pose, whenever a fire was lighted in any of the rooms. There was a large closet on the left of the fireplace. On the mantel-shelf stood flatirons and candle-sticks. On the west side of the larger room was a small one, and in that stood the sink, the water being brought there from a spring in the northern part of the estate.

A pair of winding stairs led up from this room into a loft, or garret, over the kitchen, where there stood immense chests of corn, ground and whole, and a large collection of odds and ends. Here the wheat was sifted in great sifters or screens, and a variety of work connected with farming was done there, while herbs, corn, etc., hung from the rafters. Coming out of the sink room, one turns to the right, and here is a door leading to the cellar, and down here the butter is made in an old-fashioned churn, and here are stored, in their season, many barrels of apples, potatoes, and winter vegetables, to say nothing of barrels of cider. In my young days we always had cider on the breakfast table, which was drawn into a silver can. On the south side of the kitchen were two windows, and between them, on the outside, were barrels on a framework, in which vinegar was made. The kitchen was bright and sunny all day long, as it had both morning and afternoon sun in it. Every Saturday afternoon the kitchen floor used to be washed, and then covered with sand and ornamented all over with a herring-bone pattern, and no child was allowed to enter while the pattern was fresh until the floor was dry. It was in these days that "American, or Yankee help," ruled supreme in these departments. We will now go back to the front entry; on the right side stood a door, which led into the library, a room much smaller than it is now, and originally it was much less in size than the one I recall, and was in those days Doctor Paine's office. There were two windows on the front, and all around the room were closets filled with books, except on the north end, and there was a fireplace. Opposite the

The room was heated

library was the parlor, which was used in the winter as a
dining-room and sitting-room, all the meals being brought
the long distance from the kitchen. One window was on
the front of the house and two on the south side. A
wooden mantel-piece, painted white, and a closet took up
nearly all the west side of the room.
by a Franklin stove, in which wood was burned on brass
andirons, and round it was a brass fender. Doctor Paine
sat at the west end of the dining-table, with his back to the
fire, in a rocking chair. I, a small child, sat at his left
hand, and always drank his health in a few drops of wine.
He always liked to have his meals well served, and the
fruit and wine were put on the well-polished mahogany
table after the cloth was removed. On Saturdays, Doctor
Paine's daughter, Mrs. Rose, her sisters-in-law, Miss
Rachel Rose and Miss Josephine Rose, later Mrs. George
Chandler, always came to spend the day. The walls of the
parlor were painted green, and the wainscoting, about one
yard high, of some dark colored wood, went all around the
room. All this was removed when the house was altered
in 1836.

In 1826 Miss Harriet Paine Rose was married in the parlor of "The Oaks" to Mr. John Clark Lee of Salem. From this parlor one passes into the porch, which is very much as it was in Doctor Paine's day. The windows all over the house were high up on the walls, which were of greater elevation than in most old houses, and with no shutters. The panes of glass were small and of poor quality. The front stairs were in the porch, and between them and the parlor door was a long box, painted white, built into the wall, with a cover of dark wood, which formed a seat about two feet wide. Here Doctor Paine kept his fire buckets, seeds, and a variety of small articles. On the walls hung pictures painted on glass. There were two windows, one on the east and one on the west side. The door, a wooden one, and only fastened with a bit of wood

