• - EVERTCHILD'S SERIES WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS •t: ) &&& THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK • BOSTON ■ CHICAGO • DALLAS ATLANTA - SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LONDON • BOMBAY ■ CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO EVERYCHILD'S SERIES WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS BY MARY HOLBROOK MacELROY L FORMERLY TEACHER OF METHOD IN UNITED STATES HISTORY, STATE NORMAL SCHOOL OSWEGO, N. Y. Nefo gork THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1917 All rights reserved E/6 ■ A Copyright, 1917, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published August, 1917. AUG 16 1317 ©CI.A473127 CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE The Emigrants ...... i CHAPTER II The Voyage and the First Winter . . 10 CHAPTER III ( Little Pioneers 17 I CHAPTER IV I Children's Games 25 1 CHAPTER V Puritan Playthings 34 i CHAPTER VI Sunday Clothes 47 CHAPTER VII Their Schooling 57 vi conten rs CHAPTER VIII PAGE Wow Girls were Educated .... 65 CHAPTER IX Colonial Textbooks ..... 73 CHAPTER X Children's Handwork . . . . .8; CHAPTER XI Spoiled Children CHAPTER XVI What Colonial Children Read 94 CHAPTER XII Puritan Discipline 101 CHAPTER XIII Very Naughty Girls 113 CHAPTER XIV About Their Manners 126 CHAPTER XV Children's Tasks 137 49 WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS CHAPTER I The Emigrants A little over three hundred years ago a ship whose name has become very famous anchored on our New England coast. It was an emigrant ship, the Mayflower, from Plym- outh, England. You have seen, perhaps, the great ocean liners with their thousand or more emigrant passengers. Very different in looks was this small sailing vessel with its hundred English-speaking passengers. There were no steamships in those days, and cross- ing the Atlantic was long and dangerous. This small sailing vessel had been three months crossing the stormy Atlantic. They had come so far and to such a wild, unknown country for reasons very different 2 WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS from those which the modern emigrant has for coming to America. The latter comes to better his condition, to get work that is The Mayflower better paid than in his own country, some- times to get rid of military service. The Pilgrims came that they might live in their own way, have their own government and their own church. Twelve years before, they had left England THE EMIGRANTS 3 for Holland, a country where their religious beliefs were tolerated and where their children could receive a good education. The story of their last years in England is a very sorrowful one. At that time everyone had to go to one church and to pay to help support it. Many people disliked being obliged to attend a church in whose teachings they did not wholly believe, but only a few had the courage to say so. These few, mostly poor men, established a little church of their own where they could have such simple services as they believed in. In our own day there are many such separate small meetings of people who do not believe quite as our churches do. These people are free to have such gatherings and to do and say what pleases them if they are orderly and peaceable. Three hundred years ago every- thing was different. These few poor people were forbidden to come together, and when they disobeyed, their meetings were broken up by soldiers and they were punished by being fined and imprisoned. This treatment 4 WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS drove them to the resolution of leaving Eng-^ land for Holland. To migrate to Holland, of itself, was a great h-ardship. Most of them had homes and were living in the same places where their fathers and grandfathers had lived be- fore them. They sold these homes and their belongings to get money for going. What a hard thing it must have been for them to think of giving up all their comfort- able things, to go to a strange country where even the language was different from their own English tongue. The next step was to get a ship to carry them to Holland. They were not allowed to leave peacefully, how- ever. The authorities hindered their going by every means in their power. No English ship owner or captain dared to carry them, so they tried to engage a Dutch boat. William Bradford, who was one of these pilgrims, wrote the best history of the Plym- outh Plantation. In it he tells of some of the difficulties they met with. THE EMIGRANTS 5 *• There was a large company of them purposed to get passage at Boston in^incolnshire, and for that end hired a shipe, wholy to themselves, and made agreement with the maister to be ready at a certaine day, and take them and their goods in at a conveinente place, where they would all attende in readiness. So after long , waiting & large expences, he came at length and toke them in in ye night. But when he had them & their goods abord, he betrayed them, having beforehand complotted with ye searchers & other officers so to doe ; Who tooke them, and put them into open boats, ' & ther rifled (robbed) and ransacked them, searching them for money ; and then carried them back into ye towne, & made them a specktacle to ye multitude, which cam flocking on all sides to behold them. Being thus first rifled and stripte of theur money, books and 1 much other goods, they were comitted to warde (prison). Ye issue was that after a months imprisonmente, ye 1 greatest part were dismiste & sent to the places from ' whence they came. Another attempt to get away from Eng- land had even a more sorrowful ending. A I large company had bargained with a Dutch sailing master and were to meet his vessel at a place on the coast where there was a large common from which they could be taken to 6 WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS the vessel in small boats. The first part of the plan was carried out. Most of the men had been taken to the vessel, when its master " spied a great company, both horse and foote, with bills and guns & other weapons ; for the country was raised to take them." The Dutchman was badly frightened, weighed his anchor, hoisted his sails, and sailed away. Bradford tells the rest of the story in a moving way : But ye poore men which were gott abord, were in great distress for their wives and children, which they saw thus to be taken, and were left destitute of their helps ; It drew tears from their eyes, and anything they had they would have given to have been ashore againe ; but all in vaine, ther was no remedy, they must thus sadly part. Meantime the poor women and children who had been left behind were deserted by the few men who had been left, and were taken from one justice to another; no one knew what to do with this crowd of helpless ones who had no homes to go to, no husbands, or fathers to defend them. The Poor Women and Children Were Taken from One Justice to Another 8 WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS At last, "they were glad to be ridd of them on any terms," though Bradford says, "In the meantime they (poor soules) indured misery enough." The historian ends his ac- count of the trouble in getting away from England thus : "And in ye end notwith- standing all these stormes of oppossition, they all gatt over at length, some at one time and some at another, and mette togeather againe according to their desires, with no small rejoicing." When we think that the man who wrote these words was one of the very number who suffered so much perse- cution, Mr. William Bradford, afterward gov- ernor of the colony, we understand better the "no small rejoicing" with which these Pilgrims found themselves all together at last in Holland, the land where they found freedom to worship as they would. There they lived for twelve years in peace and comfort. Then the little children who had clung, crying, to their mothers as they saw the ship sail away carrying their fathers, THE EMIGRANTS 9 had grown to be large boys and girls. They had been in the Dutch schools, where they had learned to speak the language of the country. In their games, too, and in all their