all yellow. The flaxseed was used
for making oil. Usually the upper chambers of country stores were filled
a foot deep with flaxseed in the autumn, waiting for good sleighing to
convey the seed to town.

In New Hampshire in early days, a wheelwright was not a man who made
wagon-wheels (as such he would have had scant occupation), but one who
made spinning-wheels. Often he carried them around the country on
horseback selling them, thus adding another to the many interesting
itineracies of colonial days. Spinning-wheels would seem clumsy for
horse-carriage, but they were not set up, and several could be compactly
carried when taken apart; far more ticklish articles went on
pack-horses,--large barrels, glazed window-sashes, etc. Nor would it
seem very difficult for a man to carry spinning-wheels on horseback,
when frequently a woman would jump on horseback in the early morning,
and with a baby on one arm and a flax-wheel tied behind, would ride
several miles to a neighbor's to spend the day spinning in cheerful
companionship. A century ago one of these wheelwrights sold a fine
spinning-wheel for a dollar, a clock-reel for two dollars, and a
wool-wheel for two dollars.

Few persons are now living who have ever seen carried on in a country
home in America any of these old-time processes which have been
recounted. As an old antiquary wrote:--

"Few have ever seen a woman hatchel flax or card tow, or heard the
buzzing of the foot-wheel, or seen bunches of flaxen yarn hanging
in the kitchen, or linen cloth whitening on the grass. The
flax-dresser with the shives, fibres, and dirt of flax covering his
garments, and his face begrimed with flax-dirt has disappeared; the
noise of his brake and swingling knife has ended, and the boys no
longer make bonfires of his swingling tow. The sound of the
spinning-wheel, the song of the spinster, and the snapping of the
clock-reel all have ceased; the warping bars and quill wheel are
gone, and the thwack of the loom is heard only in the factory. The
spinning woman of King Lemuel cannot be found."

Frequent references are made to flax in the Bible, notably in the Book
of Proverbs; and the methods of growing and preparing flax by the
ancient Egyptians were precisely the same as those of the American
colonist a hundred years ago, of the Finn, Lapp, Norwegian, and Belgian
flax-growers to-day. This ancient skill was not confined to
flax-w