rse, charged. My father put up two or three small
log-houses which were tenanted by very poor people whose labour he
required. From one of these houses my mother hired a nurse, Poll
Spragge, who was a merry, laughing, 'who-cares' sort of girl. Upon my
mother remarking the scantiness of her wardrobe, which was limited to
one garment, a woollen slip that reached from the throat to the feet,
Poll related a misfortune which had befallen her a short time before.
She then, as now, had but the one article of dress, and it was made of
buckskin, a leather something like chamois; and when it became greasy
and dirty, her mother said she must wash it that afternoon, as she was
going visiting, and that Poll must have her slip dry to put on before
her father and brother returned from the field. During the interval, she
must, of necessity, represent Eve before her fall. Poll had seen her
mother, in the absence of soap, make a pot of strong ley from wood
ashes, and boil her father's and brother's coarse linen shirts in it.
She subjected her leather slip to the same process. We all know the
effect of great heat upon leather. When Poll took her slip from the pot
it was a shrivelled-up mass, partly decomposed by the strong ley. Poor
Poll was in despair. She watched for the return of her family with no
enviable feelings, and when she heard them coming she lifted a board and
concealed herself in the potato hole, under the floor. Her mother soon
discovered what had befallen Poll, and search was made for her. After a
time, a feeble voice was heard from under the floor, and Poll was
induced to come forth, by the promise of her mother's second petticoat,
which was converted into the slip she then wore. She ended her recital
with a merry laugh, and said now she had got service she would soon get
herself clothes. But clothing was one of the things most difficult to
obtain then. There were very few sheep in the settlement, and if a
settler owned two or three, they had to be protected with the greatest
care, watched by the children during the day that they might not stray
into the woods, and at night penned near the house in a fold, built very
high, to secure them from the bears and wolves, which could not always
be done.

"There were instances of wolves climbing into pens that they could not
get out of. On these occasions they did not hurt the sheep, but were
found lying down in a corner like a dog. It is said that the first
thought of a wolf on e