HOW FAKMING PAYS. 43 



prohibiting card-playing, and lawyers talking longer than a 

 prescribed period, ordering the length of women's sleeves, 

 and punishing common scolds and expensive dressers, — fining 

 Hannibal Bosworth's daughter five shillings for wearing silk, 

 — yet they encouraged hunting and fishing, had farmers' feasts 

 and festivals, — "spinnings," where every woman, bearing her 

 wheel, went forth to a neighbor's, and, sitting together, in a 

 single afternoon spun the outfit of the coming bride, to the 

 music of the revolving wheels and equally swift-moving 

 tongues, — "huskings," where good round, romping games 

 followed the amply-filled supper-table, after which the young 

 couples wended their way homeward, and whispered those 

 little but important twitterings which generally twist up the 

 single threads of life into that double cord which binds us 

 safely and comfortably together on our walk through our 

 earthly pilgrimage. 



Land was free, comparatively, among our forefathers, labor 

 not despised, and when employed with good will, sure to earn 

 a subsistence, as it is now, and consequently young men and 

 maidens united early in wedlock and took the consequences; 

 and such wooing as the following never took place among 

 them, though not uncommon with their degenerate descend- 

 ants : "I hope you will be able to support me," said a young 

 lady, while walking out one evening with her intended during 

 a somewhat slippery state of the sidewalks. "Why, yes," 

 said the somewhat hesitating swain, "with a little assistance 

 from your father." On the contrary, if the men did not make 

 their wishes known before too long dallying, they were 

 prompted somewhat in this wise, as related of a young couple 

 who had been staying with mutual relations and evidently got 

 fond of each other, and when meeting on the stairs, the lady 

 said, "Did you say anything, John?" "No — nothing," stut- 

 tered out the swain. "Well, it is high time you did," replied 

 the interested fair one. You all recollect the story of the 

 courtship of Capt. Miles Standish, the man of very little 

 stature, yet of a peppery temper, who hesitated not to attack 

 all the armies of the Plymouth Colony with his army of eight, 

 and occasionally fourteen, men. Capt. Miles, as short and 

 peppery men are apt to, fell dreadfully in love with Priscilla 

 Mullins, but unwisely employed his friend, John Aldeu, who 



