Della R. Prescott

“ The Bible and work-basket and mother’s reel might go into mother’s room. Perhaps the peddler would help her move the settles out on the grass. Mary Jane herself knelt down on the hearth to take up the ashes.
The peddler jumped up. “Willing hands make light work, Mistress Mary, and out go the tables and the chairs. Back again! and now, my dears, we are ready for the old settles. Came from the sturdy land of England, these did.”
Mary Jane frowned and settled her cap with dignity. “I like not too much talk. If we save our breath it will help in the lifting. ”

“ In old days the wicks were not twisted much, if at all, and so, as the candle melted from them,—they stuck up into the dull, smoky, non-burning part of the flame, and stayed there until they hung over or fell off. ”

“ Mary Jane generally washed out the fireplace.
“What does it mean, Dorothy? Dost think John Lewis would notice if Mary Jane’s hands were smutted and grimy?”
“Methinks ’tis best for us to stop talking and get to our work. Mother would have Mary Jane make a good impression. Mary Jane is comely, and John Lewis is not a-courting us.” Dorothy’s reproof was gently made, and she smiled at Abigail. ”

“ The heating and lighting are good. In nearly every home may be found a living room where the family assembles for rest and recreation. Here they read, sew, chat, and discuss the news. Similar scenes occurred in the colonial days, but in quite a different room. The kitchen took the place of our modern living room. The life of the colonists centered in it, for in the kitchen was the fireplace, often the one source of heat in the whole house. Its warmth and cheer and its use as a place for cooking made it the heart of the home. ”

“ Abigail and Dorothy seized the small brothers and sisters and scrubbed them clean. Whereupon the children took their porringers and wooden bowls from the dresser and stood in their places behind the settles. Abigail strained into a pail the warm, frothy milk which John, the oldest brother, had brought in, and Dorothy filled the large pewter tankard with cool milk from the cellar way. Mary Jane bustled about. She dished up from the steaming kettle on the hearth the corn meal mush, or hasty pudding, and added a large, thin Johnny cake, which she had browned in the skillet. ”

“ Your mother will be up in a day or two, and then there will be more freedom for you. Responsibility will not hurt any lass and a small disappointment is better than a pleasure taken at the wrong time.”
“Tell John,” her father added as he turned to Jenny, “that we shall be glad to see him when he calls up here. I hear that your father has made another successful trip. It is a hard and dangerous life he lives on the sea. May 38 the Lord prosper him.” Then Mary Jane’s father went out.
Jenny flung herself into the rocker and spoke angrily to Mary Jane. ”

“ The pewter and copper should be made to shine as never before. She arranged on the far end of the dinner-table, pewter porringers, solid silver spoons, the pewter tankard and one large pewter plate and several small ones, the long-handled brass warming pan, two tall brass candlesticks and the snuffers from the mantel. She even removed the flint-lock pistols from their holsters beneath the mantel. Their brass mountings were dull and lustreless. She looked longingly at the brass clasps of Father’s large Bible. When Mary Jane was elsewhere it might be possible to make them shine as they should. ”

“ Mary Jane looked ruefully at the confusion, but gratefully to her father for his forbearance. Abigail had meant well, and accidents would happen. Even if it was housecleaning time, the peddler must be fed. Father believed that all hungry people should be treated kindly. “Better to feed a dozen ungracious ones,” he said, “than to turn away one deserving and needy.” Mary Jane directed Abigail to bring out cold 24 porridge and salt fish and milk for the peddler, while she mopped up the floor. ”

“ Grandmother is tending your mother and the new babe, but John and I will need the porridge hot when we come back from foddering.”
Mary Jane answered her father gravely and picked up the candle to take with her to the 4 kitchen. She called the older of her sisters. The three all slept in the low-ceilinged upstairs chamber. “Come Abigail! You are in truth a sleepyhead. Come! Everything’s awake, and we have much to do! Father has called and indeed you must hurry.” ”

