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Page 24
"It WAS!" said Betsy, staring, with her teeth set deep in an apple.
"Yes, indeed. It was the first house in the valley built of sawed
lumber. You know, when our folks came up here, they had to build all
their houses of logs to begin with."
"They DID!" cried Betsy, with her mouth full of apple.
"Why yes, child, what else did you suppose they had to make houses out
of? They had to have something to live in, right off. The sawmills came
later."
"I didn't know anything about it," said Betsy. "Tell me about it."
"Why you knew, didn't you--your Aunt Harriet must have told you--about
how our folks came up here from Connecticut in 1763, on horseback!
Connecticut was an old settled place then, compared to Vermont. There
wasn't anything here but trees and bears and wood-pigeons. I've heard
'em say that the wood-pigeons were so thick you could go out after dark
and club 'em out of the trees, just like hens roosting in a hen-house.
There always was cold pigeon-pie in the pantry, just the way we have
doughnuts. And they used bear-grease to grease their boots and their
hair, bears were so plenty. It sounds like good eating, don't it! But of
course that was just at first. It got quite settled up before long, and
by the time of the Revolution, bears were getting pretty scarce, and
soon the wood-pigeons were all gone."
"And the schoolhouse--that schoolhouse where I went today--was that
built THEN?" Elizabeth Ann found it hard to believe.
"Yes, it used to have a great big chimney and fireplace in it. It was
built long before stoves were invented, you know."
"Why, I thought stoves were ALWAYS invented!" cried Elizabeth Ann. This
was the most startling and interesting conversation she had ever taken
part in.
Aunt Abigail laughed. "Mercy, no, child! Why, _I_ can remember when only
folks that were pretty well off had stoves and real poor people still
cooked over a hearth fire. I always thought it a pity they tore down the
big chimney and fireplace out of the schoolhouse and put in that big,
ugly stove. But folks are so daft over new-fangled things. Well, anyhow,
they couldn't take away the sun-dial on the window-sill. You want to be
sure to look at that. It's on the sill of the middle window on the right
hand as you face the teacher's desk."
"Sun-dial," repeated Betsy. "What's that?"
"Why to tell the time by, when--"
"Why didn't they have a clock?" asked the child.
Aunt Abigail laughed. "Good gracious, there was only one clock in the
valley for years and years, and that belonged to the Wardons, the rich
people in the village. Everybody had sun-dials cut in their window-
sills. There's one on the window-sill of our pantry this minute. Come
on, I'll show it to you." She got up heavily with her pan of apples, and
trotted briskly, shaking the floor as she went, over to the stove. "But
first just watch me put these on to cook so you'll know how." She set
the pan on the stove, poured some water from the tea-kettle over the
apples, and put on a cover. "Now come on into the pantry."
They entered a sweet-smelling, spicy little room, all white paint, and
shelves which were loaded with dishes and boxes and bags and pans of
milk and jars of preserves.
"There!" said Aunt Abigail, opening the window. "That's not so good as
the one at school. This only tells when noon is."
Elizabeth Ann stared stupidly at the deep scratch on the window-sill.
"Don't you see?" said Aunt Abigail. "When the shadow got to that mark it
was noon. And the rest of the time you guessed by how far it was from
the mark. Let's see if I can come anywhere near it now." She looked at it
hard and said: "I guess it's half-past four." She glanced back into the
kitchen at the clock and said: "Oh pshaw! It's ten minutes past five!
Now my grandmother could have told that within five minutes, just by the
place of the shadow. I declare! Sometimes it seems to me that every time
a new piece of machinery comes into the door some of our wits fly out at
the window! Now I couldn't any more live without matches than I could
fly! And yet they all used to get along all right before they had
matches. Makes me feel foolish to think I'm not smart enough to get
along, if I WANTED to, without those little snips of pine and brimstone.
Here, Betsy, take a cooky. It's against my principles to let a child
leave the pantry without having a cooky. My! it does seem like living
again to have a young one around to stuff!"
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