Every day life in the colonies

Preface

Each faculty should receive its training at the time of its greatest natural activity. The imagination is most in evidence in cliildhood. It is charged that chiklhood is disappearing in this country. Students of childlife warn us that the zest, joys, and imaginings natural to children find but small place in the lives of our young people and that too many of them are old before they have had time to be young. The tired look seen in the eyes, the weary and wrinkled appearance of the face, the nervous and erratic movements of the limbs indicate an unnatural condition in many of our young people. The school is not responsible for all these unfortunate results. The home, the church, and the school should seek a remedy for the evils.

It will be a sad day for the chiklren when they no longer find great delight in learning what the boys and girls of former days thought, felt, and did. Something is wrong when little people cease to have the keenest interest in the pastimes, occupations, apparel, and homes of the cliihlren of long ago and in

iii iv PREFACE

all the details which made up their daily life. One of the most efficient agencies in winning children to simple and wholesome living may be the book that records the story of childlife in earlier days in a way to enlist the sympathy of the reader.

The present candidate for favor in this field of service should receive a cordial welcome. It tells graphically and in attractive form how the children of New England spent their Christmas and with what ceremonies they marked the occasion. These pages help our boys and girls to see how this festival has been extended and in what ways it has been elaborated.

No child of average intelligence can read the account of the dame school without being able to close his eyes and see the face and figure of the mistress, the quaint appearance of the children, to make a picture of the room in which the school assembled and listen to the routine work of the day.

Our children will learn some new lessons as they study the old-time observance of the Sabbath. It will be encouraging if the contrasts and comparisons induce in them somewhat of the spirit of reverence and devotion that was manifest in colonial days. The restraints of the olden time were too severe ; the license of the present has its fruits in unwarranted ex-

PREFACE V

cesses. A study of the two periods should make possible better conduct on the part of our coming citizens.

Every normal child will be delighted with the sketches which are giv^en of soap and candle-making, will be glad to know how the colonists told time without a clock, how children wrote their letters in the long ago, and with what anxiety travelers prepared for journeys. The fate of the poor debtor's children will make little readers sorry for suffering, and thankful that cruel laws do not permit such injustice in these days. The story of the Indian attack on Saco will give a new beauty and significance to Whittier's famous poem.

The book will also develop that sympathy and interest which are the true basis of all historical study. It is fortunate that children like incidents, stories, sketches, descriptions of life ; that they are eager to know how people looked and lived and worked, and that they are concerned about the joys and sorrows, hopes and fears of their ancestors when they too were 3^oung. A¥hen the time comes for the formal study of history, the children w4io have read this book will find themselves traveling over familiar ground and will interpret w4mt they read in the light of what they know.

It is with heartiest approval that this volume is presented to school officials, teachers, and parents for the vi PREFACE

children of this country. May it be as helpful to them as it has proved interesting to, at least, one reader. The word pictures are vivid and suggestive, the illustrations are well wrought out, and the lessons are stimulating and clearly taught. It is a piece of work of which the profession should feel proud.

W. W. Stetson.

Authors' Note

Believing that the subject matter of this book is such as lends itself readily to reproduction, either oral or written, the authors have prepared a series of language exercises which are printed as an appendix. It is hoped that teachers who wish to correlate the work in reading and language may find these outlines not only practical but suggestive.

G. L. S.

M. G. F.

vn

Contents

The First New England Christmas (1620)

Dorothy's Hornbook .

A Puritan Sabbath (About 1668)

Appendix

PAGE 1

IX

Illustrations

On the Deck of the '^ Mayflower" . Dorothy's Hornbook .... ^N'athaniel and the Man in the Stocks When the Indians fell on Saco Patience Sees the Candles Made Telling Time with the Sundial Christina Writing Her Letter The Maypole Dance ....

John and Julia Leaving London

Facing page . 10

18 24 46

98 108

XI

THE FIRST NEW ENGLAND CHRISTMAS

It was a warm and pleasant Saturday — that twenty-third of December, 1620. The winter wind had blown itself away in the storm of the day before, and the air was clear and balmy.

The people on board the Mcmifloiuer were glad of the pleasant day. It was three long months since they had started from Plymouth, in England, to seek a home across the ocean. Now they had come into a harbor that they named New Plymouth, in the country of New England.

Other people called these voyagers Pilgrims, which means wanderers. A long while before, the Pilgrims had lived in England ; later they made their home with the Dutch in Holland ; finally they had said good-bye to their friends in Holland and in England, and had sailed away to America.

