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Show i - ' " u After the tavern furnishings were sold at auction, . I' - h2&fl '- (ill- Jill -ig-l I VWfiiSmm&E iome 8ta(,ent8- out on a lark, carried It away and $F'i&ZM?', .r.'Cj 1 I i-fe'' 'Frarm'yy I 'or who bad rented them a tilelgb found It ; J-gbSjg-?3 " CLlJ , 'i 4 1J W 'Vfi3 HvFrawW ln ,,ie ilelBh after thp' n,,1 trned the " "'iThp ?i - PPi1-1 5 J " H M b'o I iUi'rrTln vehicle, He put the sign In his hayloft and there ' O JLOvCrtf a.'s 9J- 3 8 B " I ' M I fcr-1 f I J Haai 14 remained until Mr. Ford started the restoration fcNII of the Inn and sought It out. .V "fJ J-J LISiir5 '"?t .rt When Mr. Ford decided to reconstruct the Inn ':-.. , J&k ; - Hj3 'iV's mSJ he used as the tasls for his work these lines wIL"ZLr , ' tnm Longfellow's poem: ' near the Inn n, . v The fire iiaht, heading 0v.r u lear re inn TlZSi i-rfe;-:. . Th uplendor of tu ruddy slow, i -sX , XftSiiZZ'- F"le,;l ,h wll0le Prl"r, larg and low; The Wayside Inn . near Sudbury, Mass. Howe aud the three Howes who succeeded him. After the tavern furnishings were sold at auction, the sign hung In Its place for several yeHrs. Th-m some students, out on a lark, carried It away and a farmor who had rented them a tlelgh found It In the sleigh after they had returned the vehicle. He put the sign In his hayloft and there It remained until Mr. Ford started the restoration of the Inn and sought It out. When Mr. Ford decided to reconstruct the Inn he used as the tasls for his work these lines from Longfellow's poem; The fire-light, shedding over all . The splendor of It ruddy glow, . Filled the whole parlor, large and low; It gleamed on walnaeot and on wall. It touched with more than wonted grace v Fair Princess Mary's painted face; It bronted the rafters overhead. On the old spinet's Ivory keys It played Inaudible melodies. It crowned the somber clock with llama. The hands, the houm, the maker's name. And painted with a livelier red The landlord's coat-of-arma again; And, flashing on the window pane Kmblaioned with Its light and shade The Jovial rhymes tbat still remain. Writ here a century ago, Br the great Major Mollneaux, , Whom Hawthorn has Immortal mad. So far as It was possible, first buyers and later buyers of objects lu the lna were traced and one by one as many of these objects as could be found were purchased and brought back to the inn. "The bronzed rafters overhead," of course, remained fixed In their place. "The somber clock crowned with flame" stands today reaching almost from the floor to the celling and the present day visitor may see for himself "the hands, the hours, the maker's name" Edward Faulkner, a London clock-maker of the middle Eighteenth century. "Fair Princess Mary's painted' fuce" hangs on the ' wall nenr the fireplace, still "touched with mon than wonted grace." Near by the "landlord's coat of arms" hangs over the mantel. The "old spinet" has not yet been recovered, although the .. owner of the original Is known and Mr. Ford still hopes to obtain it However, another of the same period stands In Its corner. All of these are In the i'ront parlor, which Is to the left of the doorway and Is culled the "Longfellow "Long-fellow room." On a table more than two hundred years old lies a book opened at the lines spoken above. The window on which the "great Major . Mollneaux, whom Hawthorne has Immortal made," cut his verse with a diamond ring wns lost many years ago. But two of the panes of glass have been preserved and are carefully framed. The "Jovial rhymes' which the major "writ neat1 a j century ago" were as follows: 1 - ii I" ,v i""11 " . ' J f if l- ' By ELMO SCOTT WATSON ' 'JfT1 HKKK'S a new "mine host" at the tf Wayside Inn, immortalized by if Henry Wadswortb Longfellow ln a -J group of poems familiar to moat Americans, and he Is none other piw Tt"r'fl than Henry Ford, millionaire maker UjWi of automobiles. The Wayside Inn 1 6Ssp: has stood nenr South Sudbury, ' ll Mass., for more than two hundred ' Ib- llvtJ years. Curiously enough the Wayside Way-side Inn was not It's original name , at all. That title originated lu 1820 when the poet, bound from bis home ln Cambridge te