intercourse with schoolmates the Dutch language was used. They were in danger of forgetting their English tongue. This was unbearable to those English fathers and mothers who loved England though they had left her. They decided that they must move again, and this time a long, long journey was to be taken, across the sea to the shores of North America. CHAPTER II The Voyage and First Winter Thus, for the sake of the children, was the voyage of the Mayflower undertaken. The story of that voyage is best told in a book sometimes called The Log of the May- flower. It is a careful account of all that happened on the way and of much that came after their landing at Plymouth. The writer was the same Mr. William Bradford from whom we have quoted. Is it not a wonder- ful thing that the manuscript of the book has been kept for near three hundred years, and that we may see in his own handwriting and read in his own words what this Pilgrim wrote ? The manuscript belongs to the State of Massachusetts and is deposited in the Library at Boston. THE VOYAGE AND FIRST WINTER u The voyage was a stormy one and they were "not a little joy full" when they sighted the land called Cape Cod. There is a story that the women on the ship begged a boat of the captain that they might go on shore to wash the dirty linen which they had been unable to do during the voyage. We may fancy these Pilgrim mothers near the spot where stands now the great monument on Cape Cod, doing their homely, thoughtful work for the children. They were thankful no doubt to set foot on dry land again. So while the men were exploring the coast, in hope of finding a good landing place, they accomplished their task. The men, meantime, found no good place to settle, neither was the harbor deep enough for large boats, and it was decided to sail along the coast northward. So after much anxious watching the shore they came into Plymouth harbor. Bradford closes his story thus : "On ye 16. of Desem, ye wind came faire, and they arrived safe in this harbor. And 12 WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS after wards tooke better view of ye place, and resolved wher to pitch their dwelling ; and ye 25. day begane to erect ye first house for comone use to receive them and their goods." There were thirty children, according to Bradford's list of Mayflower passengers, who came to this wild and desolate place in the wintry December weather. Two babies had been born during the voyage, one Oceanus Hopkins named in honor of his birthplace, the other Peregrine White, whose name means wanderer or pilgrim. The cradle of this youngest Pilgrim is still kept in Plymouth. When we see such things as this small wooden cradle we seem to be nearer to those days, nearly three hundred years away. It was for the sake of these children the parents had braved the dangers of the ocean and the perils of the shore. They wanted them to grow up away from the temptations of the city streets and the association with worldly companions. Bradford says, when THE VOYAGE AND FIRST WINTER 13 he is giving the reasons for their departure from Holland: "But that which was more lamentable, and of all sorrowes most heavie to be borne, was that many of their children, by those occasions, and ye manifold tempta- tions of the place, were drawn away by evill examples into extravagant and dangerous courses, getting ye raines off their neks & departing from their parents, to ye great greefe of their parents and dishonour of God." The early days of the Plymouth colony were, however, very hard on the little children and many mothers must have looked back with longing to the comforts of their stay in Holland, as they watched their precious little ones sicken and die in the harsh climate. Large families came to the settlers, but many, many little ones died almost as soon as they were born. The lack of medical care, the dreadful doses they were compelled to take, because the fathers and mothers knew noth- ing better, all of these were hard for the babies. 14 WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS There was, however, another trial which was even more dreadful ; the Puritan children had to be baptized a few days after they were born, and baptized in the meetinghouse. Now this was a barn-like place because it was unheated, and bare of any decoration such as make beautiful so many of our churches. Sometimes the ice had to be broken in the christening bowl before the water could be used for its sacred purpose. Judge Sewall of Boston makes this entry in his diary: "A very extraordinary Storm by reason of the falling and driving of Snow. Few women could get to meeting. A child named Alex- ander was baptized in the afternoon." He tells also about his own baby, of four days old, shrinking from the icy water, but not crying. Judge Sewall, a famous Puritan, wrote a diary for his own use and pleasure, which has been a great help to us in learning some- thing of the life of those days, and it is for- tunate that the making of diaries was a cus- tom that even the children copied. There THE VOYAGE AND FIRST WINTER 15 were no newspapers in those days to record the events of daily living. I think no news- paper, however, would have told the story of this Puritan baby "who shrank from the icy water, but did not cry" as this father told it. It shows his own strong faith as well as his pride in the baby. They died of all sorts of dreadful diseases, those poor little children. Sore throat, fevers, and smallpox carried them off even if they lived after baptism. Very little was known in those days of the prevention of disease. We, in the twentieth century, are only now learning facts of which those fathers and mothers knew nothing. Our children must have plenty of air and light, which they could not have had in their hastily built small shelters. Then they had no real drain- age and we have learned how necessary that is to health. Even in very poor districts the modern city has great sewers to carry off the filth from streets and houses, because we know the importance of such cleanliness 16 WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS to health. Much of the mortality of both grown people and children was due to lack of knowledge, and the children suffered most. Think of the pain of mothers so helpless to relieve and save ! An instance is given of one mother, who in nine years lost five little ones, and out of six had only one child left. We cannot wonder that the children died when we read of the medicines with which they were dosed. Snail water was used as a tonic ; Venice treacle which was made of preserved vipers with twenty other ingredi- ents was another of the most revolting rem- edies. Rickets was a new disease which had not been known in England. Here is a pre- scription given by a physician for its cure : Dip the child in cold water, naked in the morning, head foremost in cold water, dont dress it Immediately but let it be made warm in ye cradle & sweat at least half an hour. Do this 3 mornings going & if one or both feet are cold while other parts sweat, Let a little blood be taken out of ye feet ye 2d morning, and it will cause them to sweat afterward. CHAPTER III Little Pioneers It was fortunate for the future of the colony that in spite of so many deaths there were large families in every house. Sir William Phips was one of twenty-six children. Ben- jamin Franklin had sixteen brothers and sisters. Cotton Mather, the famous divine, had fifteen children. These large families were thought to be a blessing. The children were trained to work and to be helpful, and we may imagine what fun and frolic they had when work was done, with a dozen brothers and sisters to play games. I suppose they must have had " nicknames" as most boys and girls have nowadays ; otherwise we could never fancy their playing games at all. Here are some of the baptismal c 17 1 8 WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS names given by the good Puritan fathers and mothers : Experience, Deliverance, Pre- served, Waitstill, Sobriety, Truegrace, En- durance. Yet, there were some beautiful names not uncommon, as Hope, Grace, Patience, Joy. The most remarkable