May she had superintended the
soap-boiling, but had not been blessed with "good luck;" and on the
third of June we find the suggestive entry, "Finished the soap-boiling
to-day." Eleven days--for we must of course count out the two
Sundays--eleven days of greasy, odorous soap-boiling! We think that if
we had been in madam's slippers we should have allowed Sally, Silvy and
the rest to try the virtues of the unaided waters of heaven upon the
family washing, and when this ceased to be efficacious should have let
the clothes be purified by fire. But upon second thoughts, no: it was
too much trouble to make those clothes.

We are not yet through with the preparations for the washing. The
ancient housewife could not do without starch for her "ruffs and cuffs
and fardingales," and for her lord's elaborately plaited ruffles. Yet
she could not buy a box of "Duryea's best refined." The starch, like the
soap, must be made at home. "On this day," writes our diarist, "had a
bushel of wheat put in soak for starch;" and in another place we find
the details of the starch-making process. The wheat was put into a tub
and covered with water. As the chaff rose to the top it was skimmed off.
Each day the water was carefully turned off, without disturbing the
wheat, and fresh water was added, until after several days there was
nothing left but a hard and perfectly white mass in the bottom of the
tub. This mass was spread upon pewter platters and dried in the sun.

Another sore trouble was the breadmaking. The great wheat-fields of the
West were not then opened, and we find that the wheat was frequently
"smutty;" hence, that "the barrel was bad," which must sorely have tried
the soul of the good housewife. Woe be to Silvy if that damsel did not
carry herself gingerly on the baking-day when the long, flat shovel
removed from the cavernous brick oven only heavy and sticky lumps of
baked dough, in place of the light white loaves which the painstaking
housewife had a right to expect!

In the absence of husband and son the care of a large farm fell upon our
madam's shoulders, and the details of cost and income are dotted through
the little journal. We can imagine the lady, gracious in her
stateliness, marshaling old General T---- and Colonel C----, two
veterans of the Revolution, out into her barnyard to get their opinion
as to the value of her fat cattle, and the concealed disapproval with
which she received their judgment that forty-five dollar