Isaiah Thrasher found all the religious freedom for which he sought in Sunkset; for there was practically nothing in Sunkset but religious freedom and cranberries. He died at the age of eighty-two, and his house passed into the hands of his nephew, Jared Titcomb, who was noted on Cape Cod for being the champion cranberry-sauce-eater of the district, and also for having accounted for three British soldiers just after the battle of Concord by pushing a stone wall over on them. Jared Titcomb in turn bequeathed the house to his son-in-law, Rufus Whipplefish, who was noted for nothing, so far as can be learned; and when Rufus died, the house descended to his son, Elon D. Whipplefish, who had the reputation of making the hardest cider in Duke’s County. It was from this owner that the house took its name—the Elon D. Whipplefish house—and it was through this owner that I became familiar with the house, its history, and its contents. The house stood well out on the outskirts of Sunkset, surrounded by a heavy growth of apple trees, pine trees, lilacs, willows, rosa rugosa, actinidia arguta, stinkbush, poplars, and cranberries. For this reason it had been overlooked by antique-hunters, who buzz around Cape Cod in the spring, summer, and autumn with the same eagerness with which flies buzz around a cow in September. I shall never forget the thrill which shot through me, therefore, when my friend L——, who rather fancies himself as an antique-collector, but who never knows enough to collect anything until some one has told him that it is worth collecting, came to me one day and stated that he had visited an old house near Sunkset, but that there was nothing in it worth having. In fact, said he, the old man who owned the house was probably a nut, since he was saving an old chest that had no top and no legs, and looked like something the cat brought in. The flash of second-sight which should be possessed by all true antique-lovers, and which almost never deserts me except when I am confronted by a reproduction so perfect as to deceive even the man who made it, warned me that this chest was probably something very rare and unusual, and possibly even a most important piece of Americana. With an air of careless unconcern perfected by years of antique-hunting—an air, I may add, which must be cultivated by all persons who hope to make a success of antiqueing—I obtained from my friend L—— complete directions as to the location of the House Of The Chest. As soon as L—— had gone on his way, I dropped my air of unconcern, snatched up a pint flask of gin, which I find to be of inestimable value in dealing with the stern and rockbound New-Englanders, and hastened at once to Sunkset.