For a time my sleeping apartment was with others in the upper room of the rear wing of the farmhouse, dignified by the name "Attica." My companions were all single men; good, reliable fellows who were working for a principle and would ordinarily have declined such a lodging-place, but under the circumstances were not apt to grumble, but made the best of it. It was like camping out, and all its mischances were turned into fun. My roommates were called "the Admiral," "the Dutchman," "the General" and "the Parson,"--nicknames given each one of them for some personal peculiarity. There were advantages as well as disadvantages in living in "Attica." It was nearest the centre of the life and business of the place. In the winter mornings there was no long walk to meals, as those had who lived at the other houses. We were near the warm kitchen; and when the house was still and work suspended--all save the baking of bread, which often proceeded in the evening in the range ovens--a group would gather around the fire and talk and gossip--for we were not beyond the last; speculation, theory and argument went pleasantly on until bed-time. No, Attica! I have not forgotten the days spent inside thy walls, thy strange inhabitants, or the mysteries that surrounded thee on my first entrance into thy domain! I have not forgotten the long, low roof and projecting beams, or the half dozen bedsteads that were standing around; the two large chimneys that arose in the centre and the number of stove-pipes that came from below and entered them; or the skylights that were thy only means of illumination save the window at "the Parson's" end, which looked out on the pleasant fields and the houses beyond; or the plain, uncarpeted floor, the washstands by the chimneys and the clothing hung up around. Neither have I forgotten the nights when lying in bed I have heard the rain pouring and pattering above thee and me; or when I saw by the dim light of a single oil lamp, as I lifted myself on my elbow in bed, one of the occupants moving his cot bedstead from some gentle leak that was getting too familiar with his bedclothes; or when in the dreary winter the Storm King howled around and bore some fleecy flakes on his windy gusts through a stray hole in the roof, and morning showed us a miniature white mountain on the floor. No, to this day a vision of the "Parson" (Capen) comes to me, reading by the light of an oil lamp placed on a shelf at the head of his bedstead, long after others were asleep; lying in bed at the furthermost portion of thy space; now chuckling to himself, then drowsily reading on and on, with his spectacles dropped down on to the point of his long nose--as the passage was either witty or dry; or visions of the early risers, waking betimes and disturbing the dreams of the later ones by the preparations of the toilet; or the sound of the morning horn as it rose from beneath us on the clear air!