Children of the seventeenth century played games but had few toys. There may have been a top to spin, and John probably played Indian with bow and arrow and club. Anne, who had been born in England, may have brought with her to the New World a stiff little puppet-like doll with a wooden face and painted hair. Frances may have had a doll made of corn-shucks, rags, corn-cobs or nuts. Or she may have had a doll like those of the Indian children, made of rawhide, feathers and wood.
The Mottrom children may have had wild animals for pets—a deer, a squirrel, or a raccoon, perhaps. The children could not venture far into the forest to play because of the dangers that lurked in its depths, but they could stand at its edge and look down the aisles between the trees, some of them "twenty feet round and Ninety high." In spring and summer the forest floor was "bespred with divers flowers" and wild strawberries. In winter they might glimpse a snowshoe rabbit flying over the snow, or a herd of deer. We can imagine them there—three little figures dressed in long clothes, exactly like those of their parents, looking into the forest and pondering upon its mysteries.
When Frances was nine years old, Colonel William Presley presented her with "one cow calfe ... she being my wife's God daughter." This was great potential wealth for a little girl! A cow over three years old was at that time worth exactly the same as one hundred acres of land. Frances probably thought of the "cow calfe" only in terms of milk and butter and future cakes that might be baked. She may have named the calf Pansy, Daisy, Cinnamon or Nutmeg, as such names were then popular for cows.
As Frances grew older there was little time for play. The Mottrom household was doubtless astir by daybreak. We can picture the sleepy child pushing aside the heavy red or green curtains of linsey-woolsey that surrounded her bed, or if it was summer, the hangings of "muskitoe" net.
Her toilet equipment was no doubt simple—a basin and ewer, and a "pot de chambre," all of pewter. She may have owned a gilded hand looking-glass and a comb of ivory or horn. She washed her face with home-made soap which may have been soft or, more likely, a hard green soap made from the berries of "sweet myrtle."
Frances' clothes were probably kept in a "case of drawers." Her everyday dress was perhaps of blue holland, but for special occasions she wore silk or brocade. In either case the skirt was full and long. Over this she wore a white linen apron with bib, and on her head a close-fitting cap of white linen. The latter was always worn by little children at that time, and sometimes the cap was beautifully embroidered. When Frances went out-of-doors she probably wore a loose silken hood over the cap.
Her hair, if she was fashionable, was cut in bangs across her forehead with long flowing locks in front dropping forward on her chest. Her back hair was stuffed out of sight in the cap.
After she had dressed Frances probably ate a simple breakfast of porridge from a wooden bowl with a pewter spoon. Anne and John probably ate their breakfasts from the same bowl with their pewter spoons.
Lessons may have come next. Education was simple then, especially for girls—"bookes to bee learned of children" were "abcies" and primers, then the Psalms in metre, then the Testament. Frances' teacher may have been her mother or an indentured servant.
Little girls were taught to knit as soon as they could hold the needles. Frances probably knitted stockings and mittens when she was four or five years old. Children also made quilt-pieces. Girls did household chores and learned early the duties of a housewife.