Still to the left, beyond the existing wing, lay the fenced vegetable gardens where grew rankly all manner of provender intended for the bounteous table, whose boast it was that, save for sugar and coffee, nothing was used at Tallwoods which was not grown upon its grounds.
So lived one, and thus indeed lived more than one, baron on American soil not so long ago, when this country was more American than it is to-day--more like the old world in many ways, more like a young world in many others.

Here, for thirty years of his life, had lived the present owner of Tallwoods, sole male of the family surviving in these parts.
It might have been called matter of course that Warville Dunwody should be chosen to the state legislature.

So chosen, he had, through sheer force of his commanding nature, easily become a leader among men not without strength and individuality.

Far up in the northern comer, where the capital of the state lay, men spoke of this place hid somewhere down among the hills of the lower country.

Those who in the easier acres of the northwestern prairie lands reared their own corn and swine and cotton, often wondered at the half-wild man from St.Francois, who came riding into the capital on a blooded horse, who was followed by negroes also on blooded horses, a self-contained man who never lacked money, who never lacked wit, whose hand was heavy, whose tongue was keen, whose mind was strong and whose purse was ever open.
The state which had produced a Benton was now building up a rival to Benton.