I used sometimes to feel a little resentment at my fate in not
having been born at the old Beverly Farms home-place, as my
father and uncles and aunts and some of my cousins had been. But
perhaps I had more of the romantic and legendary charm of it than
if I had been brought up there, for my father, in his
communicative moods, never wearied of telling us about his
childhood; and we felt that we still held a birthright claim upon
that picturesque spot through him. Besides, it was only three or
four miles away, and before the day of railroads, that was
thought nothing of as a walk, by young or old.

But, in fact, I first saw the light in the very middle of
Beverly, in full view of the town clock and the Old South
steeple. (I believe there is an "Old South" in nearly all these
first-settled cities and villages of Eastern Massachusetts. The
town wore a half-rustic air of antiquity then, with its old-
fashioned people and weather-worn houses; for I was born while my
mother-century was still in her youth, just rounding the first
quarter of her hundred years.

Primitive ways of doing things had not wholly ceased during, my
childhood; they were kept up in these old towns longer than
elsewhere. We used tallow candles and oil lamps, and sat by open
fireplaces. There was always a tinder-box in some safe corner or
other, and fire was kindled by striking flint and steel upon the
tinder. What magic it seemed to me, when I was first allowed to
strike that wonderful spark, and light the kitchen fire!

The fireplace was deep, and there was a "settle" in the chimney