as genuinely
interested in everyone's welfare, and was always ready with a helping
hand in days of affliction and sorrow. All were drawn together by common
dangers and common ties; it was an excellent example of true community
interest and co-operation. This genuine solicitude for others, this
desire to know how other sections were getting along, this natural
curiosity to inquire about other people's health, defences against
common dangers, and advancement in agriculture, trade and manufacturing,
led to a form of inquisitiveness that astonished and angered foreigners.
Late in the eighteenth century even Americans began to notice this
proverbial Yankee trait. Samuel Peters, writing in 1781 in his _General
History of Connecticut_, said: "After a short acquaintance they become
very familiar and inquisitive about news. 'Who are you, whence come you,
where going, what is your business, and what your religion?' They do not
consider these and similar questions as impertinent, and consequently
expect a civil answer. When the stranger has satisfied their curiosity
they will treat him with all the hospitality in their power."

Fisher in his _Men, Women, & Manners in Colonial Times_ declares:
"A ... Virginian who had been much in New England in colonial times used
to relate that as soon as he arrived at an inn he always summoned the
master and mistress, the servants and all the strangers who were about,
made a brief statement of his life and occupation, and having assured
everybody that they could know no more, asked for his supper; and
Franklin, when travelling in New England, was obliged to adopt the same
plan."[165]

Old Judge Sewall, a typical specimen of the better class Puritan,
certainly possessed a kindly curiosity about his neighbors' welfare, and
many are his references to visits to the sick or dying, or to attendance
at funerals. While there were no great balls nor brilliant fetes, as in
the South, his _Diary_ emphatically proves that there were many pleasant
visits and dinner parties and a great deal of the inevitable courting.
Thus, we note the following:

"Tuesday, January 12. I dine at the Governour's: where Mr. West,
Governour of Carolina, Capt. Blackwell, his Wife and Daughter,
Mr. Morgan, his Wife and Daughter Mrs. Brown, Mr. Eliakim
Hutchinson and Wife.... Mrs. Mercy sat not down, but came in
after dinner well dressed and saluted the two Daughters. Madm
Bradstreet and Blackwell s