Roses of Yesterday 
473 
The Rose bush furnished another comestible for 
the children’s larder, the red succulent shoots of 
common garden and wild Roses. These were known 
by the dainty name of “ brier candy,” a name appro- 
priate and characteristic, as the folk-names devised 
by children frequently are. 
On the post-road in southern New Hampshire 
stands an old house, which according to its license 
was once “ improved ” as a tavern, and was famous 
for its ghost and its Roses. The tavern was owned 
by a family of two brothers and two sisters, all un- 
married, as was rather a habit in the Mason family; 
though when any of the tribe did marry, a vast 
throng of children quickly sprung up to propagate 
the name and sturdy qualities of the race. The 
men were giants, and both men and women were 
hard-working folk of vast endurance and great thrift, 
and, like all of that ilk in New England, they pros- 
pered and grew well-to-do ; great barns and out- 
buildings, all well filled, stretched down along the 
roadside below the house. Joseph Mason could lay 
more feet of stone wall in a day, could plough more 
land, chop down more trees, pull more stumps, than 
any other man in New Hampshire. His sisters 
could bake and brew, make soap, weed the garden, 
spin and weave, unceasingly and untiringly. Their 
garden was a source of purest pleasure to them, as 
well as of hard work ; its borders were so stocked 
with medicinal herbs that it could supply a town- 
ship ; and its old-time flowers furnished seeds and 
slips and bulbs to every other garden within a day’s 
driving distance ; but its glory was a garden side to 