Albany. N. Y- stopped by the wayside during a ' change of conch horses at the Bed Horse tavern and It so pleased his fancy thut he later coin-.. coin-.. ineniMrnted It In his "Tale of a Wayside Inn." The lied Horse tavern whs built In 1080 by . ,, , David Howe. Three other Howes were successive keepers of the tavern, their combined service as "mine hoet" totalling 174 years. I.vimin Howe was the host at the time of Longfellow's visit - i and It wns Into his mouth that Longfellow put . the words of the piem which begins, "Listen, my , children, and you shall bear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere." In 180O the last of the Howes died and the tavern furnishings were sold it auction. Owner : ship of the place passed through various hands. but it continued as an Inn down to the present century. How It came Into, the possession of ; i :. Henry Ford was told recently hv Mrs. Ford herself. her-self. Speaking before the Woman's National Farm and flnrden association, of which she Is president, at South Siidhnry. Mrs. Ford gave the "Inside story" ns follows : To begin with w found the Inn In very bad repair. re-pair. The basement was full of broken down furniture, furni-ture, the lower floor had to be changed so there -would be more room from floor to celling and w made It nice and clean. The next Job waa rewiring It W wer afraid of Are, the wires had been stuck In every which way. W went into th walls and flnhed those little wire through and put them through, what do-you call It, a conduit? It waa an awful big piece to do and not many who have seen the house before would know that we did It. W wanted to keep It as old as possible. ' People began to come In crowds. We found we . couldn't take care of them. One Thankaglvlng tOO Many funny stories hav none around about our Intentions, so I am going to tell you so that at least .." thin group will hear the real truth Well. I think w have owned It about five years. perhaps six Mr. and Mrs ,mon owned It and ran It a an Inn until Mr Lemon died Mrs Lemon ear. -. rled It nn about five years. Then she thought she , . would sell It and take a little ease. . New Rnglanders had a great Interest In coming to the place and they disliked the Idea of Its being sold, fearful It might get Into th hands of some one who would cheat them out of the privilege of ! " - visiting It. When an aaaoclatlon, formed by many t Doeion people with th Intention of raising money to buy It, waa unsuccessful and a man offered to ' Rive Mrs. Lemon her price, Mr. Ford was approached. ap-proached. He wa told about the man who Intended to add on (0 bedrooms and turn It Into a common, ordinary roadhouse and tak In everybody and all kinds. : Well, some one, 1 don't know who It waa, said that was going to happen. Mr Ford aaid. "We'll . buy II and nave It." Thit seemed an easy thing to do, buy II and save it. After we realised we owned ' It we said, "What will we do with It?" We didn't , know one thing about running an Inn or hotel of any kind. We thought, "We won't renovate t We'll keep It in perfect order and keep It as a museum - Then we began getting letter from these nice New England people who came to It so often, " writing. "O, Mr Ford. I've always been abl to i , rid out to Wayside Inn and bav luncheon or dln- ' oer." Mr Ford Is miner easygoing, so be said. "We'll continue that." That meant cooks and managers, all sorts of people to be here and run It We were ' - away in Michigan and when people are many milee . away II Is hard to tell whether th people are carrying car-rying It cn as w should like to have them Bui a long a people wanted it, we did It We did think w wouldn't have anybody atay over night, and w should keep all Ihe rooms as - show moms, but w got the same story when New England prnpl heard that. U, we want to atay over eight," and so we did that Of course we do have these restrictions. We . , don't take everybody Everybody has to be known by some one or bav aa Invitation becaune there .are only four bedroom on the second floor and two ' ' ... on th third floor; not very desirable because In the summer It Is bot up there We Just had to limit to people we know are reliable, people