of the apartment. The dim glimmer of some pewter mugs standing on a
shelf behind the bar is the only spot of reflected light in the room,
whose time-stained, unpainted woodwork, dingy plastering, and low
ceiling, thrown into shadows by the rude and massive crossbeams, seems
capable of swallowing up without a sign ten times the illumination
actually provided. The faces of four or five men, standing near the
bar, or lounging on it, are quite plainly visible, and the forms of
half a dozen more who are seated on a long settle placed against the
opposite wall, are more dimly to be seen, while in the back part of
the room, leaning against the posts or walls, or lounging in the open
doorway, a dozen or more figures loom indistinctly out of the
darkness.

The tavern, it must be remembered, as a convivial resort, is the social
antipodes of the back room of Squire Edwards' "store." If you would
consort with silk-stockinged, wigged, and silver shoe-buckled gentlemen,
you must just step over there, for at the tavern are only to be found
the hewers of wood and drawers of water, mechanics, farm-laborers, and
farmers. Ezra Phelps and Israel Goodrich, the former the owner of the
new gristmill at "Mill Hollow," a mile west of the village, the other
a substantial farmer, with their corduroy coats and knee-breeches, blue
woolen hose and steel shoe buckles, are the most socially considerable
and respectably attired persons present.

Perhaps about half the men and boys are barefooted, according to the
economical custom of a time when shoes in summer are regarded as
luxuries not necessities. The costume of most is limited to shirt and
trousers, the material for which their own hands or those of their
women-folk have sheared, spun, woven and dyed. Some of the better
dressed wear trousers of blue and white striped stuff, of the kind