THE wel;:.fleet oysterman. 
73 
windows for the grown folks, and windows for the chil¬ 
dren,— three or four apiece; as a certain man had a 
large hole cut in his barn-door for the cat, and another 
smaller one for the kitten. Sometimes they were so low 
under the eaves that I thought they must have perfo¬ 
rated the plate beam for another apartment, and I noticed 
some which were triangular, to lit that part more exactly. 
The ends of the houses had thus as many muzzles as a 
revolver, and, if the inhabitants have the same habit of 
staring out the windows that some of our neighbors have, 
a traveller must stand a small chance with them. 
Generally, the old-fashioned and unpainted houses on 
the Cape looked more comfortable, as well as pictu¬ 
resque, than the modern and more pretending ones, which 
were less in harmony with the scenery, and less firmly 
planted. 
These houses were on the shores of a chain of ponds, 
seven in number, the source of a small stream called 
Herring E-iver, which empties into the Bay. There are 
many Herring Eivers on the Cape; they will, perhaps, 
be more numerous than herrings soon. We knocked at 
the door of the first house, but its inhabitants were all 
gone away. In the mean while, we saw the occupants 
of the next one looking out the window at us, and 
before we reached it an old woman came out and fas¬ 
tened the door of her bulkhead, and went in again. 
Nevertheless, we did not hesitate to knock at her door, 
when a grizzly-looking man appeared, whom we took to 
De sixty or seventy years old. He asked us, at first, 
suspiciously, where we were from, and what our business 
was; to which we returned plain answers. 
‘‘ How far is Concord from Boston ? ” he inquired, 
“ Twenty miles by raiboad.” 