“ The six or eight thousand children who were taken by their teachers to see this kitchen during the ten weeks that it stood there, many of whom then took their parents to see it, will perhaps read this story about the labors, and the play, and the love-making of Mary Jane, with interest.
Any group of manual training boys and domestic art girls can put up such a kitchen, dress the characters, and act out such a story, and in many American neighborhoods they can borrow “real things,” for their stage properties. ”

“ My father believes I will grow in grace and patience for big sorrows and disappointments if I bear little ones cheerfully. What kind of practice are you getting, Jenny Lewis? It is wicked to talk about a father as you have talked about mine. ”

“ John raked open the coals and brought out a little popcorn that had lasted through the winter. Thomas agreed to pop it for them, and John 44 took down his powder-horn. He wanted to finish whittling the design on it. Dorothy coaxed Jenny down on the settle to tell about her visit in Boston and Mary Jane brought out a skein of soft, white wool.
“Perhaps you will hold this for me, John Lewis? I am going to knit a hood for the new babe Samuel, but the wool must first be wound in a ball.”
“No, Mary Jane, there is a better way to hold that worsted than on a man’s outstretched arms. ”

“ Can you lend us a coal? As the weather grows milder I fear we tend our fire none too carefully.”
“Did you know John Lewis had come home?” he called to Mary Jane. “Some of us stopped to see him last night and Jenny came out and two or three of the neighbors. Mother says it is ungodly the way Cap’n Lewis dresses Jenny. ‘Fine feathers don’t make fine birds,’ 7 she says, and Jenny doesn’t work enough to pay the Cap’n. She’s a fair gad-about. He toils mightily to get the whale oil to buy her gowns. John seems real pleased to be home, Mary Jane. ”

“ He has had time enough for many a turn of the hand. It is full three months since the whaler put out from Gloucester. Do you think that even a slow-witted fellow like your John may have speed in his fingers? Perchance he whittles faster than he talks?”
“Abigail,” Mary Jane interrupted, “the butter must have come. Run out to the well for fresh water. I will gather the butter while you are gone. Curb your saucy tongue, sister. Mistress Dodd is coming up the road with her pot of beans, and I would not have her hear your foolish gossip.”
“John wants the flint-lock, Mary Jane. ”

“ A cast-iron skillet with legs to lift it above the coals and ashes. As all cooking vessels were 55 used at an open fire they were all made either to hang above it like a pot or to stand before it like a tin oven, or to rest upon its coals like a three-legged skillet.
FIGURE 5
A tin kitchen or roaster. A box of tin standing on legs and with one side open. A steel spit was stuck through the meat and the meat was fastened to it by skewers, which passed through the meat and through small holes in the spit itself. ”

“ John Lewis was a sober, industrious youth, even though his sister Jenny was rather flighty. She would like to have Mary Jane go more often to visit in Jenny’s home. As the mother made her ambitious little plans, the girls came into the kitchen. Mary Jane glanced shyly at her father. She was wearing her best summer dress.
37
“Jenny has asked me down to her house for supper, Father. The storm has passed around, and the sun is coming out. I should like to go. Everything is ready to put on the table for your supper, and Abigail can attend to the children. ”

“ But simple stories without ingenuity of plot or striking incident have always been told by parents and grandparents and maiden aunts to the delight of children. “Tell us what happened when Grandpa was a miller”; “Tell us about when you went to school through the woods”; “Tell us how the bear frightened Great-Aunt.” These are the demands of children of all nations. The peculiarity of our situation is that so many of our children are step-children, half-children, adopted children. ”

“ In very cold weather the kitchen sometimes could not be kept warm, no matter how big and hot the fire in the fireplace. It was then a comfort, and almost a luxury, to have hot dishes from which to eat the food which the cold room soon chilled.
FIGURE 7
A wool spinning-wheel. The spinner walked back and forth in using this wheel, and her walk was often many miles in a day’s spinning. A band of stout cord goes around the big wheel and around the spindle. ”

