478 Old Time Gardens 
whirring of her great wool wheel. When this 
rumor reached the brothers’ ears, they determined 
to investigate the story and end it forever. That 
night their vigil began, and soon the sound of the 
wheel was heard. They entered the garret, and to 
their surprise found the wheel spinning round. 
Then Joseph Mason went to the garret and seated 
himself for closer and more determined watch. He 
sat in the dark till the wheel began to revolve, then 
struck a sudden light and found the ghost. A great 
rat had run out on the spoke of the wheel and when 
he reached the broad rim had started a treadmill of 
his own — which made the ghostly sound as it whirred 
around. Soon this rat grew so tame that he would 
come out on the spinning-wheel in the daytime, and 
several others were seen to run around in the wheel 
as if it were a pleasant recreation. 
The old brick house still stands with its great 
grove of Sugar Maples, but it is silent, for the 
Masons all sleep in the graveyard behind the church 
high up on the hillside ; no travellers stop within 
the doors, the ghost rats are dead, the spinning- 
wheel is gone, but the garden still blossoms with 
eternal youth. Though children no longer gather 
rose leaves for Rose tobacco, the “Roses of Yester- 
day ” bloom every year; and each June morn, “a 
thousand blossoms with the day awake,” and fling 
their spicy fragrance on the air. 
