The dovenotes are the saddest In Kentucky; The streams dance on the gladdest In Kentucky; Hip pockets are the thickest, Pistol hands the slickest, The cylinder turns quickest In Kentucky.
The song birds are the sweetest In Kentucky; The thoroughbreds are fleetest In Kentucky; Mountains tower proudest, Thunder peals the loudest, The landscape is the grandest-- And politics--the damnedest In Kentucky.
OVER THE HILL TO HUSTONVILLE
[From _The Lexington Leader_ (April 4, 1909)]
Over the hill to Hustonville, Past mead and vale and waving grain With fleecy clouds and glad sunshine And the balm of the coming rain; On where hidden beneath the hill, In the widening vale below-- Chime and smith and distant herd Sing a song of the long ago.
Over the hill to Hustonville Where silent fields are sad and brown, And the crow's lone call is blended With the anvil beat of the town; Where sweet the hamlet life flows on, And the doors ever open wide, Welcome the worn and wandering To the ingle and cheer inside.
Over the hill to Hustonville I knew and loved as a child, A scene that yet lights up to me With a radiant glow and mild; With drowsy lane and quiet street, Gables quaint and the houses gray, Ancient inn with battered sign, And an air of the far-away.
Over the hill to Hustonville Where men are yet sturdy and strong As were their sires in days long past-- As true as their flint-locks long.
And maids are shy and soft of speech-- As the wild-rose, lithsome and true, Eyes alight as the coming dawn, Softly blue, as their skies are blue.
Some--sometime--in the bye and bye, With all my life-won riches rare-- Dead hopes and faded memories-- A silken floss of baby hair; Fast locked close within my heart-- Worn of strife and the empty quest-- I'll over the hill to Hustonville, To dream ever--and rest--and rest.
NELLY M. McAFEE
Mrs. Nelly (Nichol) Marshall McAfee, novelist and verse writer, was born at Louisville, Kentucky, May 8, 1845, the daughter of Humphrey Marshall, the younger. When but eighteen years of age she embarked upon a literary career. Her verse and short-stories appeared in many of the best American newspapers and magazines, and they brought her a wide reputation. On February 13, 1871, after a romantic courtship of some years, Miss Marshall was married to Captain John J. McAfee, a former Confederate soldier, then a member of the Kentucky legislature.
Mrs. McAfee published two volumes of verse, entitled _A Bunch of Violets_, and _Leaves From the Book of My Heart_. Her novels include _Eleanor Morton, or Life in Dixie_ (New York, 1865); _Sodom Apples_ (1866); _Fireside Gleamings_ (Chicago, 1866); _Dead Under the Roses_ (1867); _Wearing the Cross_ (Cincinnati, 1868); _As by Fire_ (New York, 1869); _Passion, or Bartered and Sold_ (Louisville, 1876); and _A Criminal Through Love_ (Louisville, 1882). Mrs. McAfee died at Washington, D. C., about 1895.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Woods-McAfee Memorial History_, by N. M. Woods (Louisville, 1905); _Dictionary of American Authors_, by O. F.
Adams (Boston, 1905).
FINALE
[From _A Criminal Through Love_ (Louisville, Kentucky, 1882)]
Many years have been gathered to the illimitable past, and we find ourselves, with undiminished interest, seeking to learn all we can in regard to the positions and attainments of the characters who have been with us for so long.
This is the gist of what we have learned about them.
Walter Floor's firm has grown and flourished; the dark cloud of sorrow that so long overshadowed his sky, has rolled away, and he is nevermore melancholy or oppressed. His home is the resting-place and haven for everybody who chooses to enjoy shelter and repose. Constant and Valentine are standing guests at the Floor mansion; the talented painter has no longer any need to work for money. The mention of his name opens every door to him, and Fortune and Fame await him with their arms laden with golden sheaves and shining laurel wreaths. His greatest work of art--his masterpiece--was taken from Mozart's Opera of _Don Juan_. At a glance any one could tell that the artist painted the portrait _con amore_, for Donna Anna was nothing more than a portrait of Margarethe Heinold--whom we must ever after this moment remember only as Margarethe Hendrik. More happiness than came with this name to her could scarcely be enjoyed by mortal. Great sums were offered again and again to Constant for this picture, but he refused to sell it; it now graces the elegant _Salon_ of Julian Hendrik in his magnificent villa, which stands on the banks of the Rhine.
