“ Overwoods ” from the north. This is the least attractive view of the house, but it shows the two wings added—the kitchen with the 
salamandery over, and the maid’s room built on later. To the left up the road is the general store 
for many years and she wanted to die there. There was no use 
in coaxing so I let the matter drop; my spirits dropped also. 
This was in the early spring. In May my niece and I were 
going abroad for the summer. A few days before the day of 
sailing 1 received a letter from my friend on the Ridge saying 
that the old lady, who owned the house that 1 coveted, had decided 
to sell — with certain conditions, namely — If 1 would pay the 
mortgage, $500, and give her $100 for herself and—here was the 
hard one—let her live there till she died, the house was mine. 
I must decide at once or she would probably make the same offer 
to some one else. 1 sent a cheque for $600 by return post, and the 
end of the week saw me well on my 
wav across the ocean. 
In August, while we were at 
Dieppe, a letter reached us saying that 
the old lady was dead. She had died 
happy. The mortgage was paid and 
she told my friend, whom she made 
the custodian of her funds, that she 
envied neither Vanderbilt nor Astor, 
for had she not a hundred dollars of 
her own, [to buy anything that she 
wanted! 
That fall, on our return, we went 
up to Redding Ridge to consult with 
a builder as to needed alterations. 
We found the local builder to be a 
man of ideas and not so busy then as 
he is to-day. I drew him a rough 
plan of what I wanted, which lay 
principally in the direction of tearing 
down, so far as the interior was con¬ 
cerned. There were two front doors, 
one with a big wrought iron latch 
leading directly into the room that the 
old lady used as sitting-room and 
kitchen. The other opened into a tiny little hallway with a 
narrow winding stair, so nairow and so winding that neither a 
sizable piece of furniture, a trunk, nor a stout person could 
ascend its almost perpendicular incline. I have a very dear 
friend whom 1 was anxious to have visit me and 1 felt sure that 
she could never make any headway up those stairs, so I built 
wider and easier ones at the back. The first thing that she did 
on visiting me was to mount that narrow flight and regard me 
reproachfully from its giddy height. 
The best rooms on the ground floor faced east, south and west. 
The front one had a large fireplace with a big field stone for a 
The tall 
One end of the sitting-room showing the old nrepiace and the oven doors. 
clock stands by the foot of the new staircase 
