52 A Walk from 



horses and cattle for stabling ; then were swept away, 

 as too poor for either man or beast. The second gene- 

 ration of houses made greater pretentions to comfort,, 

 and had their day, then passed away. They were 

 nearly all one-story, wooden buildings, with a small 

 apartment on each side of a great chimney, and a little 

 bedroomage in the garret for children. Then followed 

 the large, red New England mansion, broadside to 

 the road, two stories high in front, with nearly a rood 

 of back roof declining to within five or six feet of the 

 ground, and covering a great, dark kitchen, flanked on 

 one side by a bed-room, and on the other by the but- 

 tery. A ponderous chimney arose out of the middle of 

 the building, giving a fireplace of eight feet back to the 

 kitchen, and one of half the same dimensions to each of 

 the other two large rooms the north and south. For, 

 like the republic they founded, its forefathers and ours 

 divided their dwellings by a kind of Mason and Dixon's 

 Line, into two parts, giving them these sectional appel- 

 lations which have represented such antagonisms and 

 made us such trouble. Every one of these old-fashioned 

 houses had its " North " and " South " rooms on the 

 ground-floor, and duplicates, of the same size and 

 name, above, divided by the massive, hollow tower 

 called a chimney. A double front door, with pannels 

 scrolled with rude carving, opened right and left into 



