e before-mentioned fireplace in the centre of one side.
Over the blaze of backlog and forestick, and something like half a cord
of "eight-foot wood," are swinging the iron cranes laden with great
kettles of melting tallow. On the opposite side of the kitchen two long
poles about two feet apart are supported at their extremities upon the
seats of chairs. Beside the poles are other great kettles containing
melted tallow poured on the top of hot water. Across the poles are the
slender candle-rods, from which depend ranks upon ranks of candle-wicks
made of tow, for cotton wick is a later invention. Little by little, by
endlessly repeating the slow process of dipping into the kettles of
melted tallow and hanging them to cool, the wicks take on their proper
coating of tallow. To make the candles as large as possible was the aim,
for the more tallow the brighter the light. When done, the ranks of
candles, still depending from the rods, were hung in the sunniest spots
of a sunny garret to bleach.

But all these employments were as play compared with the home
manufacture of dry goods. Ralph, Jack and Jim had no time for such work,
so two other men were all winter kept busy in the barn at "crackling
flax" and afterward passing it through a coarse hetchel to separate the
coarsest or "swingling tow." After this the flax was made up into
switches or "heads" like those which we see in pictures, or that which
Faust's Marguerite so temptingly wields. These were deposited in barrels
in the garret. During the winter the "heads" were brought down by the
women to be rehetcheled once and again, removing first the coarser, and
then the finer tow. This must have been a fearfully dusty operation. It
makes one cough only to think of "the inch depth of flax-dust" which
settled upon Betsey's protecting handkerchief while she "hetcheled."

The finest and best of the flax was saved for spinning into thread, for
cotton thread there was none, excepting, possibly, a little of very poor
quality in small skeins. The small wheel that we see in the far corner
of the garret--just like Marguerite's--was used for spinning the fine
thread. A larger wheel was used to spin the tow into yarn for the coarse
clothing for boys and negroes or for "filling" in the coarser linens.
All the boys, and very often the men--perhaps even our M.C.
himself--wore in summer trousers made of linen cloth, for which the yarn
was spun at home by the maids, and was then taken to the