Sometimes food was hung down the well, country fashion, to keep cool. It was a sad day when the leg of mutton dropped in, since herculean efforts were required to bring it up. It was naturally mutton which made this unlucky descent, for at that time the local butcher kept little else. Sometimes my father had beef sent down by freight from Boston—only to have it seized by the agents of Kinsley’s express and carried to their office. This delayed the meat in transit and obliged us to pay express charges without express benefit. For this company did not deliver goods at Lawton’s Valley, nor did we desire to have them do so. Hence much friction between Kinsley’s express and my father. Rhode Island mutton and lamb are, or were, very good. One day an old friend of my mother’s drove out from Newport and was invited to stay to midday dinner. The feelings of the hostess can be imagined when the guest oracularly observed, “My grandfather Gray could never eat lamb, and I never can!” Fortunately there was a little chicken to help out the situation. The words of Grandfather Gray became a byword in our family. Our house was not in the valley itself but stood half-way down the slope of a hill, being thus protected from the wind that blows constantly over the island. Mr. C——, who sold the place to my father, was the victim of the drink habit. Finding him lying prostrate on the ground, much the worse for liquor, father poured away the contents of the jug standing near, and led away the man’s horse, so that he would be obliged to sober up before starting to get a fresh supply of rum. Some Lowestoft ware marked with the family initials and some good old furniture, which we bought, showed that the family had seen better days. The inhabitants of the island, with some notable exceptions have suffered from an insular habit of intermarriage. This has, we will hope, lessened with the invasion of Rhode Island by outlanders, bringing prosperity with them. Not long ago, however, when a man or woman married “off the island,” it was mentioned with a certain regret, as being not quite the thing to do. The methods of cultivating the soil were surprisingly primitive. It was very much run down, the principal fertilizer being deceased fish. Car-loads of menhaden were scattered broadcast over the fields, and left there to rot. Oh, how they smelled to heaven! We did not cultivate our land after this fashion, but, alas! our neighbors did! Fortunately, menhaden became valuable for other purposes and their use as a fertilizer was abandoned. As Rhode Island was founded by excellent but visionary people, refugees from the stern, logical rule of the Puritans, its laws are peculiar. On a Fourth of July in the ’Sixties, I inquired for brandy at an apothecary shop in Newport.