By the Rippling Sea. 55 



mony bush, hidden for a time from the light, finally sought 

 it again, and pierced the boards near the eaves ; and the 

 catnip growing at the chimney's base shed a pleasant odor 

 about the crumbling pile. 



Within was an old sofa, a rush-bottomed chair tied 

 together with a rope, and over the floor a multitude of 

 papers and a number of religious books and pamphlets. 

 One of these was on the proper mode of spending the 

 Sabbath, but I could find nothing therein about wandering 

 afield alone. That was not the religious way, though it is 

 eminently a religious way of spending the Sabbath. It 

 contained a number of anecdotes concerning barns struck 

 by lightning because they sheltered hay gathered on 

 Sunday, but I saw no mention of the church near my 

 home that has been twice thus visited, though its bell has 

 tolled regularly every Sabbath day. 



The attic contained several articles left there by a still 

 older tenant — a pair of hatchels for separating the fibrous 

 parts of hemp or flax, and the account-books of James La- 

 Forge, who carried on the business of a smith in the first years 

 of the century. A careful inspection of his books, covering 

 a space of ten years, revealed that he had served in his 

 trade one hundred and nineteen different persons, thirty- 

 eight of them, likehimself, bearing a name of Huguenot 

 origin. It was interesting to read a page of the domestic 

 affairs of many of these worthies who figure in the records 

 of the county; to see how many horses they had shod in 

 a year, and the bolts, and bars, and chains, that were 

 made or mended for them. Placed between the leaves 

 of one of these old volumes was an interesting bill of items 



