant” settlement. She said that if the people of Virginia could see some of our dandy rufflers standing on a stump crowing like a cock because of having beaten another at wrestling or leaping, they would think we were indeed healthy infants.
Father believes that some of the language in the petition was too strong, because Colonel Boone and Mr. Harrod were among those "artfully picked"; but neither of the men seemed to think there was any-thing disrespectful in such words, and actually signed the petition.
During stormy winter days father and Billy with axes dug out troughs from buckeye logs, which we
might use for collecting sap as soon as the time came for sugar
![[Illustration] from Hannah of Kentucky by James Otis](https://heritage-history.com/books/otis/kentucky/zpage102.gif "[Illustration] from Hannah of Kentucky by James Otis")
making. How we children watched for a change in the weather which should tell that the day was near
at hand when we might revel in sweets! Elizabeth Callaway gave me a spoonful of sugar shortly after
her family came into the fort, and from that time I had not tasted anything in the way of sweetness.
Now, however, we promised ourselves that plenty of sugar should be made as soon as the sap began to
run, and Billy announced that he expected to get plenty of wild honey
during the summer, no matter how many Indians might be skulking around.