we know will pot bring a hip flask r anything like that. came to dinner, they began telephoning for reservations res-ervations early In th morning. W hsd to do something. He had to hav another dining room and just as soon as we started doing that wa had to hav another kitchen. An old-fashioned sink and stove and oven that would do years ago for a few people won't do for many people. We hav to hav things up to date and of th best, but peopli don't see th modern kitchen. Just as soon as we started enlarging the dining room people said, "Tbe old Inn must be making so much money they don't know what to do wltb rt, It waa closed Sundsys because w decided th type of people who streamed In were not Interested In antiques at all. They merely wanted a placr to ' ' spend, the day.- W stopped busses coming out at night because we thought It waa Inconslderat to have th persons who had been showing people over the house all day. taxed further by tourlata wbo would com to toe Wayside Inn In the daytime. Interesting as Is this "Inside story" It does not tell alt that the motor manufacturer has done to preserve tills shtlne for future genera-Uotis genera-Uotis of Americans, for lie has spent more than a hundred thousand' dollars to build a new link of public highway so that heavy traffic may be diverted from the neighborhood of the Inn. He has bought more than 2,f00 acres of land sur-. sur-. rounding the Inn, and across the wuy from It he has restored the old stone mill over, whose 'wheel the water still pours as It did In the old days when the farmers brought their grain there to be ground. Around a bend of the' Boston I'ost ' nail, which goes past the Inn. stands tite school -house where Mary went, followed by her ' little lamb. Tills school house originally stocrt near Sterling. Mass., but. finding It In a .dilapidated... condition. Mr. Ford bought It and moved It to a -site near the Wayside inn so that It, too, may be preserved for posterity. Not the least of the Interesting facts about the Wayside Inn of today and Its new host has been his unrelenting search for the original furnishings or duplicates In the same period. Over the entrance en-trance of the Inn swings the sign which tells the passing traveler that this Is the Red linrse Inn and which bears the name of its builder, David What do you think Here Is good drink Perhaps you may not know It If not In haste Do stop and taste You merry folks will show It. The tap room where could be obtained the major's "good drink" Is opposite the Longfellow room. The ancient bar, conveniently high for the elbow, but without the font rail of a Inter period, still stands ns it did In Longfellow's day. On the shelves behind the spot where "mine host" stood are bottles and jugs of various kinds. Of course there are no bottles to he opened, nowadays, so that these empty relics are all that remain to c tell of this adjunct to the Joviality of the group which gathered around the fireplace In the tap room to sip and smoke nnd tiilk. Nearby, still hungs the "pipe tongs." a long Implement like a' pulr of aclssors with which the guest, without bending his back, might reach Info the fire, pick out a glowing con urn! light his pipe. 1 On the walls of the Longfellow rotn hnng the portraits of some of these guests made famous by lngfellow. In assigning them parts In the "Tales of a Wayside Inn." Amons them are Ole Bull, :the violinist; I'rofessor Treadwell, the theologian;' Isanc F.lrehl.-"Ihe Spanish Jew"; Lulgl. "the Sicilian," then a Harvard professns. and Thomas W. ('arsons, the (Kii-t. . .Another of the Moms Is .culled the "Washington "Washing-ton itoom" because of the' tradition that Cieorge r Washington spent a night there on his way to take command of the Continental army at Cum bridge. ' ' On the third floor which was the old garret there are rooms tor about twenty guests. Here the motorists of toilny. sleeping beneath the eaves ns travelers of an earlier day before slept, may "take mine ease In mine Inn" and he grateful to the "ninth landlord" of the fled Horse tavern for this opportunity to enjoy the practical use of ett American shrine because "mine host" of today is Henry Ford. ',- |