Goldsboro weekly argus. [volume] (Goldsboro, N.C.) 1885-1909, 1903-11-05

Nov. 3, 1903.
A visit last week, six miles from
Goldsboro, at Oak Glen, the home of
three generations of the Crawfords,
brought "Reminiscences of many happy
childhood days spent under its hos
pitable roof. Would that we were
an artist that we might paint a pic
ture of it as we remember it then
this beautiful old time home of a
Southern gentleman! Tall and
mighty it seemed to rear it's hand
some head amid the stately oaks,
meath whose shadows have been
breathed many a promise kept, for
Oak Glen vas then, as it is now, a
favorIte rendezvous for young peo-
pie, and often there rode over from
the city by the Neuse, young men
and beautiful women, that, to our
childish fancy, looked like the prin-
cesses we had read of in our story
books with their long riding skirts
and"sho huff" plumes in their horse
shoe bonnets. Oh! how we little fell
lows watched them and wished we
were grown up, too, and just like
'em! Forgetting the grief of being
young only when our thoughts were
turned into a o satisfactory chan
mel by the ringing of the dinner bell
then all else was forgotten, for it
meant pure and unaiIoyed happiness,
as we gathered round the long, long
table in the dining room, for if we
hadn't chased the turkeys to pull
feathers out of their tails nor done
any thing worse we were allowed to
drink from a china cup that said on
the outside "For a Good Girl" and
to eat a wonderful ginger cake, man
fashioned by loving hands while old
aunt Clarkey piled the plates with
chicken pie, telling you all the time
to "des hep yourself, honey, dey's
plenty more in de pot"
And then after dinner, when all the
uncleS, and aunties and manInas and
papas and the rest of them went off
to EbeneZer church and we were left
to the tender mercies of aunt Carkey
and old uncle Alex. My! didn't we
have great times ransacking trunks
and decorating our small persons in
all the glory of inery we could find.
Not even sacred to US was the
wedding coat carefully laid away be-
side a little gown of quaint design,
treasured souvenirs of a happy event
in the lives of Col. M. K. Crawford
and his cultured wife.
And one daring little cousin ac-
tually made SO bold as to attire her
self IN the graduating suit brought
home by the young doctor Will who
had just finished at a medical college
IN New York, that gay debonair
young M. D., SO full of sparkling
wit, and effervescent good humor
who called us 9'little scamps'' and
held us up by the heels, threatening
to cut off our heads with his shining
instruments.
Arrayed in grown-folks clothes
how we longed to e our selves as
others saw us and with what delight
we listened to the swish, swish.
swish of our trains as we fastened
down stairs to the parlor where hung
the old mirror with it's broad Gilt
frame, before which we paused to re-
fleet.
In fancy we see again this dear old |
parior filled with its trophies of
travel, souvenirs of college life and |
relics Of war around which clustered
tender associations, and upon the
walls there hung in silent grandure
paintings executed by the hand of
Oak Glen's accomplished mistress.
many of them were painted while
she was still Miss Ophelia Howell. a
young student at st. Mary's, and
others, many others, were made after
she was a wife, a mother, and a
grandmother.
Before these lovely works of art
remember to have stood with our
over-grown eyes wide stretched and
wide young mouth a-gap in a won
der OF childish admiration, akin to
awe, longing to reach up and touch
ust one little dirty finger to them.
being restrained only by Alexis ter
'ible threat that elf you do old Raw
and Bloody Bones will git YOU
And in the corner stood the
I'D piano upon which lay the banjo.
violin and guitar-for theCrawfords,
you must know. are a decidalu