“Jim wasn’t our crow,” Janet hastened to explain. “He belongs to Mr. Jenk, the man who lives next door. But he’ll give us ten dollars if we find Jim.”
“Then I hope you’ll find him soon,” said Mrs. Pitney. “Now you may play with anything you find up here,” she went on, “but I am going to ask you to put everything back just where you found it.”
“Oh, we’ll do that,” promised Ted.
“And we’ll put back anything that Trouble leaves out, for sometimes he forgets,” said Janet.
“No, I put back t’ings myself!” insisted Trouble.
“All right,” laughed Ted. “See that you do.”
As Mrs. Pitney had said, there were many old-fashioned things in the attic for the children to have fun with. There were moulds for making candles, which were burned before we had kerosene lamps or electric lights. These candle moulds were a number of tin tubes fastened to a frame, and Mrs. Pitney remained up in the attic long enough to tell the children how candles used to be made.
“My grandmother used to make them,” she said. “She would set this mould, which made a dozen candles at once, down in a tub of water to keep it cool. Then she would pour the melted tallow into each tin tube where, before that, some cotton wicks had been hung. The melted tallow flowed around the wick, which was hung just in the centre, by a little stick across the top of the mould. Then when the tallow was cold the candles could be lifted out.”
“Did they make wax candles the same way?” asked Janet.
“Yes, only they used melted beeswax instead of tallow,” said Mrs. Pitney. “Of course the wax candles were a little nicer than those made of tallow, and they didn’t smell up the room so. But I don’t know that the wax ones gave any better light.”