But it was the item we discovered next that would take rank, I think, in the matter of age. At the moment we did not understand it at all. It was a section of a hickory-tree, about fifteen inches through and two feet high, hollowed out at the top to a depth of nearly a foot. It was smooth inside and looked as if something had been pounded in it, as in a mortar. Presently we came upon a long, heavy hickory mallet, tapering at one end, smoothly rounded at the other. It had a short handle, and we thought it might have been a sort of pestle for the big mortar. But what had those old people ground in it? Westbury told us later; it had been their mill. By a slow, patient process they had macerated their corn in it until it was fine enough for bread. The old hand-mill would undoubtedly take priority in the matter of antiquity. Those early settlers could do without beds and chairs and trenchers and cradles, even without spinning-wheels for a time, but they must very quickly have bread--corn, and a place to grind it. I think the old mill was older than the house. I think it came almost with the earliest camp-fire. The articles thus far mentioned were all in one end of the attic. We were by no means through when we turned to the other end, the space beyond the great chimney. Here under the eaves were piles of yellow periodicals--religious papers, the New York _Tribune_, and those weekly story-papers whose thrilling "romances of real life," like "Parted at the Altar" and "The Lost Heir of Earlecliffe," were so popular with those young ladies of slender waists and sloping shoulders who became our grandmothers. I think none of the numbers dated farther back than the early forties of the last century, and they were not very inviting, for they were dusty and discolored and the mice had gnawed holes in the career of Lord Reginald and the sorrows of Lady Maude. But there were better things than these--jugs, jars, and bottles of marvelous patterns, and a stone churn, and some pewter and luster teapots, damaged somewhat, it is true, but good for mantel decoration over our fireplaces, and there were some queer old bandboxes, ornamented with flowers and landscapes, and finally two small wooden chests and a fascinating box of odds and ends, metal things, for the most part.