There were only one hundred and two of the Pilgrims on the Mayjlower ; but they were brave and strong and full of hope. Now the Mayfloiver was the only home they had ; yet if this weather lasted they might soon have warm logcabins to live in. This very afternoon the men had gone ashore to cut down the large trees.

The women of the Mayfloiver were busy, too. Some were spinning, some knitting, some sewing. It was so bright and pleasant that Mistress Rose Standish had taken her knitting and had gone to sit a little while on deck. She was too weak to face rough weather, and she wanted to enjoy the warm sunshine and the clear salt air. By her side was Mistress Brewster, the minister's wife. Everybody loved Mistress Standish and Mistress Brewster, for neither of them ever spoke unkindly.

The air on deck would have been warm even on a colder day, for in one corner a bright fire was burning. It would seem strange now, would it not, to see a fire on the deck of a vessel ? But in those days, when the weather was pleasant, people on shipboard did their cooking on deck.

The Pilgrims had no stoves, and Mistress Carver's maid had built this fire on a large hearth covered with sand. She had hung a great kettle on the crane over the fire, where the onion soup for supper was now simmering slowly.

Near the fire sat a little girl, husily playing and singing to herself. Little Remember Allerton was only six years old, but she liked to be with Hannah, Mistress Carver's maid. This afternoon Remember had been watching Hannah build the fire and make the soup. Now the little girl was playing with the Indian arrowheads her father had brought her the night before. She was singing the words of the old psalm : —

''Shout to Jeliovab, all the earth. Serve ye Jehovah with gladness ; before him bow with singing mirth."

'' Ah, child, methinks the children of Old England are singing different words from those to-day," spoke Hannah at length, with a faraway look in her eyes.

'' Why, Hannah ? What songs are the little English children singing now ? " questioned Remember in surprise.

*' It lacks but two days of Christmas, child, and in my old home everybody is singing merry Christmas songs."

" Bat thou hast not told me what is Christmas? " persisted the child.

" Ah, me ! Thou dost not know, 'tis true. Christmas, Remember, is the birthday of the Christ-child, of Jesus whom thou hast learned to love," Hannah answered softly.

" But what makes the English children so happy then ? And we are English, thou hast told me, Hannah. Why don't we keep Christmas, too? "

'^ In sooth we are English, child. But the reason why we do not sing the Christmas carols or play the Christmas games makes a long, long story, Remember. Hannah cannot tell it so that little children will understand. Thou must ask some other, child."

Hannah and the little girl were just then near the two women on the deck, and Remember said,

'* Mistress Brewster, Hannah sayeth she knoweth not how to tell w^hy Love and Wrestling and Constance and the others do not sing the Christmas songs or play the Christmas games. But thou wilt tell me, wilt thou not?" she added coaxingly.

A sad look came into Mistress Brewster's eyes, and Mistress Standi sh looked grave, too. No one spoke for a few seconds, until Hannah said almost sharply, " Why could we not burn a Yule log Monday, and make some meal into little cakes for the children ? "

" Nay, Hannah," answered the gentle voice of Mistress Brewster. '' Such are but vain shows and not for those of us who believe in holier things. But," she added, with a kind glance at little Remember, '' wouldst thou like to know why we have left old England and do not keep the Christmas Day? Thou canst not understand it all, child, and yet it may do thee no harm to hear the story. It may help thee to be a brave and happy little girl in the midst of our hard life."

'' Surely it can do no harm, Mistress Brewster," spoke Rose Standish, gently. '* Remember is a little Pilgrim now, and she ought, methinks, to know something of the reason for our wandering. Come here, child, and sit by me, while good Mistress Brewster tells thee how cruel men have made us suffer. Then will I sing thee one of the Christmas carols."

With these words she held out her hands to little Remember, who ran quickly to the side of Mistress Standish, and eagerly waited for the story to begin.

II

'' We have not always lived in Holland, Remember. Most of us were born in England, and England is the best country in the world. 'Tis a land to be proud of, Remember, though some of its rulers have been wicked and cruel.

" Long before you were born, when your mother was a little girl, the English king said that everybody in the land ought to think as he thought, and go to a church like his. He said he would send us away from England if we did not do as he ordered. Now we could not think as he did on holy matters, and it seemed wrong to us to obey him. So we decided to go to a country where we might worship as we pleased."

*' What became of that cruel king. Mistress Brewster?"

" He ruleth England now. But tliou must not think too hardly of him. He doth not understand, perhaps. Right will win some day, Remember, though there may be bloody war before peace cometh. And I thank God that we, at least, shall not be called on to live in the midst of the strife," she went on, speaking more to herself than to the little girl.

