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Sustained honor: The Age of Liberty Established
Paperback
General FictionHistorical Fiction
Publisher: Singbooks
Published: Sep 2 2026
Pages: 322
Weight: 0.95
Height: 0.67 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
T
he first recollections of Fernando Stevens, the hero of this romance, were
of moving. He was sitting on his mother's knee. How long he had
been sitting there he did not know, nor did he know how he came there; but
he knew that it was his mother and that they were in a great covered wagon,
and that he had a sister and brother, older than himself, in the wagon. The
wagon was filled with household effects, which he seemed to know belonged
to that mother on whose knee he sat and that father who was sitting on the
box driving the horses which pulled the wagon. Fernando Stevens was never
exactly certain as to his age at the time of this experience; but he could not
have been past three, and perhaps not more than two years old, when he
thus found himself with his father's family and all their effects in a wagon
going somewhere.
He knew not from whence they came, nor did he know whither they were
going. It was pleasant to sit on his mother's knee and with his great blue
eyes watch those monster horses jogging along dragging after them the great
world, which in his limited comprehension was all the world he knew, -the
3 JOHN R. (JOHN ROY) MUSICK
covered wagon. Suddenly some bright, revolving object attracted his atten-
tion, and he fixed his eyes on it. It was the wagon tire, and he saw it crushing
and killing the grass at the side of the road, or rolling and flattening down
the dust in long streaks.
Then they descended a hill. It was not a long hill, but seemed rather steep.
There was water at the bottom. He remembered seeing the bright, sparkling
wavelets and never forgot the impression they produced. There was a boat at
the bottom of the hill, and the wagon and horses were driven into the boat.
A man and boy began propelling the long sweeps or oars. He watched the
proceeding in infantile wonder and especially remembered how the water
dropped in sparkling crystals from the oar blades. The boy had on a red cap
or fez with a tassel. That boy, that cap and that oar with the sparkling drip-
ping water from the blade were to him the brightest pictures and greatest
wonders he had ever known.
He had not the least idea why the man and boy dipped those oars into the
water and pulled them out all dripping and pretty, unless it was to amuse
him. The oars were painted blue. He did not know where they were going,
or when this journey would end, or that it was a journey.
Thus Fernando Stevens began life. This was the first page in his existence
that he could recollect. In after years he knew he was Fernando Stevens, that
his father was Albert Stevens, a soldier in the War of the Revolution, that his
kind, sweet-faced mother was Estella Stevens, and that the very first experi-
ence he could remember was that of the family emigrating to the great Ohio
valley.
Albert Stevens was married shortly after the close of the Revolutionary War,
and he tried hard to succeed in New England; but he had no trade and no
profession, and the best lands in the country were bought. Seven years of
his early life, with all his dawning manhood had been spent in the army, and
now with his family of three children he found himself poor. Congress
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