`` But you know yourself , Tabby , that this closet must have been plastered up before you came to the house or I came into the world . No ; this is old Peter Goldthwaite 's writing . These columns of pounds , shillings and pence are his figures , denoting the amount of the treasure , and this , at the bottom , is doubtless a reference to the place of concealment . But the ink has either faded or peeled off , so that it is absolutely illegible . What a pity ! '' `` Well , this lamp is as good as new . That 's some comfort , '' said Tabitha . `` A lamp ! '' thought Peter . `` That indicates light on my researches . '' For the present Peter felt more inclined to ponder on this discovery than to resume his labors . After Tabitha had gone down stairs he stood poring over the parchment at one of the front windows , which was so obscured with dust that the sun could barely throw an uncertain shadow of the casement across the floor . Peter forced it open and looked out upon the great street of the town , while the sun looked in at his old house . The air , though mild , and even warm , thrilled Peter as with a dash of water . It was the first day of the January thaw . The snow lay deep upon the housetops , but was rapidly dissolving into millions of water-drops , which sparkled downward through the sunshine with the noise of a summer shower beneath the eaves . Along the street the trodden snow was as hard and solid as a pavement of white marble , and had not yet grown moist in the spring-like temperature . But when Peter thrust forth his head , he saw that the inhabitants , if not the town , were already thawed out by this warm day , after two or three weeks of winter weather . It gladdened him -- a gladness with a sigh breathing through it -- to see the stream of ladies gliding along the slippery sidewalks with their red cheeks set off by quilted hoods , boas and sable capes like roses amidst a new kind of foliage . The sleigh bells jingled to and fro continually , sometimes announcing the arrival of a sleigh from Vermont laden with the frozen bodies of porkers or sheep , and perhaps a deer or two ; sometimes , of a regular marketman with chickens , geese and turkeys , comprising the whole colony of a barn-yard ; and sometimes , of a farmer and his dame who had come to town partly for the ride , partly to go a-shopping and partly for the sale of some eggs and butter .
This couple rode in an old-fashioned square XXXXX which had served them twenty winters and stood twenty summers in the sun beside their door .
Tabby a-shopping casement fro housetops marketman pence porkers sleigh water-drops