household furnishing, and was
dyer and dresser, brewer and baker, seamstress, milliner, and
dressmaker. The quickness, adaptiveness to new conditions, and the
fertility of resource which are recognized as distinguishing the
American, were born of the colonial struggle, especially of the final
one which separated us forever from English rule.

The wage of the few women found in labor outside the home was gauged by
that which had ruled in England. For unskilled labor, as that employed
occasionally in agriculture, this had been from one shilling and
sixpence for ordinary field work to two shillings a week paid in haying
and harvest time. For hoeing corn or rough weeding there is record of
one shilling per week, and this is the usual wage for old women. To this
were added various allowances which have gradually fallen into disuse. A
full record of these and of rates in general will be found in "Six
Centuries of Work and Wages."[4]

Unskilled labor during the whole colonial period--meaning by this such
labor as that of the men who sawed wood, dug ditches, or mended roads,
mixed mortar for the mason, carried boards to the carpenter, or cut hay
in harvest time--brought a wage of seldom more than two shillings a day,
fifteen shillings a week making a man the envy of his fellows, while six
or seven was the utmost limit for women of the same order.

On this pittance they lived as they could. Sand did duty as carpet for
the floor. The cupboard knew no china, and the table no glass. Coal and
matches were unknown; they had never seen a stove. The meals of coarsest
food were eaten from wooden or pewter dishes. Fresh meat was seldom
eaten more than once a week. A pound of salt pork was tenpence, and corn
three shillings a bushel. Clothing was as coarse as the food, and
imprisonment for the slightest debt was the shadow hanging over every
family where illness or any other cause had hindered earning. Boys and
girls in the poorer families were employed by the owners of cattle to
watch and keep them within bounds, countless troubles arising from their
roaming over the unfenced fields. Andover, Mass., being from the
beginning of a thrifty turn of mind, passed, soon after the founding of
the town, an ordinance which still stands on the town records:--

"The Court did herupon order and decree that in every towne the
chosen men are to take care of such as are sett to keep cattle,
that they may be sett to some other employme