Home Life in Colonial Days

by Alice Morse Earle

"And he kissed Mistress Polly when the clock-reel ticked."

That is, the lover seized the rare and propitious moments of Mistress Polly's comparative leisure to kiss her.

Usually the knots or lays were of forty threads, and twenty lays made a skein or slipping. The number varied, however, with locality. To spin two skeins of linen thread was a good day's work; for it a spinner was paid eight cents a day and "her keep."

These skeins of thread had to be bleached. They were laid in warm water for four days, the water being frequently changed, and the skeins constantly wrung out. Then they were washed in the brook till the water came from them clear and pure. Then they were "bucked," that is, bleached with ashes and hot water, in a bucking-tub, over and over again, then laid in clear water for a week, and afterwards came a grand seething, rinsing, beating, washing, drying, and winding on bobbins for the loom. Sometimes the bleaching was done with slaked lime or with buttermilk.

These were not the only bleaching operations the flax went through; others will be detailed in the chapter on hand-weaving.

One lucrative product of flax should be mentioned—flaxseed. Flax was pulled for spinning when the base of the stalk began to turn yellow, which was usually the first of July. An old saying was, "June brings the flax." For seed it stood till it was all yellow. The flaxseed was used for making oil. Usually the upper chambers of country stores were filled a foot deep with flaxseed in the autumn, waiting for good sleighing to convey the seed to town.

In New Hampshire in early days, a wheelwright was not a man who made wagon-wheels (as such he would have had scant occupation), but one who made spinning-wheels. Often he carried them around the country on horseback selling them, thus adding another to the many interesting itineracies of colonial days. Spinning-wheels would seem clumsy for horse-carriage, but they were not set up, and several could be compactly carried when taken apart; far more ticklish articles went on pack-horses,—large barrels, glazed window-sashes, etc. Nor would it seem very difficult for a man to carry spinning-wheels on horseback, when frequently a woman would jump on horseback in the early morning, and with a baby on one arm and a flax-wheel tied behind, would ride several miles to a neighbor's to spend the day spinning in cheerful companionship. A century ago one of these wheelwrights sold a fine spinning-wheel for a dollar, a clock-reel for two dollars, and a wool-wheel for two dollars.

Few persons are now living who have ever seen carried on in a country home in America any of these old-time processes which have been recounted. As an old antiquary wrote:—

"Few have ever seen a woman hatchel flax or card tow, or heard the buzzing of the foot-wheel, or seen bunches of flaxen yarn hanging in the kitchen, or linen cloth whitening on the grass. The flax-dresser with the shives, fibres, and dirt of flax covering his garments, and his face begrimed with flax-dirt has disappeared; the noise of his brake and swingling knife has ended, and the boys no longer make bonfires of his swingling tow. The sound of the spinning-wheel, the song of the spinster, and the snapping of the clock-reel all have ceased; the warping bars and quill wheel are gone, and the thwack of the loom is heard only in the factory. The spinning woman of King Lemuel cannot be found."

Frequent references are made to flax in the Bible, notably in the Book of Proverbs; and the methods of growing and preparing flax by the ancient Egyptians were precisely the same as those of the American colonist a hundred years ago, of the Finn, Lapp, Norwegian, and Belgian flax-growers to-day. This ancient skill was not confined to flax-working. Rosselini, the eminent hierologist, says that every modern craftsman may see on Egyptian monuments four thousand years old, representations of the process of his craft just as it is carried on to-day. The paintings in the Grotto of El Kab, shown in Hamilton's Ægyptica, show the pulling, stocking, tying, and rippling of flax going on just as it is done in Egypt now. The four-tooth ripple of the Egyptian is improved upon, but it is the same implement. Pliny gives an account of the mode of preparing flax: plucking it up by the roots, tying it in bundles, drying, watering, beating, and hackling it, or, as he says, "combing it with iron hooks." Until the Christian era linen was almost the only kind of clothing used in Egypt, and the teeming banks of the Nile furnished flax in abundance. The quality of the linen can be seen in the bands preserved on mummies. It was not, however, spun on a wheel, but on a hand-distaff, called sometimes a rock, on which the women in India still spin the very fine thread which is employed in making India muslins. The distaff was used in our colonies; it was ordered that children and others tending sheep or cattle in the fields should also "be set to some other employment withal, such as spinning upon the rock, knitting, weaving tape, etc." I heard recently a distinguished historian refer in a lecture to this colonial statute, and he spoke of the children sitting upon a rock while knitting or spinning, etc., evidently knowing naught of the proper signification of the word.