104 The Old Kitchen Door 



After a tramp over the meadows, after a 

 day's fishing, after the round of the rabbit- 

 traps in winter, what joy to enter the kitchen 

 door and breathe in the deleclable odor of 

 hot gingerbread ! There were appetites in 

 those days. 



I do not understand the mechanism of a 

 modern kitchen : it looks to me like a small 

 machine-shop ; but the old farm kitchen was 

 a simple affair, and the intricacies and mys- 

 tery lay wholly in the dishes evolved. It 

 is said of my grandmother that a whiff .of 

 her sponge-cake brought the humming-birds 

 about. I do know there was a crackly crust 

 upon it which it is useless now to try to imi- 

 tate. 



But the door itself we have none such 

 now. It was a double door in two ways. 

 It was made of narrow strips of oak, oblique 

 on one side and straight on the other, and 

 so studded with nails that the whole affair 

 was almost half metal. It was cut in two, 

 having an upper and a lower seftion. The 

 huge wooden latch was hard and smooth as 

 ivory. At night the door was fastened by 

 a hickory bar, which, when I grew strong 

 enough to lift it, was my favorite hobby-horse. 



