At a respectful distance from the mansion were smaller houses of brick or stone, far enough removed from "the great house" to secure the master's quiet and privacy. In one, a five-roomed building served for schoolhouse and lodging-rooms for the tutor and boys of the family. Another was "the office" for the transaction of business with agents from the other plantations of the master, or with captains of trading vessels lying at his wharf, laden with outgoing tobacco, or unloading the liquors, books, musical instruments, and fine stuffs for the family. In the rear, hidden by maple or cherry trees, were many houses: wash-house, dairy, bake-house, storehouses, and a kitchen as large as the five-roomed schoolhouse, for the sole use of the great High Priest--the cook--and her family. "All these formed a handsome street," adds Mr. Fithian (the New Jersey Presbyterian tutor, whom nothing escaped), and all were surrounded with little gardens and poultry-yards, and enlivened with swarms of chickens, ducks, pigs, and little negroes. Remote from these were the great stables, well filled and admirably regulated. The kitchens of these later mansions were always a long distance away, because that source of comfort, the black cook, had so many satellites revolving around her and drawing sustenance, light, and warmth from her centre, that it was absolutely necessary to give her elbow-room. The satellites, however, had their uses. At dinner-time, each one with shining face, robed in a great apron to supplement various trouser deficiencies, and bearing covered dishes, formed a solemn procession back and forth to the dining room. There the frosty eye of the gray-haired butler awed them into perfect decorum; and in the kitchen the vigorous arm of the cook kept them well within bounds, along with the hounds, and, like them, devouring with hopeful eyes the delicious viands in course of preparation.