106 DUTCH AND ENGLISH ON THE HUDSON

and on the top of the roof was perched a fierce
little weather-cock to let the family into the im-
portant secret which way the wind blew." The
front doors were usually divided, as in the old
houses in Holland, into an upper and lower half
hung on heavy hinges. The door opened with a
latch, and bore a brass knocker wrought frequently
in the device of an animaFs head.

Only on formal occasions was this door thrown
open or the fore-room to which it gave access used,
for the life of the family, as in all primitive com-
munities, was centered in the kitchen. Here in
winter roared the great fires up the wide-throated
chimneys. Here children and negro servants
gathered in groups and told stories of the old home
and the new. Here the women knit their stockings
and here the burghers smoked when the day's
work was done. But the fore-room, or voorhuis,
though seldom occupied, was dear to the soul of
the vrouw of New Netherland. Here stood all the
treasures too valuable or too fragile for daily use:
the Jcast, or chest, stored with household linen,
the cabinet filled with Delft plates from Holland,
and generally the carved four-poster covered with
feather beds of prime goose-feathers and hung with
gay chintz.