The tiled fireplace in the library was really the feature of
Hynds House. There wasn't any mantel: the fireplace was sunk into
the wall, and above it and the book-cases on each side was a
space filled with more relics than all the rest of the house
contained--portraits, signed and framed documents, letters, old
flags, and a whole arsenal of weapons. Above the fireplace hung the
portrait of Freeman Hynds--thin, dark, austere, more like a
Cameronian Scotsman than a Carolina gentleman of an easy habit of
life.
However, it was not portrait or relics that made the room
remarkable, but the tiles, each a portrait of a Revolutionary hero.
Laurens, Marion, Lafayette, Pulaski, von Steuben--there they were in
buff and blue, martial, in cocked hats, and with such awe-inspiring
noses! The center and largest tile was, of course, the Father of his
Country, without the hat, but with the nose, and above him the
original flag, with the thirteen stars for the thirteen weak-kneed
little states that were to grow into the great empire of freedom
that the high-nosed, high-hearted soldiers fought for and founded.
Alicia and I touched those tiles with reverence.
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