are held, in the country side. A gathering with plenty to
eat, and in those days a free indulgence in drink on the part of the
men, with music of the fiddler, and dancing, this was a "frollick"--that
horror of the meeting house elders. Indeed, it was of incidental moral
detriment; for it was outlawed amusement, and being under the ban, was
controlled by men beyond the influence or control of the meeting. The
young people of the Quaker families, and sometimes their elders, yielded
to the fascinations of these gatherings. The unwonted excitement of
meeting, the sound of music, playing upon the capacity for motor
reactions in a people living and laboring outdoors, inflamed beyond
control by rum and hard cider, soon led to lively, impulsive activities
and physical exertions, both in immoderate excess and in disregard of
all the inhibitions of tradition and of conscience. That there was a
close relation of these "frollicks" with the sexual immorality of the
period is probable.

Of more concern to us here is the observation, which is made with
caution, that the attitude of the community to amusements was not
conducive to moral betterment, because amusement was not specialized.
The repression of the play spirit, offering it no occasions,
recognizing no times and places as appropriate for it, disturbed the
equilibrium of life, forced the normal animal spirits of the population
to impulsive and explosive expressions and deprived them of the
regulative control of the community.

It is probable that that early period had modes of amusement the record
of which is wholly lost. There are few sources existing to inform us of
the amusements of laboring classes. Hints occur in such records as that
of the sale of powder and shot, of fishhooks and a quart of rum, at the
Merritt store, in 1771, to the Vaughns. Seven years later the Vaughns
were the Tory "cowboys," who robbed the defenceless neighborhood, until
their leader was killed by Captain Pearce, during the Revolution.

It is probable that then the community wore the aspect which now it
wears, of industry without play; and that members went elsewhere for
their amusement, the acknowledged leaders in which were resident in
other neighborhoods and communities.

The recreation of the body of working population of the Hill was
incidental to the religious assemblies. In these meetings they took an
intense and a very human pleasure. Their solitary, outdoor labor was
performed in an int