“Up-stairs there is a den quite like my own at home. I do sincerely pity people who haven’t a little sheet-iron stove in their den. No matter how your house is heated, there is a primitive joy that exhales from the little sheet-iron stove on a cold morning or a rainy day which even transcends the comfort of a fireplace. Araminta would not be wholly great if she didn’t have one in a room where the rug and couch are shabby—it would spoil everything if they were not shabby—and the chairs have a pleasant sag in them, suggestive of agreeable family loafing.
“Every place where there ought to be there’s a window or a glass door. I never saw so many ways of letting in the breezes and for shutting them off if you want to as this house affords.
“I had my choice of two rooms. One is furnished in gray and mauve and has a beautiful view from the sleeping porch. The other is furnished in green with antique mahogany furniture—Napoleon bed, highboy with glass knobs—sewing table and lovely chairs; view from the sleeping porch not quite so good. Now which do you think I chose?
“There are dozens of little sanctuaries where one may write or read in pleasant or in tempestuous weather. Ever so many little lookout rest places with bench to invite the soul. There is Tree Top House—way up in an oak tree—a charming little house with a lookout tower in the tree top, where the leaves make an excited pattering of gossip for the visitor. And then the lodge. Why doesn’t everybody have a lodge? Its uses are legion. Such a place for ‘nerves,’ or for pouting, or for reading, or thinking—such a glorious place to slip off from the youngsters and play long sessions of bridge.
“Oh, Nerve Cheesewright, why can’t you take a leaf out of Araminta’s book and do some things you want to do? If you were here. But, never mind, I am not going to repine; this place has exactly the effect upon me which I always find at the seashore—a sense of utter detachment from the folks and the things I love—a mere joy in breathing that precludes all sorrow.
“Araminta was far too clever to choose too deep solitude for her lodge in a vast wilderness. She needs people and she surely has them.
“Roanoke is the most progressive city in Virginia—a bustling, busy, modern city, with no distinct flavor of the old régime in its business life. All sorts of progressive people are there. Only in the home of these splendid ancient families which have survived the war, the reconstruction period and the fatal ‘boom’ of the New South and come out stronger and better for it does one find the indestructible atmosphere of old Virginia, exquisite and indescribable unless you know Sarah and her folks—but this one is all about Araminta—Araminta who drew her own plans and stood over the carpenters and made them build her house her way and thus give to it the irregularity and felicitous crudeness which is its greatest charm.
“As to folks—there is a lovely diversity of them here. Virginia has always been rich in folks. Araminta has for neighbors the cosmopolitan folks of Roanoke, the wonderful and noble people from the nearby college at Hollins, and the plain, sturdy farmers of the Cove. Many books might be written about all of them. Each neighborhood represents a phase of life, and Araminta rejoices in her friendship with all of them.
“The college is a little world in itself—‘green little world amidst the desert sands’ of life is an expression that fitly describes any place made beautiful by fine ideals and fine externals. Hollins is an historic place, for many years devoted to the higher education of women. The atmosphere of such a place is felt palpably in the vicinity, but it is of the people here in the Cove that I wish to speak particularly. Their little farms—their quaint homesteads—cling to the feet of the mountain and suggest romances such as John Fox or Lucy Furman might write. We went to a little white church at the foot of the mountain yesterday. I never did see such a flood of June sunshine as filled the Cove and made the Blue Ridge seem a deeper hue.”
It was to this home, these scenes, these people, that Senator Kern turned for rest and inspiration during the long, dreary grind of his senatorial career. And the moment on his way from Hollins, four miles distant from Kerncliffe, in crossing the foot of Tinker mountain, he reached the highest point on his journey, and saw the lower part of the valley of Virginia spread out before him in all its exquisite beauty, he was revived. On these visits he spent his time resting on the sleeping porches, reading, or tramping the hills. On these tramps he put on the garb of a mountain climber and carried a heavy cane as a protection against any snakes he might encounter. He was a keen lover of natural beauty, and on his tramps he seldom failed to uncover some hitherto hidden treasure—a little stream, a water-fall, some unique rock, or some variety of tree he had not known to be upon the place. Sometimes he went forth with ax and hatchet to help in the clearing of the land, and these implements were put away when he left to await his return.