The Fortunes of Oliver Horn | Page 5

do young ladies, but
which one de Lawd only knows. Marse Oliver's like the rabbit, sah--he
don't leab no tracks," and Malachi would hold his sides in a chuckle of
so suffocating a nature that it would have developed into apoplexy in a
less wrinkled and emaciated person.

Inside of the front door of this venerable mansion ran a wide hall bare
of everything but a solid mahogany hat-rack and table with glass mirror
and heavy haircloth settee, over which, suspended from the ceiling,
hung a curious eight-sided lantern, its wick replaced with a modern
gas-burner. Above were the bedrooms, reached by a curved staircase
guarded by spindling mahogany bannisters with slender hand-rail --a
staircase so pure in style and of so distinguished an air that only
maidens in gowns and slippers should have tripped down its steps, and
only cavaliers in silk stockings and perukes have waited below for their
hands.
Level with the bare hall, opened two highly polished mahogany doors,
which led respectively into the drawing-room and library, their
windows draped in red damask and their walls covered with family
portraits. All about these rooms stood sofas studded with brass nails,
big easy-chairs upholstered in damask, and small tables piled high with
magazines and papers. Here and there, between the windows, towered a
bookcase crammed with well-bound volumes reaching clear to the
ceiling. In the centre of each room was a broad mantel sheltering an
open fireplace, and on cold days --and there were some pretty cold days
about Kennedy Square--two roaring wood-fires dispensed comfort, the
welcoming blaze of each reflected in the shining brass fire-irons and
fenders.
Adjoining the library was the dining-room with its well-rubbed
mahogany table, straight-backed chairs, and old sideboard laden with
family silver, besides a much-coveted mahogany cellaret containing
some of that very rare Madeira for which the host was famous. Here
were more easy-chairs and more portraits--one of Major Horn, who fell
at Yorktown, in cocked hat and epaulets, and two others in mob-caps
and ruffles --both ancient grandmothers of long ago.
The "li'l room ob Marse Richard," to which in the morning Malachi
directed all his master's visitors, was in an old-fashioned one-story
out-house, with a sloping roof, that nestled under the shade of a big
tulip- tree in the back yard--a cool, damp, brick-paved old yard, shut in
between high walls mantled with ivy and Virginia creeper and capped

by rows of broken bottles sunk in mortar. This out-building had once
served as servants' quarters, and it still had the open fireplace and broad
hearth before which many a black mammy had toasted the toes of her
pickaninnies, as well as the trap-door in the ceiling leading to the loft
where they had slept. Two windows which peered out from under
bushy eyebrows of tangled honeysuckle gave the only light; a
green-painted wooden door, which swung level with the moist bricks,
the only entrance.
It was at this green-painted wooden door that you would have had to
knock to find the man of all others about Kennedy Square most beloved,
and the man of all others least understood--Richard Horn, the
distinguished inventor.
Perhaps at the first rap he would have been too absorbed to hear you.
He would have been bending over his carpenter-bench--his deep,
thoughtful eyes fixed on a drawing spread out before him, the shavings
pushed back to give him room, a pair of compasses held between his
fingers. Or he might have been raking the coals of his forge--set up in
the same fireplace that had warmed the toes of the pickaninnies, his
long red calico working-gown, which clung about his spare body,
tucked between his knees to keep it from the blaze. Or he might have
been stirring a pot of glue--a wooden model in his hand-- or hammering
away on some bit of hot iron, the brown paper cap that hid his sparse
gray locks pushed down over his broad forehead to protect it from the
heat.
When, however, his ear had caught the tap of your knuckles and he had
thrown wide the green door, what a welcome would have awaited you!
How warm the grasp of his fine old hand; how cordial his greeting.
"Disturb me, my dear sir," he would have said in answer to your
apologies, "that's what I was put in the world for. I love to be disturbed.
Please do it every day. Come in! Come in! It's delightful to get hold of
your hand."
If you were his friend, and most men who knew him were, he would
have slipped his arm through your own, and after a brief moment you

would have found yourself poring over a detailed plan, his arm still in
yours, while he showed you the outline of some pin, or lever, needed to
perfect the