OUTSIDE THE HOUSE
South of the bedroom is the stone outline of what once was the top of the cistern in which the rain water was collected and stored.
On the lawn to the south is a carving by the German sculptor Guntram Prochaska, done in 2000, for which he asked no fee and which he did in honor of Jupiter's 75th anniversary. While walking through the area, he had come across a dead 70-year-old ficus tree that a storm had destroyed the year before. A crew from Palm Beach County used a truck to move the tree to its present location. The sculpting was done with a chain saw while the tree lay on the ground. When Prochaska had finished, the crew hoisted the sculpture into place. He made the sculpture about the tree's original height of 25 feet. Oxidation changed the wood from a light tan to a reddish color.
There are five trunks imbedded in the ground to symbolize the five continents. In the middle are a king and a queen. He is leading and she is dancing around him. They are surrounded by animals and gnomes.
POEM: The following is attributed to Floyd Reading Du Bois, who separated the two elements of his name whereas the local family seems to have written it as one word with the third letter capitalized.
THE DU BOIS NAME
Not putting much trust in the Edict of Nants, (*)
Our Huguenot ancestors ran out of France.Old Chretien's offspring soon scattered afar,
All firmly convinced that their name was Du Bwa.But some stayed in Leyden and then, oh my gosh,
Translated the name to the Dutch Van den Bosch.And some went to Scotland , the land of their choice,
Where the clansmen corrupted their label to Boice.But Louis and Jacques came across to New York , (#)
Where Dutch, French, and English all mingled their talk.
And ever since then, in this polyglot nation,
Folk ask us, "Please, what's the right pronunciation?"'Tis no longer Du Bwa as so many suppose,
And it is not Du Boys, and of course not Du Boze.Du Boy is not right, nor is Dú Bois correct,
For the accent is not where some people suspect.Please read this out loud so the sound of your voice
By this rhythm records that our name is Du Bóis.* Nants is for Nantes --which would not fit the rhyme--a city in the French province of Brittany . The Edict of Nantes was issued by French King Henri IV in 1598. It granted religious freedom and the right to participate in public life to French Protestants (Huguenots) but was frequently ignored. Louis XIV revoked it in 1685.
# Louis and Jacques were brothers, who, with their sister, Françoise, emigrated to America in 1661.
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