The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1890-11-05
A KENTUCKY PRINCESS.
Thine, 1871

acres Of corn tassels seemed in trance
and the blueness of far off hills suggested
incense rising, was not without it's effect
on Miss Sally Vandewater IS she rode
toward Gen. Peyton's plantation. The
turnpike, stretching it's ash colored rib
bon across the greenness Of the country,
rung like a causeway of rock to the beat
of horseshoes.
From this plantation Or from that, as
hill or sweep Of woodland revealed them,
shone marble stones in family burial lots.
Occasionally Miss Sally met girls Or
young men on dashing horses, who call
cd out gayly and cordially to her in
passing. But in all that blue grass re-
gion-where each member Of every COM
Portable family has his own saddle horse,
gaited-there was not a finer animal
than Miss Sally's PAGER. Caesar and his
fortunes were aboard when she mounted
PAGER was her entire capital in life, car
rying her on visits among good families
whereby she subsistod, and furnishing
colts for her pin money. The camel is
not as much to the Bedouin. Had PAGER
failed Miss Sally in any point, she must
have fallen into those straits known only
to reduced gentlewomen instead of car
rying a high head through all the best
houses Of the county.
Yet Miss Sally showed no extravagant
gratitude for benefits received. Sherode
PAGER at Il steady hand gallop through
the sultry day, disregarding a whinnying
cry of young colt behind and q gentle
mOthe''s distress, increasing her speed
past one pillared brick house set far up
an avenue. The woods about it were
close trimmed and free from underbrush
like all stretches of Kentucky woodland.
Some evergreens made gloom close about
it's caves, but not such gloom as the repu-
tation of the house itself There lived a
man who was said to have a chain
stretched across his cellar. He bought
up slaves and handcuffed them in pairs
on each side of this chain Until he was
ready to ship them to the market, when
Il band OF musicians was employed to lead
their march, cheerfully playing yankee
Doodle" The house was worse than
haunted. Both whites and blacks hur-
ried past it's handsome rustic gate with
abhorrence-spot of mystery and abomi-
nation on those pleasant corn lands.
Miss Sally was anxious to get out Of
her riding skirt at Peyton's and bully
the black boy who would come to take
her bride. The wealthiest slave owner
in Kentucky hardly exacted as much
Difference. Everybody humored her, and
in a country where hospitality was So
cred as religion her little visits Of
month or two were cheerfully received
even when they crowded dearer: guests.
And though she had good traits concealed
under the naughty airs Of a no1nad, well
did she know how to crowd people dis
tasteful to her.
When she turned in at Pcyton's ave
nue. the white pillarel house of her des-
tination seemed to doze. Miss Sally was
skipping one place in her rounds and
shortening her visit by q week at another
that she might be at F'eyton's in time TO
witness everything which preceded the
wedding.
The quarters IN a long whitewashed
row stretched feldward. Miss Sally
could not see tk& kitchen standing by
itself behind the great house. No drow-
siness had settled there. Stir and great
preparation were going On, not only for
the 2 o'clock dinner, but for the we'd
ding, which was only q week distant.
A yellow boy skipped out to help Miss
Sally at the mounting block; he would
have lOungeQ to his master With an