" He met us with the hearty welcome which we had
learned almost to look for as a right, and sitting on his front piazza
in the shade of his orange trees, gladdening our eyes with the view of
his vine-embowered pigpen, we listened to the legend of the pond:
"Yes, I've lived yere four-and-twenty year, but I done kim to Floridy
nigh on forty year ago: walked yere from Georgy to jine the Injun war.
I done found this place a-scoutin' about, and when I got married I kim
yere to settle. The Yankee folks wants to change the name o' the pond
to Summit Lake and one thing or 'nother, but I allays votes square agin
it every time, and allays will. You see, hit don't ought to be changed.
I don't mind the _pond_ part: they mought call it lake ef they think it
sounds better, but Kingsley's it _has_ to be. K-i-n-g-l-e-s-l-e-y:
that, I take it, is the prompt way to spell the name of the man as
named it, and that's the name it has to have. You see hit was this
a-way: Kingsley were a mail-rider--leastways, express--in the _old_
Injun wartime, I dunno how long ago. They was a fort on the pond them
days, over on the south side. Wal, Kingsley were a-comin' down toward
the fort from the no'th when he thort he see an Injun.
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