Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/499

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THE QUARTER (PAGE 64)

chapeau de bras: a type of military helmet.

QUESTIONS, i. What is said of the house, Swallow Barn? 2. What of

the surrounding buildings? 3. How extensive was the estate? 4. What were the products of the plantation? 5. Describe the appearance and character of the owner, Frank Meriwether; of Mrs. Meriwether. 6. Does the account of the negro quarters show that the slaves were happy and contented? 7. In what ways did the life on these old estates evidence traces of the feudal system? 8. Discuss whether such a condition was a help or a hindrance to the development of the South.

SELECTIONS FROM " HORSESHOE ROBINSON "

Very different from the leisurely " Swallow Barn "is Kennedy s stirring romance of the Revolution,"Horseshoe Robinson." In the introduction Kennedy has told the circumstances under which he formed the acquaintance of the principal character and came into possession of the leading incidents of the novel. On a visit to the western section of South Carolina in 1819, he spent the night at a house where he met Horseshoe Robinson, then an old man, who had been summoned to give relief to a boy who had dislocated his shoulder in a fall from a horse. "Horseshoe," says Kennedy, "yielded himself to my leading and I got out of him a rich stock of adventure, of which his life was full. It was long after midnight before our party broke up; and when I got to my bed it was to dream of Horseshoe and his adventures. I made a record of what he told me, whilst the memory of it was still fresh, and often afterwards reverted to it, when accident or intentional research brought into my view events connected with the times and scenes to which this story had reference." Kennedy also adds that after the publication of the novel in 1835 ne commissioned a friend to send the old man who had by that time moved to Alabama a copy of the book. " The report brought me was that the old man listened very attentively to the reading of it, and took a great interest in it.

"What do you say to all of this? was the question addressed to him after the reading was finished. His reply is a voucher which I desire to preserve: It is all true and right in its right place ex cepting about them women, which I disremember. That mought be true, too; but my memory is treacherous I disremember."