CHAPTER XI 

 FINE ARTS OF A COUNTRY HOME 



THE old fashioned country home was rich in 

 arts, both indoors and out. The Connecti- 

 cut boy was trained not only to farm the 

 land, but to some additional employment for rainy 

 days, for he well understood that he must lose no time 

 if he would fare well in a busy world. If it rained 

 he sat down to a shoe bench and with no mean skill 

 made or mended shoes for his family and neighbors. 

 He could shoe a horse if it came to a pinch, and 

 there were few articles of furniture in his house that 

 were not made by his hands. Others made brooms, 

 or even clocks; only they made hay while the sun 

 shone. I well remember one whose pastures were 

 filled with sheep and when he killed one for family 

 use the skin was tanned in a home vat, with bark 

 ground by a home brook, under a crusher worked 

 out of a conglomerate that he had himself quarried 

 from his own glen. 



His wife washed and carded the wool, spun the 

 fleecy roll, wove the yarn into cloth or carpets, and 

 sewed what she had created into homeful garments. 

 It was little that such a family had to buy. I am 



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