rich the fulfillment of the proverb that “bread cast upon the waters would return after many days” and in such abundant blessing. But for a fuller picture of this home of abounding hospitality, there are others whom at this late date it is interesting to include, since their presence in the old home tends not only to reveal the scope of the family’s influence, but throws light upon an era in our country’s development radically different from the present, a period when Christian homes still had the opportunity of ministering to the needs of their fellow citizens now no longer necessary, as this service is rendered almost exclusively by organized charity or national welfare programs. In this category, one of the visitors in the old home was a Captain Floyd, a member of a family socially prominent in Kentucky, a reputed nephew of John B. Floyd, of Virginia, Secretary of War in President Buchanan’s cabinet. Capt. Floyd was for years a pilot on a passenger steamer on the Ohio River, until on account of drink, he lost his position, and was cast out by his family. Even in his old age, and after long years of dissipation, Capt. Floyd still retained marks of his unusually fine background. He spent many months at the farm going and coming, covering a period of a dozen or more years, since the farm was his last place of refuge and hope in his checkered life. In Mother’s journal, Capt. Floyd is referred to as “the old painter.” He was something of an interior decorator. During the time he stayed on the farm, he not only painted the inside of the house a number of times, but added a special touch to the parlor, ■the front hall and the living room, by painting the woodwork ivory white, and panelling the mantels and doors with gold leaf. This made the younger members of the family, at least, think of “old world grandeur,” but which they were later disillusioned to learn, was the way steamers on the Ohio River in that period were invariably decorated. Mother never got “the old painter” to completely give up his bottle, but he did find long periods of sobriety and peace and security on the farm, which he could find nowhere else, which brought him back again and again. The door of the home was never closed to him, even when he became old and infirm. While this aristocrat from Kentucky looked after the inside of the house, it was an entirely different kind of an individual, 40
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