custom lingered till the
present day in New England; I saw last summer, several times, covered
treasures of housewifery being carried in petty amounts, literally "a
taste," to tempt tired appetites or lonely diners. The gift of a portion
of the over-bountiful supply for the supper of a wedding, a reception,
etc., went by the expressive name of "cold party."

In rural Pennsylvania a charming and friendly custom prevailed among
country folk of all nationalities--the "metzel-soup," the "taste" of
sausage-making. This is the anglicized form of _Metzelsuppe_; _metzeln_
means to kill and cut to pieces--especially for sausage meat. When each
farmer butchered and made sausage, a great dish heaped with eight or ten
pounds of the new sausages was sent to each intimate friend. The
recipient would in turn send metzel-soup when his family killed and made
sausage. If the metzel-soup were not returned, the minister promptly
learned of it and set at work to effect a reconciliation between the
offended parties. The custom is dying out, and in many towns is wholly
vanished.

Sewall seemed to regard it as a duty, and doubtless it was also a
pleasure, to pray for and with dying friends. His is not the only
old-time diary that I have read in which those long prayers are
recorded, nor are his surprised occasional records of the impatience of
dying friends the only ones I have seen. A very sick man, even though he
were a Puritan, might occasionally tire of the prayers of laymen.

Sewall was ever ready to signify his good will and interest in his
neighbors' advancing fortunes, by driving a nail at a ship-building or a
pin at a house-raising, by laying a stone in a wall or a foundation of a
house, the latter, apparently, in the case of some very humble homes.
He, the Judge of the Supreme Court, served on the watch, walking and
guarding the streets and his neighbors' safety just as faithfully as did
the humblest citizen.

CHAPTER XVII

OLD-TIME FLOWER GARDENS

Adjoining the street through which I always, in my childhood, walked
slowly each Sunday, on my way to and from church, was a spot to detain
lingering footsteps--a beautiful garden laid out and tenanted like the
gardens of colonial days, and serene with the atmosphere of a worthy old
age; a garden which had been tended for over half a century by a
withered old man and his wife, whose golden wedding was spent in the
house they had built, and in the garden they had planted when