No carpets
or stoves were known, and no coffee, and tea or sugar only for the
women. Rousing wood fires gave both warmth and light on winter nights.
Pork, poultry, beef, and all the ordinary vegetables and grains were
plentiful. Cider was the men's common drink, and used at meals. The
clothes were mainly homespun. Journeys were made by both men and women
on horseback. Both sexes labor'd with their own hands-the men on the
farm--the women in the house and around it. Books were scarce. The
annual copy of the almanac was a treat, and was pored over through the
long winter evenings. I must not forget to mention that both these
families were near enough to the sea to behold it from the high
places, and to hear in still hours the roar of the surf; the latter,
after a storm, giving a peculiar sound at night. Then all hands, male
and female, went down frequently on beach and bathing parties, and the
men on practical expeditions for cutting salt hay, and for clamming
and fishing."--_John Burroughs's_ NOTES.
"The ancestors of Walt Whitman, on both the paternal and maternal
sides, kept a good table, sustained the hospitalities, decorums, and
an excellent social reputation in the county, and they were often of
mark'd individuality. If space permitted, I should consider some of
the men worthy special description; and still more some of the women.
His great-grandmother on the paternal side, for instance, was a large
swarthy woman, who lived to a very old age. She smoked tobacco, rode
on horseback like a man, managed the most vicious horse, and, becoming
a widow in later life, went forth every day over her farm-lands,
frequently in the saddle, directing the labor of her slaves, in
language in which, on exciting occasions, oaths were not spared.
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