THE DOTEN HOUSE, 1660. THE OLDEST HOUSE IN PLYMOUTH.] Overlooking the blue water stands the old Winslow house, the solid frame of which came from England in 1754. Under its spreading lindens, through the fine colonial doorway so beautifully carved, many distinguished guests have passed, and here Ralph Waldo Emerson was married to Lydia Jackson, who was born in the picturesque house just beyond, almost hidden in trees and vines. A drive toward the south will take us by some of the oldest houses. From the one with a dyke in front, Adoniram Judson, the famous Baptist missionary, took his departure for Burmah. His devoted sister then vowed that no one should cross the threshold until his return, and the door-step was taken away. Grass grew over the pathway, and the front door remained closed, for he died at sea, in 1850. As we pass the handsome new building of the High School, it is good to remember, in this Plymouth of eight thousand inhabitants, paying thirty-four thousand dollars for last year’s “schooling,” that in 1672 it was decided that Plymouth’s school, supported by the rents of her southerly common-lands, was entitled to £33, the fishing excise from the Cape, offered to any town which would keep a _free_ colonial school, classical as well as elementary. And in that free school began an early struggle of the three R’s against Latin and Greek. From Plymouth went Nathaniel Brewster, a graduate of Harvard’s first class of 1642, and the first of a long line of Plymouth students to enter Harvard. Past the blue Eel River, flowing gently through shining green meadows to the sea, we may drive along quiet roads in Plymouth Woods, under sweet pines and sturdy oaks, by the shore of many a calm pond, sparkling in its setting of white beach sand. We cross old Indian trails, perhaps, and skirt acre after acre of level cranberry-bogs, pink and white, like a sheet of delicate sprig-muslin, when in bloom, and bright with the crimson fruit in early autumn. In these woods in their season bloom sweet mayflowers, the rare rhodora, the sabbatia, sundew and corema, and there many another treasure may be found by those who know how to seek!