298 
RURAL HOURS. 
they were soon turned to account in this way. The old Holland- 
er, Van der Donck, in his account of the New Netherlands, pub- 
lished in 1656, mentions the pumpkin as being held in high favor 
in New Amsterdam, and adds, that the Enghsh colonists — mean- 
ing those of New England — "use it also for pastry." This is 
probably the first printed allusion to the pumpkin-pie in our an- 
nals. Even at the present da}^, in new Western settlements, where 
the supply of fruit is necessarily small at fir.st, pumpkins are 
made into preserves, and as much pains are taken in preparing 
them, as though they were the finest peaches from the markets 
of Philadelphia and Baltimore. Wlien it is once proved that 
pumpkin-pies were provided for the children of the first colonists 
by their worthy mothers, the fact that a partiality for them con- 
tinued long after other good things w^ere provided, is not at all 
surprising, since the grown man will very generally be found to 
cherish an exalted opinion of the pies of his childhood. What 
bread-and-milk, what rice-puddings, can possibly equal the bread- 
and-milk, the rice-puddings of the school-boy ? The noble sex, 
especially, are much given to these tender memories of youthful 
dainties, and it generally happens, too, that the pie- or pudding so 
affectionately remembered, was home-made ; you will not often 
find the confectioner's tart, bought with sixpence of pocket-money, 
so indelibly stamped in recollections of the past. There is at all 
times a peculiar sort of interest about a simple home-made meal, 
not felt where a cordon-Ueu presides ; there is a touch of anxiety 
in the breast of the housekeeper as to the fate of the boiled and 
roast, the bread and paste, preserves and other cates, which now 
changes to the depression of a failure, now to the triumph of bril- 
liant success, emotions which are of course shared, in a greater or 
