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curious eyes out. On the porch below the
window was an antique settee, or settle, which had a certain historical
significance as Lafayette is supposed to have sat on it on his way
through town.
One day I caught a glimpse of Billy White day-dreaming on
the porch beside this historic piece. "What fun it would be,"
thought I, "to pour some water out the window and wake him
from his dreams." So I quietly got the water pitcher and emptied
its contents in such a way that it would all land on the settle,
and give him a good scare without getting him wet. First there
was a great splash, then a loud scream. The water had landed
on Mrs. White who was lying on the settle.
Continuing along the Great
Road we soon caught sight of Dudeville, the old Augustus H. Fiske house
on Concord Road. After my great-grandmother Fiske died in 1880, my
grandparents took over Dudeville as a summer residence and, as already
men-tioned, continued spending summers there until my Uncle Ned Dickson
died in 1898. Afterwards the house was rented to
Mr. Charles Field, son of the Reverend Joseph Field, and in my childhood
it was often referred to as a Field house.
Fiske Street, which formed a triangle with Concord Road and
the Great Road, skirted the bottom of a steep knoll that had a
lattice-work summerhouse at the top and an icehouse next to
the street, both leftovers from the Isaac Fiske estate. Often on
the night before the fourth, pranksters would uproot the summer- house
and roll it down the hill until it came to rest against the icehouse. A
few days later it would be rolled back to the top of the
knoll and reinstated on its foundation. It was finally de-
molished when Uncle Chandler Robbins leveled off the top of |
