Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 6.djvu/97

 THE BADGER HOMESTEAD.

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��ing general for his bravery. Th£ offi- cer's sword he always kept, and is the same weapon that now hangs on the wall.

The parlor is the grandest of all the rooms, and the outlook through its deep case mated windows on the lawn dotted here and there with trees, is thorough- ly charming. The carpet, paper and furniture, are of the ancient time. The sofa is a huge but comfortable and lux- urious seat. The large, gilded framed mirror came from Philadelphia. The moldings on the walls and the orna- mented fire frame and mantel are excel- lent specimens of carving. A magnif- icently carved card table in the center of the room has on it several relics of the Badger family. Here is the family coffee-pot of silver, ancient decanters, wine-glasses, in which have been drunk many a bumper, and a sampler that was worked by Mrs. Governor Badger when she was nine years old.

Just where the light strikes in a broad band there hang two portraits done in oil. They are likenesses of the Gov- ernor and his wife, painted by Pierce. The portrait of Governor Badger repre- sents him at the age of forty-two, dressed in the civil costume of 1820 — a black, double-breasted coat, with bright buttons, a high collar, a white necktie, and a queue. The governor's face is that of a well-fed, frank, bluff, generous English squire. That is a good forehead and a handsome nose, with a dash of the Roman in it. The eyes are blue, keen, and discriminating. The lips show firmness. The hair is of a brown, glossy texture. The portrait at the State House represents him at a later period, when he was governor, and when he also weighed more avoirdu- pois.

The portrait of Mrs. Badger is of the same date. It represents her a blooming beauty of thirty years. She wears the short-waisted dress of the time, with a wide lace collar standing around her neck which is encircled by a necklace of gold beads. The neck is fair and round, and beautifully molded as that of a Venus. Her hair 2

��is blonde, done up in rolls and curls, a very becoming coiffure for the young, fair, witching face. Erom the pearly ears hang golden pendants. She was a very handsome woman. The full blue eye is full of a winsome vivacious- ness. The lips are pretty ; there is a peachy bloom on the fair cheeks, and there is a vivacity, a womanly grace, and a certain lively expression about the whole face that was strongly indic- ative of character.

The ancient dining-room is twelve feet wide and twenty-five feet long. It looks dim and antique and stately. At one end is the gaping fire-place. An ancient eight-day clock ticks as cheer- fully in its corner as when, in the for- mer time, the "great fires up the chim- ney roared, and strangers feasted at the board." The time-piece was purchased by Gen. Joseph Badger, and has been in the family a hundred years. The table is a huge affair and fit to grace a baronial hall. It is fifteen feet long and four in width. It is of solid mahogany, and cost — we do not dare to say how much. In the governor's day that table was always crowded. I thought of the old Thanksgiving days, the training days and the court days, when the uncles and aunts and cousins came home, and when the country gen- try, and the judges, pompous, grave, but loving good cheer as well as any Helio- gabulus or \ 7 itellius Caesar, feasted at the hospitable board. The aroma of those old banquets can almost be distin- guished yet.

At that table have sat not a few jpi the prominent men of New Hampshire, beside the governor himself. Florid, stout, Jacksonian in will and temper and generosity, full of jests and stories and overflowing with merriment, Gov. Benjamin Pierce has been one of a circle around the board. The young man by his side, bright and eager faced, brown haired, slight, gentlemanly, ur- bane, is his son, Franklin Pierce, ex- member of Congress, and sometime to be President of the Republic. The fine intellectual head of Judge N. G. Upham has been conspicuous in the

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