“Well, Colonel,” said Dr. Butler, endeavoring to clothe his own countenance with smiles, “I see you can beat me electioneering.”

“My dear fellow,” shouted out Crockett, “you don’t call this electioneering, do you?  When you see me electioneering, I goes fixed for the purpose.  I’ve got a suit of deer-leather clothes, with two big pockets.  So I puts a bottle of whiskey in one, and a twist of tobacco in t’other, and starts out.  Then, if I meets a friend, why, I pulls out my bottle and gives him a drink.  He’ll be mighty apt, before he drinks, to throw away his tobacco.  So when he’s done, I pulls my twist out of t’other pocket and gives him a chaw.  I never likes to leave a man worse off than when I found him.  If I had given him a drink and he had lost his tobacco, he would not have made much.  But give him tobacco, and a drink too, and you are mighty apt to get his vote.”

With such speeches as these, interlarded with fun and anecdote, and a liberal supply of whiskey, Crockett soon made himself known through all the grounds, and he became immensely popular.  The backwoodsmen regarded him as their man, belonging to their class and representing their interests.

Dr. Butler was a man of some culture, and a little proud and overbearing in his manners.  He had acquired what those poor men deemed considerable property.  He lived in a framed house, and in his best room he had a rug or carpet spread over the middle of the floor.  This carpet was a luxury which many of the pioneers had never seen or conceived of.  The Doctor, standing one day at his window, saw several persons, whose votes he desired, passing along, and he called them in to take a drink.

There was a table in the centre of the room, with choice liquors upon it.  The carpet beneath the table covered only a small portion of the floor, leaving on each side a vacant space around the room.  The men cautiously walked around this space, without daring to put their feet upon the carpet.  After many solicitations from Dr. Butler, and seeing him upon the carpet, they ventured up to the table and drank.  They, however, were under great restraint, and soon left, manifestly not pleased with their reception.

Calling in at the next log house to which they came, they found there one of Crockett’s warm friends.  They inquired of him what kind of a man the great bear-hunter was, and received in reply that he was a first-rate man, one of the best hunters in the world; that he was not a bit proud; that he lived in a log cabin, without any glass for his windows, and with the earth alone for his floor.

“Ah!” they exclaimed with one voice, “he’s the fellow for us.  We’ll never give our votes for such a proud man as Butler.  He called us into his house to take a drink, and spread down one of his best bed-quilts for us to walk on.  It was nothing but a piece of pride.”

The day of election came, and Crockett was victorious by a majority of two hundred and forty-seven votes.  Thus he found himself a second time a member of the Legislature of the State of Tennessee, and with a celebrity which caused all eyes to be turned toward “the gentleman from the cane.”