from its then rough character, partly from poverty of
appliances. For the hardest jobs neighbors would join hands, fighting
nature as they had to fight the Indians, unitedly. Farming tools, if of
iron or steel, as axe, mattock, spade, and the iron nose for the digger
or the plough, the village blacksmith usually fashioned, as he did the
bake-pan, griddle, crane, and pothooks, for indoor use. Tables, chairs,
cradles, bedsteads, and those straight-backed "settles" of which a few
may yet be seen, were either home-made or gotten up by the village
carpenter. Mattresses were at first of hay, straw, leaves, or rushes.
Before 1700, however, feather beds were common, and houses and the
entire state of a New England farmer's home had become somewhat more
lordly than the above picture might indicate. The colonists made much
use of berries, wild fruits, bread and milk, game, fish, and shellfish.
The stock wandered in the forests and about the brooks, to be brought
home at night by the boys, whom the sound of the cow-bell led. In autumn
bushels upon bushels of nuts were laid by, to serve, along with dried
berries and grapes, salted fish and venison, as food for the winter.
Every phase and circumstance of this pioneer life reminded our fathers
of their dependence upon nature and the Supreme Power behind nature,
while at the same time the continual need and application of neighbor's
co-operation with neighbor brought out brotherly love in charming
strength and beauty.

But to old New England religion, as a clerical, public, and organized
affair, there is a far darker side. In the eighteenth century belief in
witchcraft was nearly universal. In 1683 one Margaret Matron was tried
in Pennsylvania on a charge of bewitching cows and geese, and placed
under bonds of one hundred pounds for good behavior. In 1705 Grace
Sherwood was ducked in Virginia for the same offence. Cases of the kind
had occurred in New York. There was no colony where the belief in
astrology, necromancy, second sight, ghosts, haunted houses and spots,
love-spells, charms, and peculiar powers attaching to rings, herbs,
etc., did not prevail. Such credulity was not peculiar to America, but
cursed Europe as well. It seemed to flourish, if anything, after the
Reformation more than before. Luther firmly believed in witchcraft. He
professed to have met the Evil One in personal conflict, and to have
vanquished him by the use of an inkstand as missile. Perhaps every land
in Eu