This chimney is constructed in such a manner as to be a great ventilator
of the whole room, quite sufficient, it would be thought, if there were
no other means of ventilation. It is usually made of stone at the
base, and that part above the fire is of sticks laid upon one another,
cobhouse fashion, and plastered over inside and between with similar
clay as that with which the house walls are chinked.
Very few of these houses are more than one story high. They are all
covered with long split oak shingles--the people there call them
"boards"--rifted from the trunks of selected trees. There is no
sheathing on the roof beneath these shingles. They are nailed down upon
the flat hewn poles running across the rafters, at convenient distances.
Looking up through the many openings in the roof in one of these house,
one would think that this would be but poor protection against rain, but
they rarely leak.
Not one family in fifty is provided with a cooking stove. They bake
their bread in flat iron kettles, with iron covers, covered with hot
coals and ashes.
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