The best way to get to know Davy Crockett is to listen to him talk about himself.
- Who am I? I'm a loudmouth! - Davy used to say.
By this he wanted to say that he could out-argue and out-shout anyone living on the frontier, and there were plenty of loudmouths and braggarts there, believe me.
“My father can beat anyone in Kentucky,” Davy assured. “And I will surpass my own father in everything.” I can run faster than him. Dive deeper and stay underwater longer. And I will come out of the water dry. Well, who else can do this on the Frontier - literally translated as “border”. In America, this was the name given to the still undeveloped strip of land to the west of the eastern states. As this land was developed and settled, the “border,” that is, the frontier, moved further and further to the west.
all of Mississippi? I can carry a steamer on my shoulder. Do you want me to hug a lion? I'm as tough as an ox, quick as a fox, evasive as an eel, I can scream like an Indian, fight like a devil, and if I have to, I'll swallow a congressman if I first oil his head and press his ears back.
Davy was still modest when he said all this. In fact, nothing was impossible for him at all, you will soon see this for yourself.
In Davy's time, around 1825, anyone who lived on the frontier—Kentucky, Tennessee, or other states—who didn't want to go hungry had to hunt. Davy was an accurate hunter; there was never a time when he missed, and therefore he always had plenty of bear and venison. He didn't disdain the raccoon either. But he didn’t have enough lead bullets and gunpowder, and Davy learned to take a raccoon without a gun.
One day Davy chased a raccoon up a tree. The poor thing looked so unhappy from there that Davy couldn’t stand it and laughed. The raccoon sat on a branch and trembled, and Davy stood below and smiled. Eventually the raccoon was overwhelmed by his smile and fell to the ground. So Davy got the raccoon without firing a shot.
After this incident, Davy was never left without meat. If it was a moonlit night, all he had to do was drive the raccoon up a tree and smile. He became so skilled at this that even the panther could not stand his smile and climbed down from the tree itself.
One day Davy met another hunter in the forest. He just took aim at a bright spot against the background of dark tree branches.
- Stop! - Davy shouted. - Don't waste gunpowder! Now I will smile at him, and the raccoon will be yours.
Davy leaned against the tree trunk so that the smile would not throw him to the ground, and began to smile. But no matter how much he smiled, there was no result.
The second hunter was holding on to his belly: just think, the great Davy Crocket himself boasted in vain!
Tired, Davy exclaimed:
“I’ve never met such a persistent and courageous animal!”
And he climbed the tree to understand what the secret was. What happened? Having climbed the tree, he discovered that he was smiling at a dry branch that looked like two peas in a pod and looked like a raccoon. However, this did not console him. He believed that nothing should resist his smile, not even a dry tree.
By the time Davy Crocket's fame spread throughout the forests, an interesting story happened to him. That day, Davy’s favorite dog, named Ratchet, drove another raccoon up a tree, and Davy was about to use his irresistible smile, when suddenly the raccoon raised his right paw - saying, “Let me say a word, Davy.” And asks politely:
— Is your name Davy Crocket?
“I hit the nail on the head,” Davy replies. “I am Davy Crockett in person.”
“In that case, don’t worry,” says the raccoon. “I’ll get off the tree anyway.”
And the raccoon immediately came down from the tree.
Davy stood and looked with interest at the funny animal, which voluntarily considered itself killed. He was flattered.
“I’ve never heard better praise in my life!” — Davy beamed, stroking the raccoon’s back. “Let me be shot on the spot if I touch even a hair on your head!”
“Thank you,” whispered the raccoon. - With your permission, I will go now. Don't think that I didn't believe your word that you! Just - what if you change your mind?
On the morning in question, Davy Crocket had an excellent breakfast of hot bear and crocodile sausage. From this sausage, Davy felt the same heat inside himself as it was cold outside that day, and therefore decided to take a break and not go hunting, but to visit his neighbor named Oak Branch. Oak Twig lived only fifteen miles north of Davie.
As Davy walked, it became colder and colder.
Finally, he was so cold that he decided to light a fire. But here's the problem: he forgot the flint and steel at home to strike the fire. Then he hit the rock with his fist and sparks flew. But in such cold weather the sparks froze on the fly. And Davy did what all animals do in such cases: he climbed into an empty hollow to keep warm. But it only seemed to him that the hollow was empty. In fact, Davy had such a hot meeting with a wild cat there that after it he flew to Oak Branch’s house in no time and arrived there still very warm.
