same way, or else fried in a spider over the coals, or roasted on spits before the fire. The spit was a long iron rod with a crank at one end, and this was made to rest on hooks placed on the andirons. By means of the crank, great joints of meat were turned upon the spit, until they became sufficiently cooked upon all sides.

Many things were made of the coarse Indian meal. The journey (or Johnny) cake of the white man succeeded the no-cake of the Indian, and was similar to it. This was often baked on slabs tilted up before the glowing coals. Hominy or hasty pudding and milk often formed the

supper.

Bean porridge was also a favorite dish for the same meal, and was made by boiling beans in the liquid in which corned beef had been boiled. When the good man was obliged to take a journey in winter he often carried with him a frozen cake of this porridge, and when hungry thawed pieces of it for his luncheon. This was thought by some to improve with age. In view of this fact, it is easy to believe that the simple game of "bean porridge" was perhaps, after all, soul-inspired, and that its singsong accompaniment of:

Bean porridge hot,

Bean porridge cold,

Bean porridge best

When it's nine days old,

had a significance to the boys and girls of "ye olden time," which added a zest to its performance.

Close by the kitchen fireplace and a part of the enormous chimney-stack was the stone or brick oven used on baking days, usually once a week in winter and twice in summer. Wood especially prepared for the purpose was

used for heating this oven, and sometimes hot coals were put in from the fireplace. When the oven became thoroughly heated, which often took two or three hours, the fire was raked out; and an oven thus heated would retain its heat for some time. Then pies, puddings, beans, brown bread, and other foods were placed within; and a door, oftentimes of wood, was placed at the opening and kept there till the food was cooked. The food was put in and taken out by means of a long-handled shovel.

Once a year, at Thanksgiving time, mince-pies were baked in this oven. Pumpkins were often baked whole, after cutting a round hole in the top and removing the seeds. The pulp thus baked and eaten with milk was a delicacy; and the hard shell of the pumpkin sometimes served as a work-basket for the

thrifty and economical housewife.

In addition to the brick oven, the Dutch oven was very commonly used. This was a shallow pan with a tightly fitting cover. Bread or biscuit was placed within, and the pan was buried in hot ashes and heaped over with glowing coals.

Tableware. The home-made

tables were set with wooden and pewter dishes. On a set of shelves

oven.

called a dresser the pewter ware of that day was prominently displayed. Every good housekeeper took great pride in keeping both this and her copper ware scoured to a remarkable brilliancy. Plates, mugs, platters, ladles, and spoons, made of this material, were very clumsy, and so soft that the spoons and ladles were

often broken. When such was the case, they were laid aside until the coming of the traveling workman, with his spoon and ladle molds, who melted and run into the molds the worn-out articles that soon came forth as good as

new.

Clothing. The earliest settlers were clad wholly in homespun. John L. Heaton in The Story of Vermont, names the first half century after the settlement of Vermont as the "homespun age." Truly the people of that time were a self-reliant people, and had little for their

A hand loom.

comfort save what was fashioned by their own hands, and from such material as their farms produced.

Every farmer raised his own sheep, thus furnishing the wool from which the winter clothing was made. He also raised his own flax, which furnished the fiber from which the women of the household fashioned the neat linen checks for dresses, aprons, and the like, the fine linen, the table-cloths and bedspreads with their intricate patterns, and the coarser tow for other purposes.

In every home might be seen the great wheel for spinning the woolen thread, the little wheel for the linen; and in every kitchen stood a dye tub, in which the thread

or cloth was colored, the colors most commonly used being

blue and copperas.

The methods used by our ancestors in the preparing of flax for the loom are interesting. The seeds were sown in the spring and the plants pulled in autumn. After the seeds were threshed out, the flax was placed out of doors and exposed to the weather, until the woody part became tender enough to be separated easily from the fibers. After drying, the woody part was removed by a process called "breaking." Then the flax was pounded with a heavy wooden knife called. a "swingle," which separated the fine fibers from the coarse tow. It was then drawn over an iron-toothed comb called a hatchel," which drew out the imperfect fibers; and it was then ready for the distaff and the spinning-wheel.

66

A wool wheel.

At a later date the best dresses were made of calico, perhaps obtained at the country store in exchange for woolen cloth, stockings, or mittens, made by the busy housewife.

To the nearest tannery the farmer carried the skins of animals raised on the farm, and had them tanned into leather. From these skins the yearly supply of footwear for the family was fashioned by the traveling cobbler, who was considered indispensable in those days, and who in the less busy seasons left his farm and went from house to house, where he plied his craft, acting as "surgeon to old shoes" or making new ones, as the family demanded. If he had not a last of suitable size, there was the woodpile

close by, and a block from that could quickly be fashioned

into one.

Changing the shoe from foot to foot on alternate days kept it from running over at the heel and brought an equal wear upon both sides, a custom which was thought to increase its longevity. Men sometimes wore moccasins made of the untanned skins, and both men and children often went barefoot in summer.

An Evening in the Home.-Around the glowing hearth. all the family were clustered of an evening. All were busy at something, for idleness with our forefathers was a crime. The dear old grandmother, with placid face, sat and knit, while with one foot she gently rocked the cradle at her side. The mother plied her hands at spinning tow, while her elder daughter spun flax on a small wheel, the while the younger children filled quills for the morrow's weaving, or, huddled in the chimney-seat, conned their next day's spelling lessons, or popped corn on a hot shovel.

The men at the same time were whittling out wooden shovels, oxbows, ax helves, swingles, pokes for unruly oxen, and other useful articles, the grandfather working with them and from time to time breaking forth in an oft-told tale of Indian warfare, to which the children listened with eager interest, perhaps to the detriment of the next day's spelling lessons. One shelled corn, while another, with a pestle, pounded it into coarse meal in the great wooden mortar.

The only illumination was that of the fireplace. The red light from the pine knots on the hearth, augmented by the handfuls of hickory shavings which the men from time to time threw on, sent a glow over all, lighting up the twisted rings of pumpkins and festoons of apples suspended from the poles above, drying for the next summer's use.