e; and what do you think we had instead of
roads, when we wanted to go from one town to another? The first one who
found his way along cut pieces of bark out of the trees, and others
followed these marks, until after a time they cut down the trees and
made a road. I think this is the reason old roads in this country are so
crooked; for you know a man cannot walk very straight through a forest.

Our near neighbors lived a mile from us, and it was quite a little
journey to go and see them. We had a village, too, in which were but two
buildings, the meeting-house and blacksmith's shop. You children would
hardly think you could live in such a place; yet such was the state of
things ninety-three years ago.

Well, my father and mother had come up from a town near Boston, because
my grandfather could give them some land here, and they built their
house, and made it their home. The house stands now; it is the very one
in which my brothers and sisters were all born.

In her parlor my mother had a very nice piece of furniture, which her
mother had given her as a wedding present, and of which she was very
proud, inasmuch as no parlor in the county could boast the like. It was
a looking-glass!

Well, laugh! No wonder it seems funny to you that any one should so
prize a looking-glass, when you all have so many of them; but you can
have no idea how different everything was then. The people were very
poor, and, although they owned many acres of land, yet they could
frequently sell it but for one dollar an acre, and thought that a fine
bargain. You see we had no money to buy the elegant luxuries you have in
your houses--the carpets, and sofas, and rocking-chairs. Our floors were
hard, covered now and then with a little sand, perhaps, as a great
luxury. The chairs were straight and high, while our tables were small
and low, and the cups from which we drank our tea as small as those you
play with. But, before I say any more, I want to tell you of the fate of
mother's looking-glass.

The _great room_ (as mother's parlor was called) was always kept
carefully closed, and a very sacred, awful and mysterious place it was
to us children. It so happened, one day when mother had gone away, that
my little brother Fred began to be acted upon very powerfully by a
desire to take one peep into that room. By some strange neglect mother
had left the door unlatched--for she kept her bonnet in there, and
always put it on before the glass. The tempta