*' We decided to go to Holland, out of the reach of the king. We were not sure whether it was best to move or not, but our hearts were set on God's ways. We trusted Him in whom we believed. Yes," she went on, '' and shall we not keep on trusting Him ? "

And Rose Standish, remembering the little stock of food that was nearly gone, the disease that had come upon many of their number, and the five who had died that month, answered firmly : " Yes. He who has led us thus far will not leave us now."

They were all silent a few seconds. Presently Remember said, '' Then did ye go to Holland, Mistress Brewster? "

" Yes," she said. '^ Our people all Avent over to Holland, where the Dutch folk live and tlie little Dutch children clatter about with their wooden shoes. There thou wast born, Remember, and my own children, and there we lived in love and peace.

" And yet, we were not wholly happy. We could not talk well with the Dutch, and so Ave could not set right what was wrong among them. 'Twas so hard to earn money that many had to go back to England. And worst of all. Remember, we were afraid that you and little

Bartholomew and Mary and Love and Wrestling and all the rest would not grow to be good girls and boys. And so we have come to this new country to teach our children to be pure and noble."

After another silence Remember spoke again : ^' I thank thee, Mistress Brewster. And I Avill try to be a good girl. But thou didst not tell me about Christmas, after all."

" Nay, child, but now I will. There are long services on that day in every church where the king's friends go. But there are parts of these services which we cannot approve ; and so we think it best not to follow the other customs that the king's friends observe on Christmas.

^' They trim their houses with mistletoe and holly so that everything looks gay and cheerful. Their other name for the Christmas time is the Yule-tide, and the big log that is burned then is called the Yule log. The children like to sit around the hearth in front of the great, blazing Yule log, and listen to stories of long, long ago.

'' At Christmas there are great feasts in England, too. No one is allowed to go hungry, for the rich people on that day always send meat and cakes to the poor folk round about.

'' But we like to make all our days Christmas days, Remember. We try never to forget God's gifts to us, and they remind us always to be good to other people."

Ill

'' And the Christmas carols, Mistress Standish ? What are they ? "

'' On Christmas eve and early on Christmas morning," Rose Standish answered, '' little children go about from house to house, singing Christmas songs. Tis what I like best in all the Christmas cheer. And I promised to sing thee one, did I not? "

Then Mistress Standish sang in her clear, sweet voice the quaint old English words : —

As Joseph was a-walking, He heard an angel sing : — "This night shall be the birth -time Of Christ, the heavenly King.

''He neither shall be born In housen nor in hall, Nor in the place of Paradise, But in an ox's stall.

"He neither shall be clothed In purple nor in i)all, But in the fair white linen That usen babies all.

" He neither shall be rocked In silver nor in gold, But in a wooden manger That resteth in the mould."

As Joseph was a- walking There did an angel sing,

And Mary's child at midnight Was born to be our King.

Then be ye glad, good people, This night of all the year.

And light ye up your candk^s.

For His star it shineth clear.

Before the song was over, Hannah had come on deck again, and was listening eagerly. " I thank thee, Mistress Standish," she said, the tears filling her blue eyes. *' 'Tis long indeed since I have heard that song."

'' Would it be wrong for me to learn to sing those words, Mistress Standish ? " gently questioned the little girl.

'' Nay, Remember, I trow not. The song shall be thy Christmas gift."

On the peck of the " Mayflower."

Then Mistress Standish taught the little girl one verse after another of the sweet old carol, and it was not long before Remember could say it all.

The next day was dull and cold, and on Monday, the twenty-fifth, the sky was still overcast. There was no bright Yule log in the Mayflower, and no holly trimmed the little cabin.

The Pilgrims were true to the faith they loved. They held no special service. They made no gifts. Instead, they went again to the work of cutting the trees, and no one murmured at his hard lot.

'^ We went on shore," one man wrote in his diary, '' some to fell timber, some to saw, some to rive, and some to carry ; so no man rested all that day."

As for little Remember, she spent the day on board the Mayflower. She heard no one speak of England or sigh for the Englisli home across the sea. But she did not forget Mistress Brewster's story ; and more than once that day, as she was playing by herself, she fancied that she was in front of some English home, helping the English children sing their Christmas songs.

And both Mistress Allerton and Mistress Standish, whom God was soon to call away from their earthly home, felt happier and stronger as they heard the little girl singing : —

''He neither shall be born In housen nor in hall, Nor in the place of Paradise, But in an ox's stall."

