he land and the stern
necessities of the settlers. All were busy. Idleness was a crime. On the
settle, or a low arm-chair, in the most sheltered nook, sat the revered
grandam--as a term of endearment called granny--in red woollen gown, and
white linen cap; her gray hair and wrinkled face reflecting the bright
firelight; the long stocking growing under her busy needles, while she
watched the youngling of the flock, in the cradle by her side. The
goodwife, in linsey-woolsey short gown and red petticoat, steps lightly
back and forth in calf pumps beside the great wheel, or poises
gracefully to give a final twist to the long-drawn thread of wool or
tow. The continuous buzz of the flax wheels, harmonizing with the
spasmodic hum of the big wheel, shows that the girls are preparing a
stock of linen against their wedding day. Less active, and more fitful,
rattles the quill-wheel, where the younger children are filling quills
for the morrow's weaving. Craftsmen are still scarce, and the yeoman
must depend largely on his own skill and resources. The grandsire, and
the goodman, his son, in blue woollen frocks, buckskin breeches, long
stockings, and clouted brogans with pewter buckles, and the older boys,
in shirts of brown tow, waistcoat and breeches of butternut-colored
woollen homespun, surrounded by piles of white hickory shavings, are
whittling out with keen Barlow jack-knives, implements for home
use,--ox-bows and bow-pins, axe-helves, rakestales, forkstales, handles
for spades and billhooks, wooden shovels, flail-staff and swingle,
swingling knives, pokes and hog-yokes for unruly cattle and swine. The
more ingenious, perhaps, are fashioning buckets, or powdering tubs, or
weaving skepes, baskets, or snow-shoes. Some, it may be, sit astride the
wooden shovel, shelling corn on its iron-shod edge, while others are
pounding it into samp or hominy in the great wooden mortar.

There are no lamps or candles, but the red light from the burning pine
knots on the hearth glows over all, repeating, in fantastic pantomime on
the brown walls and closed shutters, the varied activities around it.
These are occasionally brought into a higher relief by the white
flashes, as the boys throw handfuls of hickory shavings on to the
fore-stick, or punch the back-log with the long iron peel, while wishing
they had "as many shillings as sparks go up chimney." Then, the
smoke-stained joists and boards of the ceiling, with the twisted rings
of pumpkin,