ROBERT BLOOD."
Undoubtedly Dinah and all her contemporaries proved infinitely better servants than the second generation of those brought from England; who even as early as 1656, had learned to prefer independence, the Rev. Zechariah Symmes writing feelingly: "Much ado I have with my own family, hard to get a servant glad of catechising or family duties. I had a rare blessing of servants in Yorkshire and those I brought over were a blessing, but the young brood doth much afflict me."
An enthusiastic cook, even of most deeply Puritanic spirit, had been known to steal out during some long drawn prayer, to rescue a favorite dish from impending ruin, and the offence had been condoned or allowed to pass unnoticed. But the "young brood" revolted altogether at times from the interminable catechisings and "family duties", or submitted in a sulky silence, at which the spirit of the master girded in vain.
There seems to have been revolt of many sorts. Nature asserted itself, and boys and girls smiled furtively upon one another, and young men and maidens planned means of outwitting stern masters and mistresses, and securing a dance in some secluded barn, or the semblance of a merry making in picnic or ride. But stocks, pillory and whipping-post awaited all offenders, who still found that the secret pleasure outweighed the public pain, and were brought up again and again, till years subdued the fleshly instincts, and they in turn wondered at their children's pertinacity in the same evil ways. Holidays were no part of the Puritan system, and the little Bradstreets took theirs on the way to and from school, doing their wading and fishing and bird's-nesting in this stolen time. There was always Saturday afternoon, and Anne Bradstreet was also, so far as her painful conscientiousness allowed, an indulgent mother, and gave her children such pleasure as the rigid life allowed.
Andover from the beginning had excellent schools, Mr. Dane and Mr. Woodbridge, the ministers, each keeping one, while "dame schools" also flourished, taking the place of the present Kindergarten, though the suppressed and dominated babies of three and four, who swung their unhappy feet far from the floor, and whose only reader was a catechism, could never in their wildest dreams have imagined anything so fascinating as the Kindergarten or primary school of to-day. Horn books were still in use and with reason, the often- flagellated little Puritans giving much time to tears, which would have utterly destroyed anything less enduring than horn. Until 1647, the teaching of all younger children had been done chiefly at home, and Anne Bradstreet's older children learned their letters at her knee, and probably, like all the children of the day, owned their little Bibles, and by the time they were three or four years of age, followed the expounding at family prayers with only a glance now and then toward the kitten, or the family dog, stretched out before the fire, and watching for any look of interest and recognition.
After 1647, and the order of the General Court, "that every township in this jurisdiction, after the Lord hath increased them to fifty house-holders, shall then forthwith appoint one within their towns to teach all such children as shall resort to him, to read and write." The district school-house waited till Indian raids had ceased to be dreaded, but though the walk to the small, square building which in due time was set in some piece of woods or at a point where four roads meet, was denied them, it was something to come together at all, and the children found delight in berrying or nutting, or the crackle of the crisp snow-crust, over which they ran.
They waked in those early days, often with the snow lying lightly on their beds under the roof, through the cracks of which it sifted, and through which they saw stars shine or the morning sunlight flicker. Even when this stage passed, and the "great house" received them, there was still the same need for rushing down to the fire in kitchen or living-room, before which they dressed, running out, perhaps, in the interludes of strings and buttons, to watch the incoming of the fresh logs which Caesar or Cato could never bear alone.
In the Bradstreet mansion, with its many servants, there was less need of utilizing every child as far as possible, but that all should labor was part of the Puritan creed, and the boys shared the work of foddering the cattle, bringing in wood and water, and gaining the appetite which presently found satisfaction, usually in one of two forms of porridge, which for the first hundred and fifty years was the Puritan breakfast. Boiled milk, lightly thickened with Indian meal, and for the elders made more desirable by "a goode piece of butter," was the first, while for winter use, beans or peas were used, a small piece of pork or salted beef giving them flavor, and making the savory bean porridge still to be found here and there. Wheaten bread was then in general use; much more so than at a later date, when "rye and Indian" took its place, a fortunate choice for a people who, as time went on, ate more and more salt pork and fish.
Game and fresh fish were plentiful in the beginning and poultry used with a freedom that would seem to the farmer of to-day, the maddest extravagance. The English love of good cheer was still strong, and Johnson wrote in his "Wonder-Working Providence": "Apples, pears and quince tarts, instead of their former pumpkin- pies. Poultry they have plenty and great rarity, and in their feasts have not forgotten the English fashion of stirring up their appetites with variety of cooking their food."
Certain New England dishes borrowed from the natives, or invented to meet some emergency, had already become firmly established. Hasty-pudding, made chiefly then as now, from Indian meal, was a favorite supper dish, rye often being used instead, and both being eaten with molasses, and butter or milk. Samp and hominy, or the whole grain, as "hulled corn", had also been borrowed from the Indians, with "succotash", a fascinating combination of young beans and green corn. Codfish made Saturday as sacred as Friday had once been, and baked beans on Sunday morning became an equally inflexible law. Every family brewed its own beer, and when the orchards had grown, made its own cider. Wine and spirits were imported, but rum was made at home, and in the early records of Andover, the town distiller has honorable mention. Butcher's meat was altogether too precious to be often eaten, flocks and herds bearing the highest money value for many years, and game and poultry took the place of it. But it was generous living, far more so than at the present day, abundance being the first essential where all worked and all brought keen appetites to the board, and every householder counted hospitality one of the cardinal virtues.