20 AROUND AN OLD HOMESTEAD. 



ture, and she knitted their own sipcks. Grandmother 

 herself would ply the wheel, with its distaff and spindle, 

 and sing the ballad of "Barbara Allen" and the other 

 tunes of long ago. It is not often that an old-time 

 spinning wheel Is seen nowadays, at least in operation. 

 The one used by grandmother is still kept at the home- 

 stead, as a sort of relic, or reminder, of the days that 

 have gone. Their life seems free and beautiful, as we 

 look at it, in those olden days. I think of Priscilla 

 and John Alden. Yet theirs was but one of numerous 

 other such pioneer experiences out here in the Western 

 wilderness. 



The house — like "Clovernook," and not far from 

 it — ^was built of bricks made from clay dug on grand- 

 father's own land, a stone's throw from the site of the 

 building. Oxen turned the great poles and wheels in 

 the mixing. They were large bricks, of the old-fash- 

 ioned kind; and the foundation walls, too, came from 

 the farm, and the lumber for the woodwork, and the 

 big rough stones that flag the porches' entrances. 

 Grandfather had his own lime kiln, and burnt the 

 stones from the brook for the lime for his mortar. 

 The date of the erection, 1834, was graven on the 

 lintel, above the doorway — not so very ancient, it is 

 true, but still far enough back to leave an atmosphere 

 of romance and old-time ways lingering about the place 

 and curling up in the fragrant wood-smoke from the 

 chimneys. Threads of poetry twine about it with the 

 woodbine which clambers over the walls and waves its 

 sprays across the windows. Within its ivy-mantled 

 sides one may get a glirflpse of the older generations 

 and their life, now almost passed away. The old home- 

 stead itself seems almost a thing of the past, so linked 



