Cupboards were found in all the houses and they were of various kinds and sizes, to fit into different places and for many uses. One parlor piece was a kind of writing-desk, the scrutaire, spelled in many ways in old inventories and at present time secretary. There were tables of many kinds. There were dressers and dressing-glasses in frames of walnut and olive-wood and with gilt and japanned frames. The chest was an indispensable piece of furniture and there were all kinds and sizes and of different woods and some had most beautiful carvings and inlayings. These chests were greatly needed for each household had an abundance of household linen and many a goodly quantity of silver. The time was told by means of sun-dials and hour-glasses, but there were also numbers of watches and clocks among the colonists and later there were all kinds of clocks for sale. Chairs were in use very little, if at all, in early colonial days, as stools and benches took their place. Later chairs were greatly in use and of many kinds. There were three general kinds--turned chairs, in which the seats were often of flags and rushes; wainscot chairs, being all of wood, including backs and seats; and covered chairs, sometimes covered with leather and again with rich cloths, velvets, etc. Cane chairs were not introduced into the colonies till quite a late period. The one piece of furniture that more than any other was a distinguishing mark of class was the bed, which graded from none at all in the cabin of the very poor to the great bed of state in the parlor of the very wealthy. There was, sometimes from poverty, sometimes from other causes, no bed in the house of a colonist, all sleeping on the floor, usually though, having placed on it deer, buffalo, or bear skins. Sometimes a pallet of bed-clothing was spread on the floor. In other homes there was but one bed for the father and mother, the rest of the family sleeping on the floor. Sometimes the bed was nothing more than a wooden box with bedding on it. The primitive fashion of sleeping on the floor might have occurred in any or all of the homes of the very early settlers and especially so when they lived in caves and wigwams and under trees, but it was not very long till beds were brought in from Europe or made in this country and there became a great variety in style and price.