In 1811, Story was appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States—the very year that Pinckney Sumner was poor and living in a small wood-frame house raising two tiny twins. Four years later, in 1815, Pinckney Sumner waited outside a courthouse in Boston to try to catch up with Story, with whom he had been gradually falling out of touch. But Judge Story (who preferred to be called “Judge” rather than “Justice”) was so engrossed in a conversation with a few lawyers that he didn’t notice Pinckney Sumner standing nearby waiting to talk to him.
