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A FENCE AT THE TOP OF A SHARP ASCENT 109
TO THE FRENCH BROAD, WHERE FLETCHER'S BRIDGE CROSSES THE RIVER 204
PINK ROSES AND RED SWUNG TO AND FRO IN THE SUNSHINE AS THEY CLIMBED THE DOCTOR'S WHITEWASHED PORCH 242
"IT IS NOT FITTING THAT A VON RITTENHEIM SHOULD LIVE IN A CABIN LIKE THAT" 269
A Tar-Heel Baron
Friedrich von Rittenheim
The incongruity of his manner of life was patent to all who saw. The mountaineers around him recognized it, but they attributed it to the fact of his being a foreigner. The more cultivated folk realized that a man of the world who bore every mark of good birth and breeding was indeed out of place in the gray jeans of the North Carolina farmer, guiding the plough with his own hand.
At first no one knew just how to take him, even to the calling of his name. Baron Friedrich Johann Ludwig--and a half-dozen more--von Rittenheim was a good deal to compass. The farmers and the negroes finally settled upon "Mr. Baron."
As to "taking him," it was he who took them, and by storm. He was as poor as his poorest neighbors, that was evident, so they felt no jealousy, and laid aside the mistrust which is the countryman's shield and buckler. He asked agricultural instruction from the men, was courteously respectful to the women, and played with the children. Among those of more gentle birth there was little question of their reception of him after once he had ridden to their doors, making the first visit, as in the old country. To be sure, he had appeared astride a mule, but neither his mount nor his dress could conceal a soldierly bearing that made him the envy of every man who saw him. And he had but to click his heels together and make his queer foreign bow that displayed the top of his fair head, and to kiss the fingers of the "gn?dige Frau," to win the hearts of all the women. His English, in itself, was no small charm, for, though he had conquered his w's and th's, his use of idiom was ever new.
It was of the Baron that Dr. Morgan and his wife were talking as they drove towards home at sunset of a late March day.
"Hanged if Ah know how the fellow gets on," said the Doctor. "It was fall when he came here, and that farm he bought from Ben Frady hadn't any crop on it but a mahty little corn. He did his winter ploughing and killed the pig he took with the place, but how he's pulling through Ah don't know."
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