name I have heard is Zurishaddai, meaning the "Al- mighty is my rock." Better times were coming for the children, as well as to the grown people after that first long hard winter at Plymouth. How happy the children must have been when the spring sunshine and flowers came! No longer was it necessary to stay in small rooms where the snow banks outside sometimes darkened the windows ! When tasks were done there were interesting things out of doors. Some of the flowers were old favorites, but there were many and lovely new ones. No haw- thorne bushes, but pussy willows ; no daisies, but the sweet arbutus hiding away under the last year's leaves. To be sure children must not go far away LITTLE PIONEERS 19 from the door of their homes. They had always before them the fear of the savages, though Squanto and Samoset, two good In- dians, had made friends with them and had tried to show kindness to them. A little story is told that goes to show how real was this fear and that even the children had to be brave in those days. During the first year of the settlement a little girl had been left to keep house with her small brother and sister. The father was away at work in the forest ; the mother had gone on an errand to a neighbor's house some distance away. The child was busy about the great fireplace tending to some cooking which had been left for her to do. The little ones played about the floor. Proud of being left a little house mother and sing- ing, maybe, a hymn to show her joyful heart she went about her tasks or played with the children. Then suddenly the little maiden noticed that the room was somehow dark- ened. She looked up at the small window, 20 WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS and for a minute stood dismayed. There, looking in straight at her, was an Indian, his ugly painted face and headdress of feathers filling the window. While she looked, he grunted and moved away. The door was barred as it had been since she had been alone, so that in a moment she knew what to do. She turned upside down the great brass kettle on the hearth and made the little ones lie close on the floor under its shelter. Then, with great pains she got down a big shot- gun from the wall and thrust it through the window. She knew Indians were afraid of the guns of the white men. There the little heroine stood, for two hours, keeping guard, till the father came running to her relief. The story shows why the children feared these savage, unknown people of the forest. As the settlers came to know the Indians better much of this dread was lost. Two Indians, Squanto and Massasoit, who were friendly, secured from most of the tribes near them the friendship to the newcomers. So LITTLE PIONEERS 21 after a time the Pilgrim children lost their fear and even made friends with these dark, strange people. Everything, too, brightened with the coming of the summer. When the cold snow had melted from the ground the men were able to build better homes and to clear the ground for planting crops. With courage and energy that could not fail to be rewarded with success, they worked to make homes in the new land. We may be sure the children shared in these improved conditions. Better food and plenty of it, liberty to run and play in the forest made their lives happier. Then, like mothers the world over, these Puritan mothers found time to weave, to quilt, to embroider little clothes and blankets and caps, many of which have been saved to the present day, after having been used by gen- erations of children. Some of the little blan- kets were of costly material as well as beau- tiful workmanship. The christening blanket of Governor Bradford of Plymouth colony 22 WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS still exists. It is made of crimson silk, richly embroidered. We think of Governor Brad- ford as the wise governor who dealt with such strength and patience with all the difficulties of the new government. Think of him as the little baby in old England whose baby garments were so valued as to be brought over on the Mayflower ! Many dainty little dresses of linen are still treasured in homes and museums, that were worn by these little ones so long ago. They were rocked in cradles, these Puritan babies, an indulgence hardly allowed to ba- bies nowadays. Some of the cradles were prettier than the frail wicker bassinets of to- day. Many of the heavy hooded wooden ones are found in the A Filgrim Cradle garrets of New Eng- land families. A very famous one is that of Peregrine White, who Bradford says "was LITTLE PIONEERS 23 borne a shipboard." It was made in Hol- land and was brought over in the Mayflower. It may be seen in Pilgrim Hall in Plymouth where are so many priceless Pilgrim posses- sions. Another wicker cradle is preserved in Essex Institute in Salem. I should think the prettiest of them all must have been those that were made of birch bark and swung between two poles. Now what did they have to eat — these little Puritan children ? A famous English ( writer on education in the seventeenth cen- 1 tury recommends small beer, brown bread, J and cheese as proper articles of food for grow- ing children. American children had simpler 1 food ; milk to drink was plentiful. Among the newer articles of diet were preparations from Indian corn, such as samp, hominy, succotash, and beans, all used by the Indians, but new to the white people. Then there was the great variety of fruits and berries, most of them larger and finer than in the old home. Think of the delights of "berrying" 24 WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS for wild grapes, blackberries, and beach plums ! Children had plenty of sweets, too, — candied lemon peel, macaroons, sugared almonds. We are glad to believe Judge Sewall's children (fifteen of them) were al- lowed to have this last-named dainty, as he mentions it more than once in his diary. In later colony days strings of rock candy came from China. It is reported that a ship came into port with eighty boxes of sugar candy and sixty tubs of rock candy. No wonder a writer of colonial days says that sweets were much more common in America than in England ! Not all this candy, how- ever, could equal the new dainty, maple sugar, unknown in England or Holland, but plentiful in the New World. Indians taught settlers how to make and use it, and of all the good things to eat for which they had to thank their savage neighbors, we may believe the children liked it best. CHAPTER IV Children's Games Children of the twentieth century will be curious about the games of the small Puritans. There is one name of a boy on the National Monument to the Pilgrims at Plymouth. It is that of John Cooke, aged twelve, who came in the Mayflower with his father, leaving the mother and younger children in Holland. What did John find that was fun for a boy to do ? There is a little girl in a picture at Plymouth, too, — a little Puritan maid, in long gown and close cap, — that makes us ask ourselves the same question. She is looking up into the face of Samoset, the first Indian visitor, keeping tight hold of her father's hand — half afraid yet very curious. From what game had she been called to see 25 26 WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS this strange visitor ? And what wonderful plays might she not "make up" later! Per- haps, she had been playing "house" as our little girls do, only with a spinning wheel as part of furnishing. As for the boy who is in the picture, we know what game he would play — with bow and arrows and marching and capture. But though we may only fancy what these small Pilgrims played, because there is no rec- ord made of their doings, we may be sure that from that very first delightful spring day when the children ventured out of the small dark houses, there were games. Some of these houses are still standing. They have small, low, dark rooms, great beams, and little orna- ment anywhere. Some of them are the Alden house at Duxbury, the Fairbanks house at Dedham, and one in Marshfield, all nearly three hundred years old, and in two of them descendants of the builders still live. These houses must all have been