turf beside them. If the ground was not consecrated, it was hallowed by
the tears and prayers of parents and children.

These household graves became the more interesting to me on learning
that when a farm is disposed of to a stranger, the right of burying
their dead is generally stipulated for by the former possessor.

You must bear with me if I occasionally weary you with dwelling on
trifles. To me nothing that bears the stamp of novelty is devoid of
interest. Even the clay-built ovens stuck upon four legs at a little
distance from the houses were not unnoticed in passing. When there is
not the convenience of one of these ovens outside the dwellings, the
bread is baked in large iron pots--"_bake-kettles_" they are termed. I
have already seen a loaf as big as a peck measure baking on the hearth
in one of these kettles, and tasted of it, too; but I think the confined
steam rather imparts a peculiar taste to the bread, which you do not
perceive in the loaves baked in brick or clay ovens. At first I could
not make out what these funny little round buildings, perched upon four
posts, could be; and I took them for bee-hives till I spied a good woman
drawing some nice hot loaves out of one that stood on a bit of waste
land on the roadside, some fifty yards from the cottage.

Besides the ovens every house had a draw-well near it, which differed in
the contrivance for raising the water from those I had seen in the old
country. The plan is very simple:--a long pole, supported by a post,
acts as a lever to raise the bucket, and the water can be raised by a
child with very trifling exertion. This method is by many persons
preferred to either rope or chain, and from its simplicity can be
constructed by any person at the mere trouble of fixing the poles. I
mention this merely to show the ingenuity of people in this country, and