Penny Dreadfuls, 1916 · page 27 of 400
Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil: A Young Virginian in the Revolution — page 27: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Page from "Oxheart" This is a page of running prose from Chapter II of what appears to be a Victorian novel titled *Oxheart*. The text discusses a character named Dare (christened Mary Josephine) and her grievance with her grandmother over her nickname, rooted in Protestant-Catholic family tensions. The passage then describes an old portrait of "Lady Dare" dating before the Restoration, mocking its subject's appearance, before digressing into commentary on colonial-era craftsmen like the cabinet-maker McClarity who worked on the plantation. The page contains dialect speech from enslaved characters named Tom and Dilsey.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
OxHEART II aside her will? Some funny stories still survive about ‘‘old times,’ when the courage and coolness of this patri- cian leavened the whole lump of pioneer life among the early settlers. Dare rebelled against grandmother in one particular only. Was n’t it hard to be “Dare” instead of “Mary Josephine’? She had been christened Mary Josephine for her beautiful mother, and for some afore- time Lady Dare as well, related somehow or other to grandmother, who was what-you-may-call-’em to the Bishop of Nottingham. dtill,—why didn’t grand- mother call her Mary Josephine? In reality, it was all a matter of Protestants and Catholics. Were all three of Audley Anderson’s children to bear the names of “ Papist ee | But Mimi and the boys called her Lady Pan- toulle. Dare had another grievance — the hideous old “Lady Dare” portrait. It must have been a hundred and fifty years old, for they said it was painted before the Restora- tion. A tiny old court dame she, in gray satin. She had high cheek-bones, beady eyes, a small hooked nose, an astonishingly long neck, and a retreating forehead. She sported a “panache” of coral plumes, seed-pearls gave a “speckledy”’ effect to the gray gown, and the pearl ear- rings looked “just like a guinea-chicken’s gills!” Tom declared. “Better not let Miss Sa’ah ketch up wid none er dishyer chat *bout dat-ar ole pote-it,’’ admonished Dil- sey. “Dat long-neck-ed ole lady some yer gran’maw’s own kinnection, own dear ansisters, lemme tell yer, ef she do look lak er guinea-chicken!”’ Ole? He was one of those old fellows who were common adjuncts of Colonial homes. When articles of necessity were, for the most part, made by hand, an honest man who understood his trade could find a home and endless employment on a plantation. Much of the furniture at Oxheart had been made by an old cabinet-maker, Mc- Clarrity, who was domiciled there for years, that he might turn out “four-posters,” “high-boys,” and “presses” of oak, cedar, and bird’s-eye maple. Major Anderson, who CORNICMOO® cS (C(O) m