sur- CHILDREN'S GAMES 27 rounded by the finest possible playgrounds for the children. They were built on slight elevations of land, and all about them stretched acres of field and meadow. Though fathers and mothers were too busy and perhaps too serious to keep record of the games of the children, does any boy or girl doubt that they had grand times in their big play- grounds ? The fathers may have frowned a little and called the play time, waste time ; but the mothers smiled on the children as the sun smiled, and thanked God for happiness and health in the new land. They played new games probably — In- dian surprises, defending play forts, and sol- diering. They had old games, however, many of them brought from England and Holland that generations of children had played be- fore them. Do you know that games are the oldest of things ? — things not written down in books and learned, but just told from child to child, and so handed down through the generations. "Tag," of course, 28 WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS of all the different kinds is played to-day as it was played centuries ago. Here is a list of some games played by the children of the colonies : Thread the Needle, Marbles, Whoop and Hide, Blindman's Buff, Base- ball, Leap Frog, and others which we do not know so well. Fifty years ago, at recess time on a public school playground, I learned some of the sing- ing games which were favorites of these Amer- ican colonial children: "Green gravel, green gravel, the grass is so green" ; " Oats, pease, beans, and barley grows"; "Ring around a rosy"; "Here I brew, here I bake, here I make my wedding cake"; "Little Sally Waters sitting in the sun." Such old games are still played and enjoyed in many of the rural schools — the very same games which these little colonial children played hundreds of years ago ! Coasting seems to have been more general in New York than in New England where it was rather frowned upon, perhaps because of CHILDREN'S GAMES 29 its dangers. What delightful slides the New Englanders missed down the splendid hills which are everywhere in that region ! In New York attempts were made to control the coasting by law. At one time the con- stables at Albany were ordered to seize and break up the "slees on which boys and girls ryde down the hills." At another time it is recorded that if a boy were caught coasting on Sunday he had to forfeit his hat ! That seems a strange punishment for the offense. I wonder which the boy would prefer to suf- fer — the loss of his hat or of his "slee." Football was played in the colonies. It was a favorite game. The game as played in the seventeenth century is described thus by a French traveler: "It is a leather ball about as big as one's head, filled with wind. This is kicked about from one to the other in the streets by him that can get it, and that is all the art of it." Boys and girls of to-day will decide that the French traveler doesn't know much about football ! That it was 30 WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS played very differently, even in earlier times, we know from a book written against the abuses of games, by one Philip Stubbes who wrote in 1583. This is what he says about football: "For as concerning football play- ing I proteste unto you that it may rather be called a friendlie kind of fighte than a playe or recreation — a bloody and mur- therin practice than a sport or pastime." He goes on to describe a kind of football which is indeed dangerous and unprofitable, but which has in it the same elements of courage and emulation which make our own college football games the chief spectacle and delight of thousands every Thanksgiving time. Indians played football in colony days ; whether in imitation of the whites, or as their own game, we do not know. A traveler in New England when Boston was fifty years old, tells the story of an Indian game which he saw played : There was that day a great game of football to be played. There was another town played against CHILDREN'S GAMES 31 them as is common in England ; but they played with their bare feet which I thought very odd ; but it was upon a broad sandy shoar free from stones which made it easie. Neither were they so apt to trip up one another's heels and quarrel as I have seen in England. Governor Bradford and many others in Plymouth colony thought it wrong to have games on Christmas day. The very first Christmas day in the colony, some of the younger men who did not think it any harm to play, when they were called out to work, "excused themselves, and said it went against their consciences to work on that day." The governor excused them since they made it a matter of conscience. He must have changed his mind, however, for at noon when he came home from work and found them playing in the street, he "went to them and took away their implements and tould them it was against his conscience that they should play and others work." This action shows the same good sense and kindness which made him such a good governor for forty years. ^ It Was against His Conscience that They Should Play and Others Work 32 CHILDREN'S GAMES 33 In what a real, living way does this love for games seem to connect us with those who lived three hundred years ago ! Many things have changed, but not these great interests of the children. Then, as now, marble time came first, then kite time, top time, ball time, even the seasons for games being the same as to-day. Perhaps more wonderful still, the children have game laws of their own, handed down from one generation of children to another, taught by one generation to the next. CHAPTER V Puritan Playthings Girl children and dolls — that used to be the rule. Every little girl had a doll which she treated as if it were her own little girl. It seems that this is no longer true. Perhaps the fad of Teddy bears broke the spell, or the attractions of more modern playthings dis- placed the old love. Plenty of little girls nowadays who have dolls, care for them very little, and not at all in the old fashion. In- stead of rocking and dressing and playing house with them, they play stories in which the beautifully dressed, sweet-faced doll is the heroine, and the scenes which they imagine for them have no likeness to the old-fashioned tea-party game. Fifty years ago a girl's chief treasure was perhaps a rag doll — only 34 PURITAN PLAYTHINGS 35 very rich children had a Paris doll of china or wax. Happy the child whose mother or aunt or grandmother had the pattern by which to cut out of cotton and calico the model little women of the day. Clumsy and shapeless compared with the artistic dolls of the shops they were ; unbelievably ugly of face, but treasured and loved beyond all other toys. Did the little Pilgrims in those earliest days have any such pleasant toy or doll to console them for the loss of their comfortable Dutch houses, and to comfort them in their fears of the dark forests and their savage dwellers ? We may reason- ably conclude that some of those children had hidden away a treasured baby, though there is no mention in any record of it. Dolls were not unknown in England and Holland in that day. Indeed, much longer ago than An Old Doll 36 WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS that, dolls were loved and played with. In the tombs of Greece amid other things of value found in excavations, are dolls of ivory and wood with jointed arms and legs. Strange little reminders they are of how much in common have the children of all generations. Dolls came into childish favor in England in a curious fashion. The milliners and dressmakers used them to display the fash- ions. In the Gentleman s Magazine, Lon- don, September, 175 1, we find a news item, " Several dolls with different dresses made in St. Francis Street have been sent to the Czarina to show the manner of dressing at present in fashion among English ladies." This circulation of dressed dolls took the place of our modern fashion plates in ladies' mag- azines. These " babies" for models were made in great numbers for the use of milliners. As the best models were made in Flanders, they came to be called "Flanders babies." What