over the latch, led out onto a large stone doorstep. Two long green blinds were outside the door. We will now enter the room of Doctor Paine through a door opposite the one leading from the parlor. Two windows face the south, and another on the west, looking onto the back yard. On the east side of the room was a fireplace, with wooden mantel-piece. Blue tiles surrounded the fireplace, on which were painted subjects from Scripture. A Franklin stove, in which wood was burned, on brass andirons heated the room. This room was partly parlor and bed-room combined, and here my grandfather spent a great deal of his time during the last few years of his life. On the north side of the room was a door, which led into the "bedroom," where some one slept to be near Doctor Paine at night. There was one small window in this room, which looked out onto an open space, which had a cover or roof, but no floor, except an earthen one. Under the window was a bench, on which stood the milk-pans after they were washed, and on the ground the grindstone and other matters. A door on the east side of the bed-room brings one round to the large hall or dining-room in the centre of the house. To go upstairs one starts from the porch. The staircase is painted white, on which is a green and white carpet. The banisters are prettily carved or twisted, with a rail of mahogany; one goes up four steps, and then a square landing; four more, and a landing; four more, and we are in the upper entry. A door directly in front of us leads by two steps down into a porch chamber, which is now as it used to be formerly. In it one small window looks towards the south, from which was a lovely view of the village of Worcester, and from which one looked down directly on the garden. The arrangement of the rooms upstairs was similar to those downstairs, except the front entry and library formed two rooms. A long passageway led from the room over the large dining-room, and here we meet the upper part of the back stairs. At the end of this

passageway was a door which led into a loft over the space where the pigs were cut up, but there was nothing here, it being merely a roof to the lower room. The door leading to the garret was in this passageway. There were three rooms up there. The large one extended over the whole front of the house, and in Doctor Paine's day the floor was covered with bottles of Madeira wine, which had been round the world. Under the eaves were piled Canton china and other articles, into which came one day a large rock from a blast in the vicinity of the house, and did much damage. In the small garret were stored old furniture and almost everything one can conceive of the leavings and overflowings of three generations of a family. The children of the house and their friends were never at a loss here for amusement, and many treasures were unearthed from the mass of débris. In the outer garret were old bedsteads, quilts, old stoves, lumber, and "odds and ends," for in those days everything not in actual use went "up garret" after doing duty down stairs. The house outside was painted a bright yellow and had green blinds to the windows of clumsy make. The front and sides of the house have not been altered, but the back premises are entirely changed. The old kitchen was moved away in 1836, and formed on the place a house for the farmer. On the right side of the house, north, stood "the chaisehouse," painted a bright yellow. In the side towards the house there was an open archway, and on the eastern side a large carriage-house. On the western side of the archway stood a pile of cut wood, under cover, and the man who cut the wood stood in the middle of the building, though on the ground. In the orchard, on the north side of the house, stood beehives on a framework, and in this vicinity was the scene of the strange noises, the mystery of which was never solved. Those in the house, though before my day, used to hear a loud bang, as if some heavy timber had been thrown on the ground. These noises were only heard at night,

however. My father and his brother used to watch night after night out of doors, but no sound was to be heard, but the moment they went into the house the noise would begin again. On the back of the house, and some distance from it, was the barn, an immense building, with outhouses, consisting of two stories besides the scaffolding. A large yard for cattle was on the southern side, surrounded by a stone wall. On the eastern side was a trough supplied with water from the spring in the upper part of the estate. To the right of the barn was a corn chamber, set up on four stone posts, and down the hill to the north was an old well. Nearer the house was a large ice-house, from which the ice chest was supplied when needed, which was filled every winter with ice from Lincoln's Pond. Near the back door of the house was a well with well-sweep, and down this was kept a bucket, in which was put butter, and that was drawn up when any was needed and then let down again. At the foot of the garden, on one side, stood an old building called "the hog-house." Here the pigs were kept. Besides the place for these animals there was a large room, where used to be kept garden tools, lumber, etc. There was also a room upstairs used for rubbish of various kinds. The horse used to be kept in the barn, and was taken round to the chaise-house to be harnessed. Later this building was moved from the front and was joined onto the barn. On the northern side of the barn was a large "mulberry tree," which bore fine fruit, and close to the trough stood two cherry trees, one of black hearts and one of white. Near by was a row of lilac-bushes. At the northeast corner of the house used to stand an immense chestnut tree. It was very old, and finally the branches began to fall, and, being dangerous, it was cut down. The trees in the front of the house I have heard my father say were of the same size when he was a boy as they are now. The garden of the house was quite noted in its day.

Starting from the broad stone steps of the porch on each