the soft music of the flickering bowstring of Feltmaker Hamilton, as it rained blows on the fine fur of the beaver, muskrat or raccoon. The mallet of Hitchcock, the hatter, responded feebly in a dull monotone to the sharp speaking strokes of the hammer on the lap-stone of David Saxton, as he sat at the east window of the kitchen in the little cottage on the old colonial road.

nial legislature, this tract was cut up into small lots by the town and sold to tradesmen. It had been laid out originally between the house lot of the "Worshipful John Pynchon" on the south and the Middle Lane to the meadows on the north. The Pynchon lot was later the home of Mehuman Hinsdale, the first white man born in Deerfield, "twice captivated by the Indian salvages," as his grave-stone testifies. The Middle Lane became in due time the high road from Northern. Hampshire to Albany and the scene of military operations against Canada by the way of the lakes. The lots sold to tradesmen faced north on this road. Many now living have seen the guideboard at the head of the "Lane," on which was a hand with the forefinger pointing westward, directing the traveler "To Albany."

Very soon this poor and barren land bore abundant fruit. Buildings sprang up, and new sounds were heard all along its border. The clang of the anvil and the blast from the bellows of Armorer Bull answered to the hissing of the flip iron and tan of the toddy-stick of his neighbor, Landlord Saxton. The ting-a-ling of Silversmith Parker more than held its own with the muffled thud from the loom of Elizabeth Amsden the weaver, and

soles, and with well-waxed home-spun thread closed the seams of honest upper leather, with honest toil and good judgment. Concerning this latter quality there is a story told characteristic of the man and bringing him a little nearer to us.

The shoemaker was so often called upon to act as referee, arbitrator, appraiser, etc., that he must be pardoned if he became a little vain of his reputation. He thoroughly enjoyed these labors and honors; a little grumbling at the burden he might have thought increased his importance. One day, while at work on his bench, he was

father hammered and pegged and sewed, and sewed and hammered and pegged, month after month and wife, Bathsheba, was always nigh. Here she baked, and here she brewed, washed, ironed, boiled and stewed. From his low bench by the east window one day in every week David could see the roaring red fire in the big brick oven in front of him, and could watch the fierce flames as they curled to its dome and darted their forked tongues towards him, only to be caught at its very mouth by the spirits of the air

year after year, his good

and sent swiftly up the flue. David could watch his spouse, as with her long iron peel she removed the glowing coals when the oven had reached the right pitch of heat, and with her husk-broom, wetted as need be in a pail of water on the hearth, swept clean of ashes the oven floor. And when the oven door had been put up a suitable time to "draw down the heat," he could see Bathsheba as she deftly tossed from her light wooden peel, into the farthermost depths of the heated cavern, the squat loaves of rye and Indian bread. This peel was as white as river sand and "elbow grease" could make it. In due time David could snuff the rich savor of the brown beauties as they were taken out on the peel and piled upon the table near him, a good week's supply for the family. The front part of the oven may have been filled in with pumpkin pies, or tarts with the initials of the children cut in pie crust on the top, or, on state occasions, it may be with a spare rib of pork, or a pigling entire, a haunch of venison, a wild goose, or a turkey. Nothing came

amiss to this great, warm-hearted friend of the family.

But the oven had a rival in the attentions and affection of David. Close by, at its right shoulder, was a capacious fireplace, with its generous back log, fore log and top log, urging up the climbing flame, every day, and in season all day long. As the mouth of the oven was closed six days out of seven, it had a poor chance against the loquacious fireplace, which by a side glance came full in view from the shoemaker's bench. Besides, there was the great iron dinner pot, which the swinging crane held out daily over the very heart of the merry fire, that welcomed it with great glee, laughing and dancing under and about it, embracing it with its red arms, and touching its very lid with its curling lips of flame. The stolid iron, yielding to its ardent friend, was forced to acknowledge its subtle influence, and soon David could hear the contents of the big-bellied pot merrily gurgling and babbling of the jolly time they were all having, although in hot water together.

