The white porch, with its high roof and two severely¹ plain pillars to support it; the heavy door, with its ponderous² knocker; the straggling sweetbrier at one side; the forlorn yellow rose between the parlor³ windows; the grass that was too cold to welcome a dandelion; the low box hedge, and one huge box bush that never sheltered a bird’s nest; all these were in front to solemnly greet that terror of my early days,—company.

To me these front-door features all meant, and still mean, restraint; but how different the world that lingered about the old farm-house kitchen door! There was no cold formality there, but freedom,—the healthy freedom of old clothes, an old hat; ay, even the luxury of an open-throated shirt was allowed.

104After a tramp over the meadows, after a day’s fishing, after the round of the rabbit-traps in winter, what joy to enter the kitchen door and breathe in the delectable⁴ odor of hot gingerbread! There were appetites in those days.

I do not understand the mechanism⁵ of a modern kitchen: it looks to me like a small machine-shop; but the old farm kitchen was a simple affair, and the intricacies and mystery lay wholly in the dishes evolved. It is said of my grandmother that a whiff of her sponge-cake brought the humming-birds about. I do know there was a crackly crust upon it which it is useless now to try to imitate.

But the door itself—we have none such now. It was a double door in two ways. It was made of narrow strips of oak, oblique⁶ on one side and straight on the other, and so studded with nails that the whole affair was almost half metal. It was cut in two, having an upper and a lower section. The huge wooden latch⁷ was hard and smooth as ivory. At night the door was fastened by a hickory bar, which, when I grew strong enough to lift it, was my favorite hobby-horse.

105The heavy oak sill was worn in the middle until its upper surface was beautifully curved, and to keep the rain out, when the wind was south, a canvas sand-bag was rolled against it. A stormy-day amusement was to pull this away on the sly, and sail tiny paper boats in the

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