The home which I pictured in my dreams and projected in my hopes came to me
at last. It arrived with my marriage. Then children to bless it. But it
was not made complete and final--a veritable Kentucky home--until the
all-round, all-night work which had kept my nose to the grindstone had been
shifted to younger shoulders I was able to buy a few acres of arable land
far out in the county--the County of Jefferson!--and some ancient brick
walls, which the feminine genius to which I owe so much could convert to
itself and tear apart and make over again. Here "the sun shines bright" as
in the song, and--
_The corn tops ripe and the meadows in the bloom
The birds make music all the day._
They waken with the dawn--a feathered orchestra--incessant, fearless--for
each of its pieces--from the sweet trombone of the dove to the shrill
clarionet of the jay--knows that it is safe. There are no guns about. We
have with us, and have had for five and twenty years, a family of colored
people who know our ways and meet them intelligently and faithfully.
When we go away--as we do each winter and sometimes during the other
seasons--and come again--dinner is on the table, and everybody--even to
Tigue and Bijou, the dogs--is glad to see us. Could mortal ask for more?
And so let me close with the wish of my father's old song come true--the
words sufficiently descriptive of the reality:
_In the downhill of life when I find I'm declining,
May my fate no less fortunate be
Than a snug elbow chair can afford for reclining
And a cot that o'erlooks the wide sea--
A cow for my dairy, a dog for my game.
And a purse when my friend needs to borrow;
I'll envy no nabob his riches, nor fame,
Nor the honors that wait him to-morrow._
_And when at the close I throw off this frail cov'ring
Which I've worn for three-score years and ten--
On the brink of the grave I'll not seek to keep hov'ring
Nor my thread wish to spin o'er again.
But my face in the glass I'll serenely survey,
And with smiles count each wrinkle and furrow--
That this worn-out old stuff which is thread-bare to-day_