Strings of rock-candy came from China, but were rivalled by a distinctly native sweet—maple sugar. Equally American appear to us those Salem sweets, namely, Black Jacks and Salem Gibraltars. Base imitations appeared elsewhere, but never equalled the original delights in Salem. Children who were fortunate enough to live in coast towns reaped the sweet fruits of their fathers' foreign ventures. When a ship came into port with eighty boxes of sugar candy on board and sixty tubs of rock-candy, poor indeed was the child who was not surfeited with sweets. There was a sequel, however, to the toothsome feast, a bitter dessert. The ship that brought eighty boxes of sugar candy also fetched a hundred boxes of rhubarb and ten of senna.
CHAPTER II
CHILDREN'S DRESS
Man's earthly Interests are all hooked and buttoned together and held up by Clothes.
—Sartor Resartus. Thomas Carlyle, 1833.
Of the dress of infants of colonial times we can judge from the articles of clothing which have been preserved till this day. Perhaps I should say that we can judge of the better garments worn by babies, not their everyday dress; for it is not their simpler attire that has survived, but their christening robes, their finer shirts and petticoats and caps.
Linen formed the chilling substructure of their dress, thin linen, low-necked, short-sleeved shirts; and linen even formed the underwear of infants until the middle of this century. These little linen shirts are daintier than the warmest silk or fine woollen underwear that have succeeded them; they are edged with fine narrow thread lace, hemstitched with tiny rows of stitches, and sometimes embroidered by hand. I have seen a little shirt and a cap embroidered with the coat of arms of the Lux and Johnson families and the motto, "God bless the Babe;" these delicate garments were worn in infancy by the Revolutionary soldier, Governor Johnson of Virginia.