good mother or grandmother first thought of PURITAN PLAYTHINGS 37 their possibilities for the joy of the children will never be known, but they soon came to be used by hundreds in the play rooms of the homes. A funny little rhyme in this connection has been handed down to us. What the children of Holland take pleasure in making, The children of England take pleasure in breaking. Dolls in England were sold at fairs, and the best at Bartholomew Fair. These were called Bartholomew babies, and were cele- brated in poetry even. The English poet, Ward, wrote : Ladies d'y want fine Toys For Misses or for Boys Of all sorts I have choice And pretty things to tease ye. I want a little babye As pretty a one as may be With head dress made of feathers. These "babyes" were known in 1620, and some of the little Pilgrims may easily have had one. 38 WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS Two "old dolls" we have seen, are in queer contrast to the china babies of to-day. Each has a special interest on account of its dress. The pretty party dress with scalloped skirt, the dainty slippers, are all spoiled to childish eyes by the awkward "pantalets" coming below the dress skirt, which were the ordinary addition to the dress of little girls for many generations. The second little old lady doll has the apron, bag, and cap of the Puritan matron. The French dolls are much uglier than these, while the White House doll would be taken straight to the heart of any doll-loving little maiden of the day. She is so bright, so neat, so dainty a little body. She lived with the children of President John Quincy Adams in our White House at Washington. Another and very different kind of doll was made in the garden. Every respectable New England house had its garden attached. Every garden had its flowers, many or few, growing perhaps all together in a delightful PURITAN PLAYTHINGS 39 tangle, prettier than our more formal beds and borders. There were so many and such common flowers that the children were free to play with them to their hearts' content. One of the sweetest uses to which they were put was the making of flower ladies or dolls with which to stage comedies and tragedies, — stories quite different from the simple house plays of the more substantial "babyes." The great red poppies made gay petticoats for dolls whose heads were the black hard under part of the flower. The hollyhock blossoms could be tied into tiny dolls with charming satin gowns — whole families and schools were thus made to play their parts in the story dramatized by the children. A little girl was forbidden to play with dolls on Sunday, but had the freedom of the garden. To her mother's horror she was discovered playing with these pretty flower ladies, ar- ranged in quadrilles and dances. She was playing party, on a long Sunday afternoon ! Other toys beside these dollies were made 40 WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS in the garden. Children love the dandelion nowadays — city children especially. There is surely nothing prettier than a bunch of kindergarten babies with their hands and frocks filled with the golden beauties. These riches are usually intended for " teacher," to whom they are brought in overwhelming quantities. We never see these children making dandelion chains with the long stemmed ones, however, or dandelion curls to wear behind their ears and hanging from their braids and ribbons. Small Puritan maidens had few beads and chains of gold and coral or crystal ; so they took real pleas- ure in adorning themselves with dandelions. After the flowers had lost their pretty color and had only their crown of gray down left, the children played with them in a dif- ferent way. The following rhyme tells its own tale: Dandelion the globe of down, The school boys' clock in every town, Which the truant puffs amain To conjure back long hours again. PURITAN PLAYTHINGS 41 The ox-eye daisy made lovely chains, too, and the flowers were fortune tellers of as much weight as the gypsy camp. "He loves me, he loves me not," the little maiden chanted as she pulled the white petals one by one. With the magic words coming as the last petal fluttered to the ground, the fate was announced of the inquirer. "He loves me" was the triumphant conclusion when the game was played properly. Pretty boats were made of the large flat leaves of the "flower de luce." These had pennants, perhaps of ribbon grass. The little craft were loaded with flowers and set adrift on some brook or even running gutter after a summer shower. Children love the toys which they .contrive for themselves much better than the elaborate creations of the toy shops. To be sure there were no toy shops in Pilgrim days ; so little people had to make their own playthings or do without. I am almost sure, however, that these homemade toys gave more pleas- 42 WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS ure than the most perfectly made, modern playthings. The fun of making equals the fun in playing with them. Many chil- dren's games require an outfit quite elabo- rate, as those best loved games of " house" and "store." These outfits the little co- lonial girls were quite equal to providing. To-day our toy shops have completely fitted stores and doll houses enough to make any child scream with delight, but two days playing with them exhausts the pleasure. They are too complete, — the fun of making them has been taken away from the child. Of another sort entirely, were the homemade toys of the little Puritan girls and boys. I have heard of a milliner shop where the finest hats for ladies were made of large or small burdock leaves, garnished with wreaths of small flowers, feathers from the chicken yard, and ribbons and bows of striped grasses. The stock was further enriched by a variety of bur baskets filled with flowers and small fruits. That must PURITAN PLAYTHINGS 43 have been a very pretty and satisfactory shop. The useful burs, moreover, could be made into furniture for the doll house, — beautiful chairs and tables. Acorn cups made part of the table set. Sometimes rose-hips were made into more delicate dishes with bent pin han- dles. The garden furnished the eatables, also, at these fairy feasts. Hollyhock and mallow " cheeses" were in great demand. Pumpkin seeds and rose leaves were favorite dishes, while sorrel and grapevine tendrils and pepper grass gave relish to the feast. Boys, too, were wonderfully ingenious in making for themselves the toys they wanted. Given a jackknife, anything was possible to the little Yankee. Jackknives were hard to come by to be sure, but nearly every boy managed to get one. The picture shows that they were rough and poor tools compared with the complete and shining knives of to-day. With them the boys made pop-guns, whistles of chestnut and willow, windmills, ^ fw All Boys from Ten to Sixteen Should Be Exercised with bows and arrows 44 PURITAN PLAYTHINGS 45 water-wheels, and box traps. Toy weapons, bows and arrows, slings and clubs they made, of course. Bows and arrows had the charm of being real weapons still, for in 1645 the Skating (From Old Picture Book) court of Massachusetts ordered that all boys from ten to sixteen years should be exercised with bows and arrows. Even for the pastime of skating it is re- corded that a pair of skates used on the Hud- son was made of beef bones, just as, long be- fore, the English boys had fastened the leg 46 WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS bones of animals to the feet and pushed them- selves along with sharp pointed poles. The boys of New England were fortunate, how- ever, in being better provided with wooden skates shod with iron. Skating was a Dutch pastime which the Pilgrims had learned in their long sojourn in Holland. Some rhymed advice to skaters printed one hundred years ago, might be appreciated to-day : "Tis true it looks exceeding nice To see boys gliding on the ice, And to behold so many feats Performed upon the sliding skates, But before you venture there Wait until the ice will bear For want of this both young and old Have tumbled in, — got wet and cold. CHAPTER VI Sunday Clothes The hard times of the