34 OLD PLYMOUTH TRAILS 



ascension robes. He too added a wing to the old 

 house, three rooms and another attic, and when I 

 had laid bare the timbers of this the historian 

 rose, holding both hands and his cane towards 

 heaven, and orated fluently. 



"There!" he said, "that's Wheeler! I knew it 

 was, for the old deeds couldn't be read in any 

 other way. They told me it was built on by the 

 Millerite, but I knew better. This was moved 

 up from the Wheeler farm, and it was a hundred 

 years old and more when it came up, sixty years 

 ago. I knew it. Look at those old cap-posts !" 



I doged the cane as it waved, and took another 

 look, for it was worth while. There were the 

 corner posts, only seven feet high, but ten inches 

 square at the bottom, solid oak, swelling to four- 

 teen inches at the top, with double tenants on 

 which sat the great square oak-plates, dovetailed 

 and pinned together, and pinned again to the cap. 

 A hundred and fifty years old and more was this 

 addition, which the Millerite had moved up from 

 the Wheeler farm and built on for his boot-shop ; 

 yet these great oak cap-posts marked a period 

 far more remote. They were second-hand when 

 they went into the Wheeler building, for there 

 were in them the marks of mortising that had no 



