gave the only light; a green-painted wooden door,
which swung level with the moist bricks, the only entrance.

It was at this green-painted wooden door that you
would have had to knock to find the man of all others
about Kennedy Square most beloved, and the man
of all others least understood--Richard Horn, the
distinguished inventor.

Perhaps at the first rap he would have been too
absorbed to hear you. He would have been bending
over his carpenter-bench--his deep, thoughtful eyes
fixed on a drawing spread out before him, the shavings
pushed back to give him room, a pair of compasses
held between his fingers. Or he might have
been raking the coals of his forge--set up in the same
fireplace that had warmed the toes of the pickaninnies,
his long red calico working-gown, which clung
about his spare body, tucked between his knees to
keep it from the blaze. Or he might have been stirring
a pot of glue--a wooden model in his hand--
or hammering away on some bit of hot iron, the
brown paper cap that hid his sparse gray locks pushed
down over his broad forehead to protect it from the
heat.

When, however, his ear had caught the tap of your
knuckles and he had thrown wide the green door, what
a welcome would have awaited you! How warm the
grasp of his fine old hand; how cordial his greeting.