AN OLD HOUSE
Chapter 4
(For Alice B. Glover)
“One of the most fascinating things about the Winnipesaukee region, about all New Hampshire, too, for that matter, but particularly about the lake, is the number of old houses one passes while driving or walking. Silent evidence of the integrity with which their builders built, of the soundness of the wood they chose, of the painstaking care and respect not only they themselves, but their children, and, largely, their children’s children had for property, these houses today present sound roof-trees and solid sills, And those transients who, having heard the siren call of New Hampshire, are buying these old houses for summer homes appreciate those early builders and their careful sons.
This is not to say that all old house in New Hampshire are sound. But one drives for many miles in the lakes region and in the hill country before finding a deserted cellar hold or a house left alone to tumble in, a pitiful dead thing, or dying, like a leper. Nor it is a great distance from New Hampshire, in a sister New England state, that the roadside is dotted with just such forlorn spectacles. We were discussing that the other day, and I suggested as the answer that perhaps these deserted houses were too near to industrial center, that having found the soil too unyielding, too filled with rocks, that the early owners had heeded the call of industry and gone away from agriculture to machines. Up here, where industry is largely confined fo four or five cities, the vicissitudes and rigors of the climate hardened the moral fibre of the people, and while the life of a farmer was not easy, and the ownership of acreage entailed in addition to raising his crop, the eternal wrestling with granite rocks and boulders cast up by the frost, and the everlasting fight to keep the forest down in his tillable acres, he stuck to his plow longer, and his sons and grandsons followed him in his house, building on when new members of his family demanded the room, repairing the inroads that our northern winters made, until today, most of the old houses are a monument to their families, and a joy to those who, while appreciative of modern conveniences yet cherish these sign-posts along America’s journey forward.
I am minded as I think of old houses, of one on a hill on Long Island. It is situated off the road, sufficiently far so that the dust in the summer is not a problem, in the center of a meadow sweet with buttercups and white-weed and Queen Anne’s lace and milk-weed; a meadow where we found gay butterflies and humming bees that August afternoon its delightful chatelaine took us there. On us, as we stood on its porch, the Ossipee smiled, and from all about it Winnipesaukee sparkled in a blue surpassed not even by the sky from which she took it. Beside it, towering majestically, so that it seemed the highest living thing on the island, and the most noble, was as magnificent an elm as I have ever seen. Peace, contentment, quiet, all tat the soul most wished for, seemed to put out their arms from every window, begging one to come in, or to loaf in pleasure about the grounds outside. Only my car was an anachronism, everything else belonged, most especially our hostess.
And after we had feasted to surfeit outside, we went in. One having been there will never forget the sense fo home about the place, a sense that no city house, no matter how long it may have been lived in, will ever give. For here, within as without, everything belongs. There is the great central chimney, serving three fireplaces; the long rows of books beside the fire in the living-room; the huge beds, in which at night one must sink to rest and a sleep more filled with Peace than ever elsewhere. And if, in making her home here, my gracious hostess replace the drab old bricks in the fireplaces with quartz crystals gathered in the fields about the house, who shall say the spirt of this house is harmed? For surely, at night when the flames in these fireplaces leap upward in a thousand facets to simulate the jewels Ali Baba found in his cave, surely no one then could wish back the red bricks.
Beyond the living room is the carriage shed, a part of the house, whose rafters are hung with bats, They too, belong. And in its loft, a confine too small to permit its display, is a loon, remnant of the early days of home industry whose products, rough to be sure, were more than serviceable, And on the doorsill, whence one in the morning greets the rising sun, is nailed a compass, brass studs pointing true north. How long have they been there I do not know, but like the house itself, they have weathered winters and summers, lo, these many years.
I am told that when winter comes, and Winnipesaukee is frozen, that the smile of the great spirit yet remains, that from this hill and from this house it sparkles with a different radiance. I am told too, that when the snow comes, great flakes dance down from the Ossipees, from the Green Mountains even, swept by the wind across the hill on an almost never ending journey towards the sea. This, I have not seen.
But this I know: that houses, like coins and authors, grow dear as they grow old, and New Hampshire has many that are of great price. From the look of peace on her face as she spoke of this old house, I know that old as it is, and as dear, it will continue to be new, for its mistress is the sort who gathers in new friends. Their pleasure in her house will make each charming corner new to her again.”
