His burden, too,
had increased with the years--just as his rut had grown deeper. Counting
his family and his poor relations, and his employes and _their_ families
and poor relations, five or six hundred people were dependent on him.
Many of these, of course, had seats so low that they were almost choked
by the dust of the roadway; but others, more pleasantly situated, were
able to overlook the enclosing walls and to enjoy the prospect beyond.
Among these last was his younger son, who sat in the highest place of
all, and thence surveyed the universe.
The Marshall house had been built at the time of the opening of the War,
and as far "out" as seemed advisable for a residence of the better sort.
In those days no definite building-line had been established, so that it
was quite a walk from the front gate to the foot of the front steps.
Neither, at that time, was ground too valuable to make a good bit of yard
impracticable--so that the house had plenty of space on all sides. It was
a low, plain, roomy building with a sort of belvedere and a porch or two.
The belvedere was lingeringly reminiscent of the vanishing classic, and
the decorative woodwork of the porches showed some faint traces of the
romantico-lackadaisical style which filled up the years between the ebb
of the Greek and the vulgar flood-tide of Second-empire renaissance.
Taken altogether, a sedate, stable, decorous old homestead, fit for the
family within it.
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