He

So the "pot was biled" every day in the week. But the marvel and the mystery of it all-the leaping flame, the solid iron, the hissing steam! David was no philosopher-the shoemaker should stick to his last. was no Watt, to note the tilting lid. He was no chemist, to analyze effects. He had a good appetite, engendered by healthy toil and a clear conscience. He could do ample justice to the contents of the pot, when piled upon the pewter platter, as the style on the sun dial lined with the meridian. But he never stoppedwhy should he-or we either for that matter-to speculate upon the daily miracle wrought by the loving fire spirit of the household. David saw Bathsheba put into the mouth of that pot cold water, and then beef, pork, cabbage, carrots, parsnips, turnips, all cold and indigestible; later he had stopped with upraised hammer, while pegging a sole, to see her swing out the crane and souse into the seething mass a bag of Indian pudding, resuming his labor when this was safely accomplished. And daily he had seen

So by the great east window, where the morning sun shone full upon him, David hammered and pegged and stitched, and pegged and stitched and hammered, to secure the understanding of his customers and bread for his wife and children; while Goodwife Bathsheba baked and brewed and ironed and carded and spun, the hum of the wheel in harmony with the sound of the hammer. From flax taken in barter for the products of David's labor, she spun and twisted the honest thread with which his seams were closed; and while her foot pressed the treadle, and her busy fingers gauged and guided the slender

thread her buzzing wheel sang a lullaby, and David with his stirruped foot gave an occasional jog to the cradle. For amid all the sights and sounds of this life of mutual industry and helpfulness, children came to be cared for and loved, and, alas, to be mourned for. Was David seen with arms extended as he had drawn home the last stitch of a seam, gazing abstractedly at the empty cradle by the

"THEY REST TOGETHER."

oven door, we may be sure his thoughts were away among the little mounds, more or less grassed over, in the graveyard hard by. Four times during eight years had that cradle been robbed. Four times the dread messenger had led a procession out

of the square room beyond the

kitchen, over the threshold of the low-browed front door, to the God's Acre at the west end of the ministerial lot.

Should we wonder if the stricken Bathsheba put salt for sugar in her pies, or seasoned her bread with scalding brine, when we know that across the level field, in full view of the small shuttered window of her pantry, slept that city of the dead, where four of her five darlings had been laid, one by one and side by side? For she must work as well as weep. By straining her eyes, as the bright sunlight streamed across the little mounds, the mother fancied that she could distin

guish between the fresh scar on the bosom of mother earth and those partly healed by the kindly ministrations of time, and she sadly compared them to the scars in her own bosom; only on these time had worked more slowly and across these only shadows fell.

It may have been to remove his wife from a prospect so saddening that David before the birth of another

babe, or before the brown had changed to green on the newest mound, left the little cottage and sought with Bathsheba at New Salem that comfort denied their parental longings here. In their new home the fates were kinder, and children were born and lived to cheer their declining years.

On the west side of our Old Burying Ground, where the gentle breezes come up from the murmuring Pocumtuck, where the aspen reaches out its kindly hands in benediction over the spot, and its restless leaves whisper, perchance, tales of bygone years, the four little mounds lie, side by side, as of old; but now there are two larger and longer ones; and on the mossgrown stones standing at the head of these are recorded the last events in the lives of David and Bathsheba Saxton.

From David Saxton the brown house passed to David Hoyt, Senior. If Hoyt then took up his abode here, it was doubtless to pursue his calling of "maker of wiggs and foretops." In this polite generation, the owners of bald heads are told that this defect is a mark of wisdom and honor; consequently they are apt to be rather proud than otherwise of their sterile pates. Not so in the time of which we speak. Whether it was incense to the goddess Hygeia, or a tribute to the goddess of fashion, the bald head was carefully covered; the first ravages by