280 HOW TO LIVE IN THE COUNTRY 



homespun rolls of the neighborhood. Yet all tilled 

 the soil, raised their own vegetables and meat, and 

 in every house candles were dipped, soap was boiled, 

 carpets were sewed, quilts quilted, and the wool of 

 the farmyard was spun into yarn which went into 

 homemade stockings or otherwise contributed to the 

 clothing of both sexes. 



It was a cozy life that worried very little about 

 transportation and none at all about railroad rates or 

 coal bills. The parson glorified God and served the 

 community for what he could get, and there was not 

 a millionaire in the world. In this way the United 

 States was being made out of commonwealths, with 

 a widening commonweal. The larger cities did not 

 number one hundred thousand inhabitants, and the 

 villages were merely nuclei of the farms. 



The revolution that began about 1850 affected 

 our social relations quite as much as our physical 

 conditions. The sickle had already disappeared and 

 now the scythe was destined to follow. Instead of 

 a line of farmers racing across the meadows, full of 

 the glee of rivalry, McCormick reapers marched 

 through the grass or the grain, with one man to 

 drive the team of horses. Indoors the humming of 

 the spinning-wheel had already been hushed and now 

 the quilting bee and the knitting matches made way 

 for machinery. The sewing machine abolished sewing 

 societies. The multiplication of newspapers and the 

 rise of the modern magazine were at the cost of the 

 gossiping crowds that had been accustomed to gather 