first years in New England did not last long. The settlers had come into a new, rich inheritance, and when the first difficulties were over, they began to thrive greatly. The fathers and mothers were picked men and women, gathered from many parts of England. They were strong in business ability, in foresight, and economy as well as in religion. They speedily estab- lished profitable trade with England, where they had partners to look after the selling of their products. They sent shiploads of fish and lumber. They began to build ships of their own in which they sailed far north to capture whales whose oil made their lights. Nothing was too difficult for them to under- 47 48 WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS take, and success was certain to follow such energy and ability. They began to live com- fortably too, building good houses with large rooms and beautiful, simple architecture. Their children were no longer to be pitied as compared with those in the older countries. Portraits of the children, which have been kept in families all these years, show us how they looked and what they wore. The child portrait of John Quincy shows oneof the quaintest of these dresses, worn in 1690. This is a baby boy's dress, modeled after the gowns worn by women in England and America at that time. Robert Gibbs' por- trait at four and a half years, dated 1670, Robert Gibbs, Four and a Half Years Old, 1670 SUNDAY CLOTHES 49 shows the same general effect, with the more dignified Puritan collar, and minus the easy little hood of the younger child. These " coats" (short for petticoats, I believe) were worn till six or thereabouts, when boys exchanged them for the proper manly garments made very much like their fathers'. Not until Marie- Antoinette dressed the little Dauphin in clothes especially designed for him, so tradition says, did any one think of making boys' clothes so that they would suit active boys. To-day America leads the world in designing clothing suitable for chil- dren. A painting of a dear little giil is that of Jane Boner, eight years old, made in 1700. Jane Boner 50 WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS It must be remembered that these portraits were painted of children dressed in their best, not in their everyday, clothes. The lace with which Jane's dress is so prettily trimmed is of rose point, a beautiful and expensive lace. Other materials used were rich, as silks and velvets even for baby's clothing. One may suspect, with some reason, that mothers and grandmothers were making up, in their joy at dressing these little ones, for the deprivations of their own childhood. These children should have the dainty cloth- ing their elders had missed. We may be sure, however, that the Puritan fathers disapproved of such extravagance as strongly as possible. They made laws against " luxurious attire," and many offenders were tried and fined. Young girls were fined for wearing " im- moderate great sleeves," but I fancy they were still worn until they "went out of fashion." In New York no attempt was made to regu- late the dress of women and children. A portrait of the twin daughters of Abram Van SUNDAY CLOTHES 51 Peyster of New York, five-year-old children, painted in 1729, shows beautifully dressed, sweet faced little maidens in red velvet trained gowns, with bare feet ! In Virginia wealthy people had most of their furniture and clothing sent from Eng- land. In Washington's house at Mount Ver- non, we have preserved for us much that is interesting and that shows really luxurious living. Washington's two step-children were more fortunate, probably, than most Vir- ginian children, if we call fortunate those who have the most beautiful clothes and the most refined care. Here is a list of clothes to be sent out from England for little Nellie Custis, aged six : 1 coat made of Fashionable Silk A Fashionable Cap with Bib apron Ruffles and Tuckers to be laced 4 Fashionable Dresses made of Long Lawn 2 Fine cambric Frocks A Satin Capuchin ( ?) hat, and neckaties A Persian Quilted Coat 1 pr. Pack Thread Stays ( !) i WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS 6 pr. Leather Shoes 2 pr. Satin Shoes with flat ties 6 pr. White Kid Gloves I pr. Silver Shoe Buckles i pr. Neat Sleeve Buttons i Poor little Miss Custis, aged six ! It is to be hoped she was allowed to wear the cambric frocks and leather shoes once in a while, even with "stays" underneath. There was not much real play for these fashionable little Virginians, however. Co- lonial mothers were afraid the little girls would get too plump for beauty, and that their complexions would suffer without bon- net and gloves. Little Dolly Payne wore always long gloves and a linen mask, which I fancy covered the face except holes for eyes and mouth, and her sunbonnet was sewed on her head every morning ! Afterward when she was Dolly Madison, the wife of the Presi- dent, living in the White House and hang- ing her clothes to dry in its unfinished rooms, was she not glad to be grown up and to SUNDAY CLOTHES 53 have to wear a mask only when she went riding, and a bonnet only when she chose ? Nellie Custis was a little girl to be envied, not because of the lovely things she wore, but because Washington loved her and she was a sweet and obedient daughter to him. In the Mount Vernon homestead her bed- room is kept just as she used it, and except for the high feather bed into which she must have mounted by steps, it is like any girl's pretty room. It takes little fancy to see its favored occupant trying on her "Fashion- able Cap and Bib apron" before the dress- ing table. That Boston little girls were not behind those of New York and Virginia in the ele- gance of their dress, is shown by the descrip- tion of Anna Green Winslow, a little Boston girl of twelve, written in 1771 : I was dressed in my yellow coat, my black bib and apron, my pompedore shoes, the cap my aunt Storer sometime since presented me with blue ribbons on it, a very handsome loket in the shape of a hart, the 54 WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS paste pin my Hon'd Papa presented me with in my cap, my new cloak and bonnet on, my gloves, and I would tell you they lik'd my dress very much. In another very frank little letter Anna tells us particularly how her hair was dressed, "over a high roll, so heavy and hot that it made my head itch and ach and burn like anything." On top of the roll was perched the new cap with "blue ribbons." Con- trast all this heavy, hot, uncomfortable finery with the simply cut, loose dresses worn by sensible little girls of the twentieth century ! Nor were the girls the only ones who suffered from such fashions. Records and portraits show that boys, like their fathers, wore costly wigs. Imagine our nine- and eleven-year- old youngsters submitting to such a fashion ! It was not until cottons from Oriental coun- tries began to be used that all the velvets and silks and laces were discarded in favor of these lighter, cooler materials. Boys' suits as well as girls' were made of calico and chintz and nankeen. A little suit worn in SUNDAY CLOTHES 55 1784 was made of colored calico. It was very, very tight. But otherwise it is not un- like more modern clothes. A charming portrait is that of Jona- than Mountfort, seven years old, made in 1753. This is one of Copley's portraits. Perhaps that is why we get so clearly the beautiful boyish face, with its quaintly cut hair, and the stately costume, made in exact imitation of those worn by the men of the time. It looks very warm and comfortable, compared with the calico trousers and blouse in the preceding portrait. Indeed both boys and girls must have suffered some from cold in these calico and nankeen garments, as they were worn in the winter as well as sum- mer — New England winters, too. Surely boys and girls have reason to be glad that all those experiments in clothes are ended, and that out of the endless variety of material and patterns, provided for them alone, sensible parents may and do select simple, comfortable, even beautiful clothes. 