2 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



nigs, coverlets and flannel sheets. A high backed chair or 

 two, a massive table, a large chest with a carved front, and 

 some Indian birch-bark boxes for wearing apparel, are ranged 

 aronnd the walls, while on a large " dressier " we see wooden 

 bowls and trenchers, earthen platters, horn drinking cups and 

 a pewter tankard. The corselet, matchlock and bandoliers are 

 ready for defence, with a halberd, if the senior occupant of 

 the house holds a commission in " ye train-band ;" and from a 

 "lean-to" shed comes the hum of the great wheel or the 

 clang of the loom, as the busy " help-mates " hasten to finish 

 their " stents." High on the mantle shelf, with a " cresset 

 lamp" on one side, and the time marking hour-glass on the 

 other, is the well-thumbed Bible, which was not left for show. 

 " Our especial desire is," say the company's instructions, " that 

 you take especial care, in settling these families, that the chief 

 in the family be grounded in religion ; whereby, morning and 

 evening family diities may be duly performed, and a watchful 

 eye held over all in each family, by one or more in each family 

 appointed thereto, that so disorders may be prevented, and ill 

 weeds nipt before they take too great a head." 



The fare of the Puritan farmers was as frugal as it was 

 wholesome. Pease-porridge for breakfast ; bread, cheese and 

 beer or cider for luncheon ; a " boiled dish " or " black-broth," 

 or salt fish, or broiled pork, or baked beans for dinner ; hasty 

 pudding and milk for supper, and a constant succession of 

 fruit or berry pies at every meal when the housewife had time 

 to make them in addition to her other cooking, her dairy, 

 washing, mending, carding, spinning, weaving and knitting.* 

 Swedish turnips were the staple vegetable ; the bread was 

 generally made of corn, barley or rye meal, and if the diet was 

 rather farinaceous than animal, there was less demand for 



* " How much may be said of the part that woman played, or rather 

 ' worked,' in the grand drama of our first settlements ! What would our 

 Pilgrim Fathers have been without our Pilgrim Mothers ? Woman dared to 

 follow when man dared to lead : and she brought with her the humanizing 

 amenities of social life, and the sanctifying power of true religion. She came 

 to this wilderness with a brave heart and a Christian faith, that she might share 

 the perils and brighten the hopes of her husband ; and, when here, she looked 

 well to the ways of her household, and ate not ' the bread of idleness.' " — Rev. 

 Charles Brooks. 



