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"An agreement," they read, "between Mark Kennedy, yeoman, and Samuel Seabrooke, gentleman."
His picture in the small parlor also answered this description. Our great-grandfather was always young and endowed with the spare Federalist beauty which is somehow reminiscent of the architecture of his time. His reddish weather-beaten face with its high cheeks, its complacent mouth, and its chin stiffened by a white cravat, did not show the slightest sign of self-indulgence or the enervating effect of humor. It was the countenance of a determined, active man with an adequate supply of physical courage. Aunt Sarah once told me that he defended a French plantation against the Negro revolutionists in Haiti, leading a charge himself, and he may very well have done so. When he was at home, Aunt Sarah said, he was at great pains to drink the water sparingly which came from the red pump under the elm tree across the road. His reason was that his travels often took him to dry countries where it was important to do with as little water as possible. This strict regimen perhaps resulted in the physical disabilities which were a prelude to his premature decease.