56 WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS Is it too much to hope that some day every American child may have clean, comfortable, good-looking clothes, and that they may live in houses that are open to air and sunshine, spacious enough for comfort and cleanliness ? CHAPTER VII Their Schooling It is worth while for boys and girls of to- day to fancy the schoolhouses of those early days and to compare their own advantages with those of colonial children. The law compelled the building of school- houses and the hiring of teachers. Lists of children were made in the towns, and the parents were compelled to pay, though we do not hear that the children were com- pelled to attend as in our own time. The schoolhouses were most of them small, poor buildings, many of logs, and with fur- niture of the simplest sort. The pupils sat on wooden benches without backs, when they were not standing in rows to recite. The windows were carefully placed so high in the walls that it was impossible to get a glimpse of the tempting world outside. In 57 58 WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS winter, a great fireplace, as in the houses, furnished heat for one side of the building. The logs for the fire were furnished by the parents as part pay for the schooling. Alas for the child whose father was late in sending in his share of the fuel in early winter. The schoolmaster banished the little unfortu- nate to the coldest corner of the schoolroom. Wood was only one of the things which was given in payment for such ''schooling" as was to be had. Beaver skins, wampum, Indian corn were offered to the teacher in payment for his services. Paper was scarce and too highly prized for children to use. Even the ministers found it hard to get paper enough upon which to write their endless sermons. In New Hampshire and Maine the children used the plentiful birch bark for paper. What de- lightful books of sums and copies could be made of birch bark ! Lead pencils were not in common use and most of the work that has been preserved was done in ink. THEIR v H00L1 ■> ( )m '>' ' • on ' A I he s< hool yeai remij isi oi oui own clau reunion! and reception, At the end of the term they I. ivhi< li i he ( hildren provided foi I hei and theii J n ■' -•• 1 1 hire, in ■,' hool, I he ( hildren ta ved I h< from 1 he big firepla< e and sold l hem to money foi their 1 1 • hi< }j w ging 'I foi ; >]J (vho i ifj New York and Penn ylvania conditio rou< Ij lil . England i ■ 1 hat pan on for theii ren, I. ( >' rman settlers in I'' on on ound 1 hat it y/oui- children laz d with : ; A not* d aui hoi Knit I h> P< vania fan:.- ^ell Bool And they tlu 60 WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS In Virginia, there were few schoolhouses for a long time. People were not gathered in towns as in New England. Plantations were large and far apart. A saying of one of the colonial governors, in 1670, has been pre- served and shows his temper, though not that of the Virginians. He wrote home to England : "I thank God there are in Virginia no free schools nor printing, and I hope we shall not have, for learning hath brought disobedience and heresy into the world." Governor Berkeley's stupidity brought him into great troubles, as one would be sure it would, knowing his opinion about school- ing for the people. Luckily he did not rep- resent the people in his sentiments, for, from the first, parents who could afford it had their children taught at home, and even sent them to England for the higher education. This is what George Washington's father had planned for him as well as for his older brother, Lawrence. When the father died and all his plans had to be changed, George THEIR SCHOOLING 61 was sent to a little school kept by one Hobby. This school, like some others, was the result of a few neighbors combining to pay a teacher. In this school and another like it, Washington gained all his book learn- ing till he was thirteen years old. His copy books and notebooks are still kept in the Library at Washington and are models of neatness and care. Boys and girls were often sent to other towns than their own for their schooling. Almost all the New England ministers took boys into their homes to teach. Wealthy planters also sent their children to Boston schools. Nobody asked in those days whether boys and girls liked being sent away from home, only whether it was best for them. Here is a letter from the grandmother of one of the little exiles: " Richard wears out nigh 12 paire of shoes a year. He brought 12 hankers with him and they have all been lost long ago ; and I have bought him 3 or 4 more at a time. His way is to tie knottys 62 WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS at one end & beat ye Boys with them and then to lose them & he cares not a bit what I will say to him." Many a good mother will sympathize with Grandmother Hall, the more so as she writes about him in another letter : "As for Richard since I told him I would write to his Father he is more orderly & he is very hungry and has grown so much yt all his Clothes is too Little for him. He has grown a good boy and minds his school and Lattin and Dancing. He is a brisk Child and grows very Cute and wont wear his new silk coat yt was made for him. He wont wear it every day so yt I dont know what to do with it. It wont make him a jackitt." Wise Richard Hall to decline the silk coat, even for every day ! Can't you hear the boys whom he had beaten with knotted kerchiefs making fun of the pretty and elegant little coat ? We get perhaps as real a glimpse of an- other boy from his own letter written from Stamford to his father in Albany, a little Dutch boy this, judging from the name : THEIR SCHOOLING 63 To Mr. Cornelius Ten Broeck att Albany Honored Fethar, These fiew lines comes to let you know that I am in a good State of Health and I hope this may find you also. I have found all my things in my trunk but I must have a pare of schuse. And Mama please to send me some Ches Nutts and some Wall Nutts ; You please to send me a Slate and som pen- sals, and please to send me some smok befe, and for bringing my trunk 3/9, and for a pair of schuse 9 shillings. You please send me a pare of indin's Schuse. You please to send me some dride corn. My duty to Father and Mother and Sister and to all frinds. I am your dutifull Son John Ten Broeck Father forgot to send me my schuse. The little New Yorker remembered his man- ners surely, as he took such pains to say " please" every time. We cannot but won- der why he wanted "smok befe," and if the "dride corn" was for popping. The letter is notable as showing that they used slates and "pensals" in 1752. The spelling was less conventional in those days so that we must not be very critical about the "Ches Nutts." 64 WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS Good boys, both John and Richard, and so exactly like twentieth century boys. That is, after all, I think, why we are interested in them. We must never forget that these poorly furnished log schoolhouses were the first free schools in the world, — the first schools for which the people paid by taxing them- selves. Harvard College had its beginning in 1636, and half the entire income of the colony was voted for its support. Although the lower schools were less generously pro- vided for, more was done for the education of the people by the people than had ever before been done. CHAPTER VIII How Girls were Educated The training of boys and girls was very dif- ferent in the colonies. We have seen what care was taken that the boys should have every advantage of the limited teaching of those days. Fathers and mothers wanted their boys to learn and were willing to spend money out of their scanty means that they should have the best education attainable. It was not thought to be so necessary that girls should have the same sort of education as boys. " Child," said a New England mother of those olden days, "if God make thee a good Christian and a good scholar, 'tis all thy mother ever asked for thee." We may be sure, however, that the child was a son. This mother would not have cared that f 65 66 WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS her daughter should be a "good scholar." She may have