She is fire-proof, just like her grandmother, thought he.
“I supposed log houses were stuffed between the logs with clay and moss; mother said so; but I couldn’t put the point of my scissors between these logs.”
“So they were,” said he; “but this is an improved one. Ben means, when he is able, to make this room into two, and have a fireplace in each; and a couple of nice rooms they will make.”
“I am glad he didn’t do any more. Now, I want to see the kitchen; I care the most about that. This is a splendid one; what nice dressers and drawers! but where is the oven? Why, it’s stone; ain’t it a beauty; how smooth it is!” said she, putting in her head and shoulders, and feeling all around it with her hands. “I don’t see how folks can make such nice things of stone. I wish we had a candle.”
She was, if possible, more delighted with the chamber than anything else.
“How high it is!” she said; “what a capital place this would be to spin and weave in! Well, now I’ve seen the whole.”
“No, you haven’t;” and here he opened the door in the side of the chimney, and let her look in.
“Why, what in the world is this for?”
“This is a smoke-house; you see it’s on one side of the chimney, so that there won’t be heat enough go in there to melt the hams or fish. All you have to do, when you want to smoke anything, is to hang it up on these lug-poles, and the common fire you have every day will smoke it. It’ll be a nice place for Ben, when he has an ox-yoke, wooden bowl, or shovel to season or toughen. Now I want you to see the cellar.”
He pulled from his pocket a horn filled with tinder, and striking a spark into it with a flint and steel, kindled a piece of pitch-wood, and they went down.