OLD SALEM TOWN 161 



the " Scarlet Letter " for any tale that Stevenson 

 told. Yet think what fancies would have taken 

 shape in Stevenson's brain out of the dusty ghosts 

 that still linger in the nooks of the old custom- 

 house ! 



More things than these are hidden away in 

 Salem. The homing instinct of the old sailors 

 brought back from the seas of all the earth thou- 

 sands of strange relics which are still to be seen 

 in the magnificent Peabody Academy of Science 

 and in the Essex Institute, institutions free to all 

 the world of which the city is justly proud. Yet 

 the home-keeping instinct of those who remained 

 behind was as strong, and the Salem homes of the 

 days of the merchant princes still remain, in some 

 cases much as they were a century and more ago. 

 Now and then, within the uproar of a busy street 

 one gets a glimpse over a high board fence of gar- 

 dens of quaint beauty, the gravel walks bordered 

 with prim box, the sward of a century green and 

 smooth, and the hardy perennials that the old-time 

 home-keepers loved and tended growing and blos- 

 soming there still, as beautiful and deep-rooted as 

 were the lives of the Salem mothers that sent their 



