must have a Bible and read a chapter every day. Why, I had read it
through once before I was as old as you."

Cynthia simply stared. Then, after a pause, she said:

"Did you sew patchwork, too?"

"When I was eight I had finished a quilt. And I learned to knit. I knit
my own stockings; I always have. And I braided rags for a mat. Mother
sewed it together."

"And your clothes--who made those?"

"Well--mother made some. But a woman used to come round fall and spring
and make for the girls and boys, though father bought his best suit. He
had one when he was married; it was his freedom suit as well----"

"Why, was he a prisoner?" the child interrupted.

"Oh, no;" smiling a little. "Boys had to be subject to their fathers
until they were twenty-one. Then they had a suit of clothes all the way
through and their time, which meant they were at liberty to work for any
one and ask wages. He had been courting mother and they were married
soon after, so it was his wedding suit. He had outgrown it before he
died, so he had to get a new one. Mother sold that to a neighbor that it
just fitted."

"Tell me some more about them." Cynthia was fond of stories. And this
was about real folks, not the fantastic legends she had heard so often.

"Well--he and mother worked, she had been living with a family. Girls
did in those days, and were like daughters of the house. Father went to
work there. They were married in the spring and in the fall he took a
place on shares; that is, he had half of everything, and they divided up
the house. A year or so afterward it was for sale, and he bought it, and
we were all born there, and there was no change until he died. That was
a sad thing for us. He'd been buying some more land, and the place
wasn't clear. Another man stood ready to buy it, and mother thought it
best to sell. You see there was a good deal of trouble between us and
England, who wanted to get all the money she could out of the Colonies,
and wasn't willing to send troops to protect us from the Indians, and we
had to sell our produce and things to her, and presently the Colonies
wouldn't stand it any longer, and there was war. Some people were
bitterly opposed to it, some favored it. Then we wouldn't take the tea
she insisted on our buying, and there was the Stamp Act. And Salem
really made the first armed resistance. You must go out some nice day to
North Bridge. The British troops marched up from Marblehead to seize
some arms they