e so seldom held a fire that the swallows utilized the
chimney for their nests. Back of this was the dining-room, in which we
lived. It had a large brick oven and a serviceable fireplace. The
kitchen was an ell, from which stretched woodshed, carriage-house,
pigpen, smoking-house, etc. Currant and quince bushes, rhubarb,
mulberry, maple, and butternut trees were scattered about. An apple
orchard helped to increase the frugal income.

We raised corn and pumpkins, and hay for the horse and cows. The corn
was gathered into the barn across the road, and a husking-bee gave
occasion for mild merrymaking. As necessity arose the dried ears were
shelled and the kernels taken to the mill, where an honest portion was
taken for grist. The corn-meal bin was the source of supply for all
demands for breakfast cereal. Hasty-pudding never palled. Small incomes
sufficed. Our own bacon, pork, spare-rib, and souse, our own butter,
eggs, and vegetables, with occasional poultry, made us little dependent
on others. One of the great-uncles was a sportsman, and snared rabbits
and pickerel, thus extending our bill of fare. Bread and pies came from
the weekly baking, to say nothing of beans and codfish. Berries from the
pasture and nuts from the woods were plentiful. For lights we were
dependent on tallow candles or whale-oil, and soap was mostly home-made.

Life was simple but happy. The small boy had small duties. He must pick
up chips, feed the hens, hunt eggs, sprout potatoes, and weed the
garden. But he had fun the year round, varying with the seasons, but
culminating with the winter, when severity was unheeded in the joy of
coasting, skating, and sleighing in the daytime, and apples, chestnuts,
and pop-corn in the long evenings.

I never tired of watching my grandfather and his brothers as they worked
in their shops. The combs were not the simple instruments we now use to
separate and arrange the hair, but ornamental structures that women wore
at the back of the head to control their supposedly surplus locks. They
were associated with Spanish beauties, and at their best estate were
made of shell, but our combs were of horn and of great variety. In the
better quality, shell was closely imitated, but some were frankly horn
and ornamented by the application of aquafortis in patterns artistic or
grotesque according to the taste and ability of the operator. The horns
were sawed, split, boiled in oil, pressed flat, and then died out ready
to be