Kentucky -- Fiction; Older women -- Fiction; Widows -- Fiction
"And with that everybody laughed, and Brother Wilson he j'ined in as
hearty as anybody, for he liked a joke, even when it was on himself.
And says he, 'Well, that's one case settled.' And then he looks
around, and says he, 'It seems that Squire Schuyler has not received
the message from the session. Let the clerk of the session send him
another summons, and to make sure of its reaching him, let one of the
session hand it to him next Monday; that's county-court day, and he's
certain to be in town.' So they fixed up another summons, and Judge
Grace was to hand it to him.
"Well, when Monday mornin' come, the old judge took his stand on the
corner o' the street in front o' the church and watched for the
squire, and pretty soon here he come on horseback, gallopin' as hard
as he could, and five or six hounds lopin' at the horse's heels.
"Squire Schuyler, honey, was a man different from any you see
nowadays. As I look back on it now, it appears to me that he was the
kind o' man that believed in gittin' all the pleasure he could out o'
life. Nowadays everybody's tryin' so hard to make money, that they
don't have time to enjoy life, and some of 'em wouldn't know how to
enjoy it if they had the time. But Squire Schuyler was the kind that
knows how to make the most out of everything that comes their way. The
Schuyler family was a big family in Virginia 'way back in the time o'
the first settlements. They had grants of land and lived high, and the
two brothers that come to Kentucky had the same way of livin' and
takin' things easy and makin' pleasure out o' life as they went along.
Plenty o' money, plenty o' land, plenty o' slaves, fine horses, fine
cattle, and a pack o' hounds--that's the way things was with the
Schuylers, Meredith and Hamilton both. I can see Squire Meredith
Schuyler now, the way he looked in that long overcoat made out o' dark
green broadcloth with big brass buttons on it, ruffled shirt-bosom,
high boots comin' 'way up to his knees, a broad-brimmed hat set back
on his head and a ridin'-whip in his hand, and long leather gloves,
and the hounds skulkin' along behind him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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