12 THE LARGER ASPECTS OF FARM LIFE. 



supplied the wool, which was taken to the "carding-machine" 

 and made into "rolls," paying for the work with a certain 

 number of pounds of wool. Before my time the women of the 

 house used to do this work with hand-cards, and I have seen 

 this done, but generally in my boyhood women had emanci- 

 pated themselves from this work ; but they spun the yarn and 

 knit the stockings, and in most houses was a loom constructed 

 by the men, whereon every year was woven by the women one 

 or two pieces of stout woolen cloth to be made up, in the 

 house, into garments for both sexes. The bad-smelling dye 

 pots sat about the fire all winter. Every year or two an 

 &.cro of fiax was i-aised, which the men "broke" and"hetch- 

 eled," and the women spun and wove and made up into cloth- 

 ing. The hide of the beef killed for family consumption, with 

 those of a calf or two killed during the year, were taken to the 

 tannery, and after six months brought home and made up 

 into boots and shoes, sometimes by the men of the house, but 

 more often by the neighboring or traveling shoemaker. A 

 half acre of potatoes and a good garden supplied the vegeta- 

 bles for the year. A few cows furnished a surplus of butter, 

 which, with the eggs not consumed on the farm, was traded at 

 the store for the calicoes, white shirting, an occasional ribbon, 

 and the necessary crockery and small groceries. The orchard 

 supplied the fruit, cider, and vinegar. The "sugar bush" 

 furnished the maple sugar, which was' sometimes used for 

 sweetening, but more usually traded for "muscovado," or 

 brown sugar. The elder males of the. family had Sunday 

 suits of store cloth made up by the village tailor; this was 

 before the days of "ready made;" these suits, after some years' 

 wear, were turned and made up by the women for the boys, 

 and were worn out by them, one after another, as they grew 

 into them. The elder women had each a sober, dark dress for 

 Sundays, but the girls mostly went to church in fresh calico, 

 and very trim indeed they looked as I remember them. 

 Corsets and similar feminine gimcracks wore unknown — at 

 least to me; but it is likely the town girls luid them, and if 

 ihey did our girls knew all about them. Bonnets and hats 

 were worn, with an occasicial change of ribbon, until they 