By the way, Oak Branch had a sister—a miracle, not a girl. One day she went into the forest to take lunch to her brother, and suddenly noticed that a bear was following her. The bear was undecided where to start: with lunch or with the girl. She helped him make a choice by throwing him lunch. And while the bear was busy with lunch, she walked around the bear’s back and sat astride him. Then she patted him on the neck: “B-but, let’s go!”
The bear was very surprised, then got scared and ran. But the girl held him tightly by the scruff of the neck, and the bear, rushing, crawled out of its skin. Lucky sister! Unexpectedly, I received a bear skin for my fur coat. Davy Crocket swore that all this was the true truth, because he himself saw his neighbor’s sister Oak Branch’s new bear coat when he finally came to visit them that morning.
And now about another bear, which was brought home from the forest by Davy Crocket’s daughter, Pinet. This bear became so attached to her that he followed her everywhere and became completely tame. So tame that he settled in their house forever. Most of all, he loved to sit quietly in a corner or warm himself by a blazing fire.
Davy taught the bear to smoke a pipe. They whiled away the evenings together, sitting by the fire and puffing on a pipe. They just couldn’t talk. Davy never managed to learn a single word to the bear. But he taught him how to churn butter quickly.
In those days, churning butter was not an easy job.
It was easier for those with thicker arms. And you yourself understand what kind of paws the bear had, so there is nothing to be surprised about. The heart of everyone who saw the bear at work rejoiced. Can you imagine a butter churn? A large barrel with such a handle inside it is called a beater, or a whorl. Davy Crocket's wife poured cream into this barrel, and the bear began to work the beater - up and down, up and down, until butter churned out of the cream and floated to the top. The bear was very proud of this work. And Davy was proud of the bear, he claimed that no one in all of Tennessee could churn butter better than his bear. He could even churn butter out of buffalo milk!
In short, this bear learned a lot from people and became so educated that he contracted measles and died. It's a pity, of course...
Davy loved to introduce all sorts of innovations. One day he figured out how to win the election. Elections are like a cold, Davy believed. Everyone has a cold, and everyone takes part in elections.
That year, some hardened swindler was running for Congress from their state. But Davy decided that the people's chosen one should be none other than him, Davy Crocket. All that remained was to win the elections.
First of all, Davy saddled his favorite crocodile and put a bridle made of black panther skin on it. And every time the rogue candidate began to make a speech, Davy gave spurs to the crocodile, launching him into the thick of the voters.
Of course, the campaign speech made the crocodile bored, he nodded off and began to yawn. And when he opened his mouth, yawning, the swindler saw how many teeth there were. There were more of them, many more than the votes he could get in the elections, that's for sure! Now it’s clear why he rushed to leave this state?
This is how Davy got into Congress.
But more than anything else, Davy loved it when thunder roared.
- A loud, rolling, rumbling, thunderclap - what could be better? - Davy used to say. - The heart and soul rejoice when thunder roars! Of course, unless it's the heart and soul of a coward. I want to scream and cry with delight or hug the whole universe!
One day, a strong thunderstorm caught Davy in the forest. Mesmerized by the magnificent thunderclaps, Davy froze in place, as if nailed, and even opened his mouth with delight. And just at that time, ball lightning flew past, and he accidentally swallowed it. The lightning was so hot that it burned through all his pockets and caused internal heat. After this, Davy could eat raw food for a whole month: it itself was cooked in his stomach from this heat.
And then there came such a bitter cold that one morning the dawn froze, and the sun could not rise. Davy went out to see what had happened. Trying to warm up, he took a short run, about twenty-five miles, and found himself at the top of the mountain. There he finally understood what was going on. It turns out that the engine of the machine that releases the sun into the sky has frozen. And the sun got stuck in a wheel between two blocks of ice. It sparkled and shone from there - in a word, it tried its best just to break free. But the more I tried, the more I sweated, and the droplets of sweat froze and did not let the sun free.
Then Davy ran home quickly, or rather, he moved out. He didn’t have to run, because the mountain was icy, so he sat down and drove off. At home, he grabbed a piece of congealed bear fat and returned to the top of the mountain. He stuck bear fat between the wheels of the car, where the sun was stuck, the sun heated the fat, the fat dripped where it was needed, and lubricated the wheels. Davy could only slap the car once or twice, shouting:
- Well, let's go! Get to work!
