They bade him good night and he disappeared into the rapidly falling shadows, while the young fellows trooped riotously into the house.
On a stand in the hall they found a candle and matches, which they lit at once and commenced a tour of inspection.
It was a typical New England farmhouse of the better class, rather more spacious, perhaps, than the majority, and certainly more rambling. The original central building, square and severely plain, had been added to from time to time, a room here, a wing there, until the size of the house had been more than doubled.
This effect was heightened by the long kitchen extension protruding at the rear, which was connected, through the milk room and woodsheds, to the big barn behind, so that the whole mass of buildings, all weatherworn to a harmonious gray, had quite an imposing appearance.
The explorers passed through a room on the right of the hall, which seemed to have been used as a sitting room, and into the dining room behind, which had evidently been the original kitchen. There was a huge chimney here which was not plastered up as it is in many old houses, but gaped wide, a glorious, cavernous opening so vast that it took up almost the entire end of the room, and could accommodate five-foot logs with ease. The hearth, which extended far out into the room, was made of square stone slabs of varying sizes, all of which had been worn smooth by the feet of many generations.
“Gee! What a dandy fireplace!” Fitzgerald exclaimed, as he paused before it in admiration. “The late Mr. Hickey certainly had good taste. Can’t you imagine toasting your feet here of a cold winter’s night, with the wind howling around outside and a regular blizzard raging?”
“We’ll have to try it after supper,” Dick said. “We can’t scrape up a blizzard for you, Fitz, but I expect it will be cold enough for a fire, all the same.”
“You bet your boots,” Buckhart put in. “I’m cold already.”
“My goodneth, yeth!” agreed Joblots, shivering in his resplendant hunting suit. “No furnace heat, I thuppoth.”
Fitz snickered, and they passed on to the kitchen, which proved to be fitted up with a modern range and all the conveniences. In fact, the whole house was comfortably furnished to the smallest detail, and everything was so clean and neat and attractive that the fellows were highly elated at their good fortune.