A DAY IN A COLONIAL HOME
A Day in a Colonial Home
Mary Jane awoke, startled. Had she overslept and not heeded her father’s call? She jumped out of bed on to the strip of rag carpet laid on the cold floor. The chill of the early May morning made her shiver, and, with motherly care, she turned and straightened the patchwork quilt on her two sisters, mischievous Abigail and gentle little Dorothy, who were sleeping warmly in their feather bed. The world was a-quiver with life and sound. Mary Jane looked anxiously through the small-paned window. Surely, Providence would grant a pleasant day for the last of the housecleaning! Her mother was ill with the new baby brother and the kitchen must be cleaned before she was about again. It was not easy to do the work as well as her mother would have done it, but a bright, sunshiny day would help.
The sun was just rising and a cool, northwest breeze was blowing the mist from the pond and gully. The sunlight sparkled on the pond which lay across the foot of the field and the breeze blew it into dark blue ripples. Mary Jane dreamed a minute. John Lewis must be in port, she thought, and perhaps he would be home to-day. His father’s whaler, the Breezy Belle, had reached Gloucester the first of the week. If she planned well and hurried the work she might be able to go down to Jenny Lewis’s in the afternoon to see her new dresses. Jenny Lewis was John’s sister, and she had more pretty clothes than any girl in town. It would be a welcome change to visit her before supper. The past week of housecleaning had been a busy one, for the girls had cleaned the dooryard and the entry as well as the back room and the loft bedroom. Their mother, before her illness, had cleaned and aired her best front room and put back in their places the few pieces of furniture which stood in this cold and little-used room.
The well-sweep creaked in the breeze, and a whiff of the smoke of the kitchen fire, pouring out of the chimney, blew up the stairway. Mary Jane straightened her simple gray dress, folding a fresh white kerchief across her breast. The neighbors called her smart and comely. She was sixteen, and tall and strong, the oldest of eight children. Her brothers and sisters knew her to be gentle as well as firm and just. They never shirked Mary Jane’s orders, but they carried to her their bruised toes and cut fingers, the stitches dropped in their knitting, the knots tied in their patchwork. She bound up their hurts and set them to work again.
[Figure 1. Well and Well-Sweep]
“Daughter,” called her father from the foot of the stairs, “the day comes on apace, and it promises a clear sky for your cleaning. Grandmother is tending your mother and the new babe, but John and I will need the porridge hot when we come back from foddering.”
Mary Jane answered her father gravely and picked up the candle to take with her to the kitchen. She called the older of her sisters. The three all slept in the low-ceilinged upstairs chamber. “Come Abigail! You are in truth a sleepyhead. Come! Everything’s awake, and we have much to do! Father has called and indeed you must hurry.”
