38 OLD PLYMOUTH TRAILS 



"backslided" and became a Millerite. It has 

 been rusted by water and burned by fire, and I 

 don't believe even Sherlock Holmes could make 

 a wiser deduction. 



As I write, a section of one of the old 

 "Wheeler" cap-posts is crumbling to ashes in my 

 fireplace. It was of solid oak, of a texture as 

 firm and grainless almost as soapstone. No 

 water had touched this wood, I know, for a hun- 

 dred and fifty years, perhaps for almost a hundred 

 added to that. For hours it retained its shape, 

 glowing like a huge block of anthracite, and send- 

 ing forth a heat as great but infinitely more 

 kindly and comforting. Toward the last the 

 flames which came from it lost their yellow 

 opaqueness and slipped fluttering upward in a 

 transparent opalescence which I never before saw 

 in fire. It was as if the soul of the old house, 

 made out of all that was beautiful and kindly in 

 the hopes and longings of those who built it and 

 lived in it, stood revealed a monument in its 

 shining beauty before it passed on. 



