d
Bibles and hymn-books and suspended from the belt outside the dress,
thus forming an ostentatious Sunday decoration. For necklaces they wore
numerous strings of gold beads; and the poorer classes, in humble
imitation, encircled their throats with steel and glass beads and
strings of Job's tears, the fruit of a plant thought to possess some
medicinal virtues."

This was their holiday costume. Their dress for work and wear was "of
good substantial homespun. Every household had from two to six
spinning-wheels for wool and flax, whereon the women of the family
expended every leisure moment. Looms, too, were in common use, and piles
of homespun cloth and snow-white linen attested to the industry of the
active Dutch maidens. Hoards of home-made stuffs were thus accumulated
in the settlement, sufficient to last till a distant generation."

Stolid as we think these old Dutch people, they had their amusements, in
which their women participated with much zest. There were "bees" of all
kinds,--quilting-bees, husking-bees, apple-bees, and raising-bees; but
above all they loved dancing; and, though we may think of them as
heavy-footed, it is probable that many of these demure Dutch maidens
would "trip it on the light fantastic toe" with as good a grace as their
less sedate sisters of the South.

Before leaving the north, one somewhat curious female figure of New York
is especially worth noting, as having been associated with one of the
most picturesque and sorely maligned characters in our history,--Sarah
Bradley, daughter of Captain Thomas Bradley, and herself an Englishwoman
by birth. In 1685, she married one William Cox, a man of singular
character, whose mother was termed "Alice Cox, alias Bono," for what
reason does not appear. Sarah Cox, with whom we are more immediately
concerned, was at the time of her marriage a dashing young woman, of
handsome face and fine figure, but so illiterate that she could not
write her own name, as is attested by the fact that sundry documents
bearing her authorization give her mark instead of the usual signature.
In later years, however, she seems to have attained sufficient knowledge
to sign her name. In 1689, Mr. Cox met with an accident, thus described
in a letter of the period: "Mr. Cox, to show his fine cloaths,
undertooke to goe to Amboy to proclaime the King, who coming whome
againe, was fairely drowned, which accident startled our commanders here
very much; there is a good rich widdo