Perhaps you may think that with only a puncheon shutter at the window, we must perforce sit in darkness when it storms, or in cold weather admit too much frost in order to have light. But let me tell you that our windows are closed quite as well as yours, though not so nicely. We brought from home some stout paper, and this, plentifully oiled, we nailed across the window space. Of course we cannot look out to see anything; but the light finds its way through readily. A CHIMNEY WITHOUT BRICKS I had almost forgotten to tell you how father built a chimney without either bricks or mortar, for of course we had none of those things when we first made our village. [Illustration] Our chimney is of logs plastered plentifully with clay, and fastened to the outside of the building, with a hole cut through the side of the house that the fireplace may be joined to it. The fireplace itself is built of clay, made into walls as one would lay up bricks, and held firmly together by being mixed with dried beach grass. It looks somewhat like a large, square box, open in front, and with sides and ends at least two feet thick. It is so large that Sarah and I might stand inside, if so be the heat from the fire was not too great, and look straight out through it at the sky. Father drags in, as if he were a horse, logs which are much larger around than is my body, and mother, or one of the neighbors, helps him roll them into the big fireplace where, once aflame, they burn from one morning until another. BUILDING THE FIRE The greatest trouble we have, or did have during our first winter here, was in holding the fire, for the wood, having just been cut in the forest, is green, and the fire very like to desert it unless we keep close watch. Neither mother nor I can strike a spark with flint and steel as ably as can many women in the village; therefore, when, as happened four or five times, we lost our fire, one of us took a strip of green bark, or a shovel, and borrowed from whosoever of our neighbors had the brightest blaze, enough of coals to set our own hearth warm again. [Illustration] Some of the housewives who are more skilled in the use of firearms than my mother or myself, kindle a blaze by flashing a little powder in the pan of a gun, allowing the flame to strike upon the tinder, and thus be carried to shavings of dry wood. It is a speedy way of getting fire; but one needs to be well used to the method, else the fingers or the face will get more of heat than does the tinder. Father cautions us against such practice, declaring that he will not allow his weapons to remain unloaded simply for kitchen use, when at any moment the need may arise for a ready bullet. But we have in Plymouth one chimney of which even you in Scrooby might be proud. MASTER BRADFORD'S CHIMNEY