and went home with horses laden down with fish. Shad were
so plentiful that they were thrown away, would sell for but a penny
apiece, and no persons of social importance or of good taste would eat
them except in secret. Salmon, too, were so plentiful and so cheap that
farm-servants on the banks of the Connecticut stipulated that they
should have salmon for dinner but thrice a week, as the rich fish soon
proved cloying.

In many localities, in Narragansett in particular, the autumnal
corn-huskings almost reached the dignity of holidays, being conducted in
a liberal fashion and with unbounded hospitality, which included and
entertained whole retinues of black servants from neighboring farms, as
well as the planters and their families. Apple-parings, maple-sugar
makings, and timber-rollings were merry gatherings.

In Vermont and down the Connecticut valley the annual sheep-shearing was
a lively scene. On Nantucket there took place annually a like
sheep-shearing, which, though a characteristic New England festival, was
like the scene in the "Winter's Tale." The broad plains outside the town
were used as a common sheep-pasture throughout the year; sometimes
fifteen or sixteen thousand sheep were kept thereon. About two miles
from the town was a sheep-fold, near the margin of a pond, where the
sheep could be washed. It was built of four or five concentric fences,
which thus formed a sort of labyrinth, into which and through which the
sheep and lambs were driven at shearing-time, and in it they were sorted
out and placed in cotes or pens erected for each sheep-owner. The
existence of carefully registered ear-marks, with which each lamb was
branded, formed a means of identifying each owner's sheep and lambs. Of
course, this gathering brought together all the sheep drivers and
herders, the sheep washers and shearers. Vast preparations of food and
drink were made for their entertainment, and tents were reared for their
occupancy, and, of course, fiddlers and peddlers, like Autolycus,
flocked there also, and much amusement and frolicking accompanied the
shearing. Even the sheep, panting with their heavy wool when within the
folds, and the shorn and shivering creatures running around outside and
bleating for their old long-wooled companions, added to the excitement
of the scene. Perhaps the maritime occupation of the Islanders made them
enjoy with the zest of unwontedness this rural "shore-holiday." But it
exists no longer; the is