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Dem’s meh gre’t gran’ chillun an’ dey monstus bad! Ef’n you don’ git of’n dat cow I’ll whup you till da ain’ no bref lef ’in you.

Standing on his front porch Ole Mars Nickey viewed his broad acres, whose shores were washed by the Tred-Avon, by crystal creeks, and coves with beautiful mouths that kissed with briny lips the bosom of the river. The windmill on the shore added to the scenery as its sails moved languidly, grinding the wheat and corn for the negroes.

To the south on the river side was the little town of Oxford, a tobacco port, and riding at anchor was a brigantine from Liverpool, being loaded with tobacco by Morris & Callister (Robert Morris and Henry Callister), shipping merchants.^[1]

From the back porch, through a long, wide and high arbor entwined with fruitful grapevines, you saw Otwell Creek, and the arbor-way led you into a more enchanting garden than the one mentioned in “EZRA,” where my fancy loves to wander, for “a thing of beauty is a joy forever.”

It was some fifteen acres in extent. The encircling fences were so overgrown with honeysuckle, clematis and trailing roses as to look like a flowery hedge, with here and there lilacs and snowballs. The winding, wooing walks were hedged with box, and bowing trees were caressed by fruitful grapevines. It was a banqueting place for bees, and a paradise for birds, from little Jennie Wren to the proud mocking bird, and they filled acres of air with their melodious lays.