The farmhouse in Derry still exists. It went through a fallowperiod in the 1950’s as a junkyard named “Frosty Acres” but hassince been restored to look much like it did when the Frostslived in it. The white house is attached to the barn by a NewEngland ell that houses a large shed for firewood, thus makingit easy to reach the animals in all kinds of inclement weather.The “two-holer” toilet is off the woodshed next to the barn.It would have been a cold journey in winter. As the house’sguide will point out, and as many of his Yankee neighborsprobably noted, Robert Frost was not the most practical farmer. The place for hanging clothes out to dry was on the far side of the ell, necessitating a long outside walk. The well was located close to the house but Frost did not get around to running water to the house. He milked the cows at one p.m. and midnight because it fit his poetry-writing schedule.
The kitchen of the house, where Frost did his writing, is located off the woodshed and looks out into a meadow that falls away to a brook. In the kitchen is an old telephone, and in those days the phone in Derry was a party line. If one so desired, one could pick up the phone and hear whatever conversation was taking place between a Yankee farmer and the feed store, a farm wife and her friends. It is thought by some that access to the party line may have assisted Frost in capturing the authentic New England voice that he brought to his poetry. Frost had his “good fences make good neighbors” neighbor to the north but other neighbors were even more distant, both geographically and personally.
