Kennedy Square

by Francis Hopkinson Smith

And then the Honorable Tom Coston said he'd be doggoned if he was going to wait another minute, and he didn't—for Kate kissed him on both cheeks and gave him her father's message, congratulating him on his appointment as judge, and thanking him in advance for all the kindness he would show his daughter.

But it was not until she awoke next morning and looked out between the posts of her high bedstead through the small, wide-open window overlooking the bay that her heart gave the first bound of real gladness. She loved the sky and the dash of salt air, laden now with the perfume of budding fruit trees, that blew straight in from the sea. She loved, too, the stir and sough of the creaking pines and the cheery calls from the barnyard. Here she could get her mind settled; here, too, she could forget all the little things that had bothered her—there would be no more invitations to accept or decline; no promises she must keep. She and her Uncle George could have one long holiday—she needed it and, goodness knows, he needed it after all his troubles—and they would begin as soon as breakfast was over. And they did—the dogs plunging ahead, the two hand in hand, St. George, guide and philosopher, pointing out this and that characteristic feature of the once famous estate and dilating on its past glory.

“Even in my father's day,” he continued, his face lighting up, “it was one of the great show places of the county. The stables held twenty horses and a coach, besides no end of gigs and carryalls. This broad road on which we walk was lined with flower-beds and shaded by live-oaks. Over there, near that little grove, were three great barns and lesser out-buildings, besides the negro quarters, smoke-houses, and hay-ricks. Really a wonderful place in its day, Kate.”

Then he went on to tell of how the verandas were shaded with honeysuckles, and the halls, drawing-rooms, and dining-room crowded with furniture; how there were yellow damask curtains, and screens, and hair-cloth sofas and a harmonicon of musical glasses which was played by wetting one's fingers in a bowl of water and passing them over the rims—he had played on it himself when a boy; and slaves galore—nearly one hundred of them, not to mention a thousand acres of tillable land to plough and harrow, as well as sheep, oxen, pigs, chickens, ducks—everything that a man of wealth and position might have had in the old days, and about every one of which St. George had a memory.

Then when Tom's father, who was the sole heir, took charge (here his voice dropped to a whisper) dissolution proceedings set in—and Tom finished them! and St. George sighed heavily as he pointed out the changes:—the quarters in ruins, the stables falling to pieces, the gates tied up with strings or swinging loose; and the flocks, herds, and live-stock things of the past. Nor had a negro been left—none Tom really owned: one by one they had been sold or hired out, or gone off nobody knew where, he being too lazy, or too indifferent, or too good-natured, to hunt them up. The house, as Kate had seen, was equally neglected. Even what remained of the old furniture was on its last legs—the curtains patched, or in shreds—the carpets worn into holes.

Kate listened eagerly, but she did not sigh. It was all charming to her in the soft spring sunshine, the air a perfume, the birds singing, the blossoms bursting, the peach-trees anthems of praise—and best of all her dear Uncle George strolling at her side. And then everything was so clean and fresh and sweet in every nook and corner of the tumble-down house. Peggy, as she soon discovered, looked after that—in fact Peggy looked after everything that required looking after—and everything did—including the judge. Mr. Coston was tired, Peggy would say, or Mr. Coston had not been very well, so she just did it herself instead of bothering him. Since his promotion it was generally “the judge” who was too tired, being absorbed in his court duties, etc., etc. But it always came with a laugh, and it was always genuine, for to wait upon him and look after him and minister to him was her highest happiness.

Good for nothing as he would have been to some women—unpractical, lazy—a man few sensible wives would have put up with—Peggy adored him; and so did his children adore him, and so, for that matter, did his neighbors, many of whom, although they ridiculed him behind his back, could never escape the charm of his personality whenever they sat beside his rocking-chair.

This chair—the only comfortable chair in the house, by the way—had, in his less distinguished days, been his throne. In it he would sit all day long, cutting and whittling, filing and polishing curious trinkets of tortoise-shell for watch-guards and tiny baskets made of cherry-stones, cunningly wrought and finished. He was an expert, too, in corn-cob pipes, which he carved for all his friends; and pin-wheels for everybody's children. When it came, however, to such matters as a missing hinge to the front door, a brick under a tottering chimney, the straightening of a falling fence, the repairing of a loose lock on the smoke-house—or even the care of the family carryall, which despite its great age and infirmities was often left out in the rain to rust and ruin—these things must, of course, wait until the overworked father of the house found time to look after them.

The children loved him the most. They asked for nothing better than to fix him in his big chair by the fender, throw upon the fire a basket of bark chips from the wood-yard, and enough pitch-pine knots to wake them up, and after filling his pipe and lighting it, snuggle close—every bend and curve of the wide-armed splint-bottomed comfort packed full, all waiting to hear him tell one of his stories. Sometimes it was the tale of the fish and the cuff-button—how he once dropped his sleeve-link overboard, and how a year afterward he was in a shallop on the Broadwater fishing for rockflsh when he caught a splendid fellow, which when Aunt Patience cleaned—(here his voice would drop to a whisper)—“What do you think!—why out popped the sleeve-link that was in his cuff this minute!” And for the hundredth time the bit of gold would be examined by each child in turn. Or it was the witch story—about the Yahoo wild man with great horns and a lashing tail, who lived in the swamp and went howling and prowling about for plunder and prey. (This was always given with a low, prolonged growl, like a dog in pain—all the children shuddering.) And then followed the oft-told tale of how this same terrible Yahoo once came up with Hagar, who was riding a witch pony to get to the witches' dance in the cane-brake, and how he made off with her to the swamp, where she had had to cook for him—ever—ever—ever since. (Long-drawn breath, showing that all was over for that day at least.)

Todd got the true inwardness of the situation before he had been many days at Wesley: for the scene with the children was often repeated when court was not in session.