God wills it : here our rest shall be,

Our years of wandering o'er, For us the Mayfloicer of the sea

Shall spread her sails no more.

— John Greenleaf Whitfier.

Dorothy Parker began to go to school the day she was four years old. Her birthday came in May, and it was a bright spring morning when she started with her sister Faith to walk to the dame's school a mile away. This odd name — a dame's school — meant that the school was taught by a woman, and that it was kept for the little children and the older girls.

Dorothy's brother Jonathan went to a master, but Jonathan was learning Latin, because he was to go to Harvard College. Nothing was taught in the dame's school but reading, writing, and casting accounts, — no music, no drawing, no nature study. The minister's daughter taught the school in a room in the parsonage ; and all the little children that Dorothy knew went to this school.

Dorothy enjoyed the walk. Part of the way the path lay through the woods and was marked by notches cut in the trees, just as the Indians blazed their paths through the deeper forests. Overhead the song sparrows, bluebirds, and catbirds were flying to and fro with straws and threads for their nests. A catbird whistled to Dorothy in such a sociable manner that she thought he might be saying, " Such a little, little girl to go to school, school, school 1 "

Dorothy felt quite grown-up by the time she reached the parsonage, though her feet dragged rather heavily and her dinner-pail seemed to have more dinner in it than when she left home. She took off" her hat and the schoolmistress gave her a seat. Now she would learn to read !

School began, and the teacher was soon busy with the other pupils. She seemed to have forgotten Dorothy. The little girl watched and waited patiently, but at last the schoolmistress seemed a long way ofl" and her voice was so far away that it could hardly be heard. Dorothy's head nodded to the right, then to the left, and then she was fast asleep.

When she awoke, it was the noon hour and Faith had the dinner-pail in her hand.

" Come out of doors," she said, and Dorothy gladly followed.

In the afternoon Dorothy stood on the floor with a class of little children, but as she did not know what they had already learned in school, she could not recite. On the whole, it was such a very disappointing day that Dorothy could hardly keep back the tears when she told her mother that she had not learned to read.

Her mother smiled. " Rome was not built in a day," she said soothingly, and then, turning to Faith, she added, '' Dorothy must have the hornbook to-morrow."

Dorothy understood both remarks. She knew that the first meant she must not be in too much of a hurry. How many times she had heard that before ! She knew also that her mother had really promised that to-morrow she should have the precious hornbook dangling from her neck just as Faith had worn it when she first went to school.

II

Think of wearing your primer on a cord around your neck ! That was what Dorothy was so proud to do. Think of calling that primer a book, when it was not a book at all, but just a single page !

The hornbook was the only kind of primer the school children had in those days. When the strange primer was hung around Dorothy's neck, in order that she might carry it safely to school, it really looked more like a toy than anything else. There was only one printed page. A thin piece of wood was put behind the sheet of paper to keep it smooth, and over the printing was spread a sheet of horn so thin that the letters could be seen through it.

Printing cost so much in those days that the little sheet must be kept safe from wet or dirty fingers. But glass was costly, too, and so the thin covering of horn was used. A frame of brass was put around the whole, and the wooden back had a handle at the bottom. The hornbook looked like a little hand mirror. A very odd primer !

Dorothy wore her hornbook to school the second day. A new cord had been put through the hole in the end of the little wooden handle, and the hornbook hung like a very large locket around Dorothy's fat little neck.

The string was so long that Dorothy could hold her primer in her hand and study it without taking off the cord.

The one little printed page that made Dorothy's whole primer was scarcely more than half as large as a page of our books. Yet it seemed to her that there was a great deal on it to learn. There was not a single thing she could tell except the crosses in the two upper corners.

This second morning the teacher called Dorothy to her side. The little girl went eagerly. She had been holding tight the handle of the hornbook and waiting since school began, to find out how to read.

'^ What can you read in your ' Criss Cross Row'?" asked the teacher, using the name often given to the hornbook page because of the two crosses in the upper corners.

'' Nothing," faltered Dorothy, '' except the crosses."

'' That is not reading," severely replied the teacher. '' To learn to read you must learn your letters first."

Using a knitting needle for a pointer, she began at the top of the page where the alphabet was printed in both capitals and small letters. She taught Dorothy big A and little a for her first lesson. Learning to read was not at all like what Dorothy had expected. She wanted to cry, but she was too proud.

III

If Dorothy had gone to school when her own daughter's daughter went, she would have had a real book with pictures. Perhaps there would have been a picture of an acorn and a picture of a boy and the rhyme : —

" A is au Acorn that grew on an oak, B is a Boy who delights in his book."

