Voices; Birth-Marks; The Man and the ElephantHolt, Mathew Joseph
History
Voices; Birth-Marks; The Man and the Elephant
Holt, Mathew Joseph
Kentucky -- Fiction; Kentucky -- History
With no further understanding, as it was now time to leave, Colonel
Campbell took his son to Williamsburg. The night of their arrival they
were guests of Judge Nicholas. When the Colonel returned home, his
report of arrangements and particularly that her son was happily
domiciled with the Nicholas family, lessened the worry of his mother.
During the four years he was in college, their house was his home. Much
of the finished manner and scholarly way of expression for which he
became conspicuous, was acquired by association with this accomplished
family.
When he came home in the summer of 1787 he was so tall that his mother,
though she stood on tiptoe, was unable to kiss him, until he lifted her
up in his arms. For the first time as he and his father stood looking,
the one into the face of the other as they had a way of doing, he did
not look up but down. Colonel Campbell, who stood slightly over six feet
in his moccasins, said: “Well boy, you seem to have the best of me; you
have grown out of my class and are broad of shoulders and narrow of
loin, as a young man should be; but you are pale. It will do you good to
spend a few weeks in the wilderness. You might find it helpful to visit
your Indian friends. Mason is here and expects to return next week. How
would you like the trip?
“I am just home; it is too soon to think about leaving. Where is
Dorothy? Does she know I am here? She always met me before.”
“Yes,” and the father smiled, leaving his wife to answer the question.
“You would hardly expect Dorothy to call upon you; you are six feet two,
and one would think large enough to find your way to her.” Which remark
caused him to blush and change the subject.
Richard Cameron and his wife were still a part of the family; and they
had two children, a little boy two years old, Archibald, and the baby,
Mary.
Mason, who had been a missionary with the Indians so long that their
tongue seemed the more familiar speech, when he greeted John,
unconsciously lapsed into the Mingo dialect. His life had given a new
expression to his face; not a sad, but a winsome and wistful one. If one
looked closely into his eyes, he felt a sense of peace and reverence.
They talked about their Indian friends and he told John that always when
he came to the Settlement they sent word that they wished to see their
chief, “The Cross-Bearer;” and John half promised to return with him.
In the late afternoon he climbed to the Pinnacle and watched the shadow
of the mountain extend itself until it covered the whole valley and the
clouds like great white ships sail with the wind on an inverted azure
ocean; then, as the sun sank, the shadow of the mountain reached upward
and transformed the white and fleecy clouds to deeper tints, then to
dark banks of fog, and the azure into a gray twilight sky.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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