“ The fireplace was the center of the home, the one source of heat, the one place for cooking and often the one source of light at night. Many pioneers and their families had to do all their reading on long winter evenings by the light of the open fire. ”

“ You look just as stubborn as your father. Good-by, I am going home!”
“Come back here, Jenny Lewis!” Mary Jane called after her. “I am glad I look like my father! He has a perfect right to keep me at home if he wants to. Folks feel sorry because 39 your father has to work so hard and spend so much of his money on clothes for you. I like pretty clothes too, but if my father thinks I am putting too much thought on myself, he tells me so. He shows me my duty.”
Figure 22. Wheel for Spinning Flax
Mary Jane pulled her flax-wheel toward her and whirled the wheel rapidly. ”

“ The pointed end of one blade was used to prick up the wick if it did not stand straight or was too tightly twisted. The three legs kept the snuffers, which were sooty on the under side from being stuck into the candle flame, away from the table or the tray where they were usually kept.
The candles of to-day do not often need to be snuffed, because as their wicks, which are carefully twisted, are burned free of the tallow, wax or paraffin, they bend a little in the effort to untwist. This bending thrusts the used-up end sidewise into the hot, outer flame and there it is quite burned up. ”

“ In most houses the only warm place was by the kitchen fire. In winter the bedrooms were about as cold as the weather out of doors. This made the beds far from 59 comfortable to get into on a cold night. The warming-pan was a basin of brass or copper with a hinged cover, sometimes decorated. Hot ashes and coals from the kitchen fire were put into it ”

“ The spit was turned from time to time as the cooking required. Gravy was caught in the hollow below, and some of it was now and then taken up in a spoon and poured on the meat. This was “basting.” The task of turning the spit by the crank on one end of it was often given to a boy. In the homes of the wealthy and in taverns the one who thus minded the roast was often called a turn-spit. By means of simple tread-mill devices a dog was often used to turn the crank, and he then became a turn-spit dog.
56 FIGURE 6
A plate-warmer. This was a box of tin or sheet iron on legs, with a door in one side. ”

“ Now we do not need so much candle light, as the days grow longer. Thank her kindly for the bowl of rich soup she sent Daughter Andrews. Daughter will soon be up and about. Our new babe is six days old and strong and lusty. Hear how he cries.”
Figure 3. Porringer or Shallow Bowl
Sam grinned and bore off his coals fallen from the burning sticks; while Grandmother 8 took the bowl of porridge in to her daughter.
Figure 4. Cast-Iron Skillet
Drawing the settles up to the table Mary Jane placed her father’s chair at one end and her mother’s at the other for Grandmother. ”

“ The baby was asleep and the sight of him in his helplessness and of her mother, always so strong and active, lying now so quiet and helpless at the beginning of a busy day, stirred her strangely. She bent awkwardly and kissed them, and blushed as she straightened up. Kisses were rare in her home, and she was surprised at herself. Her grandmother came in, and a commotion from the kitchen warned her 6 that the boys were awake. Her three younger brothers, steady Thomas, and the twins, Asa and George, slept in the turn-down bed in the corner of the kitchen. ”

“ A wheel for spinning flax. At this wheel the spinner, almost always a woman, sat to spin. The process was quite similar to that followed with a wool-wheel; but the wheel was made to revolve by a pedal like that on a sewing machine. ”

“ Porringer or Shallow Bowl 7 4. Cast-Iron Skillet 8 5. Tin Kitchen or Roaster 9 6. Plate-Warmer 10 7. Wool Spinning-Wheel 14 8. A Cradle 15 9. Wooden Churn 16 10. Flint-Lock Gun and Pistol 19 11. Warming-Pan 21 12. Snuffers 22 13. Reel for Winding Thread 25 14. Kettle 27 15. Swinging Crane 28 16. Sewing-Bird 30 17. Andirons or Fire-Dogs 32 18. Toasting-Rack 33 19. A Gridiron 33 20. Knife-Tray 34 21. Spectacles and Bible 34 22. Wheel for Spinning Flax 39 23. ”