OLD RECOLLECTIONS.
I met, at Bethlehem, a member of the Moravian Historical Society, who was born in that town in 1796, and was educated there. He was taught German, and could scarcely speak English at all at eighteen.
He learned his trade as clock- and watch-maker in the brethren’s house. He was also employed until lately as teacher of vocal music in the parochial school.
When he was in the brethren’s house—he began to learn his trade in 1810—there were about twenty brethren domiciled there,—though some of these had their shops elsewhere. They were all mechanics; there being a baker, shoemaker, tinsmith, etc. The cook was also an unmarried brother, all these household services being performed by the brethren themselves. My informant (he was the youngest boy) had to prepare breakfast for his employer.
When the morning bell sounded aloud (Morgen Glocke zum Aufstehen) the boys sprang up, and when one story down, went into the prayer-hall, where the vorsteher or superintendent directed the services; first they “sang a verse,” and then the vorsteher read the text for the day. When the boys got down to the lower floor (the four boys who then lodged in the building), they swept out the rooms that were used for shops, ground their coffee, ran down to the cook in the cellar-kitchen and set their pots upon the coals, preparing a simple breakfast of bread, butter, and coffee, of which each boy partook with his employer in the shop. Then they made their cot-beds or threw the blankets back upon them; the brethren made their own.
Mr. W.’s mother did not admire her son’s manner of performing these domestic services. When she came down to bring fresh bedclothes and to look after matters, she said, “If I had wax, I’d take a mould of your body here from your bed.” “Why, what a crust you have inside of your coffee-pot!”
Breakfast, in Mr. W.’s time, was thus eaten separately, but before that, when all the property was in common, “eine economische Haushaltung,” or economical household,—“every one was poor in that early day,”—all the meals were eaten at a common table.
After breakfast, the boys washed the dishes and went to their work.