eenleaf into the family. The bureau in this room is the
one that stood there in the olden time. The little mirror that stands
on it is the one by which Whittier shaved most of his life. He used it
at Amesbury, and possibly his father used it before him at Haverhill.

Mr. Whittier had a great fund of stories of the supernatural that were
current in this neighborhood in his youth, and one that had this very
kitchen for its scene, he told with much impressiveness. It was the
story of his aunt Mercy--

"The sweetest woman ever Fate
Perverse denied a household mate."

It was out of this window in the kitchen that she saw the horse and its
rider coming down the road, and recognized the young man to whom she
was betrothed. It was out of this window in the porch that she saw them
again, as she went to the door to welcome her lover. It was this door
she opened, to find no trace of horse or rider. It was to this little
room at the other end of the kitchen that she went, bewildered and
terrified, to waken her sister, who tried in vain to pacify her by
saying she had been dreaming by the fire, when she should have been in
bed. And it was in this room she received the letter many days later
telling her of the death of her lover in a distant city at the hour of
her vision.[1] Mr. Whittier told such stories with the air of more than
half belief in their truth, especially in his later years, when he
became interested in the researches of scientists in the realm of
telepathy. He said his aunt was the most truthful of women, and she
never doubted the reality of her vision.

[Illustration: WESTERN END OF KITCHEN

View of "mother's room;" the poet was born in a room at the left,
beyond the fireplace

Copyright 1891, by A. A. Ordway]

The door at the southwestern corner of the kitchen opens into the room
in which the poet was born. This was the parlor, but as the Friends
were much given to hospitality, it was often needed as a bedroom, and
there was in it a bedstead that could be lifted from the floor and
supported by a hook in the ceiling when not in use. In the corners are
cabinets containing articles of use and ornament that are genuine
relics of the Whittier family. The inlaid mahogany card-table between
the front windows was brought to this house just a century ago (1804)
by Abigail Hussey, the bride of John Whittier, and placed where it now
stands. Like the desk in the kitchen, it has always been in the
possession of