Scotch stock, all weave. They make cloth, all cotton; cloth of
cotton warp and wool filling called drugget; dimity, a heavy cotton used
for coverlets; a yarn jean which has wool warp and filling, and cotton
jean which is cotton warp and wool filling; homespun is a heavy cloth,
of cotton and wool mixed. All buy cotton warp or "chain," as they call
it, ready-spun from the mills. This is known by the name of
bunch-thread. These Pinehurst weavers still use home-made dyes. Cotton
is dyed black with dye made by steeping the bark of the "Black Jack" or
scrub-oak mixed with red maple bark. Wool is dyed black with a mixture
of gall-berry leaves and sumac berries; for red they use a moss which
they find growing on the rocks, and which may be the lichen _Roccella
tinctoria_ or dyer's-moss; also madder root, and sassafras bark. Yellow
is dyed with laurel leaves, or "dye-flower," a yellow flower of the
sunflower tribe; laurel leaves and "dye-flower" together made
orange-red. Blue is obtained from the plentiful wild indigo; and for
green, the cloth or yarn is first dyed blue with indigo, then boiled in
a decoction of hickory bark and laurel leaves. A bright yellow is
obtained from a clay which abounds in that neighborhood, probably like a
red ferruginous limestone found in Tennessee, which gives a splendid,
fast color; when the clay is baked and ground it gives a fine, artistic,
dull red. Purple dye comes from cedar tops and lilac leaves; brown from
an extract of walnut hulls.

The affectionate regard which all good workmen have for their tools and
implements in handcrafts is found among these Southern weavers. One
assures me that her love for her loom is as for a human companion. The
machines are usually family heirlooms that have been owned for several
generations, and are treasured like relics.

CHAPTER XI

GIRLS' OCCUPATIONS

Hatchelling and carding, spinning and reeling, weaving and bleaching,
cooking, candle and cheese making, were not the only household
occupations of our busy grandmothers when they were young; a score of
domestic duties kept ever busy their ready hands.

Some notion of the qualifications of a housekeeper over a century ago
may be obtained from this advertisement in the _Pennsylvania Packet_ of
September 23, 1780:

"Wanted at a Seat about half a day's journey from Philadelphia, on
which are good improvements and domestics, A single Woman of
unsullied Reputation, an affable, cheerf