ul, active and amiable
Disposition; cleanly, industrious, perfectly qualified to direct
and manage the female Concerns of country business, as raising
small stock, dairying, marketing, combing, carding, spinning,
knitting, sewing, pickling, preserving, etc., and occasionally to
instruct two young Ladies in those Branches of Oeconomy, who, with
their father, compose the Family. Such a person will be treated
with respect and esteem, and meet with every encouragement due to
such a character."

Respect and esteem, forsooth! and due encouragement to such a miracle of
saintliness and capacity; light terms indeed to apply to such a
character.

There is, in the library of the Connecticut Historical Society, a diary
written by a young girl of Colchester, Connecticut, in the year 1775.
Her name was Abigail Foote. She set down her daily work, and the entries
run like this:--

"Fix'd gown for Prude,--Mend Mother's Riding-hood,--Spun short
thread,--Fix'd two gowns for Welsh's girls,--Carded tow,--Spun
linen,--Worked on Cheese-basket,--Hatchel'd flax with Hannah, we
did 51 lbs. apiece,--Pleated and ironed,--Read a Sermon of
Doddridge's,--Spooled a piece,--Milked the cows,--Spun linen, did
50 knots,--Made a Broom of Guinea wheat straw,--Spun thread to
whiten,--Set a Red dye,--Had two Scholars from Mrs. Taylor's,--I
carded two pounds of whole wool and felt Nationly,--Spun harness
twine,--Scoured the pewter."

She tells also of washing, cooking, knitting, weeding the garden,
picking geese, etc., and of many visits to her friends. She dipped
candles in the spring, and made soap in the autumn. This latter was a
trying and burdensome domestic duty, but the soft soap was important for
home use.

All the refuse grease from cooking, butchering, etc., was stored through
the winter, as well as wood-ashes from the great fireplaces. The first
operation was to make the lye, to "set the leach." Many families owned a
strongly made leach-barrel; others made a sort of barrel from a section
of the bark of the white birch. This barrel was placed on bricks or set
at a slight angle on a circular groove in a wood or stone base; then
filled with ashes; water was poured in till the lye trickled or leached
out through an outlet cut in the groove, into a small wooden tub or
bucket. The water and ashes were frequently replenished as they wasted,
and the lye accumulated i