erhaps, embroidering a pattern of tiny sprays and eyelets upon the
bosom and sleeves, to give it an air of special gentility.

Finished at last, this choice bit of girlish finery probably served its
owner for a wedding-dress, and afterwards was cut up into slips for the
babies.

Matrons, young as well as old, wore caps of plain white muslin, made
after the same fashion as the round, sweeping caps that tidy
housekeepers wear at the present day. The younger and gayer ones, who
had no scruples of conscience on the subject, wore their caps adorned
with bright ribbons, while the elderly and more sedate contented
themselves with a plain band of black, across the front, and pinned
primly at the back, without bow or knot.

After the death of Washington, in 1799, besides the band of crape that
every citizen of the United States, by the desire of Congress, wore upon
his left arm for thirty days, many of the loyal matrons provided
themselves with mourning-cap ribbons, upon which was stamped, in white
letters, upon a black ground:

"General George Washington,
Departed this life on the 14th of December,
1799, AE. 68,"

--a fac-simile of the inscription upon the coffin-plate of that
illustrious and well-beloved chief. The wool and flax were home
productions, but the cotton was brought, in a raw state, from the West
Indies.

It was first picked over very carefully, to remove the seeds and stray
bits of foreign rubbish, then "batted," that is, made into small pats,
each large enough to be carded into a roll, which was spun into thread
upon either a wool or linnen wheel. This "batting" usually fell to the
lot of the children of the family, who probably found the monotonous
task as little to their taste as their grandchildren do, when required
to wash the dishes or saw wood for the cooking-stove.

Woven plain, by the skilful hands of the housemother, and bleached upon
the young grass under the blossoming apple boughs, the cloth served for
the underwear of the family, and was regarded as one of the few luxuries
of the frugal household,--the raw cotton costing over fifty cents a
pound, to say nothing of the time and labor required to convert it into
cloth.

On account of the scarcity of cotton, our modern "comfortables" were a
thing unheard of, and, for a substitute, woollen quilts, stuffed with
wool, and closely quilted, often in the most elaborate patterns, were
used in all New England households.