nd his father had seventeen children. Benjamin Franklin was
one of a family of seventeen. Charles Francis Adams has told us of the
fruitful vines of old Braintree.

The little Puritans rejoiced in some very singular names, the offspring
of Roger Clap being good examples: Experience, Waitstill, Preserved,
Hopestill, Wait, Thanks, Desire, Unite, and Supply.

Of the food given Puritan children we know but little. In an old almanac
of the eighteenth century I find a few sentences of advice as to the
"Easy Rearing of Children." The writer urges that boys as soon as they
can run alone go without hats to harden them, and if possible sleep
without night-caps, as soon as they have any hair. He advises always to
wet children's feet in cold water and thus make them (the feet) tough,
and also to have children wear thin-soled shoes "that the wet may come
freely in." He says young children should never be allowed to drink cold
drinks, but should always have their beer a little heated; that it is
"best to feed them on Milk, Pottage, Flummery, Bread, and Cheese, and
not let them drink their beer till they have first eaten a piece of
Brown Bread." Fancy a young child nowadays making a meal of brown bread
and cheese with warm beer! He suggests that they drink but little wine
or liquor, and sleep on quilts instead of feathers. In such ways were
reared our Revolutionary heroes.

Of the dazzling and beautiful array in our modern confectioners' shops
little Priscilla and Hate-Evil could never have dreamed, even in
visions. A few comfit-makers made "Lemon Pil Candy, Angelica Candy,
Candy'd Eryngo Root & Carroway Comfits;" and a few sweetmeats came to
port in foreign vessels, "Sugar'd Corrinder Seeds," "Glaz'd Almonds,"
and strings of rock-candy. Whole jars of the latter adamantine,
crystalline, saccharine delight graced the shelves of many a colonial
cupboard. And I suppose favored Salem children, the happy sons and
daughters of opulent epicurean Salem shipowners, had even in colonial
days Black Jacks and Salem Gibraltars. The first-named dainties, though
dearly loved by Salem lads and lasses, always bore--indeed, do still
bear--too strong a flavor of liquorice, too haunting a medicinal
suggestion to be loved by other children of the Puritans. As an
instance, on a large scale, of the retributive fate that always pursues
the candy-eating wight, I state that the good ship Ann and Hope brought
into Providence one hundred years ago, as part of