This surely would have given some help in learning A and B.

It would have been easier still if Dorothy had learned to read in these days, for nobody would have troubled her with the letters at all. She would have begun at once with little stories, just as she expected to do.

It seemed very stupid to keep saying the alphabet. Round O and curly S, to be sure, were easy, but how could any one ever tell which was little b and which was little d f

There were days when Dorothy wished she lived where little girls had no hornbooks. At last she knew that the hump was on the right side of b and on the left side of d ; and she knew also the sounds of the easy syllables in the next line, a-b, ab^ o-b, ob, and all the others.

Dorothy's Hok^book.

There were more lines on the hornbook page, and they took a long time to learn, because one was a line that held all the figures, and the lower part of the page contained the Lord's Prayer.

The day she was five years old Dorothy read to her grandfather everything on the hornbook from the cross in the upper left hand corner to the Amen at the end of the prayer.

'' Grandfather is proud of his little granddaughter," said the old man with delight when the child had finished. '' She has called every word as it is on the page."

*' Perhaps," said Dorothy a little doubtfully, '' I couldn't have read all the Prayer if I had not heard you say it so many times."

Her grandfather smiled. *' By another birthday you will feel sure of every word, I think, and then you must have a book of your very own."

Doroth}'' said very little about her book, but she kept hoping that it would be a book of the Psalms like the copy Faith had, even to the black cover with a gilt cross.

She was an earnest little pupil, and when her next birthday came, she did know every word, even when it was outside the prayer, — as her grandfather had prophesied. She could also read some easy stories in a book the schoolmistress lent her.

One May morning her grandfather called her to him and said, '' This is yours, Dorothy."

Dorothy, of course, looked at the object he held in his hand, and her eyes shone as she saw there a little black Psalm book.

'' You must do your reading in this now," grandfather said smilingly, '' for Solace must have the hornbook this spring when he begins to go to school."

Nor let them fall under Discouragement,

Who at their Hornbook stick, and time hath spent,

Upon that A B C, while others do

Into their Primer or their Psalter go.

— John Bunyan (1686).

'* Is that grandmother at the corner, Nathaniel?" asked Mistress Mather one pleasant morning in June.

*^ Yes, mother, and she is turning this way. May I go to meet her? "

Of course Mistress Mather said yes, and Nathaniel ran as fast as he could towards the corner. In a few moments back he came, holding to his grandmother's hand. But grandmother could not spend the day ; she had come on an errand, she said.

Pretty soon Nathaniel heard grandmother say, '' Art thou willing, daughter Maria, that Nathaniel should stay w^ith me two or three days ? Perhaps 'twill help him to grow stronger, and surely 'twill keep me from lonely thoughts."

'' Methinks 'twould do the child no harm," answered Mistress Mather. '' Wouldst thou like to spend the Sabbath with grandmother, Nathaniel ? "

"May I, mother?" asked the boy, with an eagerness that made his mother glad.

For Nathaniel had never been strong and active like other children. That year, all through April and May, he had been too ill even to sit up. Though he was much better, his cheeks were still pale, and he looked frail and thin.

Just then Nathaniel's father came in. He was a man about whom you will read more some time, for he was a famous minister of Boston.

He had a name that sounds odd to us now — Increase Mather. Names meant more in those early days than they do now. Mr. Increase Mather had named his oldest son, Nathaniel's brother. Cotton ; but that was because Grandmother Mather was once Mistress Cotton.

One of Nathaniel's uncles was born on board the ship that brought grandmother and Mr. Cotton to America ; so they called him Seaborn. Perhaps you have heard of Oceanus Hopkins and Peregrine White. I wonder if you know what those names mean. And I trust you have not forgotten Remember Allerton and Love and Wrestling Brewster.

It was Saturday, and a busy day for Mr.

Mather. He stayed only long enough to say, ^' Be a good boy, Nathaniel, and do as grandmother bids thee. ' Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.' "

If you had seen the little five-year-old boy trudging along North street with his grandmother, you would have wondered, '' Is it a girl or a boy ? " For Nathaniel was not dressed like little boys of to-day.

He wore a skirt that came to his ankles, and his waist had long, loose sleeves. He did not wear a hat. Instead, he had a cap tied with strings under his chin. His shoes, too, were not like yours. His mother had made them, and they were more like the soft moccasins that your baby brother wears. They would seem clumsy to you, but I dare say Nathaniel thought, if he thought anything about it, that they were very pretty shoes indeed.