But, by and by, when comfortable houses began to be built and window glass had become less rare, we find the dwellings after the old English style of houses. The more wealthy colonists built great square buildings; the rooms arranged, as it seemed, around a great central chimney in the middle of the house. "They built the chimney," says one writer, "and then fitted the rooms to the chimney." Perhaps they did; it might seem so. At any rate each room had its own great open fireplace, the warm red flames from which leaped and sprang up into the secret places and out of sight—all in this one great chimney. It was a long time before stoves were invented; and a long time again before a kind was invented that would really warm the rooms and be of use. The very first stoves, it is said, were built into the walls; and when wood was to be put on the fire, some one had to go out of doors to do it, the door of the stove being on the outside of the house.

But the old open fireplaces with their cheerful fires were one of the very best features of colonial life. Here in the long winter evenings the families would sit talking and telling wonderful stories, roasting chestnuts and apples, and having just the very best of social times. You will not wonder that they lingered around their cheerful fires and were inclined to make the evening long when you hear what crude beds they often had in these same comfortable houses.

Of course among the very wealthiest of the colonists at this time there were great bedsteads, and warm feather beds, such as one often sees now in country places, where the people are wise enough to still cling to their rich, old-fashioned furniture. But among the less favored classes the beds were not, I am afraid, the most comfortable things in the world, and certainly they were not very handsome pieces of furniture by any means.

One way of building up a sleeping place was to make two holes in the wall and into these to drive two poles. These poles served for the sides of the bed-frame. Then two upright posts were erected, with holes in them into which the side poles were driven. A cross beam from post to post and the bed-frame was complete. Then slats were laid across, or, when possible, ropes were woven in and out, a great bag of hay or straw, sometimes pine boughs, were laid on this—then the bed was complete. But simple and easy to make as these beds and bed-steads were, many strange stories are told of the scarcity of beds in the little taverns here and there at which travelers from town to town must stop over night.

"In England," wrote one colonist, "we were accustomed at the tavern to have a room and a bed and a privilege of bolting our door; it will be so here by and by when we have grown a little more settled in our new land, and have had time and means to make more furniture. At present, however, if we go to bed alone in a tavern, it is by no means sure that some fellow-traveler will not, when we awake, be found sleeping soundly in the same bed, having thrown himself down by our side or perhaps across the foot of the bed."

Furniture, too, of all kinds, was not common in the very first years of colonial life. The wealthiest people had their furniture brought from England; but in those days of slow sailing vessels such importation was far too expensive for poor families. The chairs and tables were accordingly home made, like the bedsteads, and were rude and rough, not very comfortable, but "good enough for now," as the patient, hardworking people would say to each other as now and then they would recall their more comfortable English homes. "Our chairs and tables were better, no doubt, in England," some father would say, "but we can forego all that for the blessed liberty of this country and by and by we shall have them all again."

A few long boards laid across carpenters' horses for a table, some long boards arranged bench-fashion around the room against the walls, and the house was ready for a husking party or a quilting bee or any other good time; and the "time" was nowise any less "good" that the furniture and preparations were so simple.

Carpets were rarely seen then, even in the finest houses. The floors were sanded; and in the best room, as they called their parlors, the sand was lined off into squares or diamonds which suited the proud housekeeper's ambition quite as well as a real carpet with its squares and diamonds.