30 OLD PLYMOUTH TRAILS 



and poking others on to make their bow to the 

 man with the crowbar, who thus, piecing the 

 narrative out with his own detective work in 

 wood, rebuilds the story. It was but a little 

 house which began with two rooms on the ground 

 floor and two attic chambers, built for Stoddard 

 who married the daughter of the pioneer land- 

 owner of the vicinity, and it nestled up within a 

 stone's throw of the big house, sharing its pros- 

 perity and its history. No doubt the Stoddards 

 were present at the funeral in the big house, when 

 stern old Parson Dunbar stood above the de- 

 ceased, in the presence of the assembled relatives, 

 and said with Puritanical severity, ''My friends, 

 there lies the body, but the soul is in hell !" 



The dead man had failed to attend the par- 

 son's sermons at the old First Congregational 

 Church, near by, a church that with successive 

 pastors has slipped from the Orthodoxy of Par- 

 son Dunbar to the most modern type of present- 

 day Unitarianism. 



A later dweller in the old house lives in local 

 tradition as publishing on the bulletin board in 

 the church vestibule his intention of marriage 

 with a fair lady of the parish, as was the cus- 

 tom of the day. Another fair lady entering the 



