UNCLE DANIEL CARTER
When we left Carlisle it was to journey to a settlement called Big Springs, where, much to our surprise and delight, we came upon Uncle Daniel Carter with his three yoke of oxen hitched to a Conestoga wagon, and having as a load all Uncle Daniel's household goods as well as his family.
Uncle Daniel was an old acquaintance of ours, for he lived but a few miles from Mattapoisett and had started for Ohio some two weeks before we left home.
There had been no expectation in our minds that we should meet him on the journey, for it was believed that, moving as slowly as he must with his ox team, he, if not his wife, would grow weary of attempting to gain the Ohio country, and turn off at some inviting-looking point long before having arrived thus far in Pennsylvania.
But the old man was not made of such stuff; he had set out to join Rufus Putnam's company at Marietta, and declared that he would continue on if it took a year to make the trip.
What a meeting that was with the old man and his family! It was like coming upon Mattapoisett suddenly. I had never before realized how much affection one may unwittingly have for his neighbors, until we saw Uncle Daniel outside the log hut where he had stopped for the night, watching us with an odd expression on his face as if doubting whether we should recognize him.