Margarethe, after the night of her brilliant _debut_, never stepped upon the boards. She was often urged to let the world hear her splendid voice, which returned to her in all its volume and beauty after she regained her health, but she refused to entertain the proposition for an instant, declaring that public life, however glorious, had no charms for her; that she lived only for her husband, to whom she becomes ever more tenderly attached the better she became acquainted with his noble heart, elevated mind, and peerless character as a man and a gentleman.
Didier Mametin is still in Paris; at the death of old Vincent he became his heir, and was at last able to open such a photographer's _Atelier_ as other artists pronounced perfect in every detail. The lighthearted Frenchman, never accustomed to an extravagant mode of living, is just as merry in humor and abstemious in diet as of yore.
Henriette often declares that he acts as if he were afraid of starving--he is such a hoarder for "rainy days." But Didier had a varied experience, and the lessons he learned were not easily forgotten. One happy fact remains: He and Henriette love each other dearly, and would not exchange their places or give up their home to be a king and queen and live in a palace.
Roderick Martens attends to the ship-building interests of Jyphoven, in Amsterdam, and occupies the old Jyphoven mansion. Herr and Madame Jyphoven continue to reside in Paris. Bella is enchanted with life in the French city, and declares that to be mistress of the whole world--if she would go but for a day--could be no inducement to her to set her foot in the old Holland fishery, as she now describes it to be. She is entirely reconciled to Francisca. The beauty and happiness of the young wife would captivate the most callous heart.
And Von Kluyden? This man who devoted himself to intrigue and rascality for so long, knew not, while he lived, how otherwise to occupy his time. He was never satisfied. Nemesis held him fast in her cruel clutches. When the time came for Hendrik to assert and prove his rights, he did so most successfully; and that for which Isabella bartered her honor, and beauty, and youth, passed like sand through the fingers, and was hers no more. Von Kluyden was successful in nothing that he undertook to accomplish; the ghost of the murdered Horst followed him day and night;--he finally died in a madhouse!
Isabella had, a little while before his dementia, entrusted herself and her million of money into the hands of a young man of the titled nobility--who in his turn did not love the young widow even for her marvelous beauty--but for the _thalers_ and _gulden_ that brought plenty to his empty coffers and luxury to his impoverished home. In this marriage Isabella did not find the happiness she expected to find, and for which she had so long waited. The Prince squandered her enormous fortune, as Princes are usually supposed to squander fortunes, in about the half of a year's duration, and by that time, having found out and enjoyed all that life held for him of pleasure or excitement, he closed his career by putting a pistol-ball through his head, early one morning, while the sun was shining, and the birds were singing, and flowers were blooming on every side.
So it has come to pass that Isabella--although not yet twenty-five years of age, has been twice a widow--(and a very charming one she is!) not likely now ever to be aught else! The sale of her beauty, her honor, her peace of mind, has brought to her, as a recompense for what she has lost, a varied and rich experience, which will save her forever hereafter from the chance of being deceived and betrayed through the tenderest and noblest impulses of the human heart.
And so the curtain goes down forever between us and those with whom we have whiled away some pleasant hours, and gathered, it may be, profit or amusement from their acting on the stage of life.
_Voila tout._
MARY F. CHILDS
Mrs. Mary Fairfax Childs, maker of dialect verse, was born at Lexington, Kentucky, May 25, 1846. She is the daughter of the Rev.
