with rottenstone and whale oil
until it shone like mahogany.

Should the roses of the pattern be red or pink? and the columbines blue
or purple? She could make a beautiful purple by steeping the sugar paper
which wrapped her precious cone of West Indian "loaf sugar," and
sugar-paper purple was reasonably fast. So ran the thoughts of the dear,
straight-featured Puritan wife as she sorted her colors and worked her
pattern.

At this period of her experience of the new life of the colonies, the
chief end of her embroidery was to help in creating a civilized home, to
add to what had been built simply for shelter and protection, some of
the features which lived and grew only in the atmosphere of safety and
content. Hospitality was one of the features of New England life, and
the first addition to the family shelter was a bedroom, which bore the
title of the "best bedroom," and a tall four-post bed, which was the
"best bed." The adornment of this holy altar of friendship was an urgent
duty.

When I began this allusion to the "best bedroom," I left the housewife
sorting her tinted crewels for its adornment, and she still sat, happily
cutting the beautiful homespun linen into lengths for the two bed
valances, the one to hang from the upper frame which surrounded the top
of her four-post bedstead, and the other, which hung from the bed frame
itself, and reached the floor, hiding the dark space beneath the bed.
The "high-post bedstead" had long groups of smooth flutes in the upward
course of its posts, and no footboard, a plain-sawed headboard and
smooth headposts. There must be a long curtain at the head of the bed,
which would hide both headboard and plain headposts, and this curtain
she meant should have a wide border of crewelwork at the top and bunches
of flowers scattered at intervals on its surface.

[Illustration: BED SET. Keturah Baldwin pattern, designed, dyed, and
worked by The Deerfield Society of Blue and White Needlework. Deerfield,
Mass.]

[Illustration: BED COVERS worked in candle wicking.

_Courtesy of Colonial Rooms, John Wanamaker, New York_]

None of Mistress Schuyler's "blue-and-white" for her! It should carry
every color she could muster, and the upper valance should have the same
border as the head curtain. The lower valance would not need it, for the
counterpane would hang well over, and she meant somehow to bend the
border design into a wreath and work it in the center of the
counterpane, and doub