AUSTERE PURITAN GARDENS 93 



have. . . . Excellent vines are here up and 

 down in the woods. Our Governor hath already 

 planted a vineyard with great hope of increase. Also 

 mulberries, plums, raspberries, currants, chestnuts, fil- 

 berts, walnuts, small nuts, hurtleberries and haws of 

 white-thorn, near as good as our cherries in England, 

 they grow in plenty here." 



Half a score of houses were all that "Naumkeag" 

 could boast when Higginson arrived there, "and a 

 fair house newly built for the Governour." Each of 

 these no doubt bore the noon sun-mark upon the ledge 

 of a window of the great room that room which was 

 literally living-room, where food was prepared, 

 cooked, and meals eaten, and where all the household 

 tasks went on, moving in their orderly sequence 

 through the hours of a day accurately divided the 

 better to marshal them into their proper places into 

 two parts, by this line. The houses faced the south 

 usually and one "primitive planter" of Salem, 

 whose place was old and had fallen into ruins in the 

 eighteenth century, had his garden "eastward of the 

 house, higher upon the hill." 



The "house newly built for the Governour" did not 

 remain the official residence long after Winthrop's ar- 

 rival, for he at once looked about with a view to 

 locating the seat of government to better advantage. 

 Just what his objection to Salem was, is not clear. 



