When the children go to bed they have no brightly burning lamp to light them to their several bedrooms, but they climb the ladder to the open, unfinished loft with no light except what comes to them from the embers upon the hearth. Then the father covers up the coals with a great body of ashes, hoping to "keep the fire" till morning. What a marked contrast between the life of those people and the customs of to-day in the same country and among the grandchildren and the great-grandchildren of those same pioneer settlers!
In the colonial days for an evening service the churches must be lighted with candles. Occasionally you will find even now in some ancient church the antique candelabra or chandelier. Sometimes in wealthy churches these were made of glass, and were of beautiful construction. In the old meeting-house of the first Baptist church in Providence, Rhode Island, which was founded by Roger Williams and others in 1639, there is one of these ancient glass candelabras. It is of immense proportions, hanging from the ceiling by a long, stout chain, and arranged for a large number of candles. It has not been used for many years, but it is a beautiful ornament and a suggestive reminder of the method by which our ancestors lighted their churches in the early times.
In these days of brilliant electric lights, how small appears the light of the ancient candles! Have we gained in knowledge and manner of living as greatly as in heating and lighting our houses?
CHAPTER III.
WHALE OIL.
No one knows when the whale fishery began. Eight hundred years ago whales were caught off the coast of France and Spain, and before the Pilgrim fathers landed at Plymouth the whale fishery had been carried on to such an extent on the west coast of Europe that the supply of whales had begun to fail. The American whale fishery began with the earliest settlers. They found it profitable to catch whales and try out the oil for use in their lamps. It has been said that one of the arguments for settling on Cape Cod was the presence along the coast of large whales of the best kind for oil and whalebone.
The first whale fishery in America was carried on from Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Martha's Vineyard by large rowboats. A company of hardy pioneers would row out from the coast into deep water, wait for the appearance of a whale, strike their harpoons into his side, and let him run. Sometimes it would be days before death would result. Often he would sink and later rise and float upon the surface. The fishermen would then pull him to the shore and try out the oil. Many whales thus harpooned would be lost to those who had wounded them. A story is told that in the town of Southampton, Long Island, before the year 1650, the men divided themselves into squads to watch night and day for whales that might come ashore, and this became in a few years a regular industry.