wished her to learn to read and write, possibly to count and make change, but some girls grew up without even so much learning. In the best families music and dancing were added but in "few and rare instances," as we learn from the wife of President John Adams. In New York and Virginia conditions were the same. Mary Ball, Washington's mother, wrote when fifteen years old : We have not had a schoolmaster in our neighborhood till now in nearly four years. The rector's assistant teaches school for his board. He teaches Sister Susie and me, and Madam Carter's boy and two girls. I am now learning pretty fast. Girls, it seems, were taught in little schools like this one of Mary Ball's, when parents were able to pay tuition. In the dame schools, as they were called, they were also welcomed if they could pay the small sum asked. The teachers of these schools were usually women who were also housekeepers HOW GIRLS WERE EDUCATED 67 and mothers, who gave up part of their own houses for the schoolrooms. In 1641, in a town in Massachusetts, the people agreed to pay such a teacher ten shillings a year in ad- dition to the tuition paid by parents of the children, perhaps fourpence a week for each child. One hundred years later "a qualified woman teacher" commanded sixty-seven cents a week pay ! There were always in Boston classes and schools 'where girls of wealthy families were taught music and dancing, probably " deport- ment" also, and to these classes girls were sent from other colonies and even from the West Indian islands. Usually they boarded in private homes and recited in the classes. In all these schools, however, sewing, writing, dancing, and a little music were the only subjects taught. Latin and arithmetic were evidently unnecessary for girls, even very undesirable. One affliction under which these little colonial students suffered was connected with 68 WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS " deportment." An erect carriage of the body seemed especially desirable, and to ensure this, girls were obliged to wear a kind of harness somewhat like old-fashioned " shoul- der braces," besides being strapped to back- boards for some part of every day. Dr. Holmes has made fun of this painful prac- tice in a stanza which tells no more than the truth about this form of " education for girls ' ? : They braced my aunt against a board To make her straight and tall, They laced her up, they starved her down, To make her light and small. They pinched her feet, they singed her hair, They screwed it up with pins — Oh, never mortal suffered more In penance for her sins. The "pinching" and "singeing" may be more or less familiar to twentieth century girls, but no such awful contrivance as the back- board has been proposed for them. Tennis and basket ball with other athletic sports have taken its place as a means to the health HOW GIRLS WERE EDUCATED 69 and strength which make for erect and graceful carriage. It is a matter of some surprise to find that so much pains was taken to teach dancing. The Puritan ministers, indeed, preached against it, and probably it was not so common an amusement in rural New England as in New York or Virginia. Then as now, how- ever, it was the popular pleasure for young folks, and in that at least girls were well taught and had a fair chance to excel the boys. Square dances and those in which a number took part were popular, rather than the waltzes and polkas of a later date. A little girl's letter to her father shows that she considered dancing part of a " liberal" edu- cation. Honor'd Sir : Since my coming up (to Philadelphia) I have entered with Mr. Hackett to improve my Danc- ing, and hope to make such Progress therein as may answer to the Expense, and enable me to appear well in any Public Company. The great Desire I have of pleasing you will make me the more Assiduous in my jo WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS undertaking, and if I arrive at any degree of Perfec- tion it must be Attributed to the Liberal Education you bestow on me. I am with greatest Respect, Dear Pappa, Yr dutiful Daughter Mary Grafton That is a better letter than any other we have quoted I think, and I cannot help won- dering if her teacher did not supply some of those big words, especially the spelling of them. The capitals which seem so numerous to us are used quite correctly according to the usage of that day. What interests one most in the letter is the spirit of the little " dutiful daughter." It isn't so common a thing in these twentieth century days to find gratitude, and care for the expense of education, ex- pressed to parents. To learn music was a much simpler matter in those days than now. The instruments were small and the range of notes very limited. Virginals, spinets, and harpsichords were the beginnings of the piano, shaped somewhat HOW GIRLS WERE EDUCATED 71 like it, but with much less powerful tone and smaller range of notes. Many of these old instruments have been preserved in museums and in homes, and the dealers in antiques find them desirable property. The harpsichord bought for Nellie Custis is still kept at Mount Vernon. In all these boarding schools there was a "Commencement," held as now at the end of the year, not at the beginning. The "treat" of raisins and gingerbread prepared with such effort and pains by the children in the country school was far less pretentious. There is an account of one commencement in 1784 which must have outshone many of the present day "finishing school" functions: A stage was erected at the end of the room covered with a carpet, ornamented with evergreens, and lighted by candles in gilt branches. Two window curtains were drawn aside from the center before it and the audience were seated on the benches of the school- room. The " Search after Happiness " by Mrs. More, "The Milliner,'' and " The Dove" by Madam Gerlis were performed. In the first I acted Euphelia, one of 72 WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS the court ladies, and also sung a song intended for another, but as I had the best voice it was given to me. My dress was a pink and green striped silk, feathers and flowers decorated my head ; and with bracelets on my arms and paste buckles on my shoes I thought I made a splendid appearance. In the second piece I acted the Milliner and by some strange notion of Miss Ledyard's was dressed in a gown, cap, hand- kerchief, and apron of my mother's, with a pair of spectacles to look like an elderly woman — a proof how little we understood the character of a French milliner. How my mother with her strict notions and prejudices against the theater ever consented to such proceedings is still a surprise to me. In another way, the training of these co- lonial girls was better than that gained by a knowledge of Latin and Algebra. Their training in all the arts of the home was thor- ough and intelligent. Cooking, cleaning, dressmaking were taught in the homes in the most practical way. Our twentieth cen- tury girls have these subjects, too, in many schools, but I am not sure that they are as thoroughly learned as in colonial kitchens. CHAPTER IX Colonial Textbooks I wonder if there are still in these United States of America people under twenty-five years old who learned to read in the A. B. C. way ; that is, learned every one of the twenty- six letters of the alphabet, before combining them into such thought-provoking syllables as ab, eb, ib. Did they then use these sylla- bles in words like abbot, ebb, ibis ? I fancy not, but that the next step in learning would be the cat, rat, dog page. This method is the very old one by which the little colonials learned to read. What a laborious deaden- ing process it is, none but those who have tried it know. The first textbook used was a hornbook. A picture will give you a clearer idea than 73 74 WORK AND PLAY IN COLONIAL DAYS •AAb.-Jef.fh.jklmnopil | I istm«WH & ieiou iABCDEFGHIJKLMNO JPQRSTL'YWWZ j & e i o u i neiou I d eJ id J ud 3t£>%%% ..,*. N»m« of tin r«tii«r »„,1 uHK, " 5. n »ml of A* Holy Gh«t **« i/-v n Wl«r who" art 'm KlttrrtptlyKngdpmeoRic t\\ r»« oa&othasit ism H*BvH.Giveusit»isP«>y\ Jl leaausnort.iido.i*M