In Old Salem at Christmas-time a charming custom prevails of decking entrance-door and porch with greens and garlands. A typical enclosed porch, with the favorite oval side-lights, fluted Tuscan pilasters, and triangular pediment adorned with a hand-tooled wooden wreath, is shown, with the Christmas greens gracefully draped about it. This is the residence of J. Foster Smith, at 132 Federal Street, and is about a hundred and fifty years old. THE GRACE MACHADO HOUSE [Illustration: THE GRACE MACHADO HOUSE] Most of the old-time houses in Salem stood bare and unadorned, except for the beauty of their architectural embellishments. In a few cases, however, vines and creepers have been encouraged to embower the porch, or even to cling to the façade itself. Examples of this are: the Hosmer-Townsend-Waters house on Washington Square; the Studio at 2-4 Chestnut Street; the Mansfield-Bolles house at 8 Chestnut Street; the Baldwin-Lyman house at 92 Washington Square; the Mack and Stone house at 21 and 23 Chestnut Street; and the home of Miss Grace Machado at 5 Carpenter Street, where a gorgeous wistaria covers the entire front of the building with its clusters of purple bloom. THE STEARNS HOUSE [Illustration: THE STEARNS HOUSE] Houses of the period following the gambrel-roofed type were in shape commonly either square or rectangular. Almost always the third-story windows were nearly square, as compared with the taller ones of the first and second floors--an architectural device by means of which the building appeared lower than it actually was. This was called ‘foreshortening.’ The severity of outline presented by these simple structures was relieved by various devices--sometimes by quoined corner-boards, an ornamental cornice, a balustraded roof, or decorative lintels above the windows; very rarely by rusticated front-boards in imitation of stone blocks. The chief glory of the house as one viewed it from the outside was of necessity the entrance, with its porch, open or enclosed; and it was hither that the loving attention of architect and wood-carver was most assiduously directed. The Stearns house, built in 1776, stands at 384 Essex Street, and presents a notable example of the Revolutionary style. As was very often the case with Salem houses, the plain character of the original structure of the Stearns homestead was later relieved by the addition of a porch of most artistic design, again from the hand of Samuel McIntire, regarding whom one is continually led to wonder that in the short period of his activity he could achieve so much. This new porch was put in place in 1785, and is of especial dignity due to the use of flanking pilasters in addition to the engaged columns at the rear of the structure. The order is Doric and the effect is one of strength and permanence.