“Why yes, child, what else did you suppose they had to make houses out of? They had to have something to live in, right off. The sawmills came later.” “I didn’t know anything about it,” said Betsy. “Tell me about it.” “Why you knew, didn’t you—your Aunt Harriet must have told you—about how our folks came up here from Connecticut in 1763, on horseback! Connecticut was an old settled place then, compared to Vermont. There wasn’t anything here but trees and bears and wood-pigeons. I’ve heard ’em say that the wood-pigeons were so thick you could go out after dark and club ’em out of the trees, just like hens roosting in a hen-house. There always was cold pigeon-pie in the pantry, just the way we have doughnuts. And they used bear-grease to grease their boots and their hair, bears were so plenty. It sounds like good eating, don’t it! But of course that was just at first. It got quite settled up before long, and by the time of the Revolution, bears were getting pretty scarce, and soon the wood-pigeons were all gone.” “And the schoolhouse—that schoolhouse where I went today—was that built THEN?” Elizabeth Ann found it hard to believe. “Yes, it used to have a great big chimney and fireplace in it. It was built long before stoves were invented, you know.” “Why, I thought stoves were ALWAYS invented!” cried Elizabeth Ann. This was the most startling and interesting conversation she had ever taken part in. Aunt Abigail laughed. “Mercy, no, child! Why, _I_ can remember when only folks that were pretty well off had stoves and real poor people still cooked over a hearth fire. I always thought it a pity they tore down the big chimney and fireplace out of the schoolhouse and put in that big, ugly stove. But folks are so daft over new-fangled things. Well, anyhow, they couldn’t take away the sun-dial on the window-sill. You want to be sure to look at that. It’s on the sill of the middle window on the right hand as you face the teacher’s desk.” “Sun-dial,” repeated Betsy. “What’s that?” “Why to tell the time by, when—” “Why didn’t they have a clock?” asked the child. Aunt Abigail laughed. “Good gracious, there was only one clock in the valley for years and years, and that belonged to the Wardons, the rich people in the village. Everybody had sun-dials cut in their window-sills. There’s one on the window-sill of our pantry this minute. Come on, I’ll show it to you.” She got up heavily with her pan of apples, and trotted briskly, shaking the floor as she went, over to the stove. “But first just watch me put these on to cook so you’ll know how.” She set the pan on the stove, poured some water from the tea-kettle over the apples, and put on a cover. “Now come on into the pantry.” They entered a sweet-smelling, spicy little room, all white paint, and shelves which were loaded with dishes and boxes and bags and pans of milk and jars of preserves.