INDUSTRIES AND FIRESIDES. 237 



wall posts both in dwellings and in barns, and even in the 

 church on the Common. 



Doors and windows and all finish parts were worked 

 out by hand from the pine logs. Even the furniture, 

 what little was used, was so made by the more skillful 

 workmen. And it must be remembered that the tools 

 used were of the rudest sort, not the fine machine-made 

 cutting implements that a cabinetmaker now handles. 

 The shipbuilding carried on at the Cove and at Little 

 Harbor in those days was of the same tedious sort. 



An amusing incident is related by one of the oldest 

 women of the town which was still more anciently related 

 to her, about a launching which was to have taken place 

 at Little Harbor. 



It was the custom to make a social fete of any work 

 that required united labor, like house raising, where the 

 yeomen were stimulated to heavy lifting by frequent 

 draughts of liquor, or like hog slaughtering, where the 

 participants registered their guess at the porker's weight 

 with a drink of rum. 



At this launching in Little Harbor the men worked to 

 clear away the props and drank rum to become merry, 

 while they waited for the tide to come in. But nature 

 was slower than human passion. Before the tide had 

 reached its full, the men had reached theirs, and they 

 soon lay around their unlaunched craft in helplessness. 

 The tide crept in and saw the shameful sight, and looked 

 up to the waiting ship ; buf she had no hand to help her 

 to the waves and the tide crept out again. 



The waking men had nothing but chagrin to show for 

 their wantonness. 



This vice was growing bothersome to the church even 

 then, for two of its members had publicly to be cen- 

 sured for drunkenness, and after a public penitence they 

 fell again. 



Churchgoing in those days was a universal custom. 



