"Oldmeadow belongs to me," and I launched into a boyish panegyric of my birthplace.
It is a quaint bit of a village, where spectacled old ladies in black lace caps poke case-knives about the roots of rose-bushes, while elderly gentlemen with canes hobble over flag-stone sidewalks to their favorite seats in the spicy, leathery, brown-papery atmosphere of the store. In some features Oldmeadow seems even older than the river, though I am assured by cracker-barrel historians that this is not a fact. It has been here long enough, however, to become a fixed part of the landscape, which is no more likely to change than the course of the Ohio, or the shape of the Kentucky hills away to the south. The older folk are careful not to die until they have faithfully imparted to the younger people all of their old-fashioned courtesy, gentle virtues, assorted prejudices, and cures for mumps, measles, and rheumatism.
"Oldmeadow herself—" I began, but Jean François interrupted.
"Quite right, son. 'She' is the word. She is distinctly an elderly maiden lady with old-time beauty; a sort of adorable shyness; a certain charming primness which sits upon her head like a Sunday bonnet. She takes a friendly interest in the love affairs of the young if duly governed by a proper regard for propriety. Her conventional amusements she defends from the parson with roguish pleasantry. Over the evening coffee she takes a half-frightened delight in mild gossip.... That's your aunt Oldmeadow," concluded Jean François, with a smile.
Oldmeadow rests—I think you will agree with me that "rests" is the word—just high enough to be secure from the June rise, and very timidly peeps, as if she were fully expecting to see some naughty naked little boys in swimming, through the willows over the banks of the most beautiful river in the world. The great, lazy Ohio slowly winds into view from among the hazy hills in the east, lingers for a moment after a manner most friendly, and then, with assumed indifference, drifts away to disappear among other hazy hills in the west.... Do you remember how we used to ask the grown-ups, "Where does the river come from?"... The river is made very human, and the town, which has no railroad to this day, is kept in touch with the outside world by the big, white-collared steamboats which plow their way daily between Louisville and Cincinnati.
When you climb the high banks and get into the village the sidewalks are of large flat stones, with peppergrass and green old moss growing between them and about the roots of the gnarled honey-locusts which have stood for a hundred years along the primitive gutters. The houses are delightfully old-fashioned and quaint. Some are mere plain white cottages far back from the streets, where vines cover the latticed porches. In the lawns circles and crude stars are made for peonies and sweet williams. Some, however, are more pretentious, being built of stone or brick, with occasional pillars, colonial in manner, with wide old arches above the damp, moss-covered slabs of the floor.
"Your village should be very happy," remarked Jean François, after my conclusion. "Does she not have the river to sing to her; the tree-clad hills for shelter; the good blue sky to smile upon her; grave old homes with green sunny gardens to lend dignity; and the laughing loves of youth to keep warm her heart?... There's the village for a road like mine!"
Oldmeadow possesses three points of greater pride: her hospitality, which needs no encomium; the "college," of which more anon; and the Old Mansion of Many Pillars.... It was of this home that Jean François now asked the history. Every child in the village knew it, for, was it not, with its mystery, its ghosts, its inviting splendor, the heart's desire of Nance and me ever since, for us, time began?
It stands in an ample yard, amid old pines, locust trees, and lilac bushes, overlooking the river. It is a great square house of the colonial type, with low wings to the right and left. The windows are large, deep-seated, and many-paned. The enhancing feature, however, is the big, broad portico, the roof of which is supported by noble Corinthian columns, spotted and green with moss and ivy. This house is not only the most elegant, inside and out, in Oldmeadow to-day, but in that time it possessed an atmosphere of aristocratic seclusion, amounting in the minds of the children and negroes to mystery.