when she was carrying me. She had
already borne four boys and two girls; her health was good and her life,
like that of all farmers' wives in that section, was a laborious one.
I can see her going about her work--milking, butter-making, washing,
cooking, berry-picking, sugar-making, sewing, knitting, mending, and the
thousand duties that fell to her lot and filled her days. Both she and
Father were up at daylight in summer, and before daylight in winter.
Sometimes she had help in the kitchen, but oftener she did not. The work
that housewives did in those times seems incredible. They made their own
soap, sugar, cheese, dipped or moulded their candles, spun the flax and
wool and wove it into cloth, made carpets, knit the socks and mittens
and "comforts" for the family, dried apples, pumpkins, and berries, and
made the preserves and pickles for home use.

Mother went about all these duties with cheerfulness and alacrity. She
more than kept up her end of the farm work. She was more strenuous than
father. How many hours she sat up mending and patching our clothes,
while we were sleeping! Rainy days meant no let-up in her work, as they
did in Father's.

The first suit of clothes I remember having, she cut and made. Then the
quilts and coverlids she pieced and quilted! We used, too, in my boyhood
to make over two tons of butter annually, the care of which devolved
mainly upon her, from the skimming of the pans to the packing of the
butter in the tubs and firkins, though the churning was commonly done by
a sheep or a dog. We made our own cheese, also. As a boy I used to help
do the wheying, and I took toll out of the sweet curd. One morning I
ate so much of the curd that I was completely cloyed, and could eat none
after that.

I can remember Mother's loom pounding away hour after hour in the
chamber of an outbuilding where she was weaving a carpet, or cloth. I
used to help do some of the quilling--running the yarn or linen thread
upon spools to be used in the shuttles. The distaff, the quill-wheel,
the spinning-wheel, the reel, were very familiar to me as a boy; so was
the crackle, the swingle, the hetchel, for Father grew flax which Mother
spun into thread and wove into cloth for our shirts and summer trousers,
and for towels and sheets. Wearing those shirts, when new, made a boy's
skin pretty red. I dare say they were quite equal to a hair shirt to do
penance in; and wiping on a new home-made linen towel suggested wiping