Ruth of Boston: A Story of the Massachusetts Bay Colony

by James Otis

The next turn in the work is to build a fire out of doors somewhere, because to make your soap in the house would be a most disagreeable undertaking. One needs a great pot, which should hold as much as one-third of a barrel, and into this is poured half of the grease and half of the lye, to be kept boiling until it has become soap.

Now just when that point has been reached I cannot say, because of not having had sufficient experience; but mother is a master hand at this dirty labor, and always has greatest success with it.

Of course, when one kettle-full has been boiled down, the remainder of the lye and the remainder of the grease is put in, and worked in the same manner as before.

SOAP FROM BAYBERRIES

It is possible, and we shall do so when time can be spent in making luxuries, to get soap from the tallow of bay berry plums.

I have already said that we stew out a kind of vegetable tallow from bayberries with which to make candles, and this same grease, when boiled with lye as if you were making soft soap, can be cooked so stiff that, when poured into molds, it will form little hard cakes that are particularly convenient for the cleansing of one's hands.

There can be no question but that bayberry soap will whiten and soften the skin better than does soft soap; but the labor of making it is so disagreeable that, as Susan says, I had rather my hands were tough and rough, than purchase a delicate skin at such an expense.

GOOSE-PICKING

There is another household duty which frets me much, and yet it must be performed, else would we be put to it for quills with which to write, and for soft beds, pillows, and quilts. It is goose-picking that I abhor, not only because of its seeming extremely cruel, but on account of its being like the soap-making, dirty work.

I question if there be a family in Boston who does not own a flock of geese, and among them many who were once wild. They wander around the streets all summer, paddling the pools of water, chasing insects, and devouring whatsoever may have been thrown out of the houses that is eatable.