Edward Fairfax Berkley (1813-1897), who was rector of Christ Church, Lexington, for nineteen years. Dr. Berkley baptized Henry Clay, in 1847, and buried him five years later. Miss Berkley was a pupil at the Misses Jackson's Seminary for young ladies until her thirteenth year, or, in 1858, when her father accepted a call to St. Louis, in which city he labored for the following forty years. In St. Louis, she continued her studies at a private school for girls, when she left prior to her graduation in order to devote herself more especially to music, Latin, and French. Miss Berkley was married, in 1870, to William Ward Childs, a returned Confederate soldier; and in 1884 they removed to Clinton, Missouri, where they resided for seven years, when business called them to New York, their home until Mr. Child's death in 1911. Mrs. Childs's life in New York was a very busy one. She was prominent in several social and literary groups; and for many years she was corresponding secretary of the New York Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Her first poem that attracted wide attention was entitled _De Namin' ob de Twins_, which originally appeared in _The Century Magazine_ for December, 1903. It was the second in a group of _Eleven Negro Songs_, written by Joel Chandler Harris, Grace MacGowan Cooke, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, and one or two other poets. That Mrs. Childs's masterpiece was the flower of the flock admits of little question: it is one of the best negro dialect poems yet written by a Southern woman. Exactly a year later the same periodical published her _A Christmas Warning_, with the well-known refrain, _Roos' high, chicken--roos' high_. These, with many others, were brought together in an attractive volume, entitled _De Namin' ob de Twins, and Other Sketches from the Cotton Land_ (New York, 1908).
This collection is highly esteemed by that rather small company of lovers of dialect verse. Mrs. Childs's poem, _The Boys Who Wore the Gray_, has been printed, and is well-known throughout the South. She has recently completed another collection of sketches, called _Absolute Monarchy_, which will appear in 1913. At the present time Mrs. Childs is historian of the Society of Kentucky Women of New York, although she is residing at Kirkwood, Missouri, near St. Louis.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Letters from Mrs. Childs to the present writer; _The Century Magazine_ (January, 1906).
DE NAMIN' OB DE TWINS[32]
[From _De Namin' ob de Twins, and Other Sketches from the Cotton Land_ (New York, 1908)]
What I gwine name mah Ceely's twins?
I dunno, honey, yit, But I is jes er-waitin' fer de fines' I kin git, De names is purty nigh run out, So many niggahs heah, I 'clar' dey's t'ick as cotton-bolls in pickin'-time o' yeah.
But 't ain' no use to 'pose to me Ole secondary names, Lak 'Liza_beth_ an' Jose_phine_, or Caesah, Torm, an' James, 'Ca'se dese heah twinses ob mah gal's Is sech a diff'ent kind, Dey's 'titled to do grandes' names dat ary one kin find.
Fer sho dese little shiny brats Is got de fus'-cut look, So mammy wants fine city names, lak you gits out a book; I ax Marse Rob, an' he done say Some 'rageous stuff lak dis: He'd call de bruddah Be'lze_bub_, de sistah Gene_sis_;
Or Alphy an' Omegy--de Beginnin' an' de en'-- But den, ob co'se no man kin tell, what mo' de Lawd 'll sen'; Fer de pappy ob dese orphans-- You heah me?--I'll be boun', While dey's er-crawlin' on de flo', he'll be er-lookin' roun';
'Ca'se I done seen dem Judas teahs He drap at Ceely's grabe, A-peepin' 'hind his han'kercher, at ole Tim's yaller Gabe; A-mekin' out to moan an' groan, Lak he was gwine 'o bus'-- Lawd! honey, dem dat howls de mos,' gits ober it de fus'.
Annynias an' Saphiry, Sis Tab done say to me, But he'p me, Lawd! what _do_ she 'spec' dese chillum gwine o'
be?
'Sides, dem names 's got er cur'us soun'-- You says I's hard to please?
Well, so 'ould any granny be, wid sech a pa'r as dese.
Ole Pahson Bob he 'low dat I Will suttinly be sinnin', Onless I gibs 'em names dat starts 'em right in de beginnin'; "Iwilla" fer de gal, he say, F'om de tex' "I will a-rise,"
An' dat 'ould show she's startin' up, todes glory in de skies;
An' fer dis man chile, Aberham-- De fardah ob' em all-- Or else Belshazzah, who done writ dat writin' on de wall; But Pahson Bob--axcuse me, Lawd!-- Hed bettah sabe his bref To preach de gospel, an' jes keep his "visin" to hiss'f;
Per nary pusson, white nor black, Ain' gib no p'int to me 'Bout namin' dese heah Chris'mus gifs, asleep on granny's knee; (Now heshaby--don' squirm an' twis', Be still you varmints, do!
You anin' gwine hab no niggah names to tote aroun' wide you!)