y luxuries for the thrifty colonists.

Wicks were made of loosely spun hemp or tow, or of cotton; from the
milkweed which grows so plentifully in our fields and roads to-day the
children gathered in late summer the silver "silk-down" which was "spun
grossly into candle wicke." Sometimes the wicks were dipped into
saltpetre.

Thomas Tusser wrote in England in the sixteenth century in his
_Directions to Housewifes_:--

"Wife, make thine own candle,
Spare penny to handle.
Provide for thy tallow ere frost cometh in,
And make thine own candle ere winter begin."

Every thrifty housewife in America saved her penny as in England. The
making of the winter's stock of candles was the special autumnal
household duty, and a hard one too, for the great kettles were tiresome
and heavy to handle. An early hour found the work well under way. A good
fire was started in the kitchen fireplace under two vast kettles, each
two feet, perhaps, in diameter, which were hung on trammels from the
lug-pole or crane, and half filled with boiling water and melted tallow,
which had had two scaldings and skimmings. At the end of the kitchen or
in an adjoining and cooler room, sometimes in the lean-to, two long
poles were laid from chair to chair or stool to stool. Across these
poles were placed at regular intervals, like the rounds of a ladder,
smaller sticks about fifteen or eighteen inches long, called
candle-rods. These poles and rods were kept from year to year, either in
the garret or up on the kitchen beams.

To each candle-rod was attached about six or eight carefully
straightened candle-wicks. The wicking was twisted strongly one way;
then doubled; then the loop was slipped over the candle-rod, when the
two ends, of course, twisted the other way around each other, making a
firm wick. A rod, with its row of wicks, was dipped in the melted tallow
in the pot, and returned to its place across the poles. Each row was
thus dipped in regular turn; each had time to cool and harden between
the dips, and thus grew steadily in size. If allowed to cool fast, they
of course grew quickly, but were brittle, and often cracked. Hence a
good worker dipped slowly, but if the room was fairly cool, could make
two hundred candles for a day's work. Some could dip two rods at a time.
The tallow was constantly replenished, as the heavy kettles were used
alternately to keep the tallow constantly melted, and were swung off and
on the fire. Boar