492 DAN BEARD'S ANIMAL BOOK 



Colonial mansions were used as outdoor breakfast 

 and dining-rooms. The table was covered with a 

 snowy homespun cloth and decked with shining 

 pewter and quaint old English silver which is so 

 highly prized today. 



Around the ample board were seated the high- 

 heeled be-powdered dames, their families and 

 guests, dressed after the fashion of the day in silks 

 and damask gowns and coats, and it made as pretty 

 a picture as was ever painted by Kaemmerer. 



During fair weather our revolutionary ancestors 

 drank their ''American" tea in these open-air din- 

 ing-rooms, devoid of screen doors or other artificial 

 protection from the incursions 1 of troublesome in- 

 sects, but while there were no screen doors, the big 

 old-fashioned breakfast bell which called the guests 

 to the table also called the birds, and the oriole, 

 robin, wren, kingbird, and phoebe, flew around the 

 table eagerly devouring venturesome flies and other 

 annoying insects. The birds were as tame as those 

 in an aviary. 



Before this time, when the Pilgrims made their 

 first clearing and started the settlement which \vas 

 to become a mighty nation, the thrush, robin, blue- 

 bird, wren, swallow, and other native American 

 birds bid the somber epoch builders welcome; they 

 nested in the eaves of the rude log houses, on the 

 posts of their fences, in the trees of the first 

 orchards and broke the blue laws every Sunday 

 in spring by singing their lovely songs. 



When human Sabbath breakers were put in 



