June 7-8, 1844, Friday/Saturday.

The sun had already set when the rafters started home. Not on the river: by the road, such as it was – a dirt track, fortunately dry. Jim, Don, and Hannibal set out at a brisk pace. There were men and boys in front and behind, so they didn't feel too alone. Still, it was going to be a long walk.

'Hey, Hannibal,' said Jim. 'What was the real name of Redbank Creek again?'

'You mean the Injun name? Oh-twenge-ah, that means 'red', yoh-non-da, 'bank', gah-yon-hah-da, 'creek'.'

Jim and Dan repeated it until they'd memorised it, with laughter. Jim whistled marching tunes till he ran out of breath. By this time, it was gone dark and hard to see. Hannibal lit their lantern with one of his locofoco matches.

'I'm so glad you're an alchemist,' was Jim's comment. Then they had to explain to Dan what an alchemist was, and how locofoco matches were made. Dan agreed that Hannibal was 'plenty smart'.

Part of the time, the road wound through the woods, and pretty steeply up hill and down dale, as they say. But when they came out to a clear meadow, the half-moon was rising over the horizon.

'It must be about midnight,' said Dan. Jim suppressed a yawn.

A few miles later, the road grew kind of lonely. They'd lost sight of the other travellers, either getting ahead of the more leisurely walkers, or losing those who'd taken the side roads home. They heard an owl calling from the trees. It was an eerie sound. Worse, in the distance, there were the howls of wolves. They moved to the centre of the road, saying nothing, but being aware that they were unarmed.

A noise of cracking twigs startled them. Suddenly, a buck broke out of the underbrush. He stood there for a few seconds, looking magnificent in the moonlight. Then he bounded across the road in front of them, disappearing into the forest.

A mile later, Jim asked Hannibal and Dan, 'Where will y'uns go next year, when we're all legally grown up?'

Hannibal said, 'Up to Erie. Lots of iron work around the canal. I'm going to work for my father's friend, Mr Liddle. I want to learn as much as I can before I strike out on my own. Maybe someday, I'll go down to Pittsburgh and work. The railroads are going to grow, you know. This is going to be a century of progress, and I want to help make it happen.'

Privately, Jim thought that if anybody could make the 19th Century happen, it would be his friend Hannibal.

'I ain't goin' nowhere,' commented Dan. 'I'm stayin' right here on the farm. Help my dad. Maybe someday get my own place and make a family. Nothin' wrong with right here.' The others murmured assent: there was, indeed, nothing wrong with right here, as long as the bears left them alone…wait, was that growling they heard? They decided it was their imaginations…maybe. They walked faster for a while.

'What about you, Jim?' Dan wanted to know.

'I'm goin' to Pittsburgh,' was the answer. 'I don't have a trade, no family, and no land. So I'll go to the city, take what jobs I can get, and try to get music lessons. There are a lot of music people in Pittsburgh – the real thing, Germans. And there are music publishers. Maybe I can get jobs playin' on the riverboats. I might even learn to write music, you never know.'

Hannibal clapped his friend on the shoulder. 'Just don't forget us when you become as famous as Dan Emmett!' Jim laughed.

'I wish I could compose like this fellow Stephen Foster in Pittsburgh. He writes the really fancy stuff. I learned this song of his from a man who came up on the stage last week.' He sang them the song, with more enthusiasm than accuracy.

When Jim finished singing the song, an owl hooted from a nearby tree. They all three laughed.

'The owl liked it, anyway,' said Dan. 'Er, what's a lattice?'

Jim said, 'I think it's like a trellis. It's a love song, so I'm thinking it's like the balcony scene from 'Romeo and Juliet'.' Jim may not have been farther than Punxsutawney in his whole life, but, like his contemporary, Henry David Thoreau, he had travelled much where he lived. Besides, the world showed up in Brookville, even if it was just passing through.

Hannibal wasn't an instant Stephen Foster fan. 'I dunno, Jim,' he said. 'I like your fiddle tunes better. That one about Dan'l North and the bear was right good.' Jim didn't know any terms like 'melodic development' and he couldn't explain why Stephen Foster's song was a musical eye-opener to him, so he merely accepted the compliment. The talk turned to other things: how to hunt turkeys, and who was the best logger in the county, and where the best berries were to be found in the summer, and even what the Whigs and Democrats were likely to do this election season.

The one subject they avoided like the plague was…girls. Even though all three of them secretly wished, and maybe hoped, and certainly wondered…they weren't comfortable talking about something that private. At least Jim wasn't. Certainly not to Hannibal, anyway. Not when he was thinking about someone named Johnston.

Dawn was coming up over Brookville when they stumbled into town. Jim could feel the blood thumping in his thighs, and his feet were like lead. He managed to feed the cow and chickens, and make sure Mrs Gallagher had firewood. Then he stumbled into the barn and fell sound asleep. Mr Gallagher figured he'd earned it and let him sleep. The youngest Gallagher child, Sadie, toddled over and spread a horse blanket over him as he slept.

Dmitri Gheorgheni