“Fourth-day morning we were up very early. Jemima was going to roast some fowls and a loin of veal. Edward and the little colored girl helped me to beat eggs, grate lemons, and roll sugar; and everything was ready for the oven before the Friends came in from a distance, who always stopped before meeting to get a cup of tea.
“We had a nice little table for them, of course,—dried beef, preserves, and so on; and one woman Friend, a single woman, asked for a warm flat-iron to press out her cap and handkerchief. At last we were ready to start. Jemima had set everything into the oven, which stood out in the yard. She put the meats back, and the cakes and puddings near the door, where it was not so hot. ‘The door isn’t very safe,’ said she, ‘and I propped a stick against it to keep it up. Don’t let the dog knock it down, Susan, while we are gone.’
“The day was beautiful; all signs of the storm over, except the roads a little muddy; and as we stepped over to the meeting-house Jemima whispered, ‘I am glad I told Susan to set both tables. I think we shall have a good many to dinner. I wanted cole-slaw, like Pennsylvania folks, but the cows broke in last night and ate all the solid cabbage.’ She did not talk of these things generally going into meeting; but our minds were very full.
“First meeting was rather long, for several Friends spoke besides the strangers. When it broke, Jemima stepped out, and I quietly followed her. We walked over to the house, and round into the side-yard, going toward the oven. But just as we had got into the yard we saw the old sow. She had broken out of the barn-yard, and had been wallowing in a pond of brown water near the fence. Now she had knocked down Jemima’s stick, and as the door fell I guess she smelt our good things, for she had her fore-feet upon the oven floor. We ran and screamed, but she did not turn. She made a jump up to the oven, over my cakes and puddings, the veal and chickens, and carried the oven roof off with her. Oh, dear! oh, dear! poor Jemima! I could laugh too, if it wasn’t so dreadful.”
Reader.—And what did they do then?
Writer.—The best that they could. I do wonder at Jemima, poor thing, to undertake so much on Monthly Meeting day.
THE MINERS OF SCRANTON.
A few years ago I visited Hyde Park,—a mining division of the youthful city of Scranton. Besides boarding in the family of an operative, I talked with citizens, from miners to ministers, and took notes of these conversations. Upon the information thus obtained the following article is founded.
There hangs in our house a large map of the State of Pennsylvania of the year 1851. Scranton is not marked upon it. A little village named Providence is, indeed, to be found, which is now an inconsiderable part of consolidated Scranton. Nine years after the date of this map, by the census of 1860, the population of Scranton is given at nine thousand, and in 1870 at thirty-five thousand. This very rapid increase was caused by the working of the immense coal-beds which underlie the narrow valley of the Lackawanna, in which the city is situated.