various occupants who had their cunabula behind had punched a hole where his necessities required it, and according to his size and stature, without regard to outside effect.  There were windows for the grown folks, and windows for the children,—­three or four apiece:  as a certain man had a large hole cut in his barn-door for the cat, and another smaller one for the kitten.  Sometimes they were so low under the eaves that I thought they must have perforated the plate-beam for another apartment, and I noticed some which were triangular, to fit that part more exactly.  The ends of the houses had thus as many muzzles as a revolver; and if the inhabitants have the same habit of staring out of the windows that some of our neighbors have, a traveller must stand a small chance with them.

Generally, the old-fashioned and unpainted houses on the Cape looked more comfortable, as well as picturesque, than the modern and more pretending ones, which were less in harmony with the scenery, and less firmly planted.

These houses were on the shores of a chain of ponds, seven in number, the source of a small stream called Herring River, which empties into the Bay.  There are many Herring Rivers on the Cape:  they will, perhaps, be more numerous than herrings soon.  We knocked at the door of the first house, but its inhabitants were all gone away.  In the mean while we saw the occupants of the next one looking out of the window at us, and before we reached it an old woman came out and fastened the door of her bulkhead, and went in again.  Nevertheless, we did not hesitate to knock at her door, when a grizzly-looking man appeared, whom we took to be sixty or seventy years old.  He asked us, at first, suspiciously, where we were from, and what our business was; to which we returned plain answers.

“How far is Concord from Boston?” he inquired.

“Twenty miles by railroad.”

“Twenty miles by railroad,” he repeated.

“Didn’t you ever hear of Concord of Revolutionary fame?”

“Didn’t I ever hear of Concord?  Why, I heard the guns fire at the Battle of Bunker Hill.” (They hear the sound of heavy cannon across the Bay.) “I am almost ninety:  I am eighty-eight year old.  I was fourteen year old at the time of Concord Fight,—­and where were you then?”

We were obliged to confess that we were not in the fight.

“Well, walk in, we’ll leave it to the women,” said he.

So we walked in, surprised, and sat down, an old woman taking our hats and bundles, and the old man continued, drawing up to the large, old-fashioned fireplace,—­

“I am a poor good-for-nothing crittur, as Isaiah says; I am all broken down this year.  I am under petticoat-government here.”

The family consisted of the old man, his wife, and his daughter, who appeared nearly as old as her mother,—­a fool, her son, (a brutish-looking, middle-aged man, with a prominent lower face, who was standing by the hearth when we entered, but immediately went out,) and a little boy of ten.