And exactly fifteen seconds later the car snorted, creaked and started working. The sun thawed and began to shine. And Davy hurried home to prepare breakfast for himself.
He showed such agility that he was the first to announce the day, illuminating the entire area with a ray of sunlight, which accidentally looked into his pocket when Davy was melting bear fat.
Davy had a favorite gun. Everyone called him "Death to the Devil." Davy shot without missing a beat. But one day he was very unlucky while hunting: no one came across him along the way. However, Davy did not want to return home empty-handed and decided to spend the night right there in the mountains and try his luck the next morning, maybe he would shoot someone. He leaned Death to the Devil against a tree, and hung his hunting horn with gunpowder on a branch.
In the morning he threw Death to the Devil on his shoulder and wanted to remove his hunting horn from the branch, but the branch turned out to be empty. Davy rushed here and there - there was no horn, and that was all. I've been searching all day, and night has already come.
A young moon appeared above the mountain. And here's the thing - at the very tip of the young moon hung his hunting horn! It must have been at night, while Davy was sleeping, that a young moon, floating above his head, accidentally picked up a hunting horn and took it off the branch. Davy was delighted and quickly grabbed his horn. This time he was lucky: he shot three bears, two lynxes and one rabbit. However, from that incident he never again hung a hunting horn on a tree branch.
Davy was very pleased with his gun. He always emerged victorious in all shooting competitions. Until the day I met Mike Fink. But even then he yielded to him solely out of nobility.
Mike Fink was a rower on the river. But when he didn't have a job - which happened whenever he wanted it - Mike had to shoot his breakfast and lunch in the forest.
One day Davy Crockett happened to spend the night in Mike’s hut, and the next morning Mike proved to him that he was a worse braggart than Davy himself.
“My wife is the first beauty in all of Kentucky!” - Mike stated. “No one has a more beautiful wife.” And my horse
runs the fastest! And I have the most accurate gun, you won’t find anyone else like it! This is where Davy exploded:
“I can’t say anything bad about your wife, Mike.” She's a real beauty. As for Mrs. Crockett, I'm not comparing her to her; she lives in Tennessee, not Kentucky. I don’t have my own horse...
Davy didn’t want to say so directly that Mike had lied in vain about the gun, and yet he involuntarily raised his voice when he allowed himself to express his doubts. And then he suggested:
“You see, over there, on the top crossbar of the fence, there’s a cat sitting about two hundred yards from here?” I swear, he'll have to grow a new mustache starting today!
And Davy shaved off the cat's whiskers on the right side with one shot. Yes, so clean, as if he had a safety razor in his hands, and not a gun.
The cat began to look around in surprise: it seemed to him that someone had lightly tickled him on the face. And when he turned away, Davy shaved off his mustache on the left side with a second shot.
“So don’t brag about your gun, Mike,” he concluded.
But Mike wasn't at all embarrassed.
— Do you see the pig and the piglets in that pasture? - Mike asked Davy.
With these words, he raised his gun, and the tip of the pig’s tail disappeared. And after her, Mike counted the tails of all the piglets.
“Now let’s see how you shoot them back!” - he declared smugly.
“It’s impossible to do, you know,” said Davy. "However, one pig's tail remained "a little longer than the others. If I trimmed their tails, I would never allow myself such negligence.
Yard is a measure of length, 0.91 m.
Then Davy took aim... Shoot! - and straightened the pig’s tail. This completely infuriated Mike. He turned towards the house and took aim at his beautiful wife, who was just about to go to the source for water. Mike's bullet took half the ridge off her head without hitting a hair. After which he ordered her to stand still so that Davy could try to knock down the remaining half of the ridge.
Mike's wife is already used to such jokes. But Davy refused.
“No, Mike,” he said. “My hand would shake if I had to aim at a woman from closer than a hundred miles away.” I give up!
That was the only time that Davy Crocket conceded or miscalculated on anything. True, he once miscalculated with the crocodile: for some reason it was not at hand when Davy’s rival began his election speech. And since there was no crocodile to yawn and show his teeth to the enemy, Davy lost the election and did not get into Congress.
But still, Davy Crocket always remained the greatest braggart and loudmouth in all of Kentucky.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru