OLD HOMESTEAD 



jammed full with our Sunday clothes, besides every other kind 

 of duffle kept in the house. Instead of regular closets there 

 were movable wardrobes, big chests in which to store bedding 

 and other supplies, and lots of nails driven into the wall on 

 which to hang clothes — a first-rate arrangement, because you 

 could so easily find the things which you wanted that were 

 hanging on the wall. The kitchen had a bedroom adjoining, 

 with a row of nails clear around it. 



The large, old-fashioned pantry, with long, broad shelves 

 from near the floor to the ceiling, was called the ''buttery." In 

 addition to a pantry it was a small drug store. We were six 

 miles from a pharmacy, and a supply of the principal drugs and 

 simple remedies was necessary. A well-room and storeroom, 

 also fitted up as a milk-room, was taken from the west side of the 

 woodshed. 



Overhead, in the wing, was the "dark chamber," a kind of 

 ghostly, Bluebeard place where we stored butternuts, seed-corn, 

 popcorn, vinegar, dry herbs, and everything else that had no 

 other place. Sometimes in bitter cold weather, when going to 

 bed in the unheated chambers was too disagreeable, we boys 

 slept in this dark chamber on an old-fashioned bed called a 

 " cricket," something after the style of a hammock, being simply 

 a piece of canvas stretched on a folding frame. When we slept 

 there we relied upon being called, otherwise we might sleep 

 until noon in the pitchy darkness. The call was made by some 

 one rapping on the kitchen stovepipe, which ran through and 

 warmed the room. 



After the use of the fire-place was discontinued, one stove 

 fire was generally considered sufficient for both cooking and 

 heating purposes. Wood was not scarce or expensive, but it 

 had to be cut and fitted for the stove, a " Northern Farmer " 



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