My Road To Rotary

Chapter 3

Our 14 Room House

ALTHOUGH GRANDFATHER’S house was not large, there were fourteen rooms in it beside pantries and sundry nondescript ells used mostly for storage and a large attic. Of the fourteen rooms only seven were in regular use. There were four guest chambers, three of which were seldom occupied; the fourth, to my knowledge, never. The south parlor was used when we had guests; the north parlor being thrown open but twice during the eighteen years I lived in the house. The first opening occurred during the visit of distinguished relatives from the West, and the second, for grandfather’s funeral.

Evidences of good housekeeping were to be seen everywhere about our house. The table linen was always spotlessly clean, and here and there on the surface, a neatly laid patch was to be seen, mute but eloquent testimony to New England thrift and loving care. I never see such patches on table linens without an accompanying flood of tender recollections. They are indicative of the presence of the spirit that counts; the memory of which, cannot be obliterated by the passage of years.

Even staunchly built New England houses may disappear as a result of storm, flood or fire, but memories of homes where love abides, are imperishable. When one looks back over a long period of years, much which once seemed important, fades into insignificance, while other things grow into such commanding importance that one may in truth say, “Nothing else matters.” Sacrifice, devotion, honor, truth, sincerity, love—these are the homely virtues characteristic of good, old-fashioned homes.

Grandmother’s kitchen was like the works of a clock; the engine of a motor vehicle; the heart of a human being. In the kitchen, the power which controlled the domestic affairs of the house was generated. The kitchen was a hive of industry.

Monday was an especially busy day; all the machinery was put in mesh; even grandfather had his part. He kept the fire under the stationary boiler burning briskly, using only white birch wood which fired quickly and produced a high degree of heat at precisely the right time. Grandfather also kept the reservoir on the back of the stove full of water available for the wash tubs or the boiler as Delia might need. Soft water only was considered fit for washing dishes, for washing clothes on Mondays, or for our tub baths on Saturday nights. Soft water, homemade soft soap, and soft wood fires under the boiler were an unbeatable combination in the war against uncleanliness. The pump at the sink in the kitchen never failed to yield the needed supply of soft water from the cistern and the spout in the summer kitchen was equally faithful in its undertaking to supply all needs of cold hard water for drinking, cooking, refrigeration and sewage disposal purposes.

The kitchen was versatile indeed; it could turn its talents to service as a bakery on bake days, a dairy on butter making days, a butcher shop during sausage making, trying out lard and salting meats. The duties of the kitchen also included a hundred and one unclassified services such as canning fruit, rag rug making, etc., etc.

Of course the kitchen had the summer kitchen to fall back on when its own resources were overtaxed. The summer kitchen was supplied with a sink of its own in which dishes could be washed in case the kitchen sink was being used for other purposes. All the churning was done in the summer kitchen, grandfather supplying what Mr. Jerome Hilliard might have designated as “elbow grease.”

The summer kitchen was the repository of the rag bag into which all surplus rags were put and held for the coming of the ragman. The rag bag played an important part in our domestic economy as it paid for all brooms, dusters, tin ware and other odds and ends.

The summer kitchen was provided with a coal bin and space for neat piles of wood sufficient for immediate needs. There was, as I know, never any jealousy between the kitchen and the summer kitchen. The kitchen knew that it was the hub of our little universe and the summer kitchen was content to play a subordinate role.

The kitchen was also blessed with two butteries (pantries), the larger of the two opening into the dining room, thus saving many steps. The dishes, all except chinaware, were also kept in the larger of the two butteries; there were also three barrels, one of which contained wheat flour, one buckwheat flour, and the third sugar. Kitchen utensils, eggs and many other household utilities, were kept in the larger of the two butteries.

The small buttery was reserved for milk, cooked meats, fruit and other food which needed to be kept cool. This small buttery was protected all the year round against even the most penetrating rays of the sun. Winter accumulations of snow along the outer wall of this small buttery remained late in the spring after it had disappeared elsewhere, except perhaps from the top of Killington Peak. To grandmother, the larger buttery was always the “south buttery” and the smaller one the “north buttery,” but by what process of reasoning I have never known, as both butteries had been wisely located on the north side of the house.

Of course the kitchen could not have played its stellar role so successfully had it not been for the huge, three-roomed deep cellar which kept bulky vegetables and fruits extra cool even in the summer months. The potatoes of course had to be sprouted when the warm days served notice that the sun had issued its annual proclamation to all living things to come out and get warm.

Our great box refrigeration through which the cold spring water Incessantly flowed on its way to the lavatory played an especially Important part during the period when we had our cow. The butter was made in the summer kitchen, after which it was stored in big earthen crocks and placed in the great box where it was kept cool by the constantly flowing water.

Vermont farmers, who were fortunate enough to have springs near their houses, frequently built small houses over them and within their walls the dairy operations were conducted and the dairy products stored for use by the family or for sale when accumulated in sufficient quantities. Butter and eggs were sold at the store where the family traded, or, in some cases, exchanged for needed commodities. Cool spring houses with their odors of fresh cream and butter were about the sweetest places there were on old-fashioned farms and how refreshing it was to step into the spring house on hot days in summer.

The water from the spring was generally carried through pump logs to the barnyard where hot, thirsty horses, coming in from the fields, could refresh themselves in contentment and where all other farm animals could enjoy the cool, flowing water. Modem electric refrigerators may be more efficient but they never can match the sweetness of the old-fashioned spring houses of mountain farms.

In the old days many farm women made cheese as well as butter but that practice ceased when the cheese factories came. Vermont green cheese, sometimes called sage cheese, gained an enviable reputation throughout the state and throughout New England. I can still see our cheese maker, Martin Williams, with his mortar and pestle preparing his sage for use in his great vats of curds. It was his custom to mix tender clover leaves with the sage so that it would not taste too strong. Alas! the cheese making industry in Vermont was short lived as it was replaced by the famous Herkimer County New York State cheese long before Wisconsin became the cheese making state of America.

Creameries were the next in order. Cheese factories were turned into creameries and Vermont farmers brought their whole milk and took away the skimmed milk to be fed to their pigs just as before.

The cream was separated from the milk, cooled and placed in large cans which were put into heavy stuffed jackets and shipped by fast trains to Boston or New York where it arrived in time for breakfast. This practice with some refinements still continues and doubtless will continue until the aeroplane changes the present order. Most thrifty Vermont farmers have their own cream separators now.

As compared with many New England houses our house is not old, even now being only one hundred years old or thereabouts; that is to say that it is only about as old as the city of Chicago where houses quickly come and go. It is as staunch to-day as when built and, if no untoward circumstances disturb the serenity of its mounting years, it is doubtless destined to be really old, even In the New England sense, sometime in the centuries to come.

To passing automobiles on the Ethan Allen Highway, it is distinguishable by two large letters “H.H.” worked out in the pattern of its imperishable roof of slate. The letters stand for Howard Harris, my benefactor and grandfather. The house is now owned by Mr. and Mrs. R. C. Taft who have raised a fine family in it.

How the house happened to be built so recently was due to a misfortune which at the time seemed calamitous. The original residence was destroyed by fire one Christmas night. The fire began in grandfather’s store which, for convenience, had been built near the house.

Of the days of the reconstruction of the house, I have never learned anything except the fact that the versatile carpenter employed his spare hours, when the weather interfered with his building operations, in making grandfather a pair of fine boots. In conformity with the prevailing fashion they were made to reach nearly to the knees, although shoes would have been far more comfortable and equally serviceable.

These boots were light in weight, very soft and pliable and they served him as best boots for nearly forty years. During that period, they were worn every Sunday and when grandfather was traveling; in fact, on all special occasions and, when he was finally laid away, his weary feet were tenderly placed in the soft, pliable top boots made by the versatile carpenter.