Joel Chandler Harris is deadⒺexplanatory note; UncleⒶtextual note Remus, joy of the child and the adultⒶtextual note alike, will speak to us no more. It is a heavy loss.

I must try to get back to the incident which enlarged and rounded out and perfectedⒶtextual note my prejudice against Mrs. Aldrich—a little thing which occurred three years ago at “Ponkapog,” and to which I have already made vague reference. I had gone to Boston to spend a week with a friendⒺexplanatory note. I did not want to go to “Ponkapog,” but I could think of no good excuse, either truthful or otherwise, so I accepted an urgentⒶtextual note invitation and went. I knew what would happen: the talk would be merely about “society,”—that is, wealthy society—Ⓐtextual notejust as in England when one is with titled people the conversation is nearly exclusively about people with titles, and what they were doing when the talkers met them last or heard of them last; I knew there would be a showy and exultant display of precious vanities acquired through the late Mr. Pierce’s benevolence; I knew there would be occasional happy glimpses of the charming and lovable Tom Aldrich of early times, and that the Madam would be both occasionally and always herⒶtextual note old time and ever-and-ever self-centredⒶtextual note, self-seeking, self-satisfied, honey-worded, interesting and exasperating sham self. I knew all this would happen, and of course it turned out just so. They had an automobile; anⒶtextual note automobile was a new and awesome thing then, and nobody could have it except people who could afford it and people who couldn’t. This was a cheap ’mobile, but it was showy and had a high complexion; they had a steam yacht, but couldn’t show it to me, which was a matter of no consequence because they had already shown it to me at Bar Harbor in JulyⒺexplanatory note; it was a cheap little thing with accommodations for three passengers, but it looked as important as it could for the money, and it expressed pretense as with a voice that spoke; of course they would have a yacht, it is the sign and advertisement of financial distinction; the son was a polo player, in an indigent way, and I was taken out to the fields to see him and half a dozenⒶtextual note other men play at that aristocratic game; theⒶtextual note “Ponkapog” house would necessarily have to indulge in polo, because it is another symbol and advertisement of financial obesity; the men were up-to-date as regardsⒶtextual note polo costumery, but as they had only two ponies apiece of course the game was brief—brief and delightfully immature and incompetent; incompetent and dangerous, to everybody but the ball; nobody could hit it, and poor Aldrich was full of distressed explanations in amelioration of the pathetic miscarriages which constituted the exhibition. I have not yet reached the incident which I have been so long trying to overtake, but I think I have arrived at it now. I was shown all over the old farm-house, and I paid my way the best I could with shamelessly insincere compliments, when pumped. However there were two details which compelled sincere compliments, and I easily furnished them without any pumping. One of these details was the living-room, which was satisfyingly cosyⒶtextual note and pretty,Ⓐtextual note and tasteful in its colors and appointments, and was in all ways inviting and [begin page 244] comfortable; the other detail was the sole andⒶtextual note solitary guest room, which was spacious and judiciously furnished and upholstered and had a noble big bed in it. I was givenⒶtextual note that room, and wasⒶtextual note properly thankful,Ⓐtextual note and said so;Ⓐtextual note but a girl of twenty arrived unexpectedly in mid-afternoon and I was moved out of it and she into it; I was transferred to a remote room which was so narrow and short and comprehensively small that one could hardly turn around in it; it had in it a table, a chair, a small kerosene lamp, a wash-bowl and pitcher, a cylindrical sheet-iron stove, and no other furniture. It was the meanest cell, and the narrowest, and the smallest, and the shabbiest, I had ever been in since I got out of jail. The month was October, the nights were very cool; the little stove’s food was white pine fragments fed to it a handful at a time; it would seize upon these with a fierce roar, turn red hotⒶtextual note from base to summit in three minutesⒶtextual note and be empty and hungry and cold again in ten; under the fury of its three-minute passionⒶtextual note it would make the cell so hot that a person could hardly stay in it, and within half an hour the freeze would come on again. The little kerosene lamp filled the cell with a vague and gentle light while it was going,Ⓐtextual note and with a cordial and energetic stench when it wasn’t.

The reason I was transferred to that unwholesome and unsavory closet was soon apparent. Young Aldrich was a bachelor of thirty-seven; that young girl was daughter to an ex-governor of the State and was high up in “society.”Ⓐtextual note The match-making Madam was setting traps for her and working all the ingenuities of her plotting and planning and scheming machinery to catch her for her son. She was quite frank about the matter, and was feeling tranquilly sure she was going to succeed in her designs. But she didn’t; the girl escapedⒺexplanatory note.

I have at last disgorged that rankling incident. It makes me angry every time I think of it. That that woman should jump atⒶtextual note me and kiss me on both cheeks, unsolicited,Ⓐtextual note when I arrived, and then throw me down cellar, seventy years old as I was, to make sumptuous room for a mere governor’s daughter, seemed to me to be carrying insult to the limit.

As to the memorial function, let us take that up again.