ing the whole Five Hundred Pounds of
Value. For the rest, they must depend as you and I did, on their own
Industry and Care: as what remains in our Hands will be barely
sufficient for our Support, and not enough for them when it comes to be
divided at our Decease...."[126]

Much has been written of the shrewdness, carefulness, industry, as well
as general womanliness of Abigail Adams. For years she was deprived of
her husband's presence and help; but under circumstances that at times
must have been appalling, she not only kept her family in comfort, but
by her practical judgment laid the foundation for that easy condition of
life in which she and her husband spent their later years. But there
were days when she evidently knew not which way to turn for relief from
real financial distress. In 1779 she wrote to her husband: "The safest
way, you tell me, of supplying my wants is by drafts; but I cannot get
hard money for bills. You had as good tell me to procure diamonds for
them; and, when bills will fetch but five for one, hard money will
exchange ten, which I think is very provoking; and I must give at the
rate of ten and sometimes twenty for one, for every article I purchase.
I blush while I give you a price current;--all butcher's meat from a
dollar to eight shillings per pound: corn is twenty-five dollars; rye
thirty per bushel; flour fifty pounds per hundred; potatoes ten dollars
per bushel; butter twelve shillings a pound; sugar twelve shillings a
pound; molasses twelve dollars per gallon; ... I have studied and do
study every method of economy in my power; otherwise a mint of money
would not support a family."[127]

Thus we have had a rather varied group of views of home life in colonial
days. In public there may have been a certain primness or aloofness in
the relations of man and woman, but it would seem that in the home there
was at least as much tender affection and mutual confidence as in the
modern family. In all probability, wives and mothers gave much closer
heed to the needs and tastes of husbands and children than is their case
to-day; for woman's only sphere in that period was her home, and her
whole heart and soul were in its success. Probably, too, women more
thoroughly believed then that her chief mission in life was to aid some
man in his public affairs by keeping always in preparation for him a
haven of comfort, peace, and love. On the other hand, the father of
colonial days undoubtedly gave much m