I wish you might see it after mother and I have covered it well with clean white sand from the seashore, and marked it in pretty patterns of vines and leaves: but this last we do only when making the house ready for meeting, or for some great feast.
At the windows are shutters made of puncheons, as is also the door, and both are hung with straps of leather in the stead of real hinges.
Perhaps you may think that with only a puncheon shutter at the window, we must perforce sit in darkness when it storms, or in cold weather admit too much frost in order to have light. But let me tell you that our windows are closed quite as well as yours, though not so nicely. We brought from home some stout paper, and this, plentifully oiled, we nailed across the window space. Of course we cannot look out to see anything; but the light finds its way through readily.
A CHIMNEY WITHOUT BRICKS
I had almost forgotten to tell you how father built a chimney without either bricks or mortar, for of course we had none of those things when we first made our village.
Our chimney is of logs plastered plentifully with clay, and fastened to the outside of the building, with a hole cut through the side of the house that the fireplace may be joined to it.
The fireplace itself is built of clay, made into walls as one would lay up bricks, and held firmly together by being mixed with dried beach grass.
It looks somewhat like a large, square box, open in front, and with sides and ends at least two feet thick. It is so large that Sarah and I might stand inside, if so be the heat from the fire was not too great, and look straight out through it at the sky.