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That meant Ashton Hall, on the Mississippi Sound near Gulfport. The family used it only in summer, and we were free to have it eight months of the year. I have a vivid memory of getting off at a little railroad stop in the backwoods: we were the only persons to descend, and there was only one person to meet us—a boy of fourteen dressed in the uniform of a military academy, a boy with gracious manners and a strong Southern brogue. Such was my first meeting with Hunter Southworth Kimbrough, who was to be our standby for almost half a century. I remember how he insisted on carrying both bags; and today I have only to go to the telephone and call him, and eight hours later he arrives from Phoenix, Arizona, ready to lift all the contents of the house on his sturdy shoulders.
We walked a quarter of a mile or so to the Gulf of Mexico, and there just beyond a sandy-beach drive stood the lovely old house, built of sound timbers before the Civil War. The front stood high above the ground, so there was room underneath to stow sailboats and even buggies. (Jefferson Davis’ buggy and his daughter’s boat were there.) We went up a wide flight of steps to what was called a gallery, which ran around three sides of the house. On it were big screened cages in which you could hide from the mosquitoes when the wind from the back marshes drove them to the front.
There was a dining room that could seat a score of persons, and two reception rooms with doors that rolled back to make a big room for dancing. Upstairs were four bedrooms, and above that a great attic with a row of beds and cots to accommodate the beaux when they came from New Orleans. That attic was haunted for Craig, because it was there the Judge had hung bunches of bananas to ripen, and Craig’s five-year-old sister had climbed up and eaten unripe bananas and died in Craig’s arms—this when Craig herself was little more than a child. The mother had been screaming to God while Craig was making the child vomit; but neither effort helped.
There was “Aunt” Catherine, whom I had been hearing about ever since I had met Craig, a half-dozen years previously. Aunt Catherine—all the older Negroes were “Aunt” or “Uncle”—was an ex-slave and happy to tell about “dem days.” “Dey wormed us all,” she said, “wormed us all good.” Which sounded alarming but merely meant the giving of worm medicine. Aunt Catherine’s happiness was to fix elaborate meals, and her distress was great when she discovered that I did not want them. She took to wandering off down the beach, visiting the servants in other beach homes. She was elegant in the castoff clothing of Craig’s mother and sisters, and I remember her coming down the beach with the wind blowing half-a-dozen colored scarves in front of her. When Craig rebuked her for neglecting her duties, the answer was, “But, Miss Ma’y, somebody gotta keep up